I think this is a record, this one topic takes up the entire Design Philosophy page.

Good Work! You win!

hehe, enough people liked your topic(or a flame started somewhere in there)that it took up the whole entire SECTION!!

--FIREking

sunzoner wrote:

Elorien wrote:
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sorry for the late reply btw, i just moved, -and- started college.. damn puter at home hasnt even had its cable set up yet x.x; so Im stuck on crappy lab computers *L*

College is the best time to start coding. Just think of the amout of coding I do when I'm in class... But of course, they turn out badly... Hope it goes better for you.
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Itd prolly also work well with an idea I had.. most graphical rpgs list hp as numbers.. but some muds use a description.. so at 100% HP your HP would be listed as 'Excellent' and go down to like 10% which would be listed as something like 'Critically Injured'... Would be kinda neat.. maybe thats how Ill do my game ^-^ Thanks for the thought

Elorien, who hopes shell someday have a chance to work on her game again x.x;;;;;;

The words as hp idea is very popular. Is it not? But have you seen a picture as hp model? In Real Dragon Ball Z games, the hp is measured by both a numner and a picture...

I use color and words for my hp etc, green for full, yellow for 80-60%, bright red for 59-20ish% and from 19-1 dark red

Alathon

That's no joke! Designers who class animals as 'minor opponents' have probably never seen a pissed off animal. Take a deer for example. Seems like an average peaceful planteater. Problem is it can be 200-300 pounds with a rackful of antlers. Not too bad if you have a high powered rifle and alotta yards; nasty if all you got is a knife. But that pales in comparison to natural predators. Try swinging a sword when a pack full of 100+ lb wolves pulling you to the ground and ripping at you or when your bones are crushed by the swing of a bear- 500 lbs of fur, muscle, and fang. Even a regular dog can be nasty since they have a tendency to attack wrists, ankles, throats and other places where major arteries lie. Then again, these are the same people who don't understand that the wounds from a fist fight usually take a few weeks to heal and that weapon wounds almost always leave permanent scarring and often weakness.....

-James

Jmurph wrote:

That's no joke! Designers who class animals as 'minor opponents' have probably never seen a pissed off animal. Take a deer for example. Seems like an average peaceful planteater. Problem is it can be 200-300 pounds with a rackful of antlers. Not too bad if you have a high powered rifle and alotta yards; nasty if all you got is a knife. But that pales in comparison to natural predators. Try swinging a sword when a pack full of 100+ lb wolves pulling you to the ground and ripping at you or when your bones are crushed by the swing of a bear- 500 lbs of fur, muscle, and fang. Even a regular dog can be nasty since they have a tendency to attack wrists, ankles, throats and other places where major arteries lie.

You're quite right. More appropriate minor opponents for a more realistic RPG would be fantasy creatures starting out with slow-moving things like mobile jellies and moving up to more dangerous fare, like rabbits. (He's got huge sharp... he can leap about.... Look at the bones!) With deer of course, they're usually too skittish to attack anything but other deer, but if one did attack you you'd be at a serious disadvantage. A wild wolf (or more likely, a pack) would be considerably more dangerous.

Then again, these are the same people who don't understand that the wounds from a fist fight usually take a few weeks to heal and that weapon wounds almost always leave permanent scarring and often weakness.....

Well, can't make the game too realistic now. Although I agree that this ultra-realism concept is workable if combat is not the main premise of the RPG.

On RPG wounds, I'm from the school of thought that eating food should not substitute for healing. It should take a few days' rest and/or treatment of some kind to heal them, with a natural limit on how quickly you can heal under normal circumstances. (It should take almost a miracle to return instantly to full health.) Since RPGs that rely too extensively on concepts like hunger annoy me, I prefer to see food used in a way that increases one's potential for healing, without actually healing them right away. Medical treatments, lotions, salves, poultices, and so forth should have the same basic effect, only more so. Of course, obviously this does not apply to systems with high HP, but to newer systems relying on lower HP and less damage per battle.

Lummox JR

Deadron wrote:

Lummox JR wrote:

On RPG wounds, I'm from the school of thought that eating food should not substitute for healing. It should take a few days' rest and/or treatment of some kind to heal them, with a natural limit on how quickly you can heal under normal circumstances.

While I have no problem with "food for healing" or "instant healing" or any other feature if it's appropriate to the game, I do find it interesting that Baldur's Gate, using the real D&D rules, is the only game I've encountered that takes this kind of concept seriously.

Yes you can cast some heals during battle and such...but unlike any other game, after a serious fight with 5 or 6 monsters, your whole team pretty much needs to rest for the night. This is because you can't have that many healing spells at a time, and because once you use a spell it's gone until you rest. So any substantial fight (or 2 fights) drains your spell inventory such that you have to sleep.

The amount of killing I do in 10 minutes of Diablo playing would take a week of game time in Baldur's Gate!

The amount I do in 3 minutes of D2 with my Druid and trusty companion, Bear will take me a month in Baldurs. Hehe

Alathon

Teue, Leftley, but I wasn't really arguing anything. Except maybe that many fantasy heads have no concept how brutal wildlife can be:-) Which isn't odd when you consider that those animals are there mainly because their ancestors were the fastest/meanest/biggest/sexiest/etc. and so could gather enough resources to procreate. Much like ourselves. If you ever feel blue, just remember that your are the product of over a million years of competitive evolution. Of course, you might have dominant traits that doomed one of your previous ancestors to a brief, painful existence, but hey, that was a thousand years ago, right?
*grin*
-James

Yea, Ive seen the health bar things.. I have a library for it (cant remember the author right now) at home... I like it, its just been overdone I think.. having a health bar on or near the char when it gets hit and then having it fade out would be neat, Ive played several online games that do it like that.. I still like the idea of doing it generaly with words.. then maybe do overlays on the users icon to correspond with the words.. so if your beaten up badly the users avatar is all bruised and cut up and stuff *L* itd be pretty neat.. *L* yet another idea Im gonna have to work on if I ever get back to it. Would be hard to make it run along side of an emote system tho..

That reminds me.. How many overlays can you have on one obj or mob? Just wondering.. dunno why Im asking here, it just means that Ill have to find it in here next time *LOL* and seeing as how Im on a different puter every time Im here at the college, thier always marked as unread..

Anyways..

Elorien

Leftley wrote:

Deadron wrote:

Leftley wrote:

Foomer wrote:

Only if you want to. Most people prefer to play the games with things they like.

But things that you like aren't necessarily always good for you--or anyone or anything else, for that matter. Not only does overindulging yourself by seeking whatever you desire without restraint have the potential to ruin a game for other players, it has the potential to ruin it for you.

And yet in general games are too hard, because they are designed for hardcore gamers.

Well, that's a valid point. But I fail to see how poor game balance or a wealth of statistical information make games more accessible to novices.

Actually, Id prolly say the opposite. If a new player has to learn what 17 different stats do in the game, and which ones will make them so they can advance in the direction they want, then that would make it much more difficult for them to get into the game.

Another note is the RP value.How are you feeling right now? >:P If you respond with a 'I have 73 Hitpoints right now', then you need serious help >:P Power leveling games are a intigral part of games, but so are roleplaying.. I never really got into the MUD type games, I played a few, but never really enjoyed myself. However, if that kind of feeling of immersion could exist in a graphical game, then role playing would grow drasticaly ^^;;

More ranting from the supa-n00b

Elorien

Elorien wrote:

Foomer wrote:

By using verbal indicators, you know that, when I fought the kobald, i was merely scratched. Meanwhile, fighting the orc left me bruised and bloodied. Also, I'm feeling winded now, so I better stall for as long as possible before fighting this approaching orc.

This might go into that area of realism vs. fun. How much realism can you have before it stops being fun and just becomes a neusance. Maybe we should have some test runs of two versions of the same game, one with numbers and one with words, and let people decide which is better. After all, arguing about theories is pretty stupid.

True, I see your point. I empasise with that type of gamer. Hell, I enjoy games like that, where you go off killing things, and if you level, then you become 10x harder to kill, and more skilled at killing other stuff. I personally wouldnt design a game like that at this point because its been done. With byond we have a chance as gamers, to try new things in the games we play. For me, I want to find a way to encourage RolePlaying in a game, in some other way then saying 'You must role-play', and then slam some person outa the game cuz they run around shouting 'I R NOOB, PL ME TO 99 PLZ, GIVE GOOD WEP PLZ!' Design a game where the players dont nessicarily have levels, and where they dont know the stats of thier weapons, only that thier good for -them- and maybe we can get more roleplaying in our games *L* ^^

Im just ranting again, but Id really like to see a game that apeals to MUDers, MMORPGers, as well as the oft'forgotten people who pure role-play in chatrooms. I think itd be neat ^^ I doubt that Ill ever be able to do anything like that, but if I can try some new idea, and someone else likes it and tries it somewhere else, who knows ^_^

Elorien

Im trying to do that, more or less. Not sure if im doing it successfully or not tho (wont know for a while, hehe). One of the big problems with some games is that roleplaying is often mistaken for socializing(ie, standing in groups and talking, or roleplaying) Ive been thrown out of a game because I liked to wander alone. Sad, :P

Alathon