The Miscreant Engine

[Kirk Mitchell]

On the subject of food, it should be rather simply implemented. Some of my favourite games are Roguelike games such as Ancient Domains of Mystery and such. They have food implemented in them and I find it rather annoying to have to force feed my character every five minutes. How about, if you have food or water, you consume it if you need it. Otherwise, you begin to starve or dehydrate or whatever. I just think that it gets to a point where realism isn't fun anymore.

Kirk

[Ben O'Neal]

Well, my first suggestion earlier in this thread was to have hunger and thirst represented by "health bar" sorts of things, which would quickly and easily show how hungry or thirsty your character is. Underneath each bar, you could have a little toggle button which would turn auto-feeding/drinking on or off. This would allow players to just game without having to manually feed themselves (they could just stock up their backpacks now and then), and also allow them to manually feed themselves when rationing becomes important (longs trips, survival, etc).

Most food, IMHO, should only be available in ready-to-eat form from populated areas. Things like fruit and nuts could be found in forests, and wild game should be able to be hunted (finally! a reason to hunt animals! WOOT!), and perhaps some skills could be involved in finding raw materials to make food when trying to survive away from civilisation.

But I definately don't think food should be under the covers, for a few reasons:

-- if it has a mechanical benefit/penalty, then players who figure out the rules will have better characters than those who don't.
-- if food is just represented as "bread" and "water", the importance of different items of food or quality of water is lost, and players will pay very little attention to food at all, treating it just like a "necessary but boring feature". This wil diminish the usefulness of cooking skills dramatically.
-- if you leave the mechanics of out hidden, the far-reaching economics of food will appear to be foundationless. For example, right now you could have food play an important role on the micro-scale (character health and the health of your children/spouse, career choice), and the macro-scale (economics, wars, land rights). But if you take away the mechanics from the eyes of the players, you are taking away the entire reason that food is important on the micro-scale, and thus the macro-scale as well.
-- in terms of realistic characters and world, most people know what sorts of foods are healthy and what sorts they need to eat to ensure they get the best out of their food intake. Sure, they don't know the specifics like exaclty what nutrients are involved, but you can't code "life learning" into recognition of food, so nutrients would do just fine.


I think that if something about your game is cool, players should be told. All the things posted in this thread so far are awesome selling points (as if you hadn't noticed from the feedback so far), and thus you would be selling yourself short by not marketing your game with the best hooks available, namely, all the cool features you are implementing. If potential players see a feature they don't like, they may still play your game. But if they don't see anything that they like, then you don't stand a chance. But right now I think a huge number of players would like every feature you implement.

-Ben

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, in terms of showing the food "mechanic", there will be little hints as to how well food nourishes you.  So under hunger, you may appear sated if you've eaten a fell-balanced meal, but merely full if you've eaten enough.  A player who eats foods that are representative of their race and culture will receive little bonuses whereas a player who doesn't won't receive those little bonuses.  If you've ever played a MUD, eating a single meal for every hour of gameplay is pretty generous.  Having to to it more frequently than that is pretty much just the norm.

This carries over to combat as well.  All combatants attack simultaneously (something I can do more smoothly in a computer-run RPG than a pen-and-paper one...no takebacks when you see what the enemy has up his sleeve) so defensive and offensive stances are important.  If you're not strong, but very fast, you can tie up a stronger, slower opponent with constant attacks, forcing them to defend and burning their initiative.  Just attack them from a defensive stance to harrass them and keep 'em busy while your party finishes off their mage or whatever.

This of course can be countered by the slower character using skills that he's mastered, thus allowing him to perform complex maneuvers faster than normal.  Also a character who's being constantly attacked can simply switch to a defensive stance of their own and then wait for the attack instead of initiating it.  Pulling stunts like that shatters the harassing strategy because it opens the swift attacker up for a powerful attack every time they close with a weaker ineffectual one.  The powerful attacker doesn't have to burn that much initiative because he's mastered his counterattack.  Also, he automatically burns half the initiative he normally would because he's letting the attacker come to him.  If he has the actual "counterattack" skill, then he's basically just swatting his attacker every time he comes around and not breaking a sweat to do it.  The attacker's strategy is reversed and the swifter character will have exhausted themselves while taking some hard knocks in the process.

Then again, players could just pick a cool move, and use it every turn until the bad things die.

The point is that most of the features in this game are designed from the perspective of rewarding good roleplayers (or at least, attentive gamers) rather than punishing bad ones.  Combat can be tactical and layered if you take the time to learn techniques, maneuvers and stances.  Or if you'd rather work on something else, you can just get real strong, get a huge sword, and hack away at the scenery.

God help you if you run across a player with techniques though...

Food, religion, government, military...they all work the same way.  While a player may not know the recommended daily serving of grain for his particular race, he'll notice that certain foods fill him up faster and keep him full longer.  He'll carry food from home on long journeys (dry rations are have high concentrations of just about every nutrient on the game) or learn "survival" and get the most out of what's available.  You can also just condition your body to eat just about anything (Rangers, Barbarians) or take the lazy way out and pick "iron gut" at creation.  Take a slight blow to your overall fitness (your physical stats are slightly lower than normal for your race) for the ability to eat anything that won't kill you outright.  It might seem pointless, but it also gives total immunity to some of the weaker poisons in the game.

So, if you roleplay your character well, you won't really get too hung up on any one mechanic.  From the player's perspective, they're just using what works for them.  A character that doesn't focus on wielding the biggest and sharpest killing implement in the game will probably focus on techniques that make more modest weapons more deadly.  This will change their combat style as they'll have to focus on the technique versus their weapon.  Other players are probably more comfortable switching weapons on the fly, and they can do that if that's how they prefer to play.

So, the food is really just another underlying mechanic.  If you're a city planner and your city is built near water, your NPC "farmers" are going for the food source that makes the most sense.  In all honesty, things at this level are based on money so you can expect to see whatever grain earns them the most money.  If you're a lord, you probably don't care if your people are getting a balanced diet.  The NPC's operate at a level below that of heroes, so they don't see any bonuses or penalties.  The same way that if you're not an athlete, you're not "carb-loading", you're just eating bread.

Not to say that dwarves won't eat fish, they'd just season them with spices and herbs that satisfy their nutrient requirements.  Diet isn't restrictive for growth, as long as there's enough land to support the community that is.  Orcs can learn to fish and elves could raise cattle.  The resultant dishes would just be bizzare to those races that eat those foods normally and aren't used to seeing them all tarted up to meet the tastes of other cultures.  

Think Sushi vs Chicken Fried Catfish.

I guess all I'm saying is, for all the work I'm putting into this particular aspect of the game, I don't expect it to become a selling point.  In fact, I hope it goes ignored so that the farmers can have something to do when they're trying to make the perfect "rations" package for half-elf illusionists who cast a lot of summoning spells.  This is something that can be ignored, or it can be played up.  It depends on how the player plays.  Most of the game's features are like that (I hope).

Hmmm...so other things about the food engine.

Preparing food is no different than making a sword, it's just combine raw materials and applying skills to them.  The higher the cooking skill, the more ingedients can be added to a single dish.  So if you just know enough to survive, your ingedients are fire and meat.  If you're a master chef, you can add six ingredients to make a single dish and combine three dishes to make a single meal.  You can also transform those dishes into whatever form you want, the same way that eggs, flour and butter can be made into either a loaf of bread, or a cake.  This way, the same ingredients can be made into different things.

I'm betting on an Iron Chef Tournament within a month of launch.

So...that's food.  Next time, we talk about the skills.  Thank god my buddy Joe finally surfaced.  He's way more excitable about game mechanics than I am.  I'm more story and theme.  He's the guy who really has a hard-on for probablilties and algorithims.  He's also trained a squad of rabid gamers to savagely playtest anything that comes within their territory.

It's a damn shame what they did to that dog.

[Christopher Weeks]

-- if it has a mechanical benefit/penalty, then players who figure out the rules will have better characters than those who don't.

Until it's posted to the net and everyone has that base of knowledge to work from.  Then they start working together to refine the knowledge.

-- if you leave the mechanics of out hidden, the far-reaching economics of food will appear to be foundationless. For example, right now you could have food play an important role on the micro-scale (character health and the health of your children/spouse, career choice), and the macro-scale (economics, wars, land rights). But if you take away the mechanics from the eyes of the players, you are taking away the entire reason that food is important on the micro-scale, and thus the macro-scale as well.

Except that if it's obvious that it has _some_ effect players will pursue that knowledge through experimentation.  It happens in every game.  The problem with most of them is that they don't have _enough_ of this kind of puzzle.  It sounds to me like food should be more complicated, but not so much so that it seems random.  That's the only point at which it would be bad.  Remember one guy, or a handful, designing these kinds of puzzles won't be able to keep up with a large playerbase.  Don't worry about making it easy enough to figure out because players are smart.

-- in terms of realistic characters and world, most people know what sorts of foods are healthy and what sorts they need to eat to ensure they get the best out of their food intake. Sure, they don't know the specifics like exaclty what nutrients are involved, but you can't code "life learning" into recognition of food, so nutrients would do just fine.

I think there are two main responses to this.  The first is that I think you're simply wrong.  There are PhD nutritionist researchers having heated battles as we speak about what the evidence means.  Human science has only the faintest grasp on nutrition.  I'm in the US -- the fatest nation on Earth you think we generally know how to get "the best out of our food intake?"  The second response is that even if you were right, so what?  Why let some notion of realism get in the way of a good game?

(Seriously, follow the link that I posted above and read about that game.  It's all about this kind of puzzle (and socialization) and while it's not a huge commercial success, it's paying the bills and has ~1000 devoted players.)

Chris

[F. Scott Banks]

Wow, I think it's cool that game features I considered the least interesting in the game end up being the ones most hotly debated.  Seeing what was out there, I thought the combat and reward system would be everyone's hot button.  I would never have put my money on families and food.

Basically, I just want to reiterate that food works the same as any other skill.  The more important it is to you, the more information you'll have about it in-game.  Farmers will know out-of-hand what races need what nutrients and so will many cooks.  They'll know how to combine different foods, or where to plant certain crops because they'll need to know.  Players who take a backseat to their food strategy (and I'm fairly certain most will) will only know what they like, and how much it satisfies.  I guess my point is that if you want food to be a major part of your gaming experience, it will be.  If you don't, then you'll just set one of those blank macro buttons under your core commands to "autoeat" and try to keep a full canteen and plenty of vittles on hand.

Water is also important in this.  In fact, water was the core program for the current food system.  Water comes in various "purities" and different races need a certain amount per day.  Skilled chefs can also make drinks which satisfy thirst and nutrient requirements.  Only pure water is considered as water, however.  Juices and such are considered to be "impure" for thirst requirements which just means that it'll quench your thirst temporarily, but not for as long as water will.  Drinking actual "impure" water, like seawater or swamp muck (unless you're a race that can drink that stuff) does any number of things, from subtracting nutrients from your body, to flat out poisoning you.  Nutrient loss also does fun things like causing blindness, uncontrollable vomiting, muscle spasms (which take the place of attack rounds) and HP loss leading to eventual death.

Starvation is a slow and horrible process in the game.  While it's not neccesary to be a master chef, at least fix yourself a sandwich from time to time.

But, enough on food.  This next one was to be about the game's skill system which is an area where I actually need some help.  Of course, this could still be about food if someone out there is dying to be an orcish sous chef and wants to make sure the requisite skills make it into the game.

Actually, that's so damn cool, I might do it anyway.

This skill system is based on certain schools of knowledge and the skills that make one able to gain proficciency in those schools of knowledge.  All skills fall under categories called "Talents".  I'll explain:

Fencing - The art of swordplay focusing on finesse and agility rather than power.  The core principle of fencing is speed and most fencing weapons accentuate swift, gracefull movements rather than violent and forcefull ones.

Fencing Skills:

Parry - Deflecting an opponents attack, lowering it's chance to hit.  Has a higher success rate than a block, but a successfully parried blow can still hit it's mark if the initial chance to hit is high eneough.  Each successive level of Parry lowers the attackers chance to hit by a greater percentage.

Riposte - An immediate counterattack following a failed attack.

En Guarde - The ability to assume a defensive stance immediately following an offensive posture, reducing the opprotunity for counterattack.

Main Gauche - The ability to use an off-hand weapon for defensive purposes only (parrying), taking no penalty when attacking with the main hand weapon.[/i][/list:u]

So skills are broken down categorically.  This means that certain skills, depending upon where they appear in signifigance within a certain Guild's skillset, may be easier to obtain elsewhere.  A player can learn to set traps from rogues, who need to know such things, or from rangers, who set snares for hunting.  A rogues trap will be different from a ranger's snare, but either could get the job done if all you're trying to do is hurt people.

The difference is rogues don't usually set traps, they disarm them.  Setting traps would be an advanced rogue skill as opposed to learning it from a ranger.  Rangers need to know how to set traps as part of their survival training so it would be one of the first things you'd learn from them.  On the other hand, if you wanted to learn how to disarm a snare or a trap, you'd proabably go to a rogue first.  Rangers don't disarm snares, they just avoid them.  Disassembling someone's snare is the same as taking food out of their mouth to a ranger, so they might not teach that at all.

Conversely, in order to recognize a ranger's snare in the first place, you'd need quite a few levels of "camoflauge".  Rangers automatically apply their hide skill to any traps they set in the wild and their hide skill is further offset by their camoflague skill (if they have the time to spare to use the camo in the first place).  Thieves do the same, but their element is the city.  If you want to booby-trap a treasure chest, get a rogue...if you want to booby-trap a cave, get a ranger.  Rogues and rangers working in concert can set traps that set off other traps, creating anything from an alarm to a self-destruct sequence.

So this is a small glimpse into the skill system.  Basically, I need more skills (most of mine are combat, magic, and a few tradeskills) and more "Talents".  A glut of skills or multiple versions of the same ones are fine.  I'll clean it up in post-production.

[Ben O'Neal]

Wow, I think it's cool that game features I considered the least interesting in the game end up being the ones most hotly debated. Seeing what was out there, I thought the combat and reward system would be everyone's hot button. I would never have put my money on families and food.

This is probably because combat and reward systems have been done in practically every game, whereas families and food are quite rare. So given the oppurtunity to see something cool come from them, people like me want to get our say in :)

Your latest info on how food and water works sounds great. Looking forward to seeing it implemented and working :)

I'm not sure I can help you out with specific talents and skills (being that it is 2am right now), but I may be able to give you some broad categories that might inspire talent and skill ideas. I'd want to see, in a game like this, the ability for my character to develop in the following areas: bartering, music and other entertainment, art and other creative endeavours, navigation abilities, social interaction skills, invention, and that's about all I can think of for now. But definately include many different trade skills. As much as you think most people will want to be adventurers (and yeah, most might), there will still be a sizeable proportion who will want to do other things. A friend of mine spent a year playing a blacksmith in ultima online (before selling his character to regain his life).

Hmmm, it's just a thought, but how cool would it be if you had to hire people to make your houses for you? These houses could have a "security" rating as determined by that skill of the tradesman who built it, which would need to be beaten by potential thieves. That sounds pretty awesome to me. You could make a furtune as a builder with a high security skill. And that is mad.

-Ben

[Christopher Weeks]

Hey, if you were a builder, _you_ would know how to break in...

Chris

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, I've actually been working on craft skills which allow players to create "rooms" in game.  Walls have multiple features from the simple (doors) to hidden rooms, transdimensional portals, and walls that can't be phased through by players who learn how to do it.  Floors and ceilings are actually just decorative, but traps can be placed there.

Yeah, theives would make good builders because their own trap skill and lockpicking skill gets applied to whatever they create.  A home built by a master thief would be a challenge to every other thief in the game.  Most of the thunder has been applied to combat skills and even the crafting skills are applied largely to weaponsmithing but some of the basics, like home building, are already in place.  They just need to be more fleshed out.

Fun fact:  I found out you can set traps to only go off when they're disarmed.  These reverse-engineered traps are good for catching overconfident theives.  If you make the trap extrememly easy to find, then make it extremely hard to disarm and make the "tampering" penalty far higher than just letting the trap go off normally, you can make a darned dirty little trap.  There's always the chance a equally skilled thief will disarm it despite the difficulty imbalance, but younger thieves who judge the dificulty in disarming it by the difficulty in finding it will fall for it nearly every time.

Sorry, this open engine sometimes surprises me.  I was gonna flag it as a bug, but since it's something you have to be a master saboteur to do, I think I'll leave it.

So yeah...as far as skills go, there's a lot of work to do regarding crafts.  I know how I'd like to use musical skills.  Lemme know if this one hits you guys or if it's back to the drawing board.

Music:

Characters with this Talent will know how to add an in-game soundtrack to specfic areas.  Musicians in a throne room will cause the kings personal "anthem" to be played for everyone who enters.  A musician in your party will cause "mood" music to be played as you adventure.  The "depth" of the music will rise from a single guitar plucking out a tune to complex harmonies and melodies depending upon how many party members know this skill.

Alternatively, if there's no music, all that will be played are atmospheric noises which were ripped off from meditation tapes by me and converted to wave files.  Who's gonna sue me?

"Those are my ocean sounds you thieving bastard!!!!"

"Unless you're God...bite me."

The best part of this is that if the game sucks, it'll be the best screen saver in the history of screen savers.

The hard part about pulling off the actual music is that I'll have to write (or have written) several midi files that can be overlaid to create a unified harmonic sound.  With twelve or so instruments, each playing a line of a four-part harmony, of over twenty different songs (combat, caverns, dungeons battle, throne rooms, guild songs...etc.), I've got um...a lot of musical possibilities even using pre-written music.

I know music well enough to put that together, but writing all those songs myself...

sigh

...well, let me get to work.  I've gotta dust off the old Roland and plug it into my computer.

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, the music engine seems to be working nicely.  I was able to plug two songs into the game.  "I'm a yankee doodle dandy", and "America the beautiful."  I'm not really going to use them in the game, but I wanted to try a little experiment.

The two songs I used can easily be placed on top of each other to create a unified sound (grab a buddy and hum 'em together if you don't beleive me).  Using a simple sound mixer, I seperated the two songs into four-part harmonies.  I also used twelve different instruments playing each "part" (tenor, bass, soprano, alto) for each song.  As I'd hoped, every combination of instrument created music that ranged from merely tolerable to strikingly beautiful.  I even threw in a "choir" instrument to see if it would make any difference how bizzare the instruments were.  

Using a "mood" program to change tempo in different places, I was able to make the same songs seem completely different.  This was something I took from Star Wars.  Taking the imperial theme and playing it slowly on a harp makes a tune that evokes completely different emotions than one normally feels listening to the famous Darth Vader theme.

So yeah...looks like music'll work as a learnable skill.  Who'd have thought, picking party members based on what instrument they play?

Garell, Warrior Chief:  "Okay, you're great at surgery, you can heal burns, which we need if we're gonna take on this dragon, and you know your way around a warhammer.  Looks like we're all set to go."

Lothar, Archer/Bard:  "Uhh boss, you're forgeting something?"

Garell, Warrior Chief:  "Oh yeah, we need a lute player to really fill out our ensemble.  Lothar's banjo just isn't gonna cut it inside defiled churches and temples of unspeakable evil.  We need the mournful melodies that only a lute can give us."

Jophin, Hopeful Adventurer:  "Aww damn, I only have a few levels in harmonica."

Garell, Warrior Chief:  "Ohhhh, that's too bad.  You know, I don't think we can use you at this time, but we'll keep your resume on file."[/list:u]

Wow, I am the worst thing to ever happen to computer role-playing games.

[Christopher Weeks]

I guess I'm not grokking the significance of music.  If it turns out to be too mechanistic it'll seem dumb.  If not, then what?  I'd like to see a mystery behind music too -- something like diet that has to be figured out.  It could even be set up so that only players with characters that have sufficient in-game skills can take advantage, but still have to be figured out by the players.

One thing, I'd like to see more player skill involved in such things.  Can players write music and import it to the game?  And then sell it in the game?  I'd be more excited by that kind of development.  Obviously, this notion applies equally to graphic elements.  It might be one way to get the player base to do some of your content development, too.

Wow.  what if various musical elements (chords, notes, progressions, instrument/vocal combinations, etc) had different "magical" base effects and the players had to combine them in such a way that desirable combination-effects were generated by their work.  It would be a whole system of experimentation and knowledge development.  The "spells" that were generated could then be sold or shared and it would be natural for a bardic (or whatever) guild to form.  If I had the music theory background...

Chris

[F. Scott Banks]

Actually, I've been playing with the idea of weaving music and magic together.  However, for a program that allowed players to write their own music in-game, I'd need a program of near unheard-of power and flexibility.  So far I'm allowing for pre-written songs to be blended into each other in a number of different ways, but for written music made by the players...

Actually, I could just write a simple music program where all the notes are pre-programmed and let the players arrange them how they want.  It's tempting now that I see it's possible, but it would definately be a "down the road" sort of thing.  Right now, music is just a colorful addition to the game.  It does impact the game experience but not actual gameplay.  Right now, learning an instrument is essentialy no more than telling the computer how you'd like it to play the soundtrack for you, or how you'd like it played for others.

Then again, bards were never my thing.  I'm not intimately familliar with how music and magic work together (although a certain clerical order casts spells through hymns instead of prayers).  Mathematically, musical skill does effect a bard's spells, but not to the point where a trained ear could hear the difference (because there is none).  I've got bardic magic, and I've even got a "make your own spell" thing going, but it'll be awhile before I can blend the two to the point where players can write their own bardic songs that are tailored for a specific magical result, and sound decent to boot.

I'm not sure what you mean by mechanical, but here's how the music selection works.  First off, I'm going to describe music in fairly technical terms.  I almost always do that.  Since I'm not giving numeric examples through dice rolls or other familiar RPG numerology, I tend to simply explain how it works, then let the reader decide how cool it will be.

Now, there will be multiple songs for a given area...let's say a pastoral field in this instance.  These multiple songs will be written in such a way that they can be played one on top of the other and maintain an audio cohesion.  This just means that the sounds coming out of your speakers will still sound like music instead of just noise.  DJ's do it alla time.

Now, parties are limited to four characters.  This means four-part harmony if all four know music.  With several songs to pick from, all of which sound decent when combined with any other song, players can get several different sounds out of a single party.  When you add different instruments into the mix, the possibilities are impressive.

Now this is something else that isn't really "played".  I'll work on a "compose" skill that'll allow for in-game written music, but that's not something I expect to see up and running at launch.  In fact, if I manage to get it up and running at launch, that means that I probably forgot to do something important.  Even so, music is a tertiary priority.  Much like graphics, it's something that can be expanded upon later.  I'm handling that one with kid gloves, because how does one roleplay that?  A player who has a tin ear can't be expected to make a decent song no matter what his character sheet says.

Maybe I'll preprogram chords as well as just notes.  That should help a little.

Now, the system of customized objects you described is in effect for pretty much everything else.  Walls can be designed by "builders".  Building a wall out of a certain stone not only determines what properties it has, but also what colors it can be.   Players can play with shading and anti-aliasing to get the overall effect they want.  A swordmaker follows a pre-set mold when making his swords.  A scimitar will always look like a scimitar, but the colors used are up to the swordsmith.  A paper-doll system changes how the weapon looks when it's used in-game.  So your pretty blue sword will still be blue during the attack animation.

Hmmm, all-in-all, I'm intrigued at where this could go.  I'm holding characters to sixty skills, so picking important skills is important as there's no way to get all off the skills available (or even all of the skills in your own guild).  I'd like for music to be important (even if it's just subtly important, like with cooking) so any other ideas, throw 'em at me.

[Ben O'Neal]

Concerning music, I'll be honest. Doesn't really float my boat. Unfortunately, whilst I do have an alternative suggestion, I don't really think it's necessarily better.

Alternative: Skill opens up sound effects and mixing options for an in-built sound editor/synthesizer. This also relies on player skill to create good sounding shit. Created music can then be sold to other players in-game, and can be paid for on a per-use basis at a price agreed upon by both. For example, Player A has high music skill, and thus can create quite a few very nice sounding pieces using the in-game editor. They save a song called Song A, and they approach a local lord to sell it to them. The local lord asks to hear a demo, so Player A plays Song A for a bit and the lord decides he likes it, and asks how much Player A wants for it. Player A says "5gp", and the lord agrees (this would have to occur in a shared dialogue box). The file is then transfered to the list of songs that the lord has available, and the price is coded with it. Now, everytime the lord plays the song, Player A gets 5gp and the lord loses 5gp. Alternatively, the lord could offer Player A 500gp to be able to play it for free as much as he wants, or 5000gp to own the song outright, removing it from Player A's list of songs he can sell.

I like this alternative the most, because it is the most flexible and would interest me as a player the most, rewarding both character skill and my skill as a player. It also allows other players to have as part of their inventory a list of songs they have purchased and can play at any time. My only problem with this is the implied method of delivery, namely the "mp3" style of music, which doesn't mesh very well with the fantasy era of the game. However, this "unrealism" isn't really all that bad when you consider that realistically, no-one hears soundtracks when they do stuff or walk into a different area.

As an extra bonus, perhaps players with maximum music skill could import sound effects from their own library to be used in the game, giving a real benefit of maxing out your music skill, by opening up unlimited potential for sounds.


But like I said, these are just things that I would have thought of, which may not be better than what you have. But the idea of layering different predefined songs doesn't do it for me.

And I've never been a fan of musical magic. To me, it just seems... for lack of a better word.... very, very gay. With modern heavy music, perhaps the idea has merit, but not with lutes and flutes and harps. Also, it would be incredibly hard to implement.


Now, on to buildings. I'd suggest that instead of builders building "walls", that they instead build predefined houses. This would make being a builder far easier and less time consuming, and I don't think the ability to make a specific shaped house will really add that much to the game. Their skill could simply be used to determine security, market value, and resistance to natural disasters (which would probably affect the security measure). Maybe let them choose the colour... but that should be something which can be changed by the owners at any time. I personally would find building a house wall by wall tedious and not really necessary for the focus of the game. So my suggestion, is that whilst it is tempting to make this game "absolutely everything to everyone", trying to do so will only end in tears. Stuff like that can be added later, if at all.

Same goes for the colour of a sword. It might have novelty value, but damn it would be ugly (to me) picking up yet another purple and red greatsword. For some reason, swords look more menacing in steel, gold, and leather than in blue and yellow. If you're really attached to the idea though, then go for it. But the coding effort doesn't seem justified by the gain.

-Ben

[F. Scott Banks]

Well, it's good to get this music thing reigned in a bit.

I should probably start off by saying that I'm no artist, nor any great composer so getting a skilled either one of those would allow me to dump this on them.  But, as long as I'm doin' it, I have to stay within my limits.  Also, these "asthetic" devices are further on down the line and they're under fairly tight control.  You only get to "color" your crafted objects insomuch as you get to choose the material they're made out of.  If you make a sword out of steel, it'l be flat gray, if you make it out of gold, it'll be gold.  I'm not opening up the game to bubblegum pink plate mail any more than I am to characters named LordGygaxx174.  The game doesn't support color "palettes" yet, just prerendered pictures that combine to form a complete image (elf+armor+sword=elven warrior).

Since it'll be fairly basic out the gate, much of this is academic.

I'm torn with music, but it does have a functionality in the game.  Playing certain songs will produce certain results.  Until I get a sound mixer that lets players make their own music (which is probably out of my programming capabilities for the time being), I have pre-written songs that musical characters can play in certain situations.   A battle hymn gives, not only music during combat sequences, but it also helps endurance, or increases damage, or aids accuracy.  A travelling tune reduces the cost in endurance that long and exhausting journey  takes out of you.

I'm not certain how far I'll define music.  As a pure roleplaying device, it's easy and I've got some help in the programming department so that the 3D absurdly graphical MMORPG will allow for skills that are just there for pretty's sake.  You could "paint" or "sculpt" with the 3D engine.  Those maniacs decided to cell-shade everything just to show they could (kinda cool until my eyes started to bleed).

With the MUD, everything's got to "do" something.  Otherwise, you could roleplay skills that weren't game-essential and to hell with actually "learning" it.  I think allowing for songs to give mild bonuses is sufficient.  At the very least, it justifies taking it as a skill.  I also like the fact that it makes music as optional as every other skill.  It's a nice skill, but it's no "must have".  

I try to ensure that there are no "essential" skills.  There's about a dozen ways to get the same results.  If you wanna roll 3 dice on attack (look ma, I'm streamlining it!), then you can get those 3 dice about a dozen ways.   Whether it's by learning the weaknesses of your enemy, learning the limits of the weapon you're using, or simply by practicing the movements of the attacks rather than learning how to use the weapons themselves (there's one martial art that focuses on the "motion" of certain attacks, making the weapon used, if any, irrelevant).  Mathematically, it's all the same, trying to roll 3 dice on attack.  To a roleplayer, however, it's all about learning those skills that define your character and make them more effective.

Hmmm, there are times when I have to draw clear lines of distinction from this "engine" which is a way of playing my game.  And the game itself.  There are things this engine can do that I don't particularly need it to do for my game, but which may be useful in other games.  I'm kinda rambling here, but I'm starting to wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to start a second thread dealing just with the game and keep this limited to the way I translate the role-playing experience into an electronic medium.  I like the "this is cool, this system should be able to do this", but there are many things I don't particularly need it do to.  

For example, the engine can easily create multiple planets or "dimensions", each governed by different rules.  There are probably games that could benefit from this but since mine isn't one, I haven't brought it up until now.

Perhaps I'll do it once I've finished grinding my cold, soulless equations down into dice.  Now that the games design has been fleshed out to accomodate numerous players (in fact, it may be too big), I can now make it more intimate.  

Funny how it's easier to edit than add.  It took me over a year to get this thing on the computer, and now that it's starting to look like something, it takes me just over a month to get the entire monster compacted into pen-and-paper.

Life is both funny and cruel that way.

[F. Scott Banks]

I'm changing the name of the actual RPG that's to be run on this system as the title of the book is changing as well.

The title of the book is changing to "Heralds of the Dying Age".  I've got something in mind for "Armageddon Gospel" so don't think I'm letting that cool title go to waste.  I figure I'll write a story that's appropriately controversial since everyone seems to think that's what the title suggests.

I was hoping for a few suggestions as to what the name of the game should be since the book changed as well.  I was thinking "Heralds of the..." so that it was immediately recognizable as an offshoot of the book.  This fits nicely as the main characters in the book are "Heralds" or messengers to the world at large that their civilization is nearing collapse.  This paralells nicely as player-characters are "messengers" of a sort as well.  They weave, through their actions, a story that involves every person who'se life they've touched.

But...what to call the game?

[F. Scott Banks]

Ahhh, I loathe putting up back-to-back posts, but in case no one's noticed.  I use this for my own personal notepad regarding ideas that are "questionable" for the game.  Hopefully the Forge will burn away the weak ones and leave me to focus on getting this done.

Well, the game's got a title now.  Since it occurs after the "event" that the book leads up to, it's called "Advent of the Dying Age".  

So:

Book = Heralds of the Dying Age
Game = Advent of the Dying Age

I've got something in mind for A.G. and it's sweet.  Too bad I can't work on it as hard as I'd like right now.

The MUD still exists as a way of tightening the core ruleset.  That way, I can test weapons and skills in the MUD wthout "bugging" the MMORPG.  The system going into the MMORPG is just an enhanced version of the MUD.  Example.

Music manipulation is so easy in the MMORPG that I think I may have wasted everyone's time debating how I should do it.  Although, the idea of selling prewritten songs hadn't been considered and I'll thank you for suggesting it Chris and Ravien.  It's cruelly simple, just learn the instrument and write the music.  It's a no-fail skill so there's no chance of failure but progressive levels in "music" allows for more complex chords to be played.  Players can "build" music out of prewritten chords or "write" it from their own skill.  

So, that takes care of music...I think invention was mentioned as something that would be cool.

The crafting system is something of an "invention" system.  Basically, it allows players to create objects that do not presently exist and infuse those objects with skills.    Weapons fall under very, very vague descriptions.

For example, weapons are One-handed short, one-handed long, two-handed one point, two handed two points, one handed ranged, two handed ranged, and exotic.  They are subclassified as swords and such, but the game recognizes them by mass alone.

So making a one-handed small weapon could be a dagger or a hammer, or some bizzare combination.  Exotic can be anything you want...fire ring, bloodsucking vampiric cape, or any object that directly attacks enemies.  It can also fit the other classifications but do so uniquely.  A sword can be taught a specific skill, thus giving the character that skill while being wielded.  Just by being creative, players can "invent".  I'm not sure if you wanted something more "creating new technology", but you gotta admit, this is a pretty good start huh?  

Besides, I don't want airships and gun v. sword battles.  My Final Fantasy Rip-off is gonna happen further along, I can't jump ahead of schedule.  That's where we'll get summonded beings from beyond the realm of nightmare fighting giant robots powered by crystals containing the very life force of the planet itself.

Mmmmmm, I love the smell of copyright infringement in the morning.