PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Neryam on August 07, 2005, 05:17:20 pm
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After some time on the forum, the game and the planeshift website, I have discovered that first,
- Planeshift is supposed to be a very realistic world, hence the typing to talk with NPCs and the skill system.
- Planeshift is a pure fanatsy world, hence the \"Bent for medieval setting.\" in the recruitment page and the fantasy name requirement.
Therefore, I have come to the groundbreaking conclution that: Planeshift is a Realistic Fantasy World.
Note to devs, GMs, WTBs, and other members: The following is just things to think about, to make PS an MMORPG, and indeed, a game, that surpasses any other ever created. In no way do I expect them to be carried out soon, if at all. If any of these proposals are already being carried out or have been stated, please ignore them.
First of all, in almost every game, character motion is govened by animations and moving the ground underneath the character along with the feet to portray a walking or running of the character (Actually, PS does not do the latter yet). This is of course fine, but leads do a very linear game experience and character handling. What would change the world of gaming would be an engine that uses all the time a frame, I think it was called \"skeletal and dynamic driven animation\" or was it \"Rag doll\". Anyway, instead of a fixed animation for each action, what would be truly amazing would be a character that moves according to forces applied. A realistic character physics engine. A character model would be built around a skeleton with each polygon at a fixed location fron a joint. When the character gets hit with a very powerful blow (20% health?) It would be almost blown away due to frontal pressure. The back would curve away from the blow and the character would rise up and hit the ground. If it hits a wall it will stop and slide down. Of course, this is all but impossible with individual animation, but with a skeleton and collision detection system it would be possible. Another would be if a character jumps off from a high place (By the way, there is no jumping animation yet :/) And hits ground, his legs would bend down to take the impact more than if he just jumped. If it is too high, he would hit, and not crumple but simply hit the ground and fall at the same time, like in real life. This would add an incredible amount of effects, smoothness and realism never before seen in a game.
Secondly, in every game the base combat is generally hit - hit - hit... Or hit run.. etc. And there is a few diffrent animations for combos and the such, but this of course is not true-to life. Using a skeleton, one could accomplish such things such as slashes, parries, flips, backstrokes, and pretty much unlimited moves. of course, with a low level in a weapon, one would not be experienced enough; the character would do slashes and stabs or whatnot. Complexity would increase with level. when you block an enemy your sword could actually move up to block or stave off the enemy. it would not be turn based either. Each would attack at his own speed, and if the level is high when there is an opening in the enemy defense therefor a greater chance of hitting. If facing with your back to the enemy, unless your level is very high you would not be able to block attacks at all. When moving it would give you a better chance of being hit and missing because you are not concentrating of fighting. Such a combat system would be truly astounding.
Third, every MMORPG just has your character\'s level and if you play a long time it goes up etc etc. What would be even more immersing would be having a degree of control over the character\'s fighting, not quite like tekken, with much less control and combos (That would be too complicated and tedious) but more a degree of control. You would be able to strafe around your enemy, and if you press back you would break the attack and give you the ability to run away without the \"You are too far to attack\" sign.If you press forward you would press the attack and srafing around to try and get behind the enemy would give you more chance to hit greater. If the enemy gets lots of damage quickly (or not), if could stumble back in a way, and that would be a good opportunity to press the attack. Also, the only way to disengage from a fight would be to press back, so the fight inches back and forward as you gain ground or lose it. If you press the attack when the opponent is conident, that could lower your defense and do you harm. Then, there would be a few diffrent \"styles\" which you could learn from trainers that come from the left or right or from down or flips and from the top (and even from behind), and in diffrent landscapes , situations and monsters, these would give you an edge or not. As the player himself gets more experience the character will become powerful in combat. This would add a very interesting never-before seen element in duels and boss fights.
Of course, you would and would not need to do all this against rats. If you do not press anything the fight will just go on without and edge to either side. This player involvement is not a required part in fighting, otherwise the game ould become overly tedious. After all, you don\'t need a flip-slash stab to defeat a rat, a slash will do.
Next, in real life, people do NOT just \'gain a level\' and suddenly become stronger. The levelup system should be scrapped because it is an all-too familiar element that exists in EVERY SINGLE RPG. Instead there should be just two big bars of total experience, with a learning bar and a practice bar. The practice bar stops growing when it reaches the learning bar, and you will need to learn a bit to start advancing yor practice again. When using your skill, you will get results based on practice, not learing, but learning would be essential to increase your practice. Success/Damage etc would increase gradually based on the total experience (practice) in that skill. In smithing and magic and stuff, you would need a certain number of learning in that skill to cast a certain spell or make a certain weapon.
Characters also get stronger physically with loth of sword/axe/maxe etc fighting, so the character strength should inch up with continuous fighting. Not very much, just a little, but enough that you can feel a diffrence in a week or two of fighting. The same would apply with will, intelligence and charsima. This would add an additional realism element in the game ans will definitely set it far apart from other MMORPGs, especially the experience part.
PS: And what RPG would be complete without the ability to charm monsters and use them to help attack things? Even RIDE them?! A wild pterasaur mabye.. Then monster mounts would become another part of the player economy and would add yet ANOTHER ineresting element to the game! Charming could be done with various magic ways I suppose and would only work when the monster is weak in mind. Strong monsters and other certain monsters would be un-charmable or simply harder to charm. (I mean, charming a rogue would be just stupid.)
Continued on 8.Aug
An RPG should have lots of things other than fighting monsters to do, fun things. LOTS of things. Otherwise, no matter what the point of the game is people will go fight in sewers to get their money. I know that there are already a great deal of money-making skills planned, but some other, unique things would also be interesting. For instance, there could be \"Guild Wars\" (No, no realtionship with the game) where 2 rival guilds could fight with several rare items or perhaps tria at stake. Perhaps even their allies could fight alongside each other. There would be no duel option, and people from the enemy guild would be treated in the interface just like monsters. Of course, thhis will lead to a chaotic clash with people milling about everywhere, so to prevent this there could be a more advanced map layout to add interest. Melee, Sword, etc fighters could fight at the bottom while mages (And of course more spells will be added right?) and rangers fire from ramparts. Of course, fighters could take a trip up to the rampart to take care of a few of the mages. Enemy people would be marked and you shouldn\'t even be able to click on allies to decrease confusion.
Will continue later.. :rolleyes:
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1. Think of the bandwidth and computing power needing for ragdoll physics in a MMORPG world with hundreds of other players and entities in the game. Not possible in this day and age.
2. Good luck coding something as complex as that for an online game. Singleplayer, fine, but in a MMORPG there are many other factors to consider, including latency and synchronisation.
3. PS is not level-based, and what you\'re suggesting is pretty much what we are already aiming for.
4. Mounts and animal training is already something PS will have. Methinks you\'ve not read very much. :)
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Mounts.. All I found was stuff about no horses. ever. :p
Yes, I understand all that about the technology constraints, but by the time you do all the more important stuff (What.. 4, 5 more years?) I am quite sure fairly cheap servers would be able to handle such a system, perhaps networking em together would help too... I mean 6 or 7 years ago, We bought one of the top computers on the market, a pentinum II 300 something MHz! Now this computer I have is pretty bottom line and Its like 7 times as fast.. :p
Those things don\'t have to be implemented in the final release of PS anyway. Someting like version 1.5 would be cool.. :P By then surely there will be technology..
And the xp system.. but now its still level-based.. And if you practice and learn but don\'t bump up your level nothing changes.. are you gonna change that then? :))
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The server isn\'t the problem. Clients must be able to handle it, both in terms of power and bandwidth. There will always be people using weak computers and connections because better things arn\'t available in their area. Implementing this would deny them the ability to play the game at all.
And btw, mounts are discussed in the Settings part of the Player\'s Guide.
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A cluster of a few thousand machines only takes a few months to render an hour of that, what\'s the problem? :P
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While all these would be well and good for this game, they aren\'t probable. The servers are half the problem. Something like this would require a huge amount of space, and fast servers, to relay to people at a decent speed. This is possible in this day and age, just not for a free game. It would be a monthly fee type deal to afford the servers necessary to run this sort of stuff.
If you want something like what you are talking about check out Dark and Light, that may tickle your fancy.
The client based part is also right. Some people that want to play may not be able to afford god awsome computers, or have access to them in their area.
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Well.. in 6 years.. I\'m willing to bet that this sorta stuff will be commonplace. 6 Years ago 3D graphics hardly existed because computers were not good enough! :P
OK I\'ll rant some more about stuff that will be more easily acheivable. :D
And moogie: Sure, but the settings page didn\'t mention anything about charming.. :]
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Neryam is right, probably in 5-6 years the technology will be 5x Faster and w.e.. but ur not just gonna wait 6 years to continue a game or a part of the game. You may as well try to acheive other elements of the game. Maybe raise the requirements of the game so that the computers around the world are faster and co-operate with the game much better. (Just a thought). I kno some people have very slow computers but i mean, even the cheapest of like Dell or whatnot is like 499 with keyboard+speakers+monitor and decent system. No need to live in the past.
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Dunno, At the rate of progress I\'m expecting mabye 4-6 years till this game is done... Then this could be realistically achieved in PS 1.5.0 or someting :D
But I have an idea... Correct me if I\'m wrong because I don\'t know any C++ and very little about servers and server programming but.. Could anything like client-side effects be realistic?
Let\'s say the server stores and retrieves everything from the db and sends and recieves stuff from the client. RIght now what I\'m guessing is that the server does all the math and algorithims stuff and all that. What if (In the skeleton/rag doll thing) the ONLY thing the server did was send numbers from the db to the client (And store things to the db) and the client did everything else, incluing the rag doll models based on the numbers it gets and everything! That would decrease the load on the server a hundredfold and Crush latency!! Mabye the advanced combat system too. And when the number resolves and all the animations are taking place in the hit, block or whatever the client sends the numbers back to the server and the server stores that number and sends it to anyone else who needs it!
The client needs to do the models for only the characters it can see and the target, the group info can just be displayed with numbers. So then the client computer just has to do at most 20(?) models in a VERY crowded area (Characters far away don\'t need the animation) And the server could handle many many more people...
Of course, this would spawn false clients and stuff that send false umbers to the client but mabye there could be some key imbedded in the real client that would crash the client if the server didn\'t detect it :))
Would this work? Mabye not enven in the rad dolls/advanced combat but even now, I think it would almost erase latancy and server load.. But not so much bandwith perhaps.
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Well, what probably would happen as a result of that would be a lot more hacking. People changing the code recived etc.
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Of course, that\'s why I said
Originally posted by Neryam
Of course, this would spawn false clients and stuff that send false numbers to the client but mabye there could be some key imbedded in the real client that would crash the client if the server didn\'t detect it :))
There should be some countermeasure appliable..
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a nice quote to this.. Whenever there is something good, there is something equally as devastating around the corner.
What i mean by this is, there is just no solution to problems sometimes.
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Yeah thats true... but for this problem there is a fix..
I know, mabye the equations and rules could be in a small locked file that the server re-downloads onto your computer everytime you play the game so even if you got in, your changes would get overwritten. :D
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Originally posted by Neryam
Well.. in 6 years.. I\'m willing to bet that this sorta stuff will be commonplace. 6 Years ago 3D graphics hardly existed because computers were not good enough! :P
6 years ago Wolfenstein 3D was stoneage, Doom and Quake were old, and Quake 2 was just beginning to show age.
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Neryam.. redownloading the files and having them locked in a little locked sector would probably be pretty hard let alone re-downloadin it everytime to your computer just to check if you are cheating or not. Just a thought...
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Each time you start your client and log in. That\'s not so much.. Besides, since it would only contain A few equations and code, so it would be very small... No more than a few kilobytes I would expect. Instead of locked I would say in an unused format that can\'t be opened in notepad or whatever.
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Well, im not a programmer.. im taking an AP programming class in school this year but for now, im really no help. You would have to ask one of the devs for now.
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well the part of the fighting animations IS possible..
you just need to make an other movement, it doesnt need to be much, just a few (like 3-5) and about the hard smack on the ground, you can just make the character walk a bit backwards and bend over, nothing more.
if somebody can export the cal3d models to anything blender can use i want to make some of those animations....
anybody feels the same?
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Having all sorts of attacks (and attack animations) \"would be cool\", but really, the question is who is going to do all the animating? Characters *do* have skeletal animation, but we don\'t have ragdoll physics (yet), although I could imagine it happening in the distant future I don\'t see it as a priority. The combat will also never be \'twitch\' based, although I\'d like to see a wider variety of attack styles, but this would wait for different types attacks dependant on skill.
Once we have a way of applying an animation to all character models (we don\'t yet), and perhaps an easy way to create skeletal animations (for various slices, dodges, etc.) matching the different animations to random attacks would be easy.
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So, a possibility of a more variaty based combat structure in the future.. Hm, maybe my programming class may be of a bit use at the end of the year :P
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in my experience (and this is by using my eyes as debuggers) there is no real reason behind client crashes. (not for the previous reson) There is also no good reason to make a program that you have to recompile, and I have seen many perfectly fast examples (good luck finding them).
Back to the name of the post, physics info can be transferred by seperate reader/writers* that are extremely small and are virtually invisible - therefor no hacks are possible. And they can use the lowest level, binary, to communicate, so no huge data transfers.
Also, packet tracking, by putting ids on each item sent online will keep creatures from pseudo-rubberbanding. You just make sure that the \'client\' only accepts the most recent i.d.
As for recieving attacks, since it is easy to detect whether you are in battle or not, a reader/writer can be loaded for each individual battle, and send binary (meaning very easy communication) signals for ragdoll stuff.
To those innocent bystanders, if the system detects that you are watching the battle, then it loads the reader/writer and feeds you the info. If not, you only see a simple distress animation in the corner of the screen.
By the time this game needs any of this, there should be a movement for adding servers. Each server could take care of each individual system, like earth, gravity, combat, sky, chat, wind, water, plants, etc. This way the server vs. players ratio could be cut down.
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*reader/writer is not the standard name, I have never heard of them, I know they exist the way they do because I could program one.
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i just read through all of your suggestions and while some of them i can imagine happening now (like strafing and dealing more damage from behind a monster) the others are just too complex for an mmorpg my computer barely runs PS as it is and i dont want to stop playing this game because ppl want it to surpass the greatest technologies of the day
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you know... there is an amazing concept called:
Upgrade your computer.
:)
I would rather 10 people still on a pentium II to just get a new comp. or something rather than the rest of us have to suffer if the PS Team has the ability to do any of this realistically.
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Originally posted by Neryam
Secondly, in every game the base combat is generally hit - hit - hit... Or hit run.. etc. And there is a few diffrent animations for combos and the such, but this of course is not true-to life. Using a skeleton, one could accomplish such things such as slashes, parries, flips, backstrokes, and pretty much unlimited moves. of course, with a low level in a weapon, one would not be experienced enough; the character would do slashes and stabs or whatnot. Complexity would increase with level. when you block an enemy your sword could actually move up to block or stave off the enemy. it would not be turn based either. Each would attack at his own speed, and if the level is high when there is an opening in the enemy defense therefor a greater chance of hitting. If facing with your back to the enemy, unless your level is very high you would not be able to block attacks at all. When moving it would give you a better chance of being hit and missing because you are not concentrating of fighting. Such a combat system would be truly astounding.
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wait do you mean something like the 3d zelda combat stylee (i like stylee better then style)? because THAT WOULD FUDGING OWN! yes i said fudging
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Originally posted by Arklari Rereler
you know... there is an amazing concept called:
Upgrade your computer.
:)
I would rather 10 people still on a pentium II to just get a new comp. or something rather than the rest of us have to suffer if the PS Team has the ability to do any of this realistically.
Agreed. Further, planeshift is a long term project. 5 years from now, do you think we\'ll all be using pentium IV technology? No.
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Yay my thread was ressurected :D
For this one I heartily agree with shal.
Umm black_rose, perhaps cause I don\'t know the 3-d zelda fighting style :P
Probably. Cause this will fudging own yes :D
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Originally posted by Arklari Rereler
you know... there is an amazing concept called:
Upgrade your computer.
:)
I would rather 10 people still on a pentium II to just get a new comp. or something rather than the rest of us have to suffer if the PS Team has the ability to do any of this realistically.
Can they all afford it? Is it something they feel they need to do(upgrade for just this one game)? Quite possibly not. I know that there hasnt been a single game I have that I upgraded my PC JUST for that particular game. My PC is almost 2 years old(2600XP, 1GB PC 2700, Audigy2ZS(NOT getting Platinum, no need), FX5900 video card), and it runs all the games I play just fine, so no need to upgrade for me. BTW, my net connection is a Netgear 54MB Gigabit(Comcast is provider), and Im getting lag.... FIX LAG!
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No, well in 5 years I doubt you have that same computer and I assure you when a computer passes the 3 1/2 year mark almost no games run on it. :/
Lag is not you connection or your computers fault. There are faulty connections and bad wiring and Fragnetics is working to fix it. Everybody is getting bad server lag as of now.
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Originally posted by Neryam
No, well in 5 years I doubt you have that same computer and I assure you when a computer passes the 3 1/2 year mark almost no games run on it. :/
Lag is not you connection or your computers fault. There are faulty connections and bad wiring and Fragnetics is working to fix it. Everybody is getting bad server lag as of now.
Up until 1 1/2 years ago. I was using a Dell Dimension 4400 (866Mhz P3, 512MB(256MB stick upgrade)ATI 128MB 8500 AIW(upgrade), 16-bit SB sound card, that was was about 3 years old then, still ran my games. BTW, Im not one of those who goes out to buy \"the latest thing\". Id prefer to let others deal with bugs, exploitss, and the like. Ill wait from 6 months to a year on average to buy a game, because I get a well patched version at a lot less cost.
Im glad they\'re working to fix lag, would help alot.