Incline SHELTER update thread

[Elwro]

Better call the stat system "LAADIES".

 

[shihonage]

I really hated this aspect of fallout. [...]

Our system allows for all 3 options you mention (via scripting, no code changes), however it seems that if we make this a systemwide (universal) occurrence, instead of being used selectively... it will cheapen its application and/or mangle context in some cases.

Sure, Fallout's approach is not realistic. However, in order to go as far as to roll the dice by threatening someone, shouldn't you first know whether they possess an item that is worth the risk ?

Better call the stat system "LAADIES".

I am leaning toward "LAWSUIT", myself...

 

[hal900x]

Or you could do something like only allow the stealer to see one (or two) randomly selected item(s), possibly also limiting the available viewable/stealable item to a smaller size category if you are implementing item sizes. For me, that simulates pickpocketing more accurately. I agree about the shortcomings of Fallout-style theft.

 

[Big Nose George]

Do you know why Tactics lags so fucking horrible on high res and modern mashines? Or is it just me?

 

[zenbitz]

Sure, Fallout's approach is not realistic. However, in order to go as far as to roll the dice by threatening someone, shouldn't you first know whether they possess an item that is worth the risk ?

Well, that's up to the player now isn't? Maybe you are buff enough to just threaten whomever you want (i..e, typical cRPG) - so there is no or little downside, or you establish that victim X has item A in dialog (either with X or some third party Y or written on a wall or something)

Or you get him drunk/seduce him/hypnotize him so he passes out and go through his pockets.

 

[shihonage]

hal900x: perhaps a system that lets you see more expensive items with higher Steal skill ?

Big Nose George: Shelter != Tactics, so your guess is as good as mine. I ran Tactics all of 15 minutes in my life. Can't stand that game.

 

[hal900x]

hal900x: perhaps a system that lets you see more expensive items with higher Steal skill ?

Yeah. Or higher skill allows access to less accessible locations, such as pockets versus backpack, worn items versus stored in pockets/pack, larger, more easily noticed items versus small pocketed items, etc. Depends on how inventory is implemented of course.

 

[zenbitz]

hal900x: perhaps a system that lets you see more expensive items with higher Steal skill ?

Yeah. Or higher skill allows access to less accessible locations, such as pockets versus backpack, worn items versus stored in pockets/pack, larger, more easily noticed items versus small pocketed items, etc. Depends on how inventory is implemented of course.

Again, I ask. "What is this 'skill' supposed to represent?" It seems kind of like a superpower to me. Why not have the "skill" of automatically doing the NPCs laundry while you are at it?

 

[shihonage]

hal900x: perhaps a system that lets you see more expensive items with higher Steal skill ?

Yeah. Or higher skill allows access to less accessible locations, such as pockets versus backpack, worn items versus stored in pockets/pack, larger, more easily noticed items versus small pocketed items, etc. Depends on how inventory is implemented of course.

Well, part of that will be handled through having the shelves divided into two categories:

a) shelves
b) safes (require cracking or breaking)

Safes will have their own dialogue window open up, we're still deciding what options will be there.

The problem with highly detailed implementations of individual systems is that the game will never see the light of day. For now we're mostly trying to match Fallout's functionality range (and coming up short on a number of fronts).

Well, that's up to the player now isn't? Maybe you are buff enough to just threaten whomever you want (i..e, typical cRPG) - so there is no or little downside, or you establish that victim X has item A in dialog (either with X or some third party Y or written on a wall or something)

Or you get him drunk/seduce him/hypnotize him so he passes out and go through his pockets.

We may add a "standard" dialogue option to bully people out of their possessions. That could be interesting.

Putting someone to sleep with a needle, aka Dexter, should be part of gameplay as well.

 

[shihonage]

zenbitz: so you're against the principle of "Steal" skill as a whole, and prefer that it would be replaced by a combination of other traits and actions such as knocking someone out or threatening them ?

But what about actual... stealing ?

 

[shihonage]

Shelter devupdate 12/09/09

I was busy this week making the interface work equally well with people and objects. I am still doing that, finally approaching handling "items on the ground" thing.

Once "items on the ground" work, and "use item ON someone" works...

...we'll be seeing some serious shit.

In the shot below we examine shelves, attempt to take an item, and are noticed and attacked by the owner. The attack toggles combat mode and freezes the world, making it semi-transparent (since I can't do Fallout's red silhouette outlines).

I really don't want to inflate updates with pointlessness, so this will be it for now. Soon things should start to get a lot more interesting as, with required interface functionalities in place, we can start making quests that do not suck donkey balls.

This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.

 

[zenbitz]

I am just saying that "skills" (i.e, non-superpowers or spells) should represent actions that actual people, could you know, actually perform.

Stealing someones stuff (other than cutting their purse or taking a wallet) is not a reasonable skill. Even in those (limited cases) a pickpocket usually has a distraction running, or at least as some REASON (crowded subway ride) to be jostling against you.

Real thieves do (one or more of) the following:
1) Mug you (either with violence or threat of violence)
2) Extort you (including making you pay for "protection" or blackmail)
3) Trick or swindle you (get you to voluntarily pay for something that is worthless)
4) Steal stuff from your house or car (burglary)

I guess I mentioned all this... and your reply was "well, we can script those, what about general unscripted larceny).

I think 1 and 4 are basically the way to go. Maybe you want to bring back non-lethal combat for 1? Also includes "drugging/boozing/fucking" victim into unawareness. For example, if PC was a prostitute, they could root through NPCs stuff while they were passed out.

4 is basically what everyone does in RPGs anyway - take everything that's not nailed down.

 

[shihonage]

(1) NPC centered nonlethal combat may work as long as its only used for robbing them, and you dont hope to talk to them ever again afterward. Yes, I want to try to do this.

(2) and (3) have to be person-specific, and cannot be universally applicable.

(4) is already in.

In general, however, I am against the idea of abandoning Steal as a skill. There aren't enough useful skills in an RPGs arsenal to just throw them away like that.

The argument that its not "realistic" carries little meaning for me. I watched "Ocean's 11" and enjoyed it. Those people had really high Steal %, I'd say, and an isometric RPG is nothing if not contributing to a similar abstraction.

Quality entertainment, in my opinion, REQUIRES reality to be stretched. You cannot abide to reality in all aspects of a game and still have a fun game.

 

[zenbitz]

1) You could just give PC a way to konk someone out without them realizing who did it.

Balancing issues however, as this can be a mighty power.

There is a difference (IMHO) between stretching reality and tearing it asunder. Also, it's not the unreality that I personally find objectionable, it's the fact that it's not represented as a superpower or magic spell (even though it has the effects of it).

What if you added an option to the basic "barter" interface (assuming you have one)? You could make an offer "way below fair value, and click a "swindle" button to try to get away with an unfair swap. Perhaps at very high levels, you could even trade nothing for something (but I think it might be more reasonable if the PC had to at least trade pocket fluff for it).

As for "viewing" their inventory - you could add a "fast talk" button to the interface representing a skill roll to try to get them to show you their whole inventory (or additional bits of it).

The above - when done with very high skill level - is going to work essentially the same as FO "steal" skill (something for nothing) but the representation of it makes infinitly more sense.

Huh, I like that. I am going to use it whether or not you do!

 

[shihonage]

Yar, barter is different from stealing. There are other things to worry about with barter before even getting to that functionality. Such as... barter has to be more lenient to you with a faction that likes you.

The more I follow in Fallout's footsteps, the more I realize how many of its decisions were carefully chosen from a very narrow range of workable possibilities that don't break the game in some way.

You can't barter with a hostile, but you should be able to steal from a hostile. If you use barter as _gateway_ to stealing, how do you account for that problem ?

Same goes for "fast talk". Can't fast talk a hostile, but there should still be a chance of stealing from them, even if it is a lower one.

The design path you walk narrows dramatically when you're not just designing a singular subsystem with a wishlist mindset, but also have to account for its interaction with the rest of the game. That's why I intend to gently enhance Fallout's approach, instead of ... tearing it asunder.

 

[zenbitz]

You can't barter with a hostile, but you should be able to steal from a hostile.

Not if they are aware of you/awake/paying attention! Why would they be suddenly unsuspecting of you if they already are too hostile to talk. If they are NOT too hostile to talk, then they are not too hostile to "fast talk".

Also, maybe you should avoid pissing people off if you are trying to get close enough to rifle through their pockets.

but there should still be a chance of stealing from them, even if it is a lower one.

Why? If they are already hostile, then just shoot them or hit them over the head and take whatever you want. If you have no combat skills, sneak up on them while they are asleep.

 

[shihonage]

a) You can sneak up _behind_ someone. That's what happened in Fallout. The whole reality stretching bit I mentioned earlier.

b) "Also, maybe you should avoid pissing people off if you are trying to get close enough to rifle through their pockets. "

That's a reduction in player freedom. What's next, unkillable NPCs ? I'm a proponent of reducing player's chances of doing something, rather than eliminating them altogether.

c) Yes, you could render them unconscious with a sedative, and that would be the only way. Non-lethal combat would not work on hostiles, because I disable it for hostile factions entirely due to the doing otherwise opening an unmanageable can of worms.

Of course, all this would do is transfer the magical power of Steal into magical Sneak+Sedatives.

 

[shihonage]

Shelter update 12/16/2009

I've been sick for most of last week and still am. The only thing I've done is make Shelter map loader say "ENTERING" and name of the settlement being entered, and blink a little asterisk.

All I can do is to post a shot of what our main menu looks like now. The deselected items wave and background moves around.

Till next week on exciting Shelter development adventures !

 

[shihonage]

Shelter update 12/23/2009

I'm still sick, so not much has happened. We did some work on finding out problems with how our content editors and the game handle quest chains being broken in about 9 different ways by a player who sets out to do so.

There's much to do... always much to do.

On a slightly more upbeat note... Happy Holidays !

 

[shihonage]

Shelter dev,update 12/30/2009

Content generation is going well. We're now at Shelter Universe V3.0, which partially absorbed things from V1 and V2 and everything in-between.

Last week I upgraded our content compiler (Zorlag) to address quests being handed in out of order and various nonsense like that. Quests hanging at different branches of dialogue trees, it all appears to be working as intended.

Zorlag has also been upgraded to transparently import data from older versions of itself, which will be invaluable once the content starts pouring in, and we keep discovering "missing" functionality that needs to be put in.

Since this is the last update of the year, perhaps it is appropriate to mention Zorlag in more detail, as most of the past year has been spent designing and developing this utility, one that compiles dialogue and quests

In 11/2008 Shelter was a simple quest gameplay demo which was entirely portrayed in a video we released. It accounted for most possibilities of out-of-order quests, doing unexpected things, etc. It was also an absolute pain in the ass to script. It had a length of something like 1% of the game, and having the other 99% of inter-dependent content woven this way would've been the kind of nightmare that Fallout 2 team probably had to go through, resulting in near-unplayable state on release.

After 11/2008 gameplay video its become strikingly obvious that Shelter's quests cannot be scripted by hand. Same could be said for branching dialogue, peppered with checks for player's state, stats, inventory, etc. One change somewhere would require retesting the entire tree.

* * *

This is when Zorlag was born. Zorlag is an automated content compilation tool, one that handles things like "quests out of order" automatically, NPC nags/reactions depending on quest status, and prevents a bunch of ... asynchronous anomalies.

Unlike developers of Fallout series, we do not have any weird hardcoded content like elevator buttons, intros that are forced to play after a specific map, nothing.

Whenever a new feature is needed, it is put into the game, so that it can be reused later through Shelter Scripting Language (SSL).

Zorlag compiles quest and dialogue content directly into SSL routines. NPC reactions, status checks, item hand-ins, everything. When we get a new feature, we put it in Shelter, and then allow access to it from Zorlag.

This is the kind of stuff Zorlag makes:

CHOICE05[[[PERSON_HASITEM[SELF`Antibiotics]=0]
AND[PERSON_HASITEM[Player`Antibiotics]=1]]
AND[QUESTACTIVE[q_antibiotics]=1]]|`I brought the medicine you asked for ! Allright!`|ADJUST_REP[F_BALL`30]|
TRANSFERITEM[PLAYER`HENDRICKSON`ANTIBIOTICS]|
ENABLEACHIEVEMENT[q_antibiotics]|XP[Player`100`completing the quest.]|JUMP[15]

Hail Zorlag. Without it, we'd be lost.

...

FOREVER.

 

[shihonage]

Shelter dev.update 01/06/2010

I don't know if you, loyal readers (both of you), caught on to the fact that Shelter used to be Earth-based and post-apocalyptic, until it stopped being so.

Eons ago, we decided to limit Fallout's influence to the gameplay mechanics, and not steal the actual setting itself. There were two reasons:

1) It is very hard to ape Fallout without *aping Fallout*. The game was a quintessence of everything cool you'd expect from a post-apocalyptic world. Hey guys, let's have this cool town full of junked cars... let's call it, I don't know... SCRAP CITY. And how about a place with caravans, a HUB of sorts, if you will...

2) Post-apocalyptic is the new black. Post-apocalyptic movies and games are popping out everywhere. There's even a post-apocalyptic TV show, "Life After People". Somehow, the subject is wearing thin.

So...after several (wild) iterations, we've arrived at the Osiris-5, Earth colony, Warp Gate storyline.

During this week Shelter's quest database has grown, and main plot arc is being fleshed out. As in Fallout, the main arc is a mostly linear sequence of events which can be approached in several ways. As of now, it is a combination of both expected and bizarre.

Thus far we've managed to avoid these types of quests:

* killing caveloads of rats and spiders
* bringing someone 15 bear skins to make shirts out of
* bringing a boy his peg leg

... and nobody treats you like their best friend without reason to do so.

Not all stereotypical quest types can be avoided, however, due to inherent nature of such games. People sending you somewhere, and such. All we can do is to make them meaningful, connected to the plot.

Fingers crossed.

 

[sheek]

Shelter devupdate 12/09/09

I was busy this week making the interface work equally well with people and objects. I am still doing that, finally approaching handling "items on the ground" thing.

Once "items on the ground" work, and "use item ON someone" works...

...we'll be seeing some serious shit.

In the shot below we examine shelves, attempt to take an item, and are noticed and attacked by the owner. The attack toggles combat mode and freezes the world, making it semi-transparent (since I can't do Fallout's red silhouette outlines).

I really don't want to inflate updates with pointlessness, so this will be it for now. Soon things should start to get a lot more interesting as, with required interface functionalities in place, we can start making quests that do not suck donkey balls.

This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.

Are you really using that ugly Fallout interface or is it placeholder?

Zorlag seems really cool. I have had a look at Fallout script files before and I can only imagine the insanity that would result in trying to replicate that kind of RPG gameplay for a part-time (?) indie team.

 

[sheek]

Shelter dev.update 01/06/2010

I don't know if you, loyal readers (both of you), caught on to the fact that Shelter used to be Earth-based and post-apocalyptic, until it stopped being so.

Eons ago, we decided to limit Fallout's influence to the gameplay mechanics, and not steal the actual setting itself. There were two reasons:

1) It is very hard to ape Fallout without *aping Fallout*. The game was a quintessence of everything cool you'd expect from a post-apocalyptic world. Hey guys, let's have this cool town full of junked cars... let's call it, I don't know... SCRAP CITY. And how about a place with caravans, a HUB of sorts, if you will...

2) Post-apocalyptic is the new black. Post-apocalyptic movies and games are popping out everywhere. There's even a post-apocalyptic TV show, "Life After People". Somehow, the subject is wearing thin.

So...after several (wild) iterations, we've arrived at the Osiris-5, Earth colony, Warp Gate storyline.

During this week Shelter's quest database has grown, and main plot arc is being fleshed out. As in Fallout, the main arc is a mostly linear sequence of events which can be approached in several ways. As of now, it is a combination of both expected and bizarre.

Thus far we've managed to avoid these types of quests:

* killing caveloads of rats and spiders
* bringing someone 15 bear skins to make shirts out of
* bringing a boy his peg leg

... and nobody treats you like their best friend without reason to do so.

Not all stereotypical quest types can be avoided, however, due to inherent nature of such games. People sending you somewhere, and such. All we can do is to make them meaningful, connected to the plot.

Fingers crossed.

How is character progression going to be handled? Typically in RPGs you do quests to get more XP (and secondarily money/loot) to level up faster to become more powerful to be able to do more quests to be able to get more XP etc etc... and you feel the story just sort of accompanies/is the background for the constant, linear geometric growth in killing power/awesomeness of the PC.

Is your game more character driven or setting/story driven (with other kinds of rewards than more level-ups/better loot)?

 

[shihonage]

Are you really using that ugly Fallout interface or is it placeholder?

I plan to replace it with GUI that is a (far) less fancy version of Dead Space GUI. However that is a low priority right now, as long as its functional for purposes of testing.

Zorlag seems really cool. I have had a look at Fallout script files before and I can only imagine the insanity that would result in trying to replicate that kind of RPG gameplay for a part-time (?) indie team.

Thanks. Zorlag is really a necessity.

How is character progression going to be handled? Typically in RPGs you do quests to get more XP (and secondarily money/loot) to level up faster to become more powerful to be able to do more quests to be able to get more XP etc etc... and you feel the story just sort of accompanies/is the background for the constant, linear geometric growth in killing power/awesomeness of the PC.

Is your game more character driven or setting/story driven (with other kinds of rewards than more level-ups/better loot)?

We're siding with progression being handled very close to the way it was in Fallout, and with the way you described. You grow along the linear arc. However we hope to accomodate the ability to have miniscule killing power and grow in power in other ways... character and reputation related ones.

Our achievement system allows to shape character's "character" attributes, and I mean character attributes, not typical RPG stats. We will be planting them into dialogue and their effect on dialogue will be huge. These "personal" attributes will be caused by your actions and words.

 

[sheek]

Sort of like improved Backgrounds/Reputations in Fallout 2? Childkiller, Berzerker, Made Man etc