So, Baldurs Gate

[Excidium]

Sounds incredibly retarded to have a fucking cone. Again, poor implementation.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

I don't know if this idea has ever been mentioned before, but here goes...

Something I've never seen done with fog of war in iso games is gradation of fog of war. It could be too dark to see into in the distance, murky at mid to far distance where you might vaguely see something move but more than likely not, mid distance where movement is more noticeable and objects start to take shape and size, near distance where the player can tell if a creature is humanoid or other and have a better idea of it's size (and at this distance the creature could be targeted with a ranged weapon if desired with a negative modifier to hit it...), before being in direct and clear view in the immediate vicinity of the PC. Also, if the engine is 3D, being in an elevated position could increase the diameter of the players field of view to get the lay of the land, spy enemies, etc... Night time could reduce the diameter. If your PC carries a torch at night, creatures could be scripted to hover at the edge of the field of light...

This kind of 'dynamic' fog of war I think would be nice.

 

[TedNugent]

Company of Heroes 2 actually has a pretty badass fog of war system based around predicting unit line-of-sight.

 

[SCO]

That's not fog-of-war as IE does it, but the related concept of line/range of sight, which it also has (you can't see from behind walls in IE either, it just doesn't bother modeling a cone). Fog of war is a purely gamist concept, used to make the obvious the parts of the map you haven't 'explored' yet.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Ted, that fog of war is definitely a step up with some of it's dynamic qualities from the ones I've seen. Thanks for sharing.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

So now everyone is upset that BG1 isn't first person, has fog of war and dosen't have a view cone. Ok.

His point, I think, is that exploration requires you to notice (or think you notice) a point of interest, and then head for it. If you're simply zigzagging across a map until you find the proverbial gnoll stronghold, then you're not exploring, because there's no agency involved, just randomly stumbling upon things.

By DraQ and company standards, Daggerfall has no exploration. Remember all those giant dungeons you could explore? Nope. Doesn't count because you can't see far ahead of you. You know how you can technically walk from one end of the country to the other and find everything in between? Nope. Again, too much fog, can't see.

Explore fags need to hike outside more often. Basement dwelling has clearly grown a massive unfulfilled desire to see objects on a horizon and walk toward them and now we have to put up with dozens of pages of BS because of it.

 

[Bubbles]

Explore fags need to hike outside more often. Basement dwelling has clearly grown a massive unfulfilled desire to see objects on a horizon and walk toward them and now we have to put up with dozens of pages of BS because of it.

Ohh, that hadn't occurred to me at all. Makes perfect sense though, thank you.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

By DraQ and company standards, Daggerfall has no exploration. Remember all those giant dungeons you could explore? Nope. Doesn't count because you can't see far ahead of you. You know how you can technically walk from one end of the country to the other and find everything in between? Nope. Again, too much fog, can't see.

Explore fags need to hike outside more often. Basement dwelling has clearly grown a massive unfulfilled desire to see objects on a horizon and walk toward them and now we have to put up with dozens of pages of BS because of it.

Don't respond to me you bastard, makes me think it's Kaufman .

Anyway, if you just end up going through a cave randomly combing out every segment, then there isn't any exploration gameplay. If there's a reason to pick one branch of the cave over the other, whether it is because the character can spot something through his skill, or the player can discern it himself, then there's exploration gameplay. I always thought that for something to be called gameplay it needed to involve skill in at least some sense.

 

[DraQ]

Yes, all of that is true. I'd add only that BG2 had more actual exploration in it where you had to make a conscious effort to actually find stuff. There were secret locations with enemies, quests and rewards you could not find/unlock just by walking around and removing fog of war. All of these you could easily miss on you first playthrough (albeit it wasn't particularly concealed either).

Good. I take your word for that (until I make a BG2 playthrough, at least), and certainly won't mind having exploration facilitated by non-spatial search if spatial search mechanics is simply not up to task.

What I've seen of BG2 so far was pretty good.

What about the 50 or so people living in each of the largest cities in Skyrim? Not to mention that Skyrim doesn't even have large cities comparable to Baldur's Gate or Amn.

It's not me who doesn't understand the term "scaled down", it's you.

Read the lore. The ravages of civil war have reduced Skyrim's population to less than ten thousand, about half of whom are outlaws. The cities, farms and dungeons can easily accomodate that number.

i wish there was a anti-brofist for that 'lore'

Here you go:

Joined:
Aug 7, 2013

btw, it's possible in BG script to 'uncover' a map location by other means than just stumbling on it. In fact it can be:

a) trigger activated, like a conversation
b) stumbled upon, from borders
c) or both

Would be good to have a mod doing full map uncover when initiating exterior.

Replace "search" cursor with base cursor and modify container highlight effect in a way making it invisible when stippled over (mask it with opposite of stipple mask) and you might start getting *some* minimal exploration.

But what draq means is FP imurshun - seeing ruins from afar - anyway.

Nope. What DraQ means is basic awareness of one's surrounding and the fact that you can't decide to check out something if you don't know that it's there and where it is.

And how do you do that? You can use LoS like in JA2, meaning the enemy characters only pop up when you see them, but if you want the player to feel the exploration in an iso game, you have to limit their view of the surrounding areas.

Even if it makes absolutely no sense, right?
Gamist trash.


You can have LoS. You can have elevation system. You can also have different sight distances for different kinds of objects. Hidden containers and loose loot would only appear up close.

It is not the computing that is the problem. You have 6 characters in your party, each facing in different directions as you move them, and constantly changing their facing direction. It would look silly if their surrounding appear and disapear all the time when the characters move.

You can have local awareness circle + cone right to the edge of the map.
You can get rid of the cones, but still track LoS occlusions.

Nox did good, but it had one character, and you could precisely control that character, he faced whereever you pointed your mouse cursor. With a 6 man party, each facing the direction they want (having no control over their facing), it would have been chaotic.

Why can't all six characters look at the cursor unless busy?

 

[DraQ]

By DraQ and company standards, Daggerfall has no exploration.

Well, no.

You're a moron and I'm getting tired of it so I won't explain it yet another time.
Either read what I've actually said, rather than picking out of context bits, or admit failure and GTFO.

 

[Bubbles]

Why can't all six characters look at the cursor unless busy?

Because that would be incredibly idiotic.

 

[Abelian]

While the fact that BG2 has much more focused content can be attributed to the devs learning from their mistakes in BG1, there is an alternate, more simulationist interpretation for the design choice. I just made this up, so it may be very tenuous.

In BG1, CHARNAME didn't know his background or his enemies, so a lot of the game consisted of a party of one to six idiots running up and down the Sword Coast "adventuring" and trying to piece together what the main plot is and helping random people.

In BG2, on the other hand, the player knew from the get-go that your goal was rescue Imoen and beat Irenicus. In fact almost every region outside of Athkatla that is accessible in Chapter 2 is revealed as part of the quest to raise the Thieves' Guild fee. The party consisted of seasoned characters who theoretically had a pressing goal, so there's no reason for them to leisurely wander all of Amn. Although the party ends up helping random people, they only encountered the random people they were there on some other business (like DraQ was talking earlier about encounters having a reason for being there).

 

[Excidium]

Nonsense, for one your quest quite clearly sends you to investigate Nashkel but you spend a whole lot of time doing random unrelated shit in Beregost. Stop making shit up.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Wasn't it just Khalid and Jaheira who said that they eventually wanted to take a look at the mines? I am also pretty sure you could delay the whole Beregost stuff until after the mines, or infinitely for that matter.

 

[J_C]

Even if it makes absolutely no sense, right?
Gamist trash.

How hard can it be to understand that FoW is there to not spoil the whole map in 5 seconds, and you actually have to explore it. You can think that it is a bad type of exploration, but it is still exploration.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Wasn't it just Khalid and Jaheira who said that they eventually wanted to take a look at the mines? I am also pretty sure you could delay the whole Beregost stuff until after the mines, or infinitely for that matter.

Xar and Monteron also want to go to Nashkel. Then various NPC's mention the troubles in the mines. It's not railroaded but well-hinted. But Abelian's hypothesis is still silly.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I really agree Surf Solar, FoW is a nice system which let's you know at a glance what areas of the map you have checked before and what not. All this anal probing over the "exploration" and whatever is getting out of hand, even for DraQ

Weird that you talk about anal probing while praising FoW for letting you know if you already combed every square inch of the map.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Human vision cone is around 180 degrees. Though there's a limited ability for specific recognition of stuff that is on sides.

 

[Zeriel]

How hard can it be to understand that FoW is there to not spoil the whole map in 5 seconds, and you actually have to explore it. You can think that it is a bad type of exploration, but it is still exploration.

Wanted to jump in to add that in the only game of this type that didn't have fog of war (Neverwinter Nights 2), I utterly despised the game because there was no concept of exploration. Maybe it's just a personal issue, but it makes the game feel as if I'm just viewing it in the tool the developers used to make it in the first place.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

By DraQ and company standards, Daggerfall has no exploration.

Well, no.

You're a moron and I'm getting tired of it so I won't explain it yet another time.
Either read what I've actually said, rather than picking out of context bits, or admit failure and GTFO.

You brofisted that guy's post, so I assumed that he was correct in assuming that was the crux of your rambling bullshit. No way am I going back over post after post of your inane drivel just to decode your inevitably flawed DraQ argument.

Don't respond to me you bastard, makes me think it's Kaufman .

Anyway, if you just end up going through a cave randomly combing out every segment, then there isn't any exploration gameplay. If there's a reason to pick one branch of the cave over the other, whether it is because the character can spot something through his skill, or the player can discern it himself, then there's exploration gameplay. I always thought that for something to be called gameplay it needed to involve skill in at least some sense.

1. Thor is actually my alt.
2. Daggerfall's dungeons were largely procedurally generated - except the main quest ones - so, yeah, "no exploration" it is.

 

[Infinitron]

1. Thor is actually my alt.

Thor Kaufman

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Uh oh.

 

[Thor Kaufman]

Well, he's part of the brotherhood who has a Rancebro avatar and also thinks Draq is a tard so there's that. :hivemind:
There's only one question, do you know the secret handshake?

 

[Newfag-er]

Didn't know you can form brotherhoods here in the codex, explains alot actually

I think part of the reason I enjoy finding/digging out new places in Diablo was because the dungeons were randomly generated, and the contents were different enough for me to considered to be rewarding (considered the fact your loots depends on it )

I don't know if the same could be apply to BG1 though, cause it felt as rewarding as playing Oblivion. (Which, to tell the truth, was actually pretty fun to explore for me at first. Though that was the first real rpg I play )

Awesome edit: At least I can hike things in Oblivion
Edit 2: Though Oblivion wasn't really a rpg tbh, still has a better exploration then BG because I can jump to places to do stuff though

 

[TedNugent]

Oblivion was shit, and so was this game.

I don't know if the same could be apply to BG1 though, cause it felt as rewarding as playing Oblivion. (Which, to tell the truth, was actually pretty fun to explore for me at first. Though that was the first real rpg I play )

And that ^ proves it.