The Miscreant Engine (more - split)

[F. Scott Banks]

Well...and this is something I meant to put in the development forum first...we're shooting more for reasonable gameplay than realistic gameplay.  This may seem like a step back from what was stated earlier, but it's really just a small refinement on a general term.

Realistic gameplay is leading us down dark paths.  The item and inventory system teetered briefly between a simple list and a mathematical treatise on mass, volume, and weight.

Basically, no one knows how much they're carrying at any given time.  No one knows the metric volume of liquid in a glass bottle, or the tear weight of a backpack.  The computer needs to know these things, but the player only needs to know "heavy" and "Light".

So...we can cheat a lot of stats.  In implementing temperature (Ravien came up with a reason for characters to wear clothes as well as armor, then came up with a reasonable method for wearing both...since all characters are clothed as well as armored, I put in temerature.   There you jackass, run across the desert in full plate mail now!) I just used a sliding scale that either slid below or above a comfortable temperature for that character.  The Player doesn't know it, but it's just a scale from 0 to 100 (like very nearly every stat in the game).  All the player knows is that it's a good idea to wear light clothing in the Naja desert because you tire out and get dehydrated faster and it's smart to wear furs in the Iron Mountains because the cold makes you heal more slowly.

But, because all stats effect each other (thirst is effected by everything from bleeding wounds and heat to poison and exertion...but, thirst is still thirst, with only one system to determine it) there is a definate need for unified and logical stats.  There's just no real need for true realism because the player won't see any of this bookeeping.  It's fine to define heat as "fire damage" on a sliding scale instead of using actual temperatures.  All the player sees is "Hot".

Which is pretty much the degree of awareness any of us have with regards to our world.  After all, we don't have convenient health scores to let us know that we're too tired to lift that heavy rock.  We just pass out.

[TomteOfDoom]

While searching for a decent free MMORPG, I stumbled over a thread on gamedev.onrpg.com wherein  WyldKarde was making some statement about a project he was working on, namely this. I got intrigued and ended up here, reading thru the entire original thread plus this split.

Many good laughs and nods of agreement later, I came to the conclusion that this actually will be the best thing since sliced bread, among other things, when it gets finished.

And I'm confident it will I might add, I'm not one of them sceptical nay-sayers, even thought I still have no actual proof this game really exists. In many ways I think it sounds to good to be true.

Ever since I started playing computer games on my old Amiga 500, I've been imagening all the ways the games I've played could have be made better. And as far as RPG's goes, the ideas that WyldKarde has presented to us here "embodies" these thoughts that I've had. It just makes me thrilled, what can I say. I actually joined this forum just to write this. :)

Even if this game would launch as a MUD, and that is something I've never even thougth of laying my hands on, I most probably would look into it anyway, if not only for all the innovative ideas.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know that I really respect this idea, and I can't wait for an oppertunity to have a closer look. BTW is there anywhere that I can find out more about this project already?

Cheers, and do please excuse my bad english if any.

[F. Scott Banks]

Wow...who woulda thought that Game Developers and Role-Players would come together on agreement.

The two seperate development forums were so that I could get my role-playing ideas throughly grilled by the hard-to-impress Forgers and my programming ideas throrughly grilled by hard-to-impress coders.  My worst fear is that this would get finished and then be throughly uninteresting.

Seems as if the expectations are higher than that.

Actually, Miscreant Games were offered a development forum of our own by the nice folks at onrpg.  If that happens, then things like artwork, storyline, music, etc...can be viewable by the public while we continue working on the guts of the beast in our dark and mouldy workshops.  

Of course, we're all forgers so our insane ideas will still be here to gawk and scoff at.

I'll have to run that one past everyone else though.  Snatching up all our ideas and moving them is no small task (even at this fairly early stage in development) and I dunno how high that one's gonna fly.  Of course, the boards at onrpg are a lot easier to navigate than ours so it might solve the growing problem of information glut that we're having (and only see getting bigger in the future).

Hmmm, nice to see this is getting some attention.  I never really expected any at this stage, but people keep telling me this thing is bigger and better than I think.  I guess I'll have to start beleiving them.

- Wyld Out -

[F. Scott Banks]

Ahhh...on to more interesting problems.

Right now I'm expanding the environmental ruleset beyond it's initial boundaries.  To explain what that means, let me explain how that feature works.

Weather, the effects of magic, the intensity and duration of status effects, and about a dozen other unseen gameplay features are hidden in the terrain.  Skills produce completely different results depending upon the terrain (acid spells fizzle in the desert due to a lack of moisture in the air...lightning spells pack a serious punch in the mountains due to iron ore and the ionized air...the list could go on forever).

The specifics depend on about a dozen different factors from who trained the character using the skill to their astrological sign, but what I'm dealing with right now is producing multiple types of terrain.

I've started to go beyond the basics into the more exotic terrains that you can play with when you have a fantasy game.  Volcanic sand (admittedly, that's not so fantasy-ish), the landscape of the mind where psionists do battle (haven't touched on it yet really...like warlocks and necromancy, a roleplay feature that is deeper than I'd anticipated), and the depths of hell where demons reside, waiting for reality to shatter so they can retake their domain.

Since we've touched on such stats for terrain, I figured I'd go ahead and ask for terrain types.  Nothing is too exotic or, for that matter, too mundane.

[Jeph]

What've you got so far, Scott? And how finite do you want the divisions to be? For instance, will you distinguish between jungle and forest? desert and rockscape? Volcanic and fault-block mountains? Also, are things like elevation and distance from coast applied as modifier to a base terrain or their own terrains in and of themselves?

--Jeff

[F. Scott Banks]

Divisions can be as finite as we want them to be.  The system itself best works within a structured, but open-ended organization of different X-Factors.

Combat, for example is just an "attack" modified by skills and tools that function through those skills.  A sword strike is modified by the sword, the player's skill with the sword, the quality of the sword, sharpness, enchantments, etc.  Without those things, base damage is the weight of the weapon, it's sharpness, and the strength of the person swinging it.

So even base damage has a pretty extensive range of possibilty.

So far, I have larger categories that can be sub-divided into infinity.  I've got "desert", but that can be further adapted by distance from a body of water, the saline content of that water, climate, etc.  I've got "jungle", but soil quality, rainfall, etc. could make two "jungles" look completely different from one another.

But...I haven't listed all those X-factors and I'm keeping the number of them that come into play at any given time limited (when you factor magic into the regular nutrient levels of soil, you've still got a lot of options) in order to keep this system fun.  However, this is something I haven't explored nearly as much as it could be.[/i]

[F. Scott Banks]

Ag:

If you're interested, send me a note or an email saying you'd like to join the team.  I, in particular, need help amassing the mountains of raw data required to make this system flow smoothly.  The formulas are all well and good, but without the numbers to plug ino them, this great RPG system hovers in the realm of theory.  When someone asks "what if this happens...in here...to this person" then there has to be a list of data to plug into those blanks so that we can either answer the question, or the person can look it up themselves.

So, if you're actually looking forward to compiling huge lists of erratta, then by all means, shoot me a line.

[RedShogun]

Hi, there.
I'm in the initial stages of designing my own RPG (actually an evolving project from my college days) and I stumbled upon this site and your threads.

I was pleased to find that your simplification of the skill concept resembled my own (i.e.: one skill modifying one variable).

If I may share the environment concept I'm thinking of using (not sure how I'm going to implement it, yet):

A. Airborne Biome
B. Ground-based Biome
- - 1. Forest
- - - - a. Tropical (jungles and rainforests)
- - - - b. Temperate
- - - - c. Taiga (cold)
- - 2. Grassland
- - - - a. Savannah
- - - - b. Steppe
- - 3. Desert
- - - - a. Hot/Dry
- - - - b. Semiarid
- - - - c. Coastal
- - - - d. Cold
- - 4. Tundra
- - - - a. Arctic
- - - - b. Alpine (mountains)
D. Aquatic Biome
- - 1. Freshwater
- - - - a. Pond/Lake
- - - - b. Stream/River
- - 2. Wetland (Marsh/swamp/bog/mangrove)
- - 3. Marine/saltwater
- - - - a. Ocean
- - - - - -1) intertidal (beach)
- - - - - -2) pelagic (open sea)
- - - - - -3) benthic
- - - - - -4) abyssal
- - - - b. Coral reef

Of course there's also weather and day-night cycles to consider.
I'm also thinking of using astrological-type skills that work on a per hour, per month and per year basis.

Lots of skills/skill-sets. Whew.

I'm strictly an amateur but I am curious regarding what progress you've made.

Regards :)