PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Moogie on August 16, 2003, 11:13:15 pm
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Hiya everyone,
I\'ve been playing a game called Monster & Me lately. Great fun... and it\'s given me an idea for PS.
In M&M, there\'s an Inn in each town in the world. If you so choose, you can Register in an Inn, so that the next time you log into the game, you start at your chosen town.
I think this would be a nice idea to consider for PlaneShift. If we\'re planning to have a massive world with eight or more levels, there most definitely should be a way to save your progress in travelling.
The one thing I hate most is disconnecting at an unopportune time, only to find yourself back in the same spawn point miles away from your previous location.
I understand that, as it is right now, you rejoin the game in the last place you stood when you left the server. Although this can be argued as being better than the suggested idea I have here, I would counter by pointing out the potential problems that could be encountered.
For example, you may have deliberately disconnected in order to escape a grizzly fate in a dungeon with monsters who were kicking your behind. Perhaps you got stuck, or crashed in one paticular spot... think that, when you rejoin the game, you\'re thrown back into exactly the same situation.
Respawning in a town nearby means you will spend less time traveling and can escape such disasterous situations. It allows you to recuperate, perhaps stocking up on healing items and upgrading your equipment, before moving out to tackle the mobs again.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Opinions and additions are welcome. :)
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This is actually part of a much larger design issue... darn gonna need to think about this for a bit.
OK think I\'ve got some stuff, and just to clear things up, when I say \"dungeon\" that just means an area with hostile creatures.
OK lets just throw out a few points then, firstly a player should not be able to manually log out when in combat or when they are inside a dungeon. So perhaps there would be certain sacred areas that were basically \"save points\" you could log out at and set as a spawn point. Such points could also be setup by players in the world, although probably not in a hostile area.
So basically if you got very far in a dungeon and had to leave, youl\'d be screwed. If the areas are numerous enought though, that you would never have to be in an area for more than maybe an hour or two with out being able to reach one, that might be fair thought, since you would never lose that much progress. The other option though, is having items or spells that let you teleport back to a save point. If such things only let you return to the last point you recorded at, I think that is pretty fair, but I haven\'t thought out all the issues surrounding that.
As for the game crashing or you getting booted by the server, I assume the game could tell the difference between that and someone logging off. In that case you should probably just come back right where you were, if that keeps a monster from killing you, just chalk it up to good luck. I guess you could manually crash the game, but if that can be detected as something different from the game crashing on its own or a server kick, maybe the game could tell and just leave the player there just standing idle until they log back on, and whatever happens to them happens.
Hmmmm, now that I think of it though that might be the best way to handle death as well. When you die, you just simply return to the last point you saved with all your items and stats reset to when you saved there, like in any normal single-player RPG game. I\'m not trying to think of any logic to go along with that, but I just think it\'s a very fair way to do things as opposed to all those complications of taking experience and item losses when you die and stuff. Of course though I still don\'t remember if that suggestion about having to travel through a realm of the dead to return to life was something the devs were thinking about using, but I\'m pretty sure that could still work here.
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Both of those systems are exploitable to evade death or punishment. If you get into a situation that is too dangerous for you, you are gonna pay. You need to consider each situation and make sure your character or group can handle it before you get in there. And if your group leaves you stranded in the middle of the dungeon, I\'d seriously consider not grouping with them anymore. :-)
- Venge
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Completely agree with Vemge here: there aren\'t any easy solutions to allowing chacrtors to risk there next, yet still have a life line without leaving a loophole for people to abuse. My preference would be to make the situations less risky, and chaulk up all sudden deaths as mistakes.
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Well the problem with the save spot and when you die is that you wouldn\'t want to loss all your experince that you had gained. I propose it be worked like this.
If in combat you have a flag that will not let you quit.
If you go linkdead, you continue fighting (NPC) style for a set amount of time.
Experience should be kept and not dependant on your last save because then what happens is you could get a nice weapon, sell it and off load the money. Then return to your saved point with the weapon and sell again. As you can see unlimited money supply =). So we don\'t want that. I don\'t know if exp is lost after dead as I\'m new to the game and havent\' died yet hehe.
you should be able to quit at any place you want as long as your not in combat and return there. If your in a dangerous place and come back and get killed right away then thats whats call job hazard =).
Uzaree
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Problem with being able to leave any time is you could leave when you saw a monster but before you were in combat. And I don\'t understand what you are saying about the save point thing, it would revert EVERYTHING if you restart at it, not just your experience, but seeing as you think you can die in the game it\'s clear you don\'t exactly have the best understanding of what\'s going on here anyway... now would someone please tell me what was wrong with my idea, no one seems to have actually said what the loophole there is (I\'m sure there is one, I just want to know).
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Why not have the avatar stay in game for like 30 seconds after the user signs off, then if there\'s trouble they will be fair game.
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Well I didn\'t say leave at any time, I said leave at any place.
EverQuest you can camp were ever want.
Dark Ages of Camalot you can camp anywhere also.
Having a \"Grace period\" before you camp out of the game is a good idea.
I say this because on Raids like in EQ in the plain of Sky on the seventh island it wouldn\'t be for to do a 15 hour raid and have to start all over again. because you logged off or got booted.
Just my $0.02
\"My job is to Mezz until dead, It or Me.\"
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there are always issues with people exploiting the \'leave game\' option in online games... but then again there is also the Real Life factor that people can\'t always play computer games and sometimes NEED to be able to leave immediately... so I have a hard timeing seeing any of the currently mentioned solutions really working practically.
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Yes but with that real life factor and times when you really NEED to leave, the game should not be a concern. If you really have to leave so immediately that you cannot go and legally espcape from combat or a dungeon or whatever, then the what happens in the game clearly isn\'t releveant, as long as the penalties for death aren\'t to harsh it\'s not that big a deal.
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Originally posted by Wedge
Yes but with that real life factor and times when you really NEED to leave, the game should not be a concern.
you forget how obsessive gamers can be at times :P
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Yes well at that point I think maybe it\'s time they seek some professional help...
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Pah! He doesnt know what he\'s talking about...
*sits all alone in a darkened room, no social life, no exercise, with red rimmed eyes, and divorce papers in the waste paper bin*
Nah, I am not quite as bad as that, not yet... Besides I am not married, not yet...
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Ooh I know! There could be inns near the entrances to dungeons which you would be transported back to if you died (let\'s pretend a kindly traveller found you and brought you there to rest). You wouldn\'t get experience reset or anything though. Also, you could only teleport or spawn back at the inn if you were in a room where there were no monsters, and you had shut the doors.
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What exactly is the downside to dying then?
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Maybe nothing? Maybe they havn\'t decided yet. I hope the penalties arn\'t too strict, though.
I\'n M&M when you die, you lose Reputation (these points are gained whenever you fight and increase your chances of receiving battle rewards when a monster dies). You don\'t however lose anything else like items, cash or exp.
I try my hardest to never die in games that have harsh penalties, however, this means that I usually crawl through games at a very slow pace and take very little risks. Not that exciting, really.
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people: the devs seem to be fairly strong headed :D don\'t you think they have already discussed the issue of death and how it should be handled? :P We really don\'t have that long till the next version... And if you search the forums there are several nice hints thrown in by the devs... you just need to look for them - I\'ll give you a hint though - the best hint can be found posted by one of the devs in a thread that i have responded to... start searching muahahah
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I think we now have a good idea of the fundamentals of the game rules, like the skill based system and the magic system, but as other devs said, we do not want to disclose more information just to avoid confusions. Until we implement those rules in game (and even after!), everything can change.
Quote Talad
I don?t think it?s as engraved in stone as you say Drilixer.
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Originally posted by Drilixer
the best hint can be found posted by one of the devs in a thread that i have responded to... start searching muahahah
Count me out of that, I\'d be here all day searching through your post history.
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Originally posted by Fish
I think we now have a good idea of the fundamentals of the game rules, like the skill based system and the magic system, but as other devs said, we do not want to disclose more information just to avoid confusions. Until we implement those rules in game (and even after!), everything can change.
Quote Talad
I don?t think it?s as engraved in stone as you say Drilixer.
he is speaking of balancing... but the concept behind the system will probably change very little for a long time
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But still Drilixer, the next version isn\'t final, it\'s still only alpha. The devs will likely try a lot of ideas in the next version and see the public response. They might take note of some of our ideas and if what they planned isn\'t well received, they could start doing different things.
Remember, PS is ever evolving.
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Originally posted by lostprophet
Remember, PS is ever evolving.
muahaha -> technically yes - but I still don\'t see too many devs suddenly changing from systems that they have loved from the start... aka Talad\'s npc chat interface from hell!!!
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Now where was that quote. Oh here it is
Licker, your points are well taken, but as the guy who designed and implemented the NPC dialog system we have now, I can tell you the problem right now is a lack of vocabulary data in the NPC dialog engine--not a fundamental design flaw.
We recognized from the beginning, that in the beginning, the NPCs would not recognize very much. This is because it is impossible to predict HOW people will actually try to use it. Instead, the dialog manager tracks and stores EVERY single non-understood statement in the database. Periodically we go through that table and improve our responses.
I think people who were here from the beginning of MB will testify that the NPCs (however bad they are now) are much better than they used to be. This improvement will continue to grow and add-on to itself as we go.
This is a DEMO remember? :-) It is a real-world science lab for us to test our frankenstein outside the petri-dish we call the dev team.
Thanks,
Venge
If you don\'t want to read the whole thing I give you the short version.
They\'re working on it.
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I still don\'t think it\'s practical - no matter how many words/phrases they throw together in that beast
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I hate to put it to this way but how many NPC interaction systems have you built. Do you have the slightest idea how difficult it is to get intelligible thought out of a computer. I haven?t built one either. Until you get into the headspace of actually building one of these things just do with the developers told you to do. Talk to the NPC and if they don?t understand you go somewhere else. Just think in the grand scheme of things will get better.
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haha don\'t get angry if I complain - complaints are what fuel any pre-alpha game (well.. compliments too but criticism is more effective, helpful, and believable)
I understand that the system will get better - but I myself have never had any problems with multiple choice systems for NPCs... players are different but we don\'t need AI for players now do we ;)
(P.S. - dont take that last line too seriously :P)
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I?m not even slightly upset. However I did just get you to rattle out on your keyboard what you really wanted.
You want multiple-choice.
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Originally posted by Fish
I?m not even slightly upset. However I did just get you to rattle out on your keyboard what you really wanted.
You want multiple-choice.
thats good - and if you want a more precise multiple choice system -> I loved the one in morrowind (minus the part that all citizens say the same thing usually :P)
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if you want to see the type of interactions between npcs i am hoping for.. the go to http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com you can get free demos of many games again grpahics not so hot but the games rock!
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I personally would like to see the devs continue with this npc system. Sure it sucks right now but it\'s gonna kick arse when it\'s done, as long as the npcs have a large enough library of phrases that they can understand you. It\'s not that i hate multi-choice systems, I just find them boring and repetitive. If you say something to annoy an npc with multiple choice, you can just end the conversation and start it again. With this maybe you could have to say sorry to people to get them to tell you things.
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Originally posted by lostprophet
If you say something to annoy an npc with multiple choice, you can just end the conversation and start it again.
thats not true! alot of times their \'liking\' for you will drop when you do that