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Corv
Leader of Titans of Ether
Leader of Titans of Ether


Joined: 29 Jul 2021
Posts: 582
Location: Tirol, Austria

PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:07 am    Post subject: FEATURE LIST

Take a look at the FEATURE LIST. (There is also a link on the homepage)

If there are Features missing you want to have in the game or if you have questions to existing features dont hesitate to post.

Corv
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Thepal
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 12:36 pm    Post subject:

How will you be doing the schedules?
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Corv
Leader of Titans of Ether
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Joined: 29 Jul 2021
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Location: Tirol, Austria

PostPosted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 1:26 pm    Post subject:

I am thinking of several ways to do it at the moment. Basically it wont be that at a certain time the NPCs will just be "teleported" where they should be at that time, but they will walk there. (like Fargoth in MW walked to his tree at night). When the way is settled I can let you know for your project.
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Thepal
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 10, 2021 1:44 am    Post subject:

My project's schedules will probably be done soon anyway. The most complex way I could possibly think of, of course Razz
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aubergine
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Joined: 19 Sep 2021
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 1:58 pm    Post subject:

Hi there, glad to see this is all still progressing.

An Australian PC games mag recently had a small column about UIX:Redemption, which has ultimately led me here. Pununintential.

I'm not a programmer, I write plays and skecth comedy mainly, but I had a dream set vaguely in the post-Ascension universe a couple of years ago, the plot of which I thought would make for a good game.

More recently I decided to develop the idea, and started thinking about what I'd like the game to feature. I started writing a document, then realised I'd be stupid not to play Morrowind first, to make sure my "advances" had not been done already.

Morrowind is awesome. But in terms of what I'd like to see with NPC AI (which I'd based on what isn't in Ascension) it still falls short.

If this "game theory" is of any use, please feel free. Otherwise, I'm not a programmer, but I might be able to write script or story ideas, and also do voice work (if that's useful from a person on the other side of the world.)

What I haven't mentioned in the excerpt from this document is NPC Schedules. I see you're already talking about it. I've never understood why Ultima V had such a great NPC schedule system and no other RPG I've played since has really come close. NPC's that eternally drink, man their shops, or wander aimlessly outside, suck.

An RPG should have a calendar, with weeks and months. each NPC should have a weekly shedule (eg 5 days of manning the shop, eating, sleeping, one day at home, one day at the lake) or even a random element to their shedule (eg a pauper NPC could randomly go to sleep in a number of set locations, or even fight other paupers at random for that choice spot under the bridge). Then, NPCs might have yearly events, eg birthdays, religious holidays, whatever.

Then their should be specialised, travelling NPC's who (on their yearly schedule) will be in certain towns and cities, or dungeons.

Here's the other stuff I started writing about NPC AI, which I'll paste in:

(note that this is from an unfinished first draft)

This document is to be a ‘treatment’ for a computer game, the working title for which is halfheart. The purpose of the document is to summarise the generalities of the game’s action, and how that action reveals the game’s story.

halfheart is a role playing game with a single antagonist, who can act alone, gather a party, and eventually, command an army.

This takes place in a persistent gameworld, where the player can choose to take part in the plot or not. However, the plot of the game and certain events will move forward whether the player is actively taking part in the plot or not. A loner character existing as a thief may find the city he is preying on unexpectedly becomes a warzone, he would not know the reasons for the war on account of not taking part in wider events. Were the player taking part in different events, that particular city might never see battle, or a different side might win, or the war be prevented altogether, or the planet destroyed. Some outcomes can only be brought about by the player, and some can only be prevented by the player, but most of the possible outcomes in the game will occur with or without the player’s involvement.

Well, how the hell does that work? I propose forming an extremely well balanced NPC system where every NPC has their own particular goals and influence, and so befriending, working for, angering or assassinating particular NPC’s can result in the overall story events being extremely different. While there is a major, global plot with several possible outcomes, the day to day lives of individual NPCs form a web of smaller plots, the outcomes of which will affect the way in which the major plots can be approached. You cannot befriend someone who has been killed, or defend a city which was destroyed, or enlist an army which reviles your existence because they think you assassinated their King.

Here is some samples of how this works. Manneheim, leader of an assassins guild, offers you a mission to kill the local mayor. The player has the option of accepting or refusing the offer to Manneheim’s face. Refused, he may become your enemy, imprison you until someone else finishes the job, or not offer you work anymore. If the player says ‘yes’ to Manneheim then goes sightseeing instead of killing the mayor, after a certain time he will put out a contract on the player. The player might then have to flee that city or face a number of assassins who might track him and kill him in his sleep. Or the player might find it ultimately most convenient to kill Manneheim himself.

The Mayor will then have his own motivations and policies. Kill him, and shop and transport prices might rise or fall, certain buildings might not be built, and certain assassins guilds might not be rooted out and destroyed by city police. The replacement Mayor will have his own motivations and policies. Sparing the original Mayor will have some repercussions, as will going to the Mayor and telling him he has a contract on his head.

This is hardly a new concept, but what I am talking about is taking the options/repercussions in the game to a rare proportion, where many, many characters in the game will affect the outcome of other events depending on whether the player sides with, against, or ignores them. At the smallest level, a baker might have a feud with a local urchin; side with the baker for free bread, side with the urchin for a possible party member who is an able thief, though with little loyalty. Or ignore them both, they probably don’t matter. Unless, if you ignore them long enough, Manneheim hires the urchin to kill the Mayor because the player never checked out that door down the alley.

Whether the player gets involved or not, Manneheim will still want the Mayor dead, the urchin will still want money and food, assuming that some other interest hasn’t altered things yet again. The idea is to have the player take part in a larger series of events, not walk up to static characters who stand in rooms infinitely offering missions that are available whenever the player wants to take them.

If the player takes up with an assassins guild he will likely be working alone. Should the player go to work for the Mayor, maybe against the assassins guild, he might be given a squad of city police to work with or even command.

The other major NPC element, which has a particular influence on party-based gameplay (whether it is 5 NPCs or 5000) are the factors reputation, experience, variables and orders = leadership and trust (r.e.v.o.l.t.) Yes, I came up with a crappy acronym.

This feature, again, is no new idea, except the depth to which it should extend. The player would not have direct control over party members. Combat formations and tactics would be planned prior to any engagements. Battle would occur in real-time, though the player would be able to use a pause function to enter commands (which would be instantaneous in real life) like shouting new tactics to a party member eg switch weapons, flank, retreat. Depending on the revolt system, party members will either obey, make their own battle choices (like weapon switching, berserking, or retreating) or turn against you outright, either attacking you or fleeing, not to return to the party. The revolt system also determines who would even join your party in the first place, as well as most NPC interactions during the game (everything from marketeers, employers and enemies in battle will be affected by it.)

As this is to be a gameworld where everyone exists as convincingly as possible (and not just a gameworld that exists waiting for the player to walk through a door and a cutscene begin) the revolt system is a relationship between the NPCs and the player-character affected as much by the environment and the NPCs priorities as the player’s “scores”. For example, in many games “reputation” is a value on a statistics screen which changes when the player kills a peasant or gets caught stealing, as if reputation is a badge or aura that floats above the player-character’s head for all to see. This is usually in games where NPCs mill about in the streets 24 hours a day as if they have nothing to actually do and don’t need sleep. In halfheart, there is no guaranteed way for the player to know what an NPC thinks of him, or knows about him, until the NPCs actions indicate one way or the other.

Here is a breakdown of the revolt system and some examples of how it would affect gameplay

reputation: in the context of the plot of the game, this is more complex than simply whether the player has been caught stealing or murdering or being heroic. However, if the player is caught stealing or murdering or being heroic, the news will not instantly zap into the minds of all the local townsfolk. In the case of crime, a “shouting” system would let the witnessing NPC attempt to alert other NPCs. Depending on the individual disposition of those NPCs, they might come to help the witness, or continue the shout. Factors like distance, location, time of day and surrounding activity would determine whether or not the initial or succeeding “shouts” are heard by anyone.

Given time, and trusting that the player doesn’t successfully appease or murder all witnesses, a whole area will become aware of the player-character’s actions. This does not necessarily mean that all NPCs will simply start attacking the player or flee on sight. Some will know and won’t give a damn. Some will have forgotten. Some, such as an assassin’s guild, might regard it as a plus, and likewise, some NPCs will look down upon a heroic reputation.

The other major element of reputation is also particular to each NPC, and that is being judged by your looks. There are two warring races in the game, the Humbans and the Gou’cgh-lin. The Humban tongue reduced Gou’cgh-lin to Goblin over time, and the Gou’cgh-lin’s gutteral tongue reduced Humban to Hoo-Mahn. Over millennia of conflict, the languages developed until even the Gou’cgh-lin called themselves Goh-lins, and the Humbans knew themselves has Humans. These two mighty societies have spread across a continent and exist on either side of a fragile neutral zone for the sole reason that neither side has yet managed to annihilate the other.

The player character is, seemingly impossibly, half human, half goblin. He, and the character is a ‘he’, will have a hard time making friends.

experience: is, quite simply, the experience that NPCs have had of the player-character. Yes, the traditional experience system of an RPG applies and is an element in the player-character’s overall leadership rating, but it is also the actions, choices, successes and failures that an NPC has seen the player commit. A party of puritans will object to the player stealing bread from the baker, and a party of pirates will look down on him paying for food. If your battle plans result in injury or death of party members, the others might be more likely to do what they want instead. Then again, give party members healing potions and trust will rise, as it will depending on how booty is shared, or the general success or failure of missions.

variables: other, external elements come into play which affects how a party functions. As with those elements which affect the “shout” system for reputation alerts described earlier, if in combat, the player has the option of calling out new commands on the fly to party members. Depending on the context - environment, distances, ambient sounds, battle noise - the party members might not even be able to hear, regardless of whether they would choose to obey the commands anyway. Depending on location, different times of day or night will also affect noise levels, visibility levels and other factors. Basically “variables” can mean pretty much bloody anything so all the things I haven’t thought of can go under that heading, later.

orders: by this I don’t mean the orders the player gives to party members, but the pre-existing priorities that exist within the NPCs. A city police team may have been ordered under your command by the Mayor, which gives you a certain amount of pull with them to commit certain acts. The total strength of the player-characters leadership rating with any individual NPC will be a conflict between what that NPC’s pre-existing priorities and loyalties are and however your reputation, experience and other variables are helping or hindering them. It is not clear-cut that your police squad will turn on you the first time you do something they disapprove of, because the “bad” value of the action is weighed against the strength of the Mayor’s command that they obey you, as well as their other personal experience of the player.

leadership and trust: contributing also to the leadership rating is charisma and, depending upon the NPCs you are trying to lead, any of the other attributes. Eg barbarians might have more respect for physical strength than the displays of intelligence and guile that an assassins guild might value. The stronger the player’s bond of leadership with an NPC party-member, the greater the NPC’s trust is going to be, and so these two ratings are basically the same. The trust or lack there-of which the player-character inspires in non-party-member NPCs is still going to be based on the elements of revolt.

To a degree, the gameplay morphs depending on the choices of the player. The fantasy setting world can be explored by a loner character, who would rely on stealth and single combat. NPCs offer missions which can be completed or ignored, with decisions to accept or refuse a mission having consequences on the plot, as well as the decisions to accept then not complete a mission.
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Corv
Leader of Titans of Ether
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2021 5:32 pm    Post subject:

I like some of your ideas! And parts of your ideas are in Redemption. I get your main goal: The worlds life should also go on if you dont participate. The system of how Redemption should work concerning NPCs is quite set and I think a game that has the features you described has a really different gamedesign than the basic design of any Ultima. This doesnt mean we wont improve the possibilities and the NPC design in Redemption (compared to older Ultimas) but it means that the design you described is for a game that has quite different "gameplay-goals" than what we try to do.

You also have to think about what sounds cool on the paper but then doesnt really work ingame OR works but infact doesnt really infact the gameplay. Some things you mentioned would take alot of time to script but then in the end wouldnt give as much in return in form of improved gameplay. Think about the "shout system" and the fact that maybe others do your job if you dont do it. It really sounds good, but then ingame. Is it fun to hear that another did what you were supposed to do? Does it really affect gameplay if the news spread slower and some NPC remember and others not? I think those things are good for special things that take place ingame, but are too complex for a general handling of events. You should always concentrate on every single event thats going on in a game and decide for each event how it should be handled so that the player has most fun with it, I think.

This is only my oppinion and obviously we have similar thoughts about design but at the same time in a completely different way (if this makes sense Wink )

Maybe you should try and start your own project. I would be very interested in how some of your ideas turn out to be!
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aubergine
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Joined: 19 Sep 2021
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Location: Brisbane, Australia

PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:33 am    Post subject:

Thanks for your postitive comments. I just think a lot of it is a natural progression of what we've seen in games like Morrowind. The level of graphical detail is not what will progress so much further in RPGs because graphics are not the RPG experience: it's suspending your disbelief that you are not some fantastic character in some fantastic world. Personally I think it would be easier to improve the realism of NPC-AI than the realism of graphics - imagine making Morrowind with Doom 3/Half-Life 2 detail!

Whereas with what I'm talking about, you just write a great steaming heap of text for conversations (I prefer text to voice-based, at least the games are helping reading levels then) and set up your own middle-ware for NPC parameters. eg couldn't one feasibly design a simple, drag and click NPC-ware where you simply fill in a timesheet and click on objects in the gameworld for that character to "use" or "go to" at certain times? (eg: bed, work, the hollow stump) then weekends and "special events" for certain days of the year.

Without wanting to repeat that huge post again, the main reason I think what I've talked about would be "fun" is that, essentially, you might wind up with a game with massive replay value, without necessarily relying on a huge gameworld (though I want that too, of course). The guys who designed Spiderman 2 (the console version, which was good) said something about how they wanted the story "to happen to the player, to Spider-man, as he's just trying to go about his normal day" and I think that worked very well in that game. The difference here would be, the player would completely decide what their normal day would be.

Playing Morrowing further, I've found the only letdown of the experience is that NPCs don't behave in a realistic way, and I feel this lets down my need for clever thinking when it comes to fighting/stealing etc. With the quests set on Eternity mode, there is no sense of urgency. Don't get me wrong, this is among the greatest games I've ever played. I can just see it going somewhere further.

As for putting my own development team together, I wouldn't know what to do. I'm a scriptwriter, not a programmer, and I'm pretty sure I'm not mathematically inclined enough to learn programming at this late stage of life. Any suggestions?

Quote:
(Corv wrote) "Think about the "shout system" and the fact that maybe others do your job if you dont do it. It really sounds good, but then ingame. Is it fun to hear that another did what you were supposed to do? Does it really affect gameplay if the news spread slower and some NPC remember and others not?"


Again, it's just about realism - actions or lack of action having consequences. People do not necessarily play games to have fun, at least in a direct sense. That sounds stupid I know - "play=fun" - but I think that people play games - sports, Ikaragua, RPGs - to get emotionally involved, and that involvement will involved achievement and frustration. If the frustration is caused by something reasonable (that level 50 boss monster) and not just crappy controls or something, then the frustration itself creates the possibility of achievement and so iteself becomes part of the fun. Later.

Anyway, better realism with strong storytelling and competent game mechanics will lead to a more emotionally involving game experience and, ultimately, fun.
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Corv
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 23, 2021 12:03 pm    Post subject:

As I said we have similar thoughts about this, so I want to make this clear:

We WILL have a schedule for NPCs. They will do their daily routine. Go to their shop in the morning - or out in the field..., go home tonight (or in a tavern and then home), some will go fishing, etc.. So it will be a real alive world. As for Morrowind, yes it was a good game, but not really one of my favourites. Alone the fact that NPCs stood (or walked) around day and night, rain or sunshine whereever they were initially placed took away alot of realism (and yes fun) for the player. What I tried to say in my post before was not that the ideas in general are too complex to implement them, but you have to take care of how far you go. I agree that RPGs should develop in terms of realism and not really in terms of graphics (although our 2 games will look ALOT better than Morrowind or U9). Grapics should support the atmosphere, the immersion, not more.

I think that our NPC system will be far more complex than the one of Morrowind. I also agree with the text. We wont overload the player with useless info like in was the case in Morrowind. But what is said is important and detailed. People wont jsut "talk" to the NPCs but also get a text description of how the NPC behaves, what he does, etc... This is very immersive in my eyes and supports the feeling of being in themiddle of a great book - not because theres so much txt but because its as immersive as reading a great book.

We will also take care of appropriate reactions of NPCs to what the player does. But concentrate here on specific things. To support the feeling of an alive world. I hated when you did something in Morrowind and even those NPCs that were immediately involved didnt really react on it. So dont worry that there will be actions withouts consequences.

Its also important to say, that the player will have alot of opportunities to LIVE his life in Britannia - so he doesnt only have to follow the main plot. I dont mean side quests here, but things that will make the whole world more realistic and make it fun playing the game completely outside of whats the main plot really about.

All this things we will implement will be well designed and cost alot of developing time. Those things will be fun for sure and realistic. I wish you knew HOW realistic some features like snmithing and fletching will be. So dont fear that realism isnt important for me, its one of the most imortant things in the whole design, because I think the more (well desinged and realistic) possibilities you give the player the more fun he will have.

EDIT: I even dare to say that some of the features in game will be more detailed and more fun than in any RPG before. Only a Morrowind with all available realism mods will be able to compete, but there we will ahve a betrer NPV system and a more immersive story again. So we do nothing less than create the best RPG ever - for us at least (since finally its all a matter of taste).
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