Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 10, 2011, 11:10:42 am
- Graham Smith, Rock Paper Shotgun
A roguelike game inspired by the literature of Jorge Borges, Umberto Eco & Neal Stephenson, and the games Dwarf Fortress, The Outer Wilds, and various others.
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/
Ultima Ratio Regum ("the last argument of kings") is a game designed to combine the massive and varied world of games like Dwarf Fortress or Europa Universalis with the cryptic puzzle-solving and clue following of games like The Outer Wilds and La-Mulana. Set approximately around the Scientific Revolution, the player is tasked with discovering a conspiracy via identifying procedurally-generated clues hidden throughout the world's cultures, religions and societies; the game features extensive procedural generation of everything from tombs and religious altars to (in the future) paintings and sculptures, any or all of which may contain the clues required in a given playthrough. The latest major releases, 0.9 and 0.10, introduce currencies, procedurally-generated items, trade, and ship-board travel. 1.0 is coming soon - watch this space!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Eck7.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Cathar.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Eck5.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Eck.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Eck3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Cathar-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Rose1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Spaach-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SS3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Cathar-3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SS2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SS.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SSS.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/ViewA-12.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/TT1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Bankage.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Cathar-2.png)
Post by: Shadowgandor on October 10, 2011, 11:25:27 am
I'd love to help keep you motivated ^^
Post by: freeformschooler on October 10, 2011, 11:26:32 am
So how much procedural generation is planned for the game, and in what areas?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 10, 2011, 12:29:07 pm
Post by: silverskull39 on October 10, 2011, 12:50:30 pm
Post by: Koliup on October 10, 2011, 02:46:04 pm
Post by: Jerick on October 10, 2011, 04:05:32 pm
But I do have a few questions:
- Will things like elevation and rain effect combat in the finished version?
- What kind of command and control do you have of your army? Do you control squads or the whole army at once? Do you issue more general orders like advance/ charge or specific ones such as: move here, dig in, prepare ambush?
- Will there be stealth?
- Will there be formations and their inherent complexities or will it be largely skirmishes?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 10, 2011, 05:45:00 pm
I already read about this in that thread about DF Adventure mode-like and was immediately hooked on the project! Could I make a small donation?
I'd love to help keep you motivated ^^
Wow, that's a very generous offer! I shall have to decline - I don't plan to set up any kind of donation thing until URR is much further along. Very nice of you to offer, though : )
So how much procedural generation is planned for the game, and in what areas?
The overwhelming majority of each world will be procedurally generated, along with all the creatures that populate it. This will mean villages, cities, empires etc will be different each game, and therefore what armies you can raise or fight within. I'm hoping to allow a huge variety of different 'types' of army to be generated, too.
The game's title (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) has seduced me. You can be sure I'll be testing it
Excellent! Since 'The Last Argument of Kings' refers, after all, to military force, it seemed an appropriate (and spiffy) title...
Interesting... I'll definitely be paying attention to this one.
Thanks! I'll try and keep things updated : )
This has perked my interest. I await the moment I can create an army of undead and kill everyone eagerly.
Hopefully, before too long, this will actually be an option...
Any game where you can go from a mercenary/bandit to leader of a demon army sounds fantastic in my book.
But I do have a few questions:
- Will things like elevation and rain effect combat in the finished version?
- What kind of command and control do you have of your army? Do you control squads or the whole army at once? Do you issue more general orders like advance/ charge or specific ones such as: move here, dig in, prepare ambush?
- Will there be stealth?
- Will there be formations and their inherent complexities or will it be largely skirmishes?
1 - weather effects will exist, but - for the time being - there is no 'real' z-axis. However, I am probably going to add elevation in before the first alpha - not in a DF style with arrows, but a lighter colour of ground background depending on how high the ground is. Still deciding on this, basically.
2 - You issue orders to those beneath you, who interpret your orders (hopefully competently) to the rest of the army. You cannot instantly transmit orders - if you want to talk to a commander on the other side of your army, you need to send a runner over there to tell him what to do. The larger your army, the less tactical control you have, but the more strategic control you gain, and vice versa.
3 - Yes! Probably for a focus on ambushes in small groups, or playing on your own. If you are tracking an opposing army, you should be able to lay an ambush for them on a particular battlefield.
4 - Formations is an interesting question. When you deploy onto the battlefield, you will almost certainly be able to pick the initial positions of your squads based on what you know of the area. However, if you are simply moving through an area and get ambushed, say, you'll have much less choice over how you set up before combat begins!
Post by: Anvilfolk on October 10, 2011, 05:58:34 pm
Also, as another fellow grad student, how are you not feeling super duper guilty about not doing research and programming instead? :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 11, 2011, 01:30:26 pm
Ah, well, fitting in programming around research is proving less tricky than I'd feared. I'm just devoting most days to research, then a day or two per week to programming, plus some evenings. There are times I've been working on something in URR and ignored academia for a bit to get it finished, but the reverse has also happened, so it figure it all balances out! What're you studying?
Post by: PsyberianHusky on October 11, 2011, 01:42:51 pm
The game's title (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) has seduced me. You can be sure I'll be testing it
Japan has had a monopoloy in nonsensical titles for toooooo long.
Post by: Leatra on October 11, 2011, 02:04:15 pm
Post by: snelg on October 11, 2011, 02:31:12 pm
Post by: Enzo on October 11, 2011, 02:49:15 pm
On the blog you ask what the alpha should focus most on, Creatures, Combat, AI or UI. I would suggest getting a nice and streamlined UI right from the start. If it's clunky to begin with, it will only get worse (and harder to fix) as new features are added. I think I remember some other strategy roguelike suffering from this particular issue. The other stuff, while perhaps cooler, will doubtlessly continue to expand after the first alpha anyway, so it seems completely understandable to keep it simple for the first release.
Just my thoughts. I'm probably the last person you want to take advice on coding a big project from.
The game's title (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) has seduced me. You can be sure I'll be testing it
Japan has had a monopoloy in nonsensical titles for toooooo long.
It's not really nonsensical at all, just slightly obscure. It makes perfect sense if you know the history of the phrase.
Post by: pilgrimboy on October 11, 2011, 03:51:35 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 12, 2011, 08:02:20 am
This game is my most anticipated roguelike :)
Another game to keep track of. Looking good so far!
Woo! These mean a lot to a new developer :)
Looking forward to the alpha, godspeed and all that. Many ideas in here are ones I've always wanted to see properly implemented (recruitment of any npc, realistic troop command).
Thanks! Those are definitely two of the biggest goals I've got...
On the blog you ask what the alpha should focus most on, Creatures, Combat, AI or UI. I would suggest getting a nice and streamlined UI right from the start. If it's clunky to begin with, it will only get worse (and harder to fix) as new features are added. I think I remember some other strategy roguelike suffering from this particular issue. The other stuff, while perhaps cooler, will doubtlessly continue to expand after the first alpha anyway, so it seems completely understandable to keep it simple for the first release.
I'm definitely leaning in that direction. For the first alpha, I'd like the UI around combat, looking at/querying yourself and other creatures, moving around the map and understanding how keyboard commands work to be as clear as possible.
The game's title (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) has seduced me. You can be sure I'll be testing it
Japan has had a monopoloy in nonsensical titles for toooooo long.
It's not really nonsensical at all, just slightly obscure. It makes perfect sense if you know the history of the phrase.
I was going to say just that - the 'last argument of kings' means military force, after all, and therefore seems appropriate. After all, Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur, which roughly translates as 'Anything said in Latin sounds profound'...
looks like DF's adventure mode, except with more features.
in a couple of months, this game will probably largely seperate from that and end up like a completely different game :)
looks good, keep it up!
Thanks, and fingers crossed!
Sounds awesome. A game where I can send out adventurers and can do the adventuring if I want or don't want to is something I have dreamed of.
You'll be able to designate smaller forces to head off through the world, if/when you come to lead an army. Of course, once you lose sight of them, you won't know if they have succeeded in their task or all been eaten until either a) you catch up with them, b) they report back, or c) you find their corpses...
Post by: mikefictiti0us on October 12, 2011, 08:24:54 am
Post by: Leatra on October 12, 2011, 08:51:46 am
I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!")
Exactly! We need a lot more roguelikes with a better combat system.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
Post by: PsyberianHusky on October 12, 2011, 09:19:09 am
I hope gaming in general becomes much more rich with this.I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!")
Exactly! We need a lot more roguelikes with a better combat system.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
Post by: Leatra on October 12, 2011, 10:39:48 am
But I guess we are headed for the opposite way. Games used to be more complex. Now they are just... graphicy. I'm talking about the non-roguelike games of course.
Post by: Neonivek on October 12, 2011, 10:55:51 am
Quote
While humans, elves and dwarves
Ohh for a second I thought this took place in the Ultima universe. But that laid my worries to rest.
Post by: ScriptWolf on October 12, 2011, 11:52:18 am
This looks really good any ideas on when a alpha will be available ?
And any chance of any graphics? I like to switch between what DF is normally like and a graphics pack so would be nice to have a feature to pick which one you want.
Post by: BishopX on October 12, 2011, 12:03:57 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on October 12, 2011, 12:40:28 pm
Post by: Leatra on October 12, 2011, 02:28:13 pm
Post by: burningpet on October 12, 2011, 02:48:30 pm
Post by: Leatra on October 12, 2011, 04:34:21 pm
just another thing I'd like to say:
please make it as quickly as possible! it looks epic!
Games made quickly as possible are full of bugs and incomplete features. Take all the time you need :D
Post by: PrimusRibbus on October 12, 2011, 04:52:05 pm
Personally, I'd be exceedingly pleased if you added framework for modding as soon as possible. The longer into development you wait to do so, the harder it will be to implement and the less feature-rich it will be upon deployment.
You will be besieged with requests for tilesets and custom monsters. Many roguelikes have a separate "tiles" fork that needs dedicated maintainers every time the game is updated (in closed source that means the devs spend a bunch more time repeating their progress, and in open source that means you pray for reliable people to take up the torch). Don't fall into that trap! Dwarf Fortress's modding framework has made adding tiles to the game as simple as some pngs and a couple plaintext config files.
Put the framework in place and let the community do the work of tiles and custom creatures for you! That way you can spend your time making great updates for a potentially game-changing roguelike, instead of spending your time responding to grumpy forumgoers about why the tiles binary hasn't been updated as fast as they'd like.
Anecdotally, I've found that people keep coming back to DF for its great mods and ease of modding, as much as they do for its unique gameplay!
Looking forward to the alpha release. Again, best of luck!
Post by: jocan2003 on October 13, 2011, 10:32:13 am
Post by: Dutchling on October 13, 2011, 10:47:33 am
(and free :P)
Post by: Nistenf on October 13, 2011, 11:00:39 am
Post by: Aklyon on October 13, 2011, 07:24:26 pm
Looks amazing, keep it up!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 14, 2011, 06:52:18 am
This looks fantastic, really liking the descriptive DF Adv mode style combat system you have in place. I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!"), so this is indeed a breath of fresh air.
Thanks! That's pretty much exactly the reason - it adds variety, and injuries to different parts have meaningful combat effects.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
Good question. You will likely have the option to 'grab' a creature, in which case neither of you can move far until one or you is dead, or the grip is broken. If one creature is vastly larger, however, that creature's movement will be unhindered. It'll be a definite option for tall creatures like Titans that you, and other small creatures, might have to climb up to attack in the head, for instance!
I hope gaming in general becomes much more rich with this.
I sincerely hope so! Seems in general like a much more interesting/realistic method than hit points.
QuoteWhile humans, elves and dwarves
Ohh for a second I thought this took place in the Ultima universe. But that laid my worries to rest.
Ah, no - never actually played an Ultima game. Rest assured :)
Wow... This looks amazing, I was looking at the screen shots, will it have combat damage similar to dwarf fortress? As in can hack off one guys head then beat another guy to death with it or strangle someone or cut out their eyes Ect....
This looks really good any ideas on when a alpha will be available ?
And any chance of any graphics? I like to switch between what DF is normally like and a graphics pack so would be nice to have a feature to pick which one you want.
To answer your points in order: Thanks, and yes, it will/does - any weapon you're strong enough to wield can be used as a weapon, and same goes for other creatures. If you steal their weapon, then they might pick up anything lying around to fight with, or grab you, or whatever.
I hope to have the very first alpha out by the end of the year if all goes well. The focuses are on a clean UI and the variety in combat/creatures/AI; after that, there's a heck of a lot planned...
Unsure about graphics so far. I will get back to on that one once I've pondered it a little further...
Looks great so far! How are you going to handle facing? Normally rogue likes tend not to deal with facing at all, which makes some sense when you're dealing with a single adventurer, but when you're modeling a squad of soldiers it doesn't seem quite right...
I'm not yet sure, primarily because it would be hard to display it in ASCII without making the field painfully cluttered. However, I am debating three possibilities - you and creatures DO face, but it's not explicitly mentioned; you don't face, like most roguelikes; and you can change the overview briefly to show arrows, for example, where all creatures are, showing you what direction they are facing. That'll be similar to other overlays like friend/foe, injured/healthy, etc, to get a strategic idea of the battle. There won't be anything to do with facing in the first alpha, but I'm definitely considering possibilities.
Looks good! I look forward to seeing how the project develops.
Thanks! I'll be trying to keep this thread updated with developments...
Did you guys pay attention to the image? I think he used his both weapons at the same time. I love dual wielding!
It's true! He did!
Got plans for a graphical tileset support?
As above; uncertain. Not for the very first alpha, though, regardless, but we'll see.
just another thing I'd like to say:
please make it as quickly as possible! it looks epic!
I shall try! As I say, the end of this year should be the first basic alpha, but it's a long term project for me :)
I'm very excited for this game, and you've clearly got some positive buzz going. Best of luck!
Thanks! Hopefully the first alpha won't be a colossal disappointment, but I think I've stressed the few areas it's focused on for now :)
Personally, I'd be exceedingly pleased if you added framework for modding as soon as possible. The longer into development you wait to do so, the harder it will be to implement and the less feature-rich it will be upon deployment.
I do intend to keep it closed source, but I don't see any reason I'd object to modding and adding tilesets, creatures, etc. If someone creates something interesting enough, I suspect I'd be happy to incorporate it into the final game! Also opens the way for competitions; design a species, monster, etc...
Dwarf Fortress's modding framework has made adding tiles to the game as simple as some pngs and a couple plaintext config files.
Right now, just changing the font .png is actually enough to adjust the tileset; however, it's actually pretty badly handled atm, and needs a bit of clearing before the first release.
Anecdotally, I've found that people keep coming back to DF for its great mods and ease of modding, as much as they do for its unique gameplay!
Looking forward to the alpha release. Again, best of luck!
Interesting! I'll keep that in mind. And thanks again :)
Mount and blade roguelike? gimme!
Ha - that's actually a very good comparison! I mean, I've got more fantasy elements, and probably a bit less mounted combat... but then, what kind of a General would you be without a mount?
Looks nice!
(and free :P)
Thanks! And yep; it will remain entirely free. Doing this because I've always wanted to make a game, not for the monies :)
Looks amazing, keep it up!
Thanks! I'm hoping to keep development going at a decent pace against academic work, and so far, that's going reasonably well...
Also, just a general comment - thanks all for the interest, it means a lot! I'll keep the thread updated as I hopefully make it closer and closer to the first alpha release...
Post by: Vibhor on October 14, 2011, 07:27:47 am
Post by: Leatra on October 14, 2011, 08:17:17 am
Now thinking about M&B, a lot of ideas can be borrowed (stolen) from that game. I can think of a few right now.
- Your lieutenants may rebel against you or argue with other lieutenants.
- Romance. Dueling against other suitors. Will you marry a general's daughter, someone you actually love and stuff like that.
- Special characters that will travel with you if you hire them. They would give you a bonus to things like travelling speed on the world map.
Post by: Necro910 on October 14, 2011, 11:53:15 am
I generally tackle the enemy, kick in their shoulders, rip off their hands and feet, strangle them, and then rip their throat out.I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!")
Exactly! We need a lot more roguelikes with a better combat system.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
I use an axe for help on the feet sometimes. :P
Post by: Leatra on October 14, 2011, 12:26:03 pm
Cruelty is necessary to have !!FUN!!that's just unnecessarily cruel!I generally tackle the enemy, kick in their shoulders, rip off their hands and feet, strangle them, and then rip their throat out.I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!")
Exactly! We need a lot more roguelikes with a better combat system.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
I use an axe for help on the feet sometimes. :P
that's dwarven.
Post by: Necro910 on October 14, 2011, 12:30:07 pm
You're talking to Necro910, the infamous dwarf who shouts magma as the solution to everything. The dwarf who kicks in the door of a castle, cut off the hands and feet of all the guards (Whilst they are all fighting me, not this one-on-one elfshit), then throw them over the wall onto the fleeing nobles. The Necro910 that slaughters off entire towns, sometimes multiple ones in one day.that's just unnecessarily cruel!I generally tackle the enemy, kick in their shoulders, rip off their hands and feet, strangle them, and then rip their throat out.I cannot tell you how heartily sick I am of generic combat in roguelike games ("You hit the Elf! It is wounded! You hit the Elf! It is dead!")
Exactly! We need a lot more roguelikes with a better combat system.
Oh also, will there be wrestling? :D
Unarmed combat is included in DF and it's a lot damn fun. There isn't much use for it when you got a sword though.
I use an axe for help on the feet sometimes. :P
that's dwarven.
THAT Necro910.
Post by: Jimlad11 on October 14, 2011, 04:16:54 pm
Post by: ChairmanPoo on October 14, 2011, 09:16:02 pm
(Eg: will it work like in conquest of elysium?)
Post by: Leatra on October 17, 2011, 01:57:27 pm
Post by: mendonca on October 17, 2011, 02:49:00 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 17, 2011, 03:36:54 pm
Now then:
Posting to follow as my bookmark bar is pretty stuffed already
Thanks for the follow!
It's gonna be like Mount&blade in roguelike style with Dwarf Fortress combat system :D
Now thinking about M&B, a lot of ideas can be borrowed (stolen) from that game. I can think of a few right now.
- Your lieutenants may rebel against you or argue with other lieutenants.
- Romance. Dueling against other suitors. Will you marry a general's daughter, someone you actually love and stuff like that.
- Special characters that will travel with you if you hire them. They would give you a bonus to things like travelling speed on the world map.
The first of those three will definitely happen, but within the area of managing your army and the disparate factions in it. I'm undecided how relationships between you/NPCs and NPCs/NPCs will work thus far, and I'm actually leaning away from having any 'special' characters! Some might have specific useful skills, but they won't be 'uniques'. Does what I mean by that distinction make sense?
I generally tackle the enemy, kick in their shoulders, rip off their hands and feet, strangle them, and then rip their throat out.
I use an axe for help on the feet sometimes. :P
This is an excellent combat strategy.
Cruelty is necessary to have !!FUN!!
This is one of my guiding principles!
What kind of characters will you be able to create?
(Eg: will it work like in conquest of elysium?)
Having just looked up how that game does it; I don't think mine will be very similar. Your initial character choices are more focused on what city you come from, what items you have, and what your history is, then what 'skills' you have. You'll have some choice over that, but I don't think I'm going for any kind of class system.
Oooooh... Looks super cool. Posting to follow.
Thanks!
Post by: Leatra on October 17, 2011, 05:21:59 pm
It's gonna be like Mount&blade in roguelike style with Dwarf Fortress combat system :D
Now thinking about M&B, a lot of ideas can be borrowed (stolen) from that game. I can think of a few right now.
- Your lieutenants may rebel against you or argue with other lieutenants.
- Romance. Dueling against other suitors. Will you marry a general's daughter, someone you actually love and stuff like that.
- Special characters that will travel with you if you hire them. They would give you a bonus to things like travelling speed on the world map.
The first of those three will definitely happen, but within the area of managing your army and the disparate factions in it. I'm undecided how relationships between you/NPCs and NPCs/NPCs will work thus far, and I'm actually leaning away from having any 'special' characters! Some might have specific useful skills, but they won't be 'uniques'. Does what I mean by that distinction make sense?
You mean characters like trackers(better speed on the map), trainers (trains soldiers), bards (morale boost), etc? Dealing with unique characters would be difficult but having some non-warriors on your team would make the game realistic. Which army didn't have medics in the history? :D
I don't have any ideas about relationships topic. There should be a relationship status about your friends and enemies but how would that work? Your enemies randomly attacking you on the map or something? Hmmmm...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 20, 2011, 02:04:01 pm
You mean characters like trackers(better speed on the map), trainers (trains soldiers), bards (morale boost), etc? Dealing with unique characters would be difficult but having some non-warriors on your team would make the game realistic. Which army didn't have medics in the history? :D
I don't have any ideas about relationships topic. There should be a relationship status about your friends and enemies but how would that work? Your enemies randomly attacking you on the map or something? Hmmmm...
Something along those lines. There will definitely be medic and other non-combat characters you can recruit, from all species, cities, factions, whatever. You'll definitely want medics there when you have a pike lodged in your face! As for how your enemies attack you on the map... well, that's still being worked on, but I'm very happy with how it's now looking :)
Post by: Leatra on October 20, 2011, 02:55:01 pm
It may work out like this:You mean characters like trackers(better speed on the map), trainers (trains soldiers), bards (morale boost), etc? Dealing with unique characters would be difficult but having some non-warriors on your team would make the game realistic. Which army didn't have medics in the history? :D
I don't have any ideas about relationships topic. There should be a relationship status about your friends and enemies but how would that work? Your enemies randomly attacking you on the map or something? Hmmmm...
Something along those lines. There will definitely be medic and other non-combat characters you can recruit, from all species, cities, factions, whatever. You'll definitely want medics there when you have a pike lodged in your face! As for how your enemies attack you on the map... well, that's still being worked on, but I'm very happy with how it's now looking :)
Player and Bandit squad leader are enemies
Smuggler squad leader is friends with Bandit squad leader and Player but he likes Bandit squad leader more.
Player kills Bandit squad leader by taking a quest about it, randomly encountering, tracking him down, whatever.
One of these might happen:
Smuggler squad leader tracks down Player and attacks him. If Player can't calm him down (diplomacy skill check) he becomes an enemy
Smuggler squad leader sends a warning to Player. Relationship status becomes Neutral
Smuggler squad leader doesn't do anything because Player is more strong than he is and Player helped him a lot. but becomes more catious against Player
We have a long way down for an update like this. Alpha isn't even released yet but I'm just throwing out ideas.
Post by: Aklyon on October 20, 2011, 02:56:18 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 22, 2011, 09:46:27 am
It may work out like this:
Player and Bandit squad leader are enemies
Smuggler squad leader is friends with Bandit squad leader and Player but he likes Bandit squad leader more.
Player kills Bandit squad leader by taking a quest about it, randomly encountering, tracking him down, whatever.
One of these might happen:
Smuggler squad leader tracks down Player and attacks him. If Player can't calm him down (diplomacy skill check) he becomes an enemy
Smuggler squad leader sends a warning to Player. Relationship status becomes Neutral
Smuggler squad leader doesn't do anything because Player is more strong than he is and Player helped him a lot. but becomes more catious against Player
We have a long way down for an update like this. Alpha isn't even released yet but I'm just throwing out ideas.
That sounds about right, actually - however, individuals and factions will only track you down with violence intended if they think they have a legitimate shot. Which is to say, the bandit leader would only come after you on his own if you were alone, or maybe had one ally; he'd bring some allies if you had a small bunch, and if you wearing leading an army, he'd presumably either try to catch you when you are on your own, or get back at you by non-physical means...
Sounds cool.
Thanks! Another update coming this Monday, at which point - hopefully - my coding laptop should be back within my possession, and programming can resume...
Post by: Leatra on October 22, 2011, 11:44:59 am
Sounds good and realistic :)It may work out like this:
Player and Bandit squad leader are enemies
Smuggler squad leader is friends with Bandit squad leader and Player but he likes Bandit squad leader more.
Player kills Bandit squad leader by taking a quest about it, randomly encountering, tracking him down, whatever.
One of these might happen:
Smuggler squad leader tracks down Player and attacks him. If Player can't calm him down (diplomacy skill check) he becomes an enemy
Smuggler squad leader sends a warning to Player. Relationship status becomes Neutral
Smuggler squad leader doesn't do anything because Player is more strong than he is and Player helped him a lot. but becomes more catious against Player
We have a long way down for an update like this. Alpha isn't even released yet but I'm just throwing out ideas.
That sounds about right, actually - however, individuals and factions will only track you down with violence intended if they think they have a legitimate shot. Which is to say, the bandit leader would only come after you on his own if you were alone, or maybe had one ally; he'd bring some allies if you had a small bunch, and if you wearing leading an army, he'd presumably either try to catch you when you are on your own, or get back at you by non-physical means...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 24, 2011, 04:07:13 pm
Sounds good and realistic :)
I hope so! Got my laptop back, finally, so I should be able to resume programming asap.
New devblog entry about character creation. I'm trying to do something unusual, and allow you to choose starting items as well as stats/skills, but remove 'points' from the same pool you use to allocate yourself starting stats or skills. So, anyway, http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/10/24/character-creation/ - let me know what you think!
Post by: Enzo on October 24, 2011, 05:29:19 pm
Buying items with the same points you use to buy skills is a bit risky. As you advance skills and attributes while progressing through the game they'll stack with the ones you bought at character creation, whereas items will generally be replaced as you obtain better ones. This makes it a better choice to invest as many points as possible in skills and attributes and only take the bare minimum items required for initial survival. A Bronze Axe is only useful until you find a Steel Axe, but +1 Strength lasts forever. It's not necessarily gamebreaking or anything, but doesn't feel balanced.
Quote
Your home town is selected at random, based on those owned by your species. I considered letting you select a town, but that would reveal the map, and exploration, discovering new lands and the like are going to end up as a significant goal in the game.
I don't think you've ever mentioned how map-generation works. Is it procedurally generated at the start of each game, or a more DF-like system where you can play in the same world over and over again? If it's the latter, I would put more weight in letting the player choose his starting city, otherwise it probably doesn't particularly matter to most players.
As a compromise, you could let the player choose a city without revealing it's location on the map, and just give population/racial makeup/industries/whatever as information. Or only reveal territory owned by the race you selected, which would probably be considered pretty common knowledge within a society.
Post by: Dsarker on October 24, 2011, 05:37:56 pm
Post by: Leatra on October 25, 2011, 06:27:47 pm
Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading the latest devblog.
Buying items with the same points you use to buy skills is a bit risky. As you advance skills and attributes while progressing through the game they'll stack with the ones you bought at character creation, whereas items will generally be replaced as you obtain better ones. This makes it a better choice to invest as many points as possible in skills and attributes and only take the bare minimum items required for initial survival. A Bronze Axe is only useful until you find a Steel Axe, but +1 Strength lasts forever. It's not necessarily gamebreaking or anything, but doesn't feel balanced.
This is true. At least in DF, you just had to find a guard to get him killed and loot his corpse.
Post by: Dsarker on October 25, 2011, 06:33:04 pm
Post by: JacenHanLovesLegos on October 25, 2011, 06:41:23 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 28, 2011, 09:18:21 am
Just a few thoughts that occurred to me while reading the latest devblog.
Buying items with the same points you use to buy skills is a bit risky. As you advance skills and attributes while progressing through the game they'll stack with the ones you bought at character creation, whereas items will generally be replaced as you obtain better ones. This makes it a better choice to invest as many points as possible in skills and attributes and only take the bare minimum items required for initial survival. A Bronze Axe is only useful until you find a Steel Axe, but +1 Strength lasts forever. It's not necessarily gamebreaking or anything, but doesn't feel balanced.QuoteYour home town is selected at random, based on those owned by your species. I considered letting you select a town, but that would reveal the map, and exploration, discovering new lands and the like are going to end up as a significant goal in the game.
I don't think you've ever mentioned how map-generation works. Is it procedurally generated at the start of each game, or a more DF-like system where you can play in the same world over and over again? If it's the latter, I would put more weight in letting the player choose his starting city, otherwise it probably doesn't particularly matter to most players.
As a compromise, you could let the player choose a city without revealing it's location on the map, and just give population/racial makeup/industries/whatever as information. Or only reveal territory owned by the race you selected, which would probably be considered pretty common knowledge within a society.
Many thanks for the feedback! To answer your points in order:
- I completely agree about items/skills. Skills do stay with you forever, and items don't. On the other hand, choosing items might have life easier for new players, and you could always give you outdated items to your allies when you find something better. For an experienced player, I strongly suspect it will be far more worthwhile to go all skills, but I think it could be a little bit more friendly for new players, or for players who quickly want to recruit and arm some allies.
- The map is generated at the start of each game. In the future, you might be able to play multiple games in one world, but not yet. I think you'll be able to choose what kind of civilization you want to be born in - militarized, cultural, magical, whatever; human, dwarf, elf, etc - then the game picks one for you. Which is pretty much what you just said, really. Once you start in your city, you can only see the areas your civilization has explored.
Putting this on watch.
Unless it's like DF with the skills and stuff. So you can choose steel axe and start off untrained in axe skill, with 500 xp to get to basic. Or start with the bronze axe and basic, and 1000 xp to get to trained.
Thanks! Each weapon (like 'hitting' weapons - axes, clubs, flails, and maces) has multiple skills which improve your damage, accuracy, and a few other things. Experience for each weapon (and everything else) simply builds up as you use it. Experience is, I think, going to be a tricky one to balance between all weapons etc, so we'll have to see how it plays out in the first alpha.
Will titans be able to wield you and/or other NPCs/animals as weapons?
Once dead, yes. While alive, huge creatures can pick up and throw around small ones, so a Titan can certainly try and pick you up and hurl you into a tree. You will likely not survive :)...
Post by: Leatra on November 03, 2011, 07:57:30 am
And...
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/11/01/world-map-and-battlefields/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 04, 2011, 05:46:24 pm
Anyway - here's what (a small portion of) the world map looks like so far!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2011/11/Map-picture.png)
Post by: Leatra on November 04, 2011, 09:54:53 pm
And I was thinking, it would be cool to get a bunch of low-lifes and become a bandit leader. Most people (like me) like to have a choice between good and evil or law and chaos in RPGs.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 06, 2011, 07:53:48 am
You're welcome! I was busy as well and I noticed the blog update a bit late. About the Monday update, I hope impaling won't be like DF. If you got an arrow stuck in your body you could virtually live forever with it.
And I was thinking, it would be cool to get a bunch of low-lifes and become a bandit leader. Most people (like me) like to have a choice between good and evil or law and chaos in RPGs.
To take the points in order:
No, you can't live with it permanently. Removing an arrow from your body (currently) takes one turn, so you need to make a judgment about removing it instantly, or fighting on for a little while; but the longer it stays in, the more damage it will do when removed, and while it's still stuck in.
That will definitely, one day, be possible. Hopefully before too long, actually. Just depends on the kinds of people you recruit...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 07, 2011, 06:08:49 pm
... and another, tiny, hint about the alpha...
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/11/07/on-bosses/
Post by: Leatra on November 08, 2011, 03:40:38 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 09, 2011, 06:07:42 am
Well, I don't expect the Alpha version to be anything big. I'm just curious about the combat system. Like impaling or bleeding out. Things like becoming a bandit leader can come later. :D
Combat and world generation are the two big targets at the moment. Combat is probably about 70% finished (for the alpha, anyway), and world generation is probably around 40% done! Been taking a break from combat to work on the worldgen for the past week or so, so I'm hoping that'll improve significantly over the next week or two too.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on November 09, 2011, 07:22:15 am
But hey, one can dream. Or learn to code instead of bitch on forums : P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 09, 2011, 07:38:06 pm
My only wish is that it isent one of those games which goes "Oh hey, strategy = select all units, right click enemy" or the also common "rock paper scissors, melee-ranged-cav" as only mechanic. I want ambushes, flanking, several different moral stats, cutting off supplys, hungering em out, double agents, fake army sizes, greater reasons - affecting certain morals - like a army using slaves as combat units that you can free (basically a indirect: Your leader charisma vs enemy leaders charisma + slave skill with % bonus of situation (no enemy troops near = good) and so on.
But hey, one can dream. Or learn to code instead of bitch on forums : P
Well, there's no mouse control, for starters :)
But I know exactly what you mean. Pretty much everything you listed are things I hope to have implemented at some point! There's no RPS-style combat and you will only be able to control forces by telling whoever is in charge of that platoon/battalion to move their soldiers there. They'll then make a judgment themselves, and each soldier also makes it own judgment when the time comes. You can't 'magically' control units over a distance - you actually need to establish contact with your sub-commanders at a distance to get in touch with and command them. In a way, then, it's an 'army simulator' as well as everything else...
Post by: Clownmite on November 11, 2011, 02:30:33 pm
I'm also using Python + libtcod. What code editor/IDE do you use? I'm using IDLE and it's annoying that it crashes every time I close the libtcod window.
Post by: Leatra on November 11, 2011, 08:33:32 pm
My only wish is that it isent one of those games which goes "Oh hey, strategy = select all units, right click enemy" or the also common "rock paper scissors, melee-ranged-cav" as only mechanic. I want ambushes, flanking, several different moral stats, cutting off supplys, hungering em out, double agents, fake army sizes, greater reasons - affecting certain morals - like a army using slaves as combat units that you can free (basically a indirect: Your leader charisma vs enemy leaders charisma + slave skill with % bonus of situation (no enemy troops near = good) and so on.
But hey, one can dream. Or learn to code instead of bitch on forums : P
Well, there's no mouse control, for starters :)
But I know exactly what you mean. Pretty much everything you listed are things I hope to have implemented at some point! There's no RPS-style combat and you will only be able to control forces by telling whoever is in charge of that platoon/battalion to move their soldiers there. They'll then make a judgment themselves, and each soldier also makes it own judgment when the time comes. You can't 'magically' control units over a distance - you actually need to establish contact with your sub-commanders at a distance to get in touch with and command them. In a way, then, it's an 'army simulator' as well as everything else...
Heh. Being able to control everything through a magical screen gets boring after a while. There are some games that try to make it seem logical. In Red Alert 2 it felt like (or game tried to make you feel like) you were logging in to a battlefield-screen-thing. When I played that game for the first time, that's when I realized the weirdness of being able to control everything like a god in strategy games.
There are two military ranks in strategy games. You -the player- who controls everything and gives orders. And all others who do the fightning. I hope this game will be a lot different with a hierarchic command system.
When it comes to command hierarchy, there are lots of things to give attention to...
1. Chain of command. Commander doesn't do everything. Soldiers of the Squad A doesn't answer to the leader of the Squad B and things like that...
2. Communication. We didn't have cellphones or telegraphs in middle ages. Things can turn into a game of Chinese Whispers if you aren't careful.
3. If a high-ranking officer makes a bad call, those who carry the orders out aren't responsible. That high-ranking officer is the one who made the decision and he is the one who is responsible.
A commander isn't responsible for everything and a soldier who executes orders given to him isn't responsible for everything. A cadet doesn't answer to the field marshal. It was all simple in Red Alert 2 right?
"Yes, comrade general"
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 12, 2011, 09:36:45 am
Holy crap, this game looks to be amazing. I actually just started programming a game intended to be almost exactly like this, but I feel like I should not even attempt it anymore due to this game being almost exactly what I want.
I'm also using Python + libtcod. What code editor/IDE do you use? I'm using IDLE and it's annoying that it crashes every time I close the libtcod window.
Wow, thank you! Don't let me discourage you, though, URR is still in its early stages :)
I'm using IDLE at the moment. I'm sure there are better editors, but I've just got used to using it and can't be bothered to change. Once I've got the first alpha out and I then go through making the game more efficient, that might be a logical time to change editor, but I'm more than happy with it for the time being. By the crashing, do you mean when you F5, the window appears, then you close it and it crashes? If so, you want to close the Python shell, not the libtcod window itself!
Heh. Being able to control everything through a magical screen gets boring after a while. There are some games that try to make it seem logical. In Red Alert 2 it felt like (or game tried to make you feel like) you were logging in to a battlefield-screen-thing. When I played that game for the first time, that's when I realized the weirdness of being able to control everything like a god in strategy games.
There are two military ranks in strategy games. You -the player- who controls everything and gives orders. And all others who do the fightning. I hope this game will be a lot different with a hierarchic command system.
When it comes to command hierarchy, there are lots of things to give attention to...
1. Chain of command. Commander doesn't do everything. Soldiers of the Squad A doesn't answer to the leader of the Squad B and things like that...
2. Communication. We didn't have cellphones or telegraphs in middle ages. Things can turn into a game of Chinese Whispers if you aren't careful.
3. If a high-ranking officer makes a bad call, those who carry the orders out aren't responsible. That high-ranking officer is the one who made the decision and he is the one who is responsible.
A commander isn't responsible for everything and a soldier who executes orders given to him isn't responsible for everything. A cadet doesn't answer to the field marshal. It was all simple in Red Alert 2 right?
"Yes, comrade general"
*Exactly*. In all strategy games - even those set, say, in medieval times, when you wouldn't have had instant communication - the commander somehow has total omnipotent control over their forces.
1) Yep. You give orders to your commanders, who then spread it around to their lieutenants, and so on and so forth. Obviously the incentive here is to recruit competent commanders who will be better at relaying your orders and managing the battlefield than others.
2) I think it'll be interesting to see how orders to far parts of your army in a battle play out. Due to the delay in getting a message to them, I think those commanders will take more autonomy upon themselves, definitely.
3) People in your army - as with any army - will be a lot more useful if they respect those giving the orders. If your subordinate does something foolish, I think you'll have options about how to deal with this, and the repercussions this will have for the rest of your army.
Red Alert 2 - what a great game! I prefer the earlier classic C&Cs, but RA2 had a certain something...
Post by: Johnss on November 12, 2011, 09:46:07 am
id rather have some grafics stuff that i can actualy see for what they are....
try this one
http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/p/download.html
am i allowed to post links?
Post by: Aklyon on November 12, 2011, 10:14:38 am
Post by: klingon13524 on November 12, 2011, 12:01:59 pm
it looks like text based...You really ARE an escaped lunatic...
id rather have some grafics stuff that i can actualy see for what they are....
try this one
http://roguesurvivor.blogspot.com/p/download.html
am i allowed to post links?
Post by: ChairmanPoo on November 12, 2011, 12:18:32 pm
Quote
In all strategy games - even those set, say, in medieval times, when you wouldn't have had instant communication - the commander somehow has total omnipotent control over their forces.
There's at least one exception: in Centurion: Defender of Rome, your command over troops was limited by the general's "voice".
Post by: gimlet on November 12, 2011, 01:23:40 pm
"To help the player control all his units, we implement a Chain of Command. As in real armies, your units are organized in a hierarchy. Each unit has a commander and a staff, each with their own capacity to command and manage the units under them. You, the player, can assign a task to any unit in the chain of command. The artificial intelligence (AI) controlling the unit will then assess the task, develop a plan and give orders to its subordinates. In turns, they will develop their own plan and issue their own orders down the line.
So you do not have to give an order to each or every unit under your command."
Also Orders Delay:
"Conquest of the Aegean has orders delay that applies a time delay to the delivery of orders to simulate the time taken by commanders and their staff to receive, process and send orders. As in real life the amount of time varies with the size of the force and the efficiency of its commanders and staff. With one minute time intervals, we can simulate a wide range of order delay periods from a few minutes to many hours.
In a typical operational level turn based system you have two to four hour turns so your options for varying the order delay period are minimal. You can't adequately differentiate between efficient commands and those that aren't. And yet in real life this difference wins battles. Getting inside your opponents decision making cycle means you can gain the initiative. You can have your forces moving before he can respond adequately. Your opponent ends up always responding and always too late to effectively counter you."
Pretty good games, I am slowly working my way through the series.
Post by: Clownmite on November 12, 2011, 02:41:09 pm
By the crashing, do you mean when you F5, the window appears, then you close it and it crashes? If so, you want to close the Python shell, not the libtcod window itself!
Yeah, I was following the python + libtcod tutorial, and they mentioned there was a specific problem with IDLE that caused a crash on trying to exit (so you'd press Esc, and it would just hang), but after looking at the forums this morning, I saw that by adding "libtcod.console_delete (None)" to the end of the program, it stopped the hang.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 12, 2011, 08:03:06 pm
it looks like text based...
id rather have some grafics stuff that i can actualy see for what they are....
Er... yeah? As people say, roguelikes generally are. I prefer text to tiled graphics, myself, by a long way, though I might put in a way to change tileset. We'll see.
There's at least one exception: in Centurion: Defender of Rome, your command over troops was limited by the general's "voice".
Each unit has a commander and a staff, each with their own capacity to command and manage the units under them. You, the player, can assign a task to any unit in the chain of command. The artificial intelligence (AI) controlling the unit will then assess the task, develop a plan and give orders to its subordinates. In turns, they will develop their own plan and issue their own orders down the line.
These sounds pretty damned close to what I'm after, really. Perfect command never occurs, but you can at least try and get competent people in your army! I mean, I won't deliberately build in incompetence or anything like that (that would quickly be rather unenjoyable), but the AI will still need to interpret your orders and weigh it against their self-preservation, own motives/agendas, etc. Basically, unless you're a commander who is a) not feeding his army, b) not paying his army, and c) getting them killed, you'll be fine.
In a typical operational level turn based system you have two to four hour turns so your options for varying the order delay period are minimal. You can't adequately differentiate between efficient commands and those that aren't. And yet in real life this difference wins battles. Getting inside your opponents decision making cycle means you can gain the initiative. You can have your forces moving before he can respond adequately. Your opponent ends up always responding and always too late to effectively counter you."
Pretty good games, I am slowly working my way through the series.
Interesting. I've been having some debates with friends about whether to put something similar in, or whether have orders acted on/distributed immediately once those orders are received by whoever they're being sent to. I'm leaning towards that one - I think getting the orders out thee introduces enough of a gap anyway, and should give you enough room to get 'ahead' of your foes by cutting off their messengers, acting quickly, etc.
By the crashing, do you mean when you F5, the window appears, then you close it and it crashes? If so, you want to close the Python shell, not the libtcod window itself!
Yeah, I was following the python + libtcod tutorial, and they mentioned there was a specific problem with IDLE that caused a crash on trying to exit (so you'd press Esc, and it would just hang), but after looking at the forums this morning, I saw that by adding "libtcod.console_delete (None)" to the end of the program, it stopped the hang.
Ah, cool. I will chuck that in, though I suspect it might be unnecessary once I go to the pain of .exe-ing it :)
Post by: Leatra on November 12, 2011, 08:59:37 pm
it looks like text based...
id rather have some grafics stuff that i can actualy see for what they are....
I'm sure there would be some modders who could create new tilesets for this game if game supports it.
And seriously dude, if you want to see some "grafics stuff" you shouldn't play roguelikes :D
Heh. Being able to control everything through a magical screen gets boring after a while. There are some games that try to make it seem logical. In Red Alert 2 it felt like (or game tried to make you feel like) you were logging in to a battlefield-screen-thing. When I played that game for the first time, that's when I realized the weirdness of being able to control everything like a god in strategy games.
"Yes, comrade general"
Red Alert 2 - what a great game! I prefer the earlier classic C&Cs, but RA2 had a certain something...
I know what you mean. RA2 was different. I didn't bother to try RA3, I was still curious, my cousin (he taught me everything I know about RA2 when I was a kid) got to play it and he said "pretty much every unit can go from both sea and land"
I suppose RA3 wasn't a big success.
Anybody have played Romance of Three Kingdoms? You could confuse your enemies in different ways. You could send a fake order which would force the enemy army to retreat to the closest town, trick the enemy army into attacking their allies, confuse the commander and freeze them for 1 round, save an allied army from confusion, and probably some more I don't rembember now. It was difficult to confuse the commanders if they have a high INT and your commander has a low INT. Even if they fall for it they give responses like "A retreat order? That doesn't make sense" but they had to follow the fake order.
There were also personalities. If I rembember correctly personalities were Timid, Cool, Bold and Reckless. They didn't have much effect though. Biggest effect I noticed was a reckless officer once who would attack the enemy randomly without my order. You should definitely include personalities in this game. A simple loyalty system won't be enough.
Fire was a very important tool. Most traps involved fire. Setting fire very close to enemy was difficult. Fire has been used as a weapon in the history and I hope to see fire as a weapon in this game too. Think of all the traps and possibilities!
Post by: Aklyon on November 12, 2011, 09:34:11 pm
RA3 also has this thing, (http://theredalert.cnclabs.com/) which may or may not be better than the above in your opinion.
Post by: Frumple on November 12, 2011, 10:45:14 pm
Anybody have played Romance of Three Kingdoms?Romance of the Three Kingdoms had, uh, an absolute bucketload of different versions. Sequels, et al. Plus a vaguely unnumerable amount of spinoffs, related series, things named the same or nearly the same, etc, etc, etc. Any particular one you had in mind? I haven't played many of 'em, and none of them for very long, but I do understand the mechanics can change around a bit from game to game.
All of 'em were based off of the literary Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for those that didn't know. It's pretty much one of the biggest (both in terms of historical/cultural impact and sheer size) pieces of Chinese literature in existence, from what I understand. One of the true classic books in existence, really. There's a few translations running around the 'net, yeah.
--
Anyway, URR. Questions I've randomly pulled out to actually add to discussion: Will any race choices have radical gameplay impact? Will a hivemind or full-on aquatic race exist, for example? Boats, tunneling?
Can anything more be said on the magic system? I've been playing Vapors of Insanity a bit, lately, and I have to say a sort of, I guess, noun/verb driven (A firebolt, ferex, is mixing the spell of missile with the spell of fire), almost totally freeform system would be absolutely delicious (especially with a more accessible UI :P). Basically, how complex is the complex systems you mention in the blog :P
Post by: Edmus on November 12, 2011, 11:48:20 pm
I had two questions but I forgot the other...
you said it will be difficult to move once grappled unless the grappler/grappelee is big, would a large flying creature be able to pick you up and drop you from a height?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2011, 05:43:49 pm
I know what you mean. RA2 was different. I didn't bother to try RA3, I was still curious, my cousin (he taught me everything I know about RA2 when I was a kid) got to play it and he said "pretty much every unit can go from both sea and land"
I suppose RA3 wasn't a big success.
Anybody have played Romance of Three Kingdoms? You could confuse your enemies in different ways. You could send a fake order which would force the enemy army to retreat to the closest town, trick the enemy army into attacking their allies, confuse the commander and freeze them for 1 round, save an allied army from confusion, and probably some more I don't rembember now. It was difficult to confuse the commanders if they have a high INT and your commander has a low INT. Even if they fall for it they give responses like "A retreat order? That doesn't make sense" but they had to follow the fake order.
There were also personalities. If I rembember correctly personalities were Timid, Cool, Bold and Reckless. They didn't have much effect though. Biggest effect I noticed was a reckless officer once who would attack the enemy randomly without my order. You should definitely include personalities in this game. A simple loyalty system won't be enough.
Fire was a very important tool. Most traps involved fire. Setting fire very close to enemy was difficult. Fire has been used as a weapon in the history and I hope to see fire as a weapon in this game too. Think of all the traps and possibilities!
Interesting! I guess orders, fake orders, etc, all depend on whether or not you can have spies in your force. One day there will be spies in the armies, but that isn't going to be for some time. But obviously, by the same token, you'll be able to get spies into enemy forces, or simply bribe people in other forces over to your side.
As for fire - oh yes. That's in already, actually! It spreads rather nicely. However, some of the mechanics (setting fire to things, fire dying out over a wide area, etc) need a bit of work.
RA3 might not have been much of a success, but it has a expansion that is pretty fun to mess around in just for the ridiculous units it aadded, even though said expansion doesn't work in MP obviously.
RA3 also has this thing, (http://theredalert.cnclabs.com/) which may or may not be better than the above in your opinion.
Ah, cnclabs! I seem to remember that site from the old days when I was modding TS and RA2. *nostalgia*
All of 'em were based off of the literary Romance of the Three Kingdoms, for those that didn't know. It's pretty much one of the biggest (both in terms of historical/cultural impact and sheer size) pieces of Chinese literature in existence, from what I understand. One of the true classic books in existence, really. There's a few translations running around the 'net, yeah.
--
Anyway, URR. Questions I've randomly pulled out to actually add to discussion: Will any race choices have radical gameplay impact? Will a hivemind or full-on aquatic race exist, for example? Boats, tunneling?
Can anything more be said on the magic system? I've been playing Vapors of Insanity a bit, lately, and I have to say a sort of, I guess, noun/verb driven (A firebolt, ferex, is mixing the spell of missile with the spell of fire), almost totally freeform system would be absolutely delicious (especially with a more accessible UI :P). Basically, how complex is the complex systems you mention in the blog :P
RotTK is actually in my amazon wishlist! I mean, three hundred other novels are, but there you go.
Race choices will primarily affect where you start off, and therefore the kind of person you'll start around (mercenaries, farmers, miners, scholars, etc). Each race will also raise certain skills faster or slower than others, but those will still be relatively minimal differences. The big differences will be in terms of who you can ally with, or deal with, or live with, and what kinds of armies you can raise, and things like that. So, in short: for the alpha, purely 'personal' differences (stats, etc). Later on, much bigger differences! Those are two really interesting suggestions, though... especially the aquatic race option.
Sadly, nothing else can really be said of the magic system so far :(. It's one of goals the furthest in the future. I'm probably going to have two major kinds of magic. One will involve spells of the sort you described, that you can combine and change for size, distance, effectiveness, radius, etc. The other will be unique schools of magic that have nothing to do with others, like Necromancy, Demonology, and a couple of others I'm considering too :). They'll exist, but it's going to be a while. The freeform magic will come first, the special schools later!
This looks excellent!
I had two questions but I forgot the other...
you said it will be difficult to move once grappled unless the grappler/grappelee is big, would a large flying creature be able to pick you up and drop you from a height?
Yep! It'll show how high you've ascended; the sooner you break free, the smaller the distance you drop, and so the less damage you take. Same goes, obviously, for any AI creature grabbed by another creature. Shout if you remember the other question :)
I wonder, if this were possible, if you could be dropped onto/drop someone else onto another creature and kill them...
the last act in your life- killing a cow by landing on it from 500 meters.
Ha! Yes, I guess this could happen. Normally it's one creature per square, but creatures rising up through the z-axis will be able to share a square. I'll have to work on that one once flying creatures appear :)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on November 13, 2011, 05:59:01 pm
Quote
RotTK is actually in my amazon wishlist! I mean, three hundred other novels are, but there you go.
http://www.new3k.com/newrotkebook/ :)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 14, 2011, 06:44:32 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2011/11/World-map-300x300.png)
Check out the latest devblog (with a full size version) @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/11/15/cartography-in-the-land-of-ultima-ratio-regum/. Let me know what you all think :)! Now I just need to get cities, territories, and random things like caves, dungeons etc spawning. That shouldn't take anywhere near as long, though...
Post by: Levi on November 14, 2011, 06:53:25 pm
Then again, that could just be an effect of the random number generator. :P
Post by: Aklyon on November 14, 2011, 07:00:48 pm
Post by: trees on November 14, 2011, 07:09:24 pm
One thing I noticed that's odd about the map, though, is how all of the outlying islands are very, very small and just sort of scattered around. Other than that, it looks great.
Post by: Aklyon on November 14, 2011, 07:22:53 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 14, 2011, 07:39:10 pm
That looks pretty sweet actually, although I'm not sure I like the banding effect going on. Its like all the biomes are put smushed together in layers(which is probably fairly realistic) instead of having N/S variation.
Then again, that could just be an effect of the random number generator. :P
It is meant to go from N/S; there is more variation in the layers when you zoom in to the normal scale. If you average out a climate map of our world, it does look reasonably like that, though obviously with a little more variation. Still, a lot of that is down to tectonics, ocean current etc, and I don't intend to model those!
Looks like someone covered africa in a giant flag.
Excellent! I... think? :)
This whole project looks really neat. I'll keep an eye on it.
One thing I noticed that's odd about the map, though, is how all of the outlying islands are very, very small and just sort of scattered around. Other than that, it looks great.
Thanks a ton! That's actually deliberate; you do sometimes get some very large islands when they don't join up into big continents, but I'm deliberately keeping lots of small islands. They will be a large source of the exploration for small forces, and unique locations/monsters will be much more likely to spawn there.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 14, 2011, 07:44:39 pm
Post by: Geen on November 14, 2011, 07:46:44 pm
Post by: woose1 on November 14, 2011, 09:32:13 pm
I have a couple of questions though:
Firstly, will we be able to take trophies from fallen enemies? Say, we just slew a dragon or some other fantastical beast, can I cut off its head, or butcher it and carry its skull with me? Could I take the ear of some sort of Orc Chieftan I just killed as a nostalgic token? It'd be pretty cool to mount slain enemies' heads on pikes, as well.
Second, do you ever plan on implementing any sort of magic in the game? It's already in a sort of fantasy-esque setting, with mystical creatures, but in terms of spells, spellcasters, or anything like that, do you have anything planned? And if you do have something planned, will it be a sort of simple fireball/lightning/pointy-hats kind of system, or more complex, like in terms of the Eragon series, where magic is dictated by the manipulation of real-world forces and energy, and you could abuse certain laws of nature to your own ends? I ask because I've always loved games that feature magical beings, but only sparsely, and those who are able to use magic could destroy entire armies if they had enough preparation.
It'd be horribly complex, but I think you could decently abstract a system that allowed you to do this sort of thing. Plus, it might spice up combat to more than just "whoever has more dudes win".
Post by: klingon13524 on November 15, 2011, 02:41:06 am
This looks really really cool. It's been said before, but, nice job!There's already a blog post about magic. Search the website.
I have a couple of questions though:
Firstly, will we be able to take trophies from fallen enemies? Say, we just slew a dragon or some other fantastical beast, can I cut off its head, or butcher it and carry its skull with me? Could I take the ear of some sort of Orc Chieftan I just killed as a nostalgic token? It'd be pretty cool to mount slain enemies' heads on pikes, as well.
Second, do you ever plan on implementing any sort of magic in the game? It's already in a sort of fantasy-esque setting, with mystical creatures, but in terms of spells, spellcasters, or anything like that, do you have anything planned? And if you do have something planned, will it be a sort of simple fireball/lightning/pointy-hats kind of system, or more complex, like in terms of the Eragon series, where magic is dictated by the manipulation of real-world forces and energy, and you could abuse certain laws of nature to your own ends? I ask because I've always loved games that feature magical beings, but only sparsely, and those who are able to use magic could destroy entire armies if they had enough preparation.
It'd be horribly complex, but I think you could decently abstract a system that allowed you to do this sort of thing. Plus, it might spice up combat to more than just "whoever has more dudes win".
Post by: Frumple on November 15, 2011, 02:55:49 am
Trophies sound like an interest <eventual mechanic>, though. Especially with a moral system, even moreso with one that has cultural -- or at least racial -- differences. The potential/eventual necromancy spells could have interesting and/or amusing interactions with them.
It'd be a bit of a surprise if your head-on-pike suddenly started trying to gnaw your arm off.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 15, 2011, 08:19:34 am
This looks great! Watching.
Cheers! Thanks for the support :)
This looks really really cool. It's been said before, but, nice job!
I have a couple of questions though:
Firstly, will we be able to take trophies from fallen enemies? Say, we just slew a dragon or some other fantastical beast, can I cut off its head, or butcher it and carry its skull with me? Could I take the ear of some sort of Orc Chieftan I just killed as a nostalgic token? It'd be pretty cool to mount slain enemies' heads on pikes, as well.
Second, do you ever plan on implementing any sort of magic in the game? It's already in a sort of fantasy-esque setting, with mystical creatures, but in terms of spells, spellcasters, or anything like that, do you have anything planned? And if you do have something planned, will it be a sort of simple fireball/lightning/pointy-hats kind of system, or more complex, like in terms of the Eragon series, where magic is dictated by the manipulation of real-world forces and energy, and you could abuse certain laws of nature to your own ends? I ask because I've always loved games that feature magical beings, but only sparsely, and those who are able to use magic could destroy entire armies if they had enough preparation.
It'd be horribly complex, but I think you could decently abstract a system that allowed you to do this sort of thing. Plus, it might spice up combat to more than just "whoever has more dudes win".
Thanks a ton! Now, to answer your queries:
1) Body parts can come off foes in combat (arms, hands, wings, whatever) and you can certainly pick them up and hold on to them. For different creatures, different parts of their bodies will impress others more, and therefore make better trophies - a Behemoth tusk, a Dragon head, etc. I love the mounting on pikes idea - you could lead them into battle against others of their kind for morale damage. Mind if I steal that idea? :)
2) Yeah, as said on the last page, there's going to be a kind of freeform magic where you construct spells, and several totally unique schools of magic which require different rituals, equipment, knowledge etc. The latter are more long-term things you do before a battle, or to prepare yourself, or raise an army, or deal with deities, or whatever, while the freeform spells are for the heat of combat, so they're more traditional attack/defense etc!
I think you're right - it should make things more complex, but anyway, the strengths of creatures vary so wildly I hope there'll be variation in most-soldiers-equals-victory :)
Trophies sound like an interest <eventual mechanic>, though. Especially with a moral system, even moreso with one that has cultural -- or at least racial -- differences. The potential/eventual necromancy spells could have interesting and/or amusing interactions with them.
It'd be a bit of a surprise if your head-on-pike suddenly started trying to gnaw your arm off.
Ha, yes! I hadn't thought of that. The way I plan on necromancy though won't allow anything like that to happen, but again, that's far, far in the future... 8)
Post by: Blaze on November 15, 2011, 11:17:54 am
I can't wait.
Also, is there "NPC Development" anywhere? Such as unaligned NPC leaders which lead an army of mercenaries/rebels that can be hired by you or fight against you as rivals, a group of far-flung and forgotten villages/towns of random alignments form an alliance and break away from their inept rulers, or a legendary creature that grows powerful and "famous" enough to develop a cult of worshipers; all of which can eventually become kingdoms/countires if given enough time.
Post by: Blaze on November 15, 2011, 12:04:56 pm
Ultima ration regum:I'd throw some holes in there though, In case I run into any hetero victims.
kill a necromancer, become a necromancer, kill an army, own an army of phalluses!
Post by: sebcool on November 15, 2011, 02:35:18 pm
But how will the combat be, like: If you skewer an opponent will he die instantly, will he be knocked out and bleed to death, or will the fight continue?
Will skewering or decapacitation happen by luck or by taking advantage of openings?
How common are openings and do they happen when: Getting hit, missing, stumbling, outside involvement (stray arrows, pushes, distractions), getting parried, terrible martial arts, pain, lack of caution, or something else?
Will combat be different depending on class/personality, Will a berserker fight differently and take more chances than a royal guard.?
How much harder will it be to fight an opponent with a shield, will there be different sizes, will different sizes and weights affect ranged and melee protection?
Will fights be (normally) decided by criticals (skewering, decapacitation) or slug fests (hitting each other until one of them falls dead)
How will team work, work: Can soldiers team up to fight one enemy (obvious but still...), how will it effect the opponent, can they attack simultaniously (soldier 1 attacks kobold. Kobold parries. Soldier 2 skewers kobold :'(), and how will teaming up affect morale for the soldiers and the victims?
Can a general join the battle and shout orders to commanders directly, and can he lead his own regiment of bodyguards?
What happens when commanders get killed: Will the soldiers rout, will the soldiers spread out and fight more disorganized, will there be a vice commander, will they join other regiments, and what happens if all commanders in the battle get killed?
Will there be a morale system?
Will there ever be mouse control?
Is my list of questions long enough :P
Post by: Blaze on November 15, 2011, 02:50:37 pm
1. What's the expected number of soldiers in a "medium" battle?
2. What kind of CPU load are we looking at here?
If it's going to have to track multiple variables for each individual soldier for both armies - not including environmental effects such as weather, temperature, and magic, among others - we're going to eat up a lot of CPU per turn. I don't want this to turn into a second Academagia.
Post by: woose1 on November 15, 2011, 06:15:21 pm
Thanks a ton! Now, to answer your queries:If you allow me to mount the heads of my enemies on pikes like the cowards they are and charge in to battle like the crazy bastard I am you can have my babies forever.
1) Body parts can come off foes in combat (arms, hands, wings, whatever) and you can certainly pick them up and hold on to them. For different creatures, different parts of their bodies will impress others more, and therefore make better trophies - a Behemoth tusk, a Dragon head, etc. I love the mounting on pikes idea - you could lead them into battle against others of their kind for morale damage. Mind if I steal that idea? :)
2) Yeah, as said on the last page, there's going to be a kind of freeform magic where you construct spells, and several totally unique schools of magic which require different rituals, equipment, knowledge etc. The latter are more long-term things you do before a battle, or to prepare yourself, or raise an army, or deal with deities, or whatever, while the freeform spells are for the heat of combat, so they're more traditional attack/defense etc!
I think you're right - it should make things more complex, but anyway, the strengths of creatures vary so wildly I hope there'll be variation in most-soldiers-equals-victory :)
Didn't mean any offense by the "dude=dude" comment. I know it'll be more complex than that.
Also, what about riding animals? I suppose there will be horses and stuff, but I'm curious as how you plan on handling that. And perhaps, we could tame and ride other creatures, like the aforementioned dragons? It might take a little bit away from their imposing image, though, if you just view them as potential epic mounts.
Post by: Elfeater on November 15, 2011, 08:28:09 pm
Post by: Aklyon on November 15, 2011, 08:51:07 pm
Will there be sandwyrms? I mean like shai halud form dune and the like?Those aren't wyrms, though. They're giant eaters of everything in worm form.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 16, 2011, 06:19:19 am
So perhaps in the future you can go solo and bait an enemy army into an area you've set traps on, which kills quite a few of them and cuts off any method of retreat and then resurrect said dead to cause panic
Up to this point, you're bang on the money! :P
Also, is there "NPC Development" anywhere? Such as unaligned NPC leaders which lead an army of mercenaries/rebels that can be hired by you or fight against you as rivals, a group of far-flung and forgotten villages/towns of random alignments form an alliance and break away from their inept rulers, or a legendary creature that grows powerful and "famous" enough to develop a cult of worshipers; all of which can eventually become kingdoms/countires if given enough time.
I definitely want to get NPCs rising/falling in factions and making the same kind of large-scale decisions the player makes. The player won't be the only 'adventurer', as it were. Legendary creatures will definitely have a chance of developing a cult or following, and the longer this is left, the larger it'll probably grow. The further away from any empire villages are, the more likely they will be to end up worshiping/being ruled by strange things...
Looks interesting...
But how will the combat be, like: If you skewer an opponent will he die instantly, will he be knocked out and bleed to death, or will the fight continue?
Will skewering or decapacitation happen by luck or by taking advantage of openings?
Thanks!
Depends on where. Someone skewered in the arm can fight on; someone skewered through the heart can't. Regardless, all creatures (that have blood) bleed, so bleeding to death is a definite possibility.
Almost entirely from taking advantage; if you aim for the head and have a strong enough weapon/arm, you might decapitate; you can only skewer if you have a weapon that can skewer and aim it well; etc. There's a whole bunch of things like that that can happen in combat, but almost all of them are dependent on player (/AI) decisions.
How common are openings and do they happen when: Getting hit, missing, stumbling, outside involvement (stray arrows, pushes, distractions), getting parried, terrible martial arts, pain, lack of caution, or something else?
Will combat be different depending on class/personality, Will a berserker fight differently and take more chances than a royal guard.?
Stumbling is an excellent chance for getting a good hit in; otherwise, it just depends on your skills, your weapons, and where on your foe you choose to target. Pain will also reduce your foes' movement, and therefore increase your chance of landing the kind of hit you want. Interesting you mention pushing - I think I'm going to allow huge creatures to shoulder smaller ones out of the way, but I haven't yet put that in. If I do, though, being pushed out of the way will likely distract other creatures for one turn.
For AI, combat choices depends on things like their rank, how much they like the person they follow, how well-fed/well-paid they are, how injured they/their friends are, what experience they have, what weapon they're wielding, what foe they're facing, etc. To use your example, definitely; a berserker will charge in and be difficult to break the morale of, while royal guards (which, no doubt, you can acquire) will hang back and protect the important people.
How much harder will it be to fight an opponent with a shield, will there be different sizes, will different sizes and weights affect ranged and melee protection?
Will fights be (normally) decided by criticals (skewering, decapacitation) or slug fests (hitting each other until one of them falls dead)
Quite a bit; shields are the only way to parry attacks, and that reduces the damage to almost 0. Of course, having a shield means you can't be wielding a second weapon, so it's an offense/defense thing. But yes, sizes, weights, materials etc all play a role, along with Dexterity and shield-related skills. There are also factors which determine how many attacks a creature can parry per turn; it starts at 1, and goes from there.
Well, slug fests would have to cause death by bleeding, passing out, etc, and those haven't been fully programmed yet! Hopefully, a mix of the two.
How will team work, work: Can soldiers team up to fight one enemy (obvious but still...), how will it effect the opponent, can they attack simultaniously (soldier 1 attacks kobold. Kobold parries. Soldier 2 skewers kobold :'(), and how will teaming up affect morale for the soldiers and the victims?
Can a general join the battle and shout orders to commanders directly, and can he lead his own regiment of bodyguards?
Being in a team will normally make morale higher simply by default. Every creature gets a turn in sequence of spawning; HOWEVER, since I realise that will give a slight advantage to 'old' armies, I'm working on a way to equalise the turns all monsters get, regardless of their 'order' in the list of creatures. Also, yeah, one creature fighting a lot will already have its morale at a low level.
Yes, and almost certainly yes! If the battle is huge and your commanders distant, send a runner :)
What happens when commanders get killed: Will the soldiers rout, will the soldiers spread out and fight more disorganized, will there be a vice commander, will they join other regiments, and what happens if all commanders in the battle get killed?
Will there be a morale system?
The death of the commander both causes huge morale loss, and huge confusion in the army. Those next in command will all attempt to rally, but if the battle is going badly anyway (likely, if the commander has been reached & killed) it's unlikely the soldiers are going to stay around that much longer. Die-hard soldiers who believe in the cause might stay; the rest'll likely scatter.
Yep. It has nearly a dozen factors, and it's being worked on now.
Will there ever be mouse control?
Is my list of questions long enough :P
Unlikely!
And I think so :), but do shoot with any more.
Oh, I forgot the obvious questions:
1. What's the expected number of soldiers in a "medium" battle?
2. What kind of CPU load are we looking at here?
If it's going to have to track multiple variables for each individual soldier for both armies - not including environmental effects such as weather, temperature, and magic, among others - we're going to eat up a lot of CPU per turn. I don't want this to turn into a second Academagia.
1) If you're serving in a detachment of an army, and trying to work your way up to leading, you'll probably be alongside maybe 30/40 others, and (unless mad) you'll probably fight around the same number.
2) Currently, at the most, around 4-500 MB of RAM. As you say, it's tracking a lot; however, I've found that in turns where a lot happens, i.e. there is a lot to be calculated, it's going to be in the heat of the battle where you need to make a lot of decisions, so the load becomes less noticeable, if you get what I mean. Now that the map is chunked, that helps too; only your current location and surrounding areas are loaded at any one point.
If you allow me to mount the heads of my enemies on pikes like the cowards they are and charge in to battle like the crazy bastard I am you can have my babies forever.
Didn't mean any offense by the "dude=dude" comment. I know it'll be more complex than that.
Also, what about riding animals? I suppose there will be horses and stuff, but I'm curious as how you plan on handling that. And perhaps, we could tame and ride other creatures, like the aforementioned dragons? It might take a little bit away from their imposing image, though, if you just view them as potential epic mounts.
It's a deal! None taken whatsoever :)
Yes, intelligent creatures will be able to ride. Not sure what yet, not sure how it'll work, and not sure how it'll go in. Will probably be limited to horses for starters, anyway.
Will there be sandwyrms? I mean like shai halud form dune and the like?
There are large, unique creatures. There is also a worm class of non-intelligent monsters. So... it's possible. Only time will tell! :)
Post by: Untouchable on November 16, 2011, 12:38:41 pm
However, be sure to include some exotic units. For example, the Dwarves could have a gigantic Wombat that they essentially get really mad and then turn loose on the enemy ranks where it acts like the animal equivalent of an armed tank. Since in real life, they are built like tanks to begin with and are fairly dangerous despite their size then they could be a cool and unique unit.
Then have the overhanging danger that they could turn against your forces and cause as much damage and you have something that wouldn't even be thought about.
Post by: Leatra on November 17, 2011, 10:12:30 am
Erm... "helpful developer" sounds nice but your nick may be confused with your game title and I don't know what to call you :D Would you prefer Mark Johnson, Mark, Mr. Johnson (not the movie), Mark the Genius, The Overlord or Terminator? Just making silly jokes but seriously, you are a genius or very brave for starting a huge game like this :D
By the way, how are you going to implement riding?
Post by: Clownmite on November 17, 2011, 04:28:01 pm
How did you deal with AI objects blocking another AI's pathfinding? I'm using libtcod's built-in A*, and although it works wonderfully, the AI doesn't realize that other AI objects block its path (both the map coordinates and objects have a "blocked" property). I tried setting it up so that every turn, an object will temporarily cause the map coords to become blocked, but the program freaked out when I had it update on every AI turn - which is necessary for the AI to take into account how the other AIs moved.
Post by: Levi on November 17, 2011, 04:34:28 pm
Still can't wait for the alpha to be released, and your worldgen looks awesome (despite being a little too locked to longitude).
How did you deal with AI objects blocking another AI's pathfinding? I'm using libtcod's built-in A*, and although it works wonderfully, the AI doesn't realize that other AI objects block its path (both the map coordinates and objects have a "blocked" property). I tried setting it up so that every turn, an object will temporarily cause the map coords to become blocked, but the program freaked out when I had it update on every AI turn - which is necessary for the AI to take into account how the other AIs moved.
I vaguely remember that you could use your own callback function instead of using the tcod map class to do the pathfinding, if that helps.
http://doryen.eptalys.net/data/libtcod/doc/1.5.1/html2/path_init.html?c=false&cpp=false&cs=false&py=true&lua=false
I think you just return a 0.0 the tile is blocked (by a wall or monster) and a 1.0 otherwise.
Post by: Clownmite on November 17, 2011, 07:31:33 pm
I vaguely remember that you could use your own callback function instead of using the tcod map class to do the pathfinding, if that helps.
http://doryen.eptalys.net/data/libtcod/doc/1.5.1/html2/path_init.html?c=false&cpp=false&cs=false&py=true&lua=false
I think you just return a 0.0 the tile is blocked (by a wall or monster) and a 1.0 otherwise.
Thanks for the help - I had been looking at the custom blocked function thing. I guess I didn't articulate my question clearly: In order for the AI to take the most current information into account, it will have to loop through every single map tile AND every single object on the map, every single turn (and every AI entity would have to do this), so I'm trying to figure out if there's a better way.
Post by: Levi on November 17, 2011, 10:06:39 pm
Chances are each entity doesn't really need to know about every single tile to do what it needs to do. Its generally just something like
1) Check my status
2) Check a target or two near me
3) Decide what to do with that, which is usually:
- run away,
- run towards
- stab with the stabby sword
If you have a bunch of entities, then it'll probably look smart enough.
Post by: Clownmite on November 17, 2011, 10:25:34 pm
I have no idea how Ultima RR is doing it, but the usual answer is to make the AI pretty dumb. :P
Chances are each entity doesn't really need to know about every single tile to do what it needs to do. Its generally just something like
1) Check my status
2) Check a target or two near me
3) Decide what to do with that, which is usually:
- run away,
- run towards
- stab with the stabby sword
If you have a bunch of entities, then it'll probably look smart enough.
That's actually exactly what my AI does right now (although the commander AI issues some pretty silly commands to the squad leaders, who either move where the commander tells them, or have their men charge). The issue is that when I have a squad of 10 vs another squad of 10, the pathfinding AI creates a traffic jam, where there will only be 1 guy from each side fighting, with the rest of the squad piled up behind them, each one trying to get at that "closest enemy" and not recognizing that there's another guy blocking their path. I can (and will, soon) change them to look for something other than the closest enemy, but that doesn't solve the core issue of them not realizing objects obstruct their paths.
Post by: BishopX on November 17, 2011, 11:42:13 pm
I have no idea how Ultima RR is doing it, but the usual answer is to make the AI pretty dumb. :P
Chances are each entity doesn't really need to know about every single tile to do what it needs to do. Its generally just something like
1) Check my status
2) Check a target or two near me
3) Decide what to do with that, which is usually:
- run away,
- run towards
- stab with the stabby sword
If you have a bunch of entities, then it'll probably look smart enough.
That's actually exactly what my AI does right now (although the commander AI issues some pretty silly commands to the squad leaders, who either move where the commander tells them, or have their men charge). The issue is that when I have a squad of 10 vs another squad of 10, the pathfinding AI creates a traffic jam, where there will only be 1 guy from each side fighting, with the rest of the squad piled up behind them, each one trying to get at that "closest enemy" and not recognizing that there's another guy blocking their path. I can (and will, soon) change them to look for something other than the closest enemy, but that doesn't solve the core issue of them not realizing objects obstruct their paths.
You know, I'm not sure individual level path finding is that way to go in games like these. I mean historically anyone more tactically advanced than a tavern brawl fought with some level of coordination, even if it's only something as simple as "I'll stick with my mates so I'll have some to watch my back". To that end I think an AI descison tree like this:
-Check status
-Check for squadmates
-check for threats
-Make grade dependent descisions. For the grunts this would be:
-If overwhelmed or cut of, run away
-if ranged threat, respond/hold ranks/charge
-if if opponents are close by attempt to engage while maintaining squad coherency.
For squad leaders you could add in slightly more advanced path finding, such are moving towards the enemy.
Post by: Levi on November 18, 2011, 11:44:46 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In theory I think that would avoid the traffic jam issue.
Edit: I should probably stop derailing the thread though.
Edit 2: Fixed a logic error where unit would try to avoid walking next to himself. :P
Post by: Clownmite on November 19, 2011, 11:19:42 am
Maybe something like this:
**CODE**
In theory I think that would avoid the traffic jam issue.
Edit: I should probably stop derailing the thread though.
Edit 2: Fixed a logic error where unit would try to avoid walking next to himself. :P
Thanks! I appreciate the help. And as long as nobody else is trying to carry on a discussion, and we're bumping this thread to the front page, I don't think derailing the thread is a bad thing.
I'm still having trouble understanding the custom function though - don't you need it to loop through EVERY tile on the map, along with every object? Here's my pathfinding function, and my move function:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The trouble is obviously in my path_func - if I comment out the objects bit, it works fine (but the pathfinding doesn't take into account other objects: the very issue I want to solve); but if I keep the object code in, nobody moves. Any thoughts? Feel free to pm me if you don't want to clutter the thread.
Post by: Levi on November 19, 2011, 11:46:35 am
Thanks! I appreciate the help. And as long as nobody else is trying to carry on a discussion, and we're bumping this thread to the front page, I don't think derailing the thread is a bad thing.
I'm still having trouble understanding the custom function though - don't you need it to loop through EVERY tile on the map, along with every object? Here's my pathfinding function, and my move function:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The trouble is obviously in my path_func - if I comment out the objects bit, it works fine (but the pathfinding doesn't take into account other objects: the very issue I want to solve); but if I keep the object code in, nobody moves. Any thoughts? Feel free to pm me if you don't want to clutter the thread.
Nope. The a* algorithm is the one that calls the function whenever its appropriate. The custom path function ONLY tells the A* algorithm if the current cell is accessible or not.
Your code is almost right I think. I'd take out all the checking of the xFrom and yFrom. Only look at xTo and yTo when doing the comparisons. The problem is that xFrom and yFrom are probably always going to match against the unit who is trying to move. He is essentially blocking himself. So your code would be more like:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I think that would probably work.
Edit: I'm actually working on some similar code that is having a few technical problems. If I get it worked out I might have a better idea of how to make things more efficient too.
Post by: Clownmite on November 19, 2011, 02:47:36 pm
Nope. The a* algorithm is the one that calls the function whenever its appropriate. The custom path function ONLY tells the A* algorithm if the current cell is accessible or not.
Your code is almost right I think. I'd take out all the checking of the xFrom and yFrom. Only look at xTo and yTo when doing the comparisons. The problem is that xFrom and yFrom are probably always going to match against the unit who is trying to move. He is essentially blocking himself. So your code would be more like:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I think that would probably work.
No, if I try that the game freezes up (and if I do this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What I don't understand is the purpose of the xFrom, and yFrom in that definition. How does the path function know the xFrom and yFrom, since they're never specified? Why does xTo and yTo even matter: Shouldn't this definition be just building a path map by looking at all map tiles and checking which ones are blocked?
Post by: Levi on November 19, 2011, 05:25:41 pm
The change you made doesn't take each other into account when pathfinding because it just looks at the first unit and then returns 1.0. It should look at all of them, and then return 1.0 if none of them matched.
Post by: Leatra on November 19, 2011, 05:40:07 pm
Post by: Levi on November 19, 2011, 05:47:47 pm
Post by: klingon13524 on November 20, 2011, 04:11:23 am
Post by: Enzo on November 20, 2011, 04:42:29 am
Post by: KaelGotDwarves on November 20, 2011, 05:51:14 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 20, 2011, 08:12:44 am
Post by: Ahra on November 20, 2011, 08:21:29 am
Post by: Ivefan on November 20, 2011, 08:48:12 am
Hey, as long as i will be able to recruit an band o minotaurs in good :PMy preference would be to kill your minotaurs and then add them to my band of undeads.
...Will that be possible?
Post by: Blaze on November 20, 2011, 09:19:26 am
Hey, as long as i will be able to recruit an band o minotaurs in good :PMy preference would be to kill your minotaurs and then add them to my band of undeads.
...Will that be possible?
Seems like it is.So perhaps in the future you can go solo and bait an enemy army into an area you've set traps on, which kills quite a few of them and cuts off any method of retreat and then resurrect said dead to cause panic *snip*
Up to this point, you're bang on the money! :P
Hopefully we'll be able to tear out their bones to raise as skeletons. Then use the remaining bags of flesh to form flesh horrors. And use the pools of blood to make blood golems. Maybe some mutant organs like acid spitting stomachs, worms made out of intestines that constrict and swallow you whole and then slowly digest you, or compound flying brains that can cast spells.
Waste not, want not.
Post by: Leatra on November 20, 2011, 04:21:08 pm
looks like the B12 forums love this kind of game, it has a fair few followers and it isn't even released in alpha!If the dev wasn't going to start a thread I was going to do it. Nobody (especially Bay 12 community) should miss this game.
Post by: Clownmite on November 21, 2011, 05:36:26 pm
This mirrors my views on "quests" exactly. I never liked pre-programmed quests in RPGs, so it will be nice to see a game that has characters with real motivations try to recruit you to their cause, and the results of your actions actually affecting the world.
Post by: Blaze on November 21, 2011, 06:37:28 pm
Say, if the objective was "Don't let Faction X take over Area Y", could I complete it by nuking the entire place to kingdom come?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 21, 2011, 06:51:00 pm
As long as you can encounter stuff like Bear Cavalry then I'm good.
However, be sure to include some exotic units. For example, the Dwarves could have a gigantic Wombat that they essentially get really mad and then turn loose on the enemy ranks where it acts like the animal equivalent of an armed tank. Since in real life, they are built like tanks to begin with and are fairly dangerous despite their size then they could be a cool and unique unit.
Then have the overhanging danger that they could turn against your forces and cause as much damage and you have something that wouldn't even be thought about.
Maybe not QUITE giant wombats, but I get what you're saying :) - some forces might be likely to enlist particular wild animals to their causes...
I see a lot of questions which were answered in the blog. Still, our helpful developer who answered all these questions without pointing that out. Now I feel bad about saying that.
Erm... "helpful developer" sounds nice but your nick may be confused with your game title and I don't know what to call you :D Would you prefer Mark Johnson, Mark, Mr. Johnson (not the movie), Mark the Genius, The Overlord or Terminator? Just making silly jokes but seriously, you are a genius or very brave for starting a huge game like this :D
By the way, how are you going to implement riding?
No worries; it's awesome that people are interested enough to ask questions! Haha, I don't mind -Mark works for me, or helpful developer, or Maas Biolabs, which is the username I use on a lot of websites and forums. Wow, thanks :) - I hope it'll turn out well. I'm still trying to get us closer and closer to the alpha, but it'll be a few months yet until the first version of this epic undertaking is actually playable.
Riding... not sure yet. I'll start with horses, and it'll likely effectively function as improved speed, health, and reach. We'll see how that works out first...
Still can't wait for the alpha to be released, and your worldgen looks awesome (despite being a little too locked to longitude).
How did you deal with AI objects blocking another AI's pathfinding? I'm using libtcod's built-in A*, and although it works wonderfully, the AI doesn't realize that other AI objects block its path (both the map coordinates and objects have a "blocked" property). I tried setting it up so that every turn, an object will temporarily cause the map coords to become blocked, but the program freaked out when I had it update on every AI turn - which is necessary for the AI to take into account how the other AIs moved.
Cheers! Yep, people seem to agree on that issue, and I might have enough changes by the end of this week to resolve it and make the banding a little more varied.
I had the exact same problem at first, though I'm using dijkstra. To deal with that and stop it haven't to redo AI constantly, I've written my own code to help monsters find their way around small obstacles, moving obstacles, hills that are too tall for them to climb up but aren't 'blocked' by a wall or whatever, and so on and so forth. It seems to work perfectly and has no major memory drain, and can even get people around huge battlefields without having to recalculate. If you want more explanation, shout :)
No, you are right. I'll keep it in pms or in the programming help thread. Sorry about that!
No problem!
Bump, because this seems like exactly the game of my dreams.
Wow, thanks! My primary drive is 'everything I've always wanted to see in a game', and it's been great to know some people are interested in the same dynamics for a game that I am.
Posting to encourage and to follow the project.
Same as above. Hoping to see URR become something grand :)
Cheers both :D
looks like the B12 forums love this kind of game, it has a fair few followers and it isn't even released in alpha!
This is no false modesty, but I'm really overwhelmed by the response. I hope the parts playable in the first alpha in a few months won't disappoint :\
Hey, as long as i will be able to recruit an band o minotaurs in good :PMy preference would be to kill your minotaurs and then add them to my band of undeads.
...Will that be possible?
To Ivefan & Ahra - yes, I sincerely hope so. Minotaurs will be intelligent creatures, but not ones that produce even villages of any kind of size.
Seems like it is.
Hopefully we'll be able to tear out their bones to raise as skeletons. Then use the remaining bags of flesh to form flesh horrors. And use the pools of blood to make blood golems. Maybe some mutant organs like acid spitting stomachs, worms made out of intestines that constrict and swallow you whole and then slowly digest you, or compound flying brains that can cast spells.
Waste not, want not.
Not sure about body part functionality yet from a non-combat perspective; then again, that's far in the future. Creatures do have different kinds of blood already, but that's the extent thus far.
If the dev wasn't going to start a thread I was going to do it. Nobody (especially Bay 12 community) should miss this game.
I totally agree. *nods seriously*
New blog post is up: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/
This mirrors my views on "quests" exactly. I never liked pre-programmed quests in RPGs, so it will be nice to see a game that has characters with real motivations try to recruit you to their cause, and the results of your actions actually affecting the world.
Damn, that was quick :). That's exactly what I'm after - hopefully this approach is pretty new and will strike a chord with people.
I like the sound of it already. How "defined" are the objectives of said quests though?
Say, if the objective was "Don't let Faction X take over Area Y", could I complete it by nuking the entire place to kingdom come?
Hopefully, eventually... yes! Kill their leader; murder them all; give them another target; burn the city to the ground; lead another army against X; and so on and so forth. Letting the AI recognize multiple emergent ways of completing objectives will be tricky, but I think I have an idea for the kind of structures I need to allow it.
Post by: Dsarker on November 21, 2011, 06:57:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 22, 2011, 04:04:23 pm
Post by: sebcool on November 23, 2011, 11:02:37 am
First of all: Will you be able to climb?
And can you stand on someones shoulders in order to reach a high ledge (or just ride him :P)
And you wrote something 'bout weapons reach... Could you climb on a Titans/other large beasts back and stab his/her/hir head from there (or just ride it :P), or can you *again* stand on someones shoulders and stab the beasts head from there, or just stand on a ledge and just say 'f*ck it' and jump 10 meters down and stab its head (or miss and fall to your death).?
And could you actually damage (or kill, maim, or just splat) someone by just falling on them?
And could you corner (or whatever it's called) someone at the edge of a VERY deep hole, yell 'Sparta!!!!', and kick him down the hole :P :D
Edit: Oh and i cant wait 'till it's released :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 24, 2011, 05:21:47 pm
Back with more questions :D
First of all: Will you be able to climb?
And can you stand on someones shoulders in order to reach a high ledge (or just ride him :P)
And you wrote something 'bout weapons reach... Could you climb on a Titans/other large beasts back and stab his/her/hir head from there (or just ride it :P), or can you *again* stand on someones shoulders and stab the beasts head from there, or just stand on a ledge and just say 'f*ck it' and jump 10 meters down and stab its head (or miss and fall to your death).?
And could you actually damage (or kill, maim, or just splat) someone by just falling on them?
And could you corner (or whatever it's called) someone at the edge of a VERY deep hole, yell 'Sparta!!!!', and kick him down the hole :P :D
Edit: Oh and i cant wait 'till it's released :D
Excellent! In order:
Yep, you and all creatures with non-broken arms can climb. However, climbing is slow, and uses up a lot of stamina, but you should be able to climb cliffs, towers, etc. Success and speed are currently based on Dex, but a climbing skill will likely appear.
Haha - probably not, but riding will gain you height.
Yes, you and other average creatures can climb up large creatures. If you're on a horse, as I say, this will probably have you function as being 'taller', but climbing will be the only way to stab a Titan in the head, for instance. If a creature is below a ledge... that's an interesting idea. I'll get back to you on that one! I like the idea of being able to leap on tall creatures from above to save you climbing...
Almost certainly :)
HA, yes! There are some attacks that can knock creatures (you included, of course) back, so fighting near cliffs will be appropriately dangerous :D
Post by: Pandarsenic on November 25, 2011, 09:56:28 am
Post by: Nighthawk on November 25, 2011, 11:28:36 am
The Opened Way started to play in my head as I read that post.I can empathize with that. I have the song on my MP3. :D
Post by: Leatra on November 25, 2011, 11:55:36 am
Quote
Different species and races speak different languages. You begin only able to speak the language of your species (Human, Dwarven or Elvish), but have the ability to learn other tongues. The more of a language you know, the more of that speech you are able to understand, and therefore the greater the ease with which you can trade, exchange information, and form alliances.
This reminded me the language skills from TES: Daggerfall.
Can we learn the language of demonic creatures? :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 27, 2011, 06:49:37 am
The Opened Way started to play in my head as I read that post.I can empathize with that. I have the song on my MP3. :D
It saddens me that I do not get the appropriateness/reference here :(
From the "about" page of the blogQuoteDifferent species and races speak different languages. You begin only able to speak the language of your species (Human, Dwarven or Elvish), but have the ability to learn other tongues. The more of a language you know, the more of that speech you are able to understand, and therefore the greater the ease with which you can trade, exchange information, and form alliances.
This reminded me the language skills from TES: Daggerfall.
Can we learn the language of demonic creatures? :D
Oh yes! Fourteen languages currently on the list. But as for who'd be willing to teach you a demonic language, that's a different matter...
Post by: Ivefan on November 27, 2011, 07:01:27 am
Oh yes! Fourteen languages currently on the list. But as for who'd be willing to teach you a demonic language, that's a different matter...Willing?
I shall slay them and revive 'em as my demonic scribe.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 27, 2011, 08:30:08 am
Oh yes! Fourteen languages currently on the list. But as for who'd be willing to teach you a demonic language, that's a different matter...Willing?
I shall slay them and revive 'em as my demonic scribe.
Heh. Now this raises an idea that if someone has a particular skill - can teach you a weapon, or a language, or knows a map location, or whatever - and won't tell you for whatever reason, you can kill them, resurrect them, and then command them to. I like this idea! Or, presumably, let you threaten while alive, or other methods too...
Post by: Ivefan on November 27, 2011, 10:13:07 am
Whats your take on magic?
Player wielded magic always seem to be rather underpowered due to game balancing. But why not let the player have the possibility of near godlike magicks if they actually want to put the effort for it.
Post by: Leatra on November 28, 2011, 09:20:26 am
Oh yes! Fourteen languages currently on the list. But as for who'd be willing to teach you a demonic language, that's a different matter...Willing?
I shall slay them and revive 'em as my demonic scribe.
Heh. Now this raises an idea that if someone has a particular skill - can teach you a weapon, or a language, or knows a map location, or whatever - and won't tell you for whatever reason, you can kill them, resurrect them, and then command them to. I like this idea! Or, presumably, let you threaten while alive, or other methods too...
So if you learn resurrection you can just kill and ressurect people to get what you want? It should be depending on your skill. From a mindless zombie to a full functioning, able-to-talk undead.
Interrigation and torture could be an option too. You could attack them with a whip or something and they wouldn't fight back because of some kind of a physical restaint. A risk of killing the prisoner is involved if you go for vital organs.
But why not let the player have the possibility of near godlike magicks if they actually want to put the effort for it.I can think of things like twisting bones, creating the ilusion of an allied dragon to crush the morale of enemy, causing inner bleeding, using telekinesis to stick everything sharp to your enemy, tripling your size, summoning demonic creatures and stuff like that. It should be very difficult though. Casting a demonic spell should require some demonic language skill first.
How much will we be able to cast per day? Will it depend on a mana system where it regenerates itself or will you have to rest like in Dungeons & Dragons?
Will there be magical potions? I think magical potions and being able to craft them would add some spice to the game but I think healing potions wouldn't work well in this game. Maybe if they are difficult to craft and very rare to come by...
By the way, what about a language for dragons?
Fus Ro Dah!
Post by: Blaze on November 28, 2011, 10:44:29 am
Also, how would resources as a whole work out? Are we going with a huge list of individual resources like in DF or a generalized group of ingredients like in Age of Empires and similar games?
Oh, while we're on the topic of potions and mixtures, I want to suggest those that can be used for attack; Such as Greek Fire, Poison Gas, Acid Rain, for the simpler ones at least.
Post by: Leatra on November 28, 2011, 12:20:35 pm
I think mixtures in general would be nice, but at the same time I'm worried about how it would add up. If we're going to be using potions how are we going to obtain the reagents in reasonable amounts? Making enough healing potions to equip even a decent sized army may require stripping the land bare; not to mention crushing monotony if we're doing it by hand.
Well, giving healing potions to every soldier would be difficult of course. I rather give a health potion to one of my commanders.
Post by: Frumple on November 28, 2011, 12:54:38 pm
... which leads to the question of item enchantment and creation. Any words on this? Will we be able to make battle standards that offer regeneration and flaming weapons to nearby troops? Will kamikaze (explode-on-death) items be makable? Will we be able to combine that with a slave collar to send our enslaved foes screaming toward their former allies as living artillery (possibly catapult delivered)? Slap a band of regeneration on a captured dragon and repeatedly skin it for armor material? Teleporting arrows? Teleporting kamikaze slave goblins?
The list could go on, and on, and on, but being that it's an army-leading game, the existence (or lack thereof) of force multipliers would be particularly interesting. I want that battle standard. I want everfilling pots of troll blood to dip my terribly injured warriors in. I want dragon heads on sticks, breathing unending gouts of flame on my foes. I want enemy-targeting kill-switch enchantments on my commanders, to spew arcs of lightning on their murderers, and then consume the commander's corpse and resurrect it as a lightning elemental to further wreck havoc upon my opponents. Stuff like that :P
+1 keen is fine for solo buggers and small parties, but epic armies need epic kit!
Post by: Leatra on November 28, 2011, 01:10:02 pm
... which leads to the question of item enchantment and creation. Any words on this? Will we be able to make battle standards that offer regeneration and flaming weapons to nearby troops? Will kamikaze (explode-on-death) items be makable? Will we be able to combine that with a slave collar to send our enslaved foes screaming toward their former allies as living artillery (possibly catapult delivered)? Slap a band of regeneration on a captured dragon and repeatedly skin it for armor material? Teleporting arrows? Teleporting kamikaze slave goblins?
The list could go on, and on, and on, but being that it's an army-leading game, the existence (or lack thereof) of force multipliers would be particularly interesting. I want that battle standard. I want everfilling pots of troll blood to dip my terribly injured warriors in. I want dragon heads on sticks, breathing unending gouts of flame on my foes. I want enemy-targeting kill-switch enchantments on my commanders, to spew arcs of lightning on their murderers, and then consume the commander's corpse and resurrect it as a lightning elemental to further wreck havoc upon my opponents. Stuff like that :P
+1 keen is fine for solo buggers and small parties, but epic armies need epic kit!
That was... extreme :D
Post by: Shadowgandor on November 28, 2011, 02:00:25 pm
In my opinion, single player games, especially sandbox, should not have to be perfectly balanced, as long as the player can have fun.
And as for using magic, having the player grow fatigued would be a good way to balance spellcasting out. Want to raise a volcano in the middle of the battlefield? Sure, but don't expect to be able to stand on your feet after that, let alone fighting or casting another spell. This is the system Dominions 3 used and I really loved it :)
Perhaps even ripping the earth in two, swallowing all soldiers unfortunate enough to be standing in the center! Massive post-battle resurrection in order to continue your neverending conquests. Those are the kind of spells which would make magic really interesting imo.
Of course, these kind of spells should be really hard to learn and control. Perhaps ancient tombs have to be raided for certain spells, or from a book stolen from a historical figure.
This also brings up a question, how detailed will town development be? Lets say you could protect a town or a couple of towns for 2000 years and compare them to a town that's seen combat every few months, would you see a difference? The wartown for example having great walls and cheap fortifications everywhere while the towns that have developed in a peaceful environment are filled with marketplaces and stuff?
I was picturing an insanely powerful mage raising mountains and lakes around his country to protect it from hostilities :)
Post by: Levi on November 28, 2011, 04:05:24 pm
Post by: Shadowgandor on November 28, 2011, 04:18:55 pm
Post by: Aklyon on November 28, 2011, 04:32:20 pm
Well, if your wizards can split the earth and swallow entire armies, why bother with an army at all. Just recruit a bunch of wizards!Because Wizards usually aren't very durable.
Post by: Robsoie on November 28, 2011, 04:46:08 pm
- magic users are (very) rare, and not easily replaced when destroyed, avoiding then magic usage to become too common and just having the battles getting down to wizard-only armies.
- magic users are powerfull and even have battle abilities beyond regular folks thanks to their magic nature.
- magic feats can be very impressive but can then take lot of preparation and time leading into the next point.
- magic can't do much in the heat and urgency of a battle with armies of canon fodders clashing all around.
Post by: Leatra on November 28, 2011, 05:19:31 pm
There should be some very powerful spells that only a handful of individuals in the whole world can cast.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 28, 2011, 05:32:55 pm
Speaking of arcane methods...
Whats your take on magic?
Player wielded magic always seem to be rather underpowered due to game balancing. But why not let the player have the possibility of near godlike magicks if they actually want to put the effort for it.
I plan for it to be very, very powerful, but very, very rare. Individuals creatures can do magic of the fireballs etc sort (though even then, not many), but any kind of big magic is a very different affair.
So if you learn resurrection you can just kill and ressurect people to get what you want? It should be depending on your skill. From a mindless zombie to a full functioning, able-to-talk undead.
Interrigation and torture could be an option too. You could attack them with a whip or something and they wouldn't fight back because of some kind of a physical restaint. A risk of killing the prisoner is involved if you go for vital organs.But why not let the player have the possibility of near godlike magicks if they actually want to put the effort for it.I can think of things like twisting bones, creating the ilusion of an allied dragon to crush the morale of enemy, causing inner bleeding, using telekinesis to stick everything sharp to your enemy, tripling your size, summoning demonic creatures and stuff like that. It should be very difficult though. Casting a demonic spell should require some demonic language skill first.
How much will we be able to cast per day? Will it depend on a mana system where it regenerates itself or will you have to rest like in Dungeons & Dragons?
Will there be magical potions? I think magical potions and being able to craft them would add some spice to the game but I think healing potions wouldn't work well in this game. Maybe if they are difficult to craft and very rare to come by...
By the way, what about a language for dragons?
Fus Ro Dah!
Yeah; I think getting people back from the dead will make them mindless first, then more and more the better at it you get.
I'm afraid I don't know the answer to those questions yet, but I'm open to suggestions! I think mana for normal spells will regenerate, but there might be specific rituals for the more complex magic. Say, there's no limit to the amount of daily necromancy, but each resurrection requires physical supplies. Something like that. There are potions for now, but I'm not sure many there are going to be, and how big a role they will play. Probably not many, and not much! However, some obscure liquids (say, Blood of Monster X) might be needed for rituals. And dragons, in URR at least, aren't intelligent, so I'm afraid no dragon language here! : )
I think mixtures in general would be nice, but at the same time I'm worried about how it would add up. If we're going to be using potions how are we going to obtain the reagents in reasonable amounts? Making enough healing potions to equip even a decent sized army may require stripping the land bare; not to mention crushing monotony if we're doing it by hand.
Also, how would resources as a whole work out? Are we going with a huge list of individual resources like in DF or a generalized group of ingredients like in Age of Empires and similar games?
Oh, while we're on the topic of potions and mixtures, I want to suggest those that can be used for attack; Such as Greek Fire, Poison Gas, Acid Rain, for the simpler ones at least.
There will be plants you can harvest to make potions from. The list of resources will probably be of the scale in TES games, but I'm not sure yet. I might try and get a basic plants system in for the first alpha, just so you can go around and start making stuff! There are a couple of attacking potions in already, and I've tried to make them slightly more interesting than the usual fare (so more like your suggestions!)...
Healing wands, my friends, or something rechargeable. Amulet that gives an aura of health regen, etc. If you're spreading healing apparatus among your troops, probably better to go for dedicated healers among the soldiers, equipped with methods to heal many over a period of time instead of just one, once. Healing potions for everyone would be horribly inefficient when you could train 1/10 or 1/20th of your army as dedicated medics and give them the tools to do their job well.
... which leads to the question of item enchantment and creation. Any words on this? Will we be able to make battle standards that offer regeneration and flaming weapons to nearby troops? Will kamikaze (explode-on-death) items be makable? Will we be able to combine that with a slave collar to send our enslaved foes screaming toward their former allies as living artillery (possibly catapult delivered)? Slap a band of regeneration on a captured dragon and repeatedly skin it for armor material? Teleporting arrows? Teleporting kamikaze slave goblins?
The list could go on, and on, and on, but being that it's an army-leading game, the existence (or lack thereof) of force multipliers would be particularly interesting. I want that battle standard. I want everfilling pots of troll blood to dip my terribly injured warriors in. I want dragon heads on sticks, breathing unending gouts of flame on my foes. I want enemy-targeting kill-switch enchantments on my commanders, to spew arcs of lightning on their murderers, and then consume the commander's corpse and resurrect it as a lightning elemental to further wreck havoc upon my opponents. Stuff like that :P
+1 keen is fine for solo buggers and small parties, but epic armies need epic kit!
Lots of questions! Healer will probably be a specific role, but anyone can grab a healing potion if they want. Battle standards will be totally enchantable, and you'll also be able to take in icons, relics, and things of that sort. Not sure how slaves/mercenaries and similar are going to work yet, but I'll probably end up giving each their own mechanic. The idea of teleporting kamikaze slave goblins appeals, so we'll see!
Force multipliers are exactly the name of the game, especially when you have a force against a single megabeast (to use the DF term). They'll hopefully do a variety of things from raising stats, raising morale, assisting commanders, letting you do unique things (resurrect, teleport, whatever) and the like. Obviously items of this sort won't be easy to come by, but they'll be out there/craftable. Also... something I'm planning with items will have a similar effect, but I want to keep this particular idea under wraps for now, but it's a variation on the theme, and a particularly neat one, I think!
On the subject of magic and balance, why does everything have to be in perfect balance? If magic is stronger then normal, then that should be okay.
In my opinion, single player games, especially sandbox, should not have to be perfectly balanced, as long as the player can have fun.
And as for using magic, having the player grow fatigued would be a good way to balance spellcasting out. Want to raise a volcano in the middle of the battlefield? Sure, but don't expect to be able to stand on your feet after that, let alone fighting or casting another spell. This is the system Dominions 3 used and I really loved it :)
Perhaps even ripping the earth in two, swallowing all soldiers unfortunate enough to be standing in the center! Massive post-battle resurrection in order to continue your neverending conquests. Those are the kind of spells which would make magic really interesting imo.
Of course, these kind of spells should be really hard to learn and control. Perhaps ancient tombs have to be raided for certain spells, or from a book stolen from a historical figure.
This also brings up a question, how detailed will town development be? Lets say you could protect a town or a couple of towns for 2000 years and compare them to a town that's seen combat every few months, would you see a difference? The wartown for example having great walls and cheap fortifications everywhere while the towns that have developed in a peaceful environment are filled with marketplaces and stuff?
I was picturing an insanely powerful mage raising mountains and lakes around his country to protect it from hostilities :)
If you are directly casting, you'll grow fatigued; rituals, however, might just depend on time, resources, and other factors. As I said above in this long reply, magic will be very strong, but very rare. I do like the volcano-raising idea! Possibly none will be of quite THAT power... but, then, maybe they will. We'll just have to see! Chances are, big battles are going to be especially big, so magic is going to have to scale.
When towns spawn, they will spawn along a variety of factors - who lives there, who rules them, how old they are, where they are, what territory they're in, how close they are to nasty creatures, and similar factors. They will change in game depending on what happens, but they'll be spawned in that kind of way. Towns on frontiers with warring neighbours will have fortifications, while those safely in peaceful territory (and far from dragon lairs) won't : )
Magic in a similar way to how Tolkien implemented it in his work could be a very good idea.
- magic users are (very) rare, and not easily replaced when destroyed, avoiding then magic usage to become too common and just having the battles getting down to wizard-only armies.
- magic users are powerfull and even have battle abilities beyond regular folks thanks to their magic nature.
- magic feats can be very impressive but can then take lot of preparation and time leading into the next point.
- magic can't do much in the heat and urgency of a battle with armies of canon fodders clashing all around.
This is a good summary of what my reply would have been to the several messages above it :). Pretty much this, especially the last one. Magic on any kind of useful scale is something to prepare, not suddenly use in the heat of battle.
Lastly, for the first time, the devblog entry might not make it into today. It's been a long week and a long day, so there's a chance it won't appear until tomorrow...
Post by: Leatra on November 28, 2011, 05:41:37 pm
Regenerating mana or restoring mana by resting?
Maybe it would be better if we followed the way of Dungeons & Dragons when it comes to spell casting (Excluding rituals of course. I like that idea). Wizards are pretty much useless when they run out of spells and they aren't unbalanced. They are also weak at low levels. I don't know...
Anyway, I'll just read the other suggestions about this topic :D
Post by: Aklyon on November 28, 2011, 06:12:48 pm
Post by: Blaze on November 28, 2011, 07:16:29 pm
So if you cast a spell that costs 5 mana with your channeling at 20, you can do so immediately and reduce your available channeling to 15. If you try to cast one that costs 40 mana, you'll need time to cast said spell, depending on how quickly you can "recharge".
I also suggest the use of "focus" items, which increase your channeling and mana so long as it's available for use; said item could even have it's own Mana/Channel/Recharge stats. These could range from simple wands/staves to gigantic magical orbs that are towed along behind your army with your legions of undead slaves and such.
Also, the use of Metamagic would be nice too. You could expend extra mana/channel to increase the effects of your spell or change it in some way, such as targeting specific units/groups, prolonging its duration, changing it's damage type, etc.
Post by: Ivefan on November 28, 2011, 10:08:42 pm
If you are directly casting, you'll grow fatigued; rituals, however, might just depend on time, resources, and other factors. As I said above in this long reply, magic will be very strong, but very rare. I do like the volcano-raising idea! Possibly none will be of quite THAT power... but, then, maybe they will. We'll just have to see! Chances are, big battles are going to be especially big, so magic is going to have to scale.I have a rather... complex magic system thought out but i think it will not be that suitable to your game because it would shift the focus of what you're trying to do.
Well, if your wizards can split the earth and swallow entire armies, why bother with an army at all. Just recruit a bunch of wizards!A mage need something between himself and the sharp pointy objects that others want to put in his body.
As long as a mage can undisturbed unleash is powers it would be a one sided battle, unless the other side have some nullifying capacity.
When both sides have mages it becomes less flashy as then the mages job is to nullify/unravel/counter the other mages spells and if they're equally strong, no spells will be cast at all.
Blaze mentions Channeling ability, which sounds like a good measure of a mages strength. As this is a rougelike i assume that actions is measured in ticks.
Example 1:
You're a crappy novice mage, your ability is at 1 and you want to throw a firebolt in the face of that approaching bandit.
But firebolt costs 3, so with just 1 in ability it will take you 3 turns before it fires.
Example 2; Mage duel:
Mage A got 20, Mage B got 22.
The mages elect to dedicate their power to counter the other one, But mage B got 2 points more than A.
Mage B is then free to use those two points to cast spells.
Does this mean that Mage A is screwed? That depends on other factors such as his army being larges and can take the casualities, or Mage A got items he can draw power from, a ritualistic summoning that only needs knowledge and no channeling.
Maybe A Isnt that strong in raw power, but is trained in counter magics, i.e. 20+4 vs 22.
My own little system is based on the theory "power is drawn from an aspected source, limited by ability"
Sources would be realms/domains which is connected to the mundane world in different ways. Such as the elemental domains being intertwined visibly with the world as fire being strong in a desert, water on and by the sea etc.
Divine magic is limited to what the caster's god is willing to give.
Necromantic magic is drawn from living beings, where blood is used as fuel. The potency of the blood would be based on multiple factors such as health, age, magical traits or being a sentient or not. Drawing power from the dead and dying on the battle field would just yield a fraction of what a controlled ritual draining would.
The different mages would fall into the categories of;
Innate, where the mage channels his own power reserves, a quick but corporal fatiguing way of casting. An elementalist born with an affinity for fire would use his power as a conduit to manipulate the fire realm, drawing upon heat in the surrounding.
Knowledge/Ritualistic which is the use of arcane symbols, letters, language, geometrics, to form a spell, a target and the conduit.
And i got sidetracked. not much of this is useful in game mechanics.
Simply summarized. Channeling ability which determines the speed the mage can draw from a power pool, innate or external to fuel spells
Post by: Pandarsenic on December 01, 2011, 10:48:37 am
Well, if your wizards can split the earth and swallow entire armies, why bother with an army at all. Just recruit a bunch of wizards!A mage need something between himself and the sharp pointy objects that others want to put in his body.
Something... like... magic?
Post by: Frumple on December 01, 2011, 10:57:48 am
... but you could put cannons on top of golems. So artillery or squick. Tough choice, hrm. Well. There's always magical cyborg equivalents. Why choose, when you can have both?
Post by: klingon13524 on December 01, 2011, 11:29:26 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 01, 2011, 03:24:18 pm
Even if magic takes preperation, Magic Missile is always a good emergency backup thing to have on hand.
Very true. *nods seriously*
I say we go with Master of Magic's casting system. Mana lets you cast spells, and your channeling ability shows how much you can use at once.
So if you cast a spell that costs 5 mana with your channeling at 20, you can do so immediately and reduce your available channeling to 15. If you try to cast one that costs 40 mana, you'll need time to cast said spell, depending on how quickly you can "recharge".
I also suggest the use of "focus" items, which increase your channeling and mana so long as it's available for use; said item could even have it's own Mana/Channel/Recharge stats. These could range from simple wands/staves to gigantic magical orbs that are towed along behind your army with your legions of undead slaves and such.
Also, the use of Metamagic would be nice too. You could expend extra mana/channel to increase the effects of your spell or change it in some way, such as targeting specific units/groups, prolonging its duration, changing it's damage type, etc.
That's a very detailed analysis, and magic still needed a lot more thought. There will definitely be items that enhance casting, but I'm not sure how they will work. Similarly on the metamagic idea, I think I will allow you to put magically-attuned people in your army; but, of course, they will be flimsy and weak, so a liability if they come under attack.
I have a rather... complex magic system thought out but i think it will not be that suitable to your game because it would shift the focus of what you're trying to do.
Simply summarized. Channeling ability which determines the speed the mage can draw from a power pool, innate or external to fuel spells
I think the 'drawing power' idea is an interesting one. I'm vaguely brainstorming some ideas involving other powers in the URR world and how they'd play into something like this. I really like those suggestions, though! I'll get back to you on what it's going to look like on this end in a while, though :)
Mindcontrolled meatshields, anyway. Or maybe just walking shields of actual meat, crafted from the flesh and bone of former foes... and maybe a few annoying allies. Metal would probably be more effective, in general (golems!), but organics would let you do all sorts of neat tricks. Acid blood, tentacles, so on, so forth. Probably a moral penalty involved with fighting abominations of flesh and bone, too, which would be a bonus!
... but you could put cannons on top of golems. So artillery or squick. Tough choice, hrm. Well. There's always magical cyborg equivalents. Why choose, when you can have both?
Yep, definitely. Ordinarily folk won't like fighting with certain creatures, certain monsters, etc. On the other hand, some species will be very happily to fight with other species, so managing that will be part of whatever strategy you employ. As a starter, paying your soldiers more will stop them whining! And yes, I hope you will be able to have both...
So will all potions be good? Will you immediately know what they are, or will it be like Nethack? Also, this game needs spontaneous combustion potions. It sets the skin of whoever's blood it's on on fire for a moment. Will give them some nasty burns, and would catch flammable clothing on fire. Tip your arrows with it, or throw it at and stab someone for a surprise assassination!
Nope; you won't know what potions are. Shopkeepers will always tell you what a potion is, unlike Nethack, but there will probably be quite a lot, and even city shopkeepers won't have many. There should be as many poisons as potions - I've implemented a very simple Gorgon Blood potion which is great fun to play about with, and turn people to statues with...
Post by: Untouchable on December 01, 2011, 05:16:44 pm
Methinks we need to use them as some form of artillery.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 02, 2011, 04:23:34 pm
So bottles of Gorgons Blood?
Methinks we need to use them as some form of artillery.
Oh yes. They'll be rare, but they will definitely be usable in catapults.
Post by: Ahra on December 02, 2011, 04:27:24 pm
Post by: klingon13524 on December 02, 2011, 04:43:10 pm
What effect would diluting potions like that have?So bottles of Gorgons Blood?
Methinks we need to use them as some form of artillery.
Oh yes. They'll be rare, but they will definitely be usable in catapults.
Post by: Ivefan on December 02, 2011, 09:57:22 pm
What effect would diluting potions like that have?
Constipation
Post by: Edmus on December 03, 2011, 12:12:31 am
Like a place devoid of all life such as an ancient desert battleground, the opposite being a hippy forest grove like thing.
Post by: Ivefan on December 03, 2011, 12:55:25 am
If you decide magic can be drawn from a source would some areas make this easier, or harder?In my opinion, that would depend on what you are trying to do.
Like a place devoid of all life such as an ancient desert battleground, the opposite being a hippy forest grove like thing.
Say that a necromantic type of magic siphons/leeches/drains power from living things i'd say you'd have a larger power pool in the forest while on the battlefield you would have the materials to make undeads or force spirits to attack your opponent.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 03, 2011, 05:34:02 am
what about screamin´ magical skulls for the catapults for extra mind-fuck?
Definitely. Consider them on the list.
What effect would diluting potions like that have?
Constipation
Hahaha - you need to eat, and drink, but inexplicably taking a dump is not part of the requirements in URR. A diluted one would probably slow someone severely, or make them turn into stone over a much longer period. Since normal gorgon blood will be close to an instant kill affair, that would need some balancing...
If you decide magic can be drawn from a source would some areas make this easier, or harder?
Like a place devoid of all life such as an ancient desert battleground, the opposite being a hippy forest grove like thing.
In my opinion, that would depend on what you are trying to do.
Say that a necromantic type of magic siphons/leeches/drains power from living things i'd say you'd have a larger power pool in the forest while on the battlefield you would have the materials to make undeads or force spirits to attack your opponent.
Not sure yet, though areas of both types are penned to exist. There will definitely be areas where performing certain magics are easier, though the details are still being worked out :). We'll have to see. Though a battlefield full of corpses is going to be good place for a Necromancer anyway...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 05, 2011, 10:44:11 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/05/polyphemus-and-friends/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2011/11/Polyphemus.gif)
Post by: Blaze on December 05, 2011, 03:12:32 pm
Not sure yet, though areas of both types are penned to exist. There will definitely be areas where performing certain magics are easier, though the details are still being worked out :). We'll have to see. Though a battlefield full of corpses is going to be good place for a Necromancer anyway...
I think we should also adapt MoM's system of "Nodes" for this need.
Basically, Nodes are centers of a certain types of "Influence". This influence changes the surrounding landscape depending on how the specific node is. Also, nodes can have multiple influence types.
For example: An area with a magma vent acts as a weak "Fire" node. As you approach it, you'll encounter things like salamanders and a fire spell like "Flamelash" which would normally cost 40 mana is reduced to 35 mana or have stronger effects. Similarly, water spells would cost more mana to cast and have weaker effects.
On a much more powerful node, such as a Demongate, which spreads "Dark" and "Death" influence, can affect things much farther away. From several mile away you may encounter vultures and nearby villages are either abandoned or housed by cultists/possessed. As you get closer, minor undead and imps can start popping up. Closer still will be things like Wights, Ghasts, Demons, etc. And at the center would be greater demons and undead, such as Liches and Molochs.
In addition to other "Elements", I'd like to add "Magic" and "Savagery".
The Magic Influence is a universal effect that combines with other influences. For example, a mountain which has moderate "Ice" influence can result in the spawning of generally mundane creatures such as bears, while one with both "Ice" and "Magic" can spawn things like Snow golems and Frost elementals depending on the intensity of the influence.
In casting, magic influence is a double edged sword. The magic in the air increases the effect of your spells, but the same cloud may decrease your chances of successful casting. If you're skilled enough, an area with high magic influence would greatly benefit your spells, but a miscast could be disastrous.
Savagery is another universal influence that affects monster spawns and types. "Anti-savagery" usually "radiates" from settlements, though it depends on the settlement. A small human settlement won't have as much as an effect as a city, whereas a barbarian settlement would barely affect it at all.
We can also have "Artificial" nodes, which may be temporary. For example, a city of wizards would radiate "Magic" influence due to the experiments, accidents, artifacts, etc. An old battlefield may start to radiate "Death" influence depending on the amount of deaths in the battle; and may start creating undead on its own with a high enough Magic influence - which may come as a side effect if there were a lot of powerful spells cast in there. Creatures that are strong enough may radiate their own influence or even make their own permanent nodes. You may even be able to cart your own "Temporary node source" behind your army to strengthen your spells or weaken enemy ones. So an army without a wizard may want to bring along an "Anti-magic" node or a node type opposite of the enemy spellcasters in order to hinder them.
Post by: Edmus on December 05, 2011, 03:22:03 pm
Post by: Untouchable on December 05, 2011, 06:25:56 pm
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NMdhBDpOTaQ/SsiohFc-RlI/AAAAAAAAAZY/GlosTu3VFwA/s400/Balor+full+to+post.jpg)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 06, 2011, 05:55:40 am
BURN IT! BURN IT WITH FIRE!
Noooooo :(
Not sure yet, though areas of both types are penned to exist. There will definitely be areas where performing certain magics are easier, though the details are still being worked out :). We'll have to see. Though a battlefield full of corpses is going to be good place for a Necromancer anyway...I think we should also adapt MoM's system of "Nodes" for this need.
Parts of this are similar to my intentions. The idea of nodes is already present for the spawning of monsters, but probably won't be for magic. Which is to say, magical sites of particular interest will be focused on a single map squares and not really extend beyond it. For monsters, however, all squares around a volcano have a (much smaller, but still non-zero) chance of spawning volcano-appropriate monsters. Similarly, if you get close to a dragon's lair, for instance, then the number of monsters in the vicinity should drop off at the same pace the number of corpses increases, etc. I mean, this might affect magic, but I don't know yet.
In regards to the Cyclops, will they have terrible depth perception?
Haha - possibly. Though I suspect a lifetime of living will have trained them in coping with it. On the other hand, watching a Cyclops just plunge off a cliff by accident sounds amusing, if not quite the tone I want...
If we are going to have a Cyclops then we also have to have Balor of the Evil Eye.
Isn't he the guy with a second eye on the back of his head? I'm trying, for the most part, to keep to my own mythology, though there are a few well-known/mythological/famous creatures/individuals who pop up... maybe he'll make an appearance :)
Post by: ChairmanPoo on December 06, 2011, 07:14:51 am
Heh, this bit reminded me of the Dragaera novel series. "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style." was a Jhereg House adage.
A mage need something between himself and the sharp pointy objects that others want to put in his body.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 06, 2011, 08:00:23 pm
Heh, this bit reminded me of the Dragaera novel series. "No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style." was a Jhereg House adage.
A mage need something between himself and the sharp pointy objects that others want to put in his body.
This is *very true*. Very true. Mages are going to be for grand strategy, not the thick of combat...
Post by: agentorangesoda on December 06, 2011, 08:19:00 pm
You said that these cyclopes are unlikely to give up when aroused. I may have missed pages of discussion addressing this but are you working surrendering into the game? Either humanoids surrendering to belligerent armies or surrendering to the player? would your character be able to surrender?
Or will you be forced to brutally murder in cold blood every enemy who feigns surrender like Skyrim?
Post by: Edmus on December 06, 2011, 10:32:01 pm
Please write more things about space.This also raises the question of prisoners, slaves and ransoms.
You said that these cyclopes are unlikely to give up when aroused. I may have missed pages of discussion addressing this but are you working surrendering into the game? Either humanoids surrendering to belligerent armies or surrendering to the player? would your character be able to surrender?
Or will you be forced to brutally murder in cold blood every enemy who feigns surrender like Skyrim?
Post by: BishopX on December 07, 2011, 12:56:25 am
Other ways of moderating spellcasting could be used such as fatigue, insanity, the threat of attracting the notice of some beast from another dimension, bodily harm, aging or drastically increased nutritional requirements. Fatigue is probably the easiest to code, since all that happens is that after a spell the mage needs to go have a good lie down. The problem is this is very boring for the player when they utilize magic. Given the social networks needed to control a mercenary band, have mages go insane could have some interesting complications. Especially if they start being delusional or paranoid. Also fun if you stop being able to trust your assessments of NPCs. Extraplanar entities (such as demons) seem to be alreadt incuded in the cosmos, and the possibility of an annoyed demon showing up in the the middle of the command squad during a battle is probably scary enough that you would need to be careful. Bodily harm could either be deliberate (i.e. you need to injure yourself or a proxy to cast) or it could be the result of mishandling magic. The possibility of feedback could manifest as burns, kinetic force, blinding light or in extreme cases explosions. Premature ageing would put a hard cap on how much magic a caster could ever use, although not so much how much magic could be used at any time.
Post by: Ivefan on December 07, 2011, 04:22:50 am
Text
Most of this is what i would consider either spell/casting failures or things suitable to a world where magic isn't that powerful.
Mana can in many cases be considered mental fatigue but whatever system used, It just comes down to balance.
But what kind of balance? Rock, paper & scissor type? Or maybe the ever present "magic is just another type of archery"?
I would like it if the balance lies in the effort needed rather than a mechanical wall.
I guess a new character has some standard start level so that you're not forced to start as a wide-eyed farmboy/girl every new game.
But at this level, a melee character might head straight out into the world and bash shit and make a living, where as a mage would have to start with some caution and try to increase his power that compared to the warrior would take more player effort.
Post by: chicagohotdog on December 07, 2011, 01:13:59 pm
Most of this is what i would consider either spell/casting failures or things suitable to a world where magic isn't that powerful.
Mana can in many cases be considered mental fatigue but whatever system used, It just comes down to balance.
But what kind of balance? Rock, paper & scissor type? Or maybe the ever present "magic is just another type of archery"?
I would like it if the balance lies in the effort needed rather than a mechanical wall.
I guess a new character has some standard start level so that you're not forced to start as a wide-eyed farmboy/girl every new game.
But at this level, a melee character might head straight out into the world and bash **** and make a living, where as a mage would have to start with some caution and try to increase his power that compared to the warrior would take more player effort.
I would hate to see a situation in which the character with vastly more potential (mage) is "balanced" simply by making that character type more difficult to play as. This system would just set up a "early game favors warriors, late game favors mages" situation.
Post by: mendonca on December 07, 2011, 02:30:27 pm
Distrust, fear, rivalry, betrayal - all facets of any general's relationship with the world and his army, and perfectly valid tools to provide different balancing options for an arcane wizard versus an honorable warrior.
Post by: Tnx on December 07, 2011, 02:54:04 pm
If you're a mage general who only commands mindless magical creatures, then there would be no distrust! That could be another balancing tool actually. Have a fighter oriented commander better able to command human soldiers, and not able to command many magical creatures (or any?).
Post by: Clownmite on December 07, 2011, 06:38:31 pm
Post by: Ivefan on December 07, 2011, 07:41:40 pm
I would hate to see a situation in which the character with vastly more potential (mage) is "balanced" simply by making that character type more difficult to play as. This system would just set up a "early game favors warriors, late game favors mages" situation.It's a single player game, so no need to balance it so that every type is equally strong.
No matter how skilled you are with the sword, a large wave of fire will still burn you to a crisp. What to do about it? Sneak up on the mage or recruit people by playing on their fears about that spell tossing lunatic.
I just see it as a different playstyle and a different set of challenges.
Post by: Aklyon on December 07, 2011, 08:22:39 pm
Post by: Frumple on December 07, 2011, 08:36:55 pm
The mystical pseudo-magic jutsu spitters (In the strategy world, I'd probably point at ol'Ogre Battle for an example, but newer folks could wave toward stuff like Naruto.) might be at home in the battlefield. Those are closer to spec-ops or heavy assault specialists than assassination monkeys.
It would be nice to have certain (magical) professions that are more limited (read: Less versatile, less useful outside of combat) but more directly combat-capable. Spellswords, paladins, said shock-trooper ninja, stuff like that. A division, perhaps muddy, between tactical and strategic level spellspitters.
I'm terribly fond of the stuff I keep running into in Fate/stay night fanfiction, in which (simplifying, here) the difference between a combat mage and a normal one is the difference between a scientist and an engineer, theoretical knowledge vs. practical application. Someone that can do just about anything given the effort, contrasted to one that's figured out and practiced practical applications of a smaller repertoire of abilities.
Mostly, though, I just love the thought of non-worldshaking magic being very present on the battlefield. Having all that magic and not using it, in a magically active world, is like having gunpowder and piano wire and not using it for demolition and garrotes. Even non-magic users want enchanted armor and fireball wands.
Edit: Though that rambling did lead me to a question: Will your army composition effect itself? If you've got a bunch of magi, will the bog-standard soldiers start picking up cantrips and minorly enchanted kit? If magi and normal soldiers don't get along, what about if you've got some kind of inbetween, say the above mentioned spellswords (fighter/mage types)? Will a sizable number of clerics/paladin types start converting the rest of your army? More maliciously, will an army with a heavy dose of necro/biomancers have the rank and file start occasionally getting an odd mutation and a morale penalty (/intelligence loss and increase in loyalty, for a smaller penalty to a larger number of fellow soldiers :P)?
Post by: chicagohotdog on December 08, 2011, 01:59:47 pm
Will your army composition effect itself? If you've got a bunch of magi, will the bog-standard soldiers start picking up cantrips and minorly enchanted kit?
I like this idea... that your soldiers will teach each other skills/help each other out. Maybe it should depend on how much your various soldiers like each other. But if I had an army of 50 swordsmen and 4 potion makers , I might expect that even the potionmakers would learn a bit of how to handle a sword.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 09, 2011, 04:26:30 am
Please write more things about space.
You said that these cyclopes are unlikely to give up when aroused. I may have missed pages of discussion addressing this but are you working surrendering into the game? Either humanoids surrendering to belligerent armies or surrendering to the player? would your character be able to surrender?
Or will you be forced to brutally murder in cold blood every enemy who feigns surrender like Skyrim?
Thanks :) - I will try. There should be another academic entry up some time later this month. I'm currently firing out a ton of thesis and don't have time for much else, but I'll be much freer in about a week.
Surrendering... wild creatures, which will be the only kind in the very first alpha, won't surrender, though they might turn and flee and try to escape if too badly injured. Later, however, I fully intend to add surrendering, and you won't be forced to kill everyone who 'surrenders'. Similarly, I think it would be neat if you could surrender in order to survive, be taken prisoner, and try to escape later...
This also raises the question of prisoners, slaves and ransoms.
It does, it does. Again, I have a few pages of ideas in that area...
Going back to the magic thing for a second. I would really like it if the concept of mana went away. It's a useful abstraction like Hit points, but if URR is getting rid of hit points (like DF does), then why stick keep mana around? The only vaguely historical analog to what we call mana is the concept of "vital essence" which shows up in alchemy and is more or less controlled by how often you have sex. Not something that should really drive the magic system in a strategy roguelike.
Other ways of moderating spellcasting could be used such as fatigue, insanity, the threat of attracting the notice of some beast from another dimension, bodily harm, aging or drastically increased nutritional requirements. Fatigue is probably the easiest to code, since all that happens is that after a spell the mage needs to go have a good lie down. The problem is this is very boring for the player when they utilize magic. Given the social networks needed to control a mercenary band, have mages go insane could have some interesting complications. Especially if they start being delusional or paranoid. Also fun if you stop being able to trust your assessments of NPCs. Extraplanar entities (such as demons) seem to be alreadt incuded in the cosmos, and the possibility of an annoyed demon showing up in the the middle of the command squad during a battle is probably scary enough that you would need to be careful. Bodily harm could either be deliberate (i.e. you need to injure yourself or a proxy to cast) or it could be the result of mishandling magic. The possibility of feedback could manifest as burns, kinetic force, blinding light or in extreme cases explosions. Premature ageing would put a hard cap on how much magic a caster could ever use, although not so much how much magic could be used at any time.
I think a significant part of magic is going to involve dealing with various supernatural creatures, either by you, or a mage under your command. Either way, there's no 'Mana' meter, and resting probably won't be the way to recharge; you'll be able to do a volume of magic proportional to what you've managed beforehand in terms of agreements with creatures, rituals performed, etc. Magic needs preparation, but once prepared, you can cast - when you run out, you won't be fatigued our 'out' of magic, but you just won't be able to cast any more until you rebuild your supply. I do like the idea of potentially negative feedback from 'overcasting' - one of my very, very earliest builds had something similar for a magic system I was just trying, actually! If you tried to cast when your magic was too low, you might get the desired effect, but nasty things could happen too...
Most of this is what i would consider either spell/casting failures or things suitable to a world where magic isn't that powerful.
Mana can in many cases be considered mental fatigue but whatever system used, It just comes down to balance.
But what kind of balance? Rock, paper & scissor type? Or maybe the ever present "magic is just another type of archery"?
I would like it if the balance lies in the effort needed rather than a mechanical wall.
I guess a new character has some standard start level so that you're not forced to start as a wide-eyed farmboy/girl every new game.
But at this level, a melee character might head straight out into the world and bash shit and make a living, where as a mage would have to start with some caution and try to increase his power that compared to the warrior would take more player effort.
Honestly, I'm not sure yet. I think you currently start off as a generally competent person who has maybe helped fight the odd bandit raid or two, and knows of the existence of magic. Getting into the thick of combat will require other issues that magic doesn't, since berserker characters will have more wounds, more potential negative effects from other creatures, etc. Magic balance won't be from the AMOUNT of effort, I don't think, but rather where you extend alliances too, what you spend your time doing, etc. Assuming you want to do magic yourself, as you should be able to find those you can recruit for it. Again, first alpha is combat only, but we'll have to see how balancing the magic works out in the end :)
I would hate to see a situation in which the character with vastly more potential (mage) is "balanced" simply by making that character type more difficult to play as. This system would just set up a "early game favors warriors, late game favors mages" situation.
No, I definitely want to avoid this. For a late-game player who chooses to focus on combat (in the triangle of Combat, Command, and Magic) there are going to be a lot of options for becoming hugely powerful yourself!
But this won't be about one on one combat, so an all powerful mage would struggle in other ways.
Distrust, fear, rivalry, betrayal - all facets of any general's relationship with the world and his army, and perfectly valid tools to provide different balancing options for an arcane wizard versus an honorable warrior.
Yes - many randoms you recruit might have a distrust of mages, especially if that mage entreats with gods or creatures they consider particularly negative. On the flip side, if you recruit soldiers who worship the god your mage happens to deal with, then that'll obviously help general army cohesion.
Taking ideas from Dominions 3...
If you're a mage general who only commands mindless magical creatures, then there would be no distrust! That could be another balancing tool actually. Have a fighter oriented commander better able to command human soldiers, and not able to command many magical creatures (or any?).
Currently, I don't *think* non-intelligent creatures will be recruitable into armies. You may be able to chain and use some (think of the guy in 300 with the immortals...), but for the most part, creatures in your army will be intelligent. As for whether magic characters will be able to summon familiars, or other creatures into battle... I'm not sure. I have one nice idea in that area, but it's in its early stages so far :)
Hey, Ultima, can I ask what font you're using? I can't seem to find one that's all smoothed and antialiased and also includes extended ascii chars.
Just arial, 12x12. Though, actually, I've just shifted to 10x10 to accommodate for people with silly screen-sizes!
It's a single player game, so no need to balance it so that every type is equally strong.
No matter how skilled you are with the sword, a large wave of fire will still burn you to a crisp. What to do about it? Sneak up on the mage or recruit people by playing on their fears about that spell tossing lunatic.
I just see it as a different playstyle and a different set of challenges.
Yeah - as I mentioned somewhere above, I'm now thinking of there being three paths of Combat, Command and Magic, and each will require different. You would be burnt to a crisp, but I'm actually working on at the moment mechanics for things like fire resistance and the like. It's not going to be a clear dichotomy between invincible/susceptible a la nethack, but probably more like a sliding scale. For fire, specifically, creatures with high or total fire resistance can walk around in lava either unhurt, or mostly unhurt. Either way, these effects will be hard, but not impossible, for your humanoid character to get :)
You don't bring a ninja to a field battle, pretty much?
Unless your entire battle-plan revolves around taking out the enemy leader, perhaps...
Edit: Though that rambling did lead me to a question: Will your army composition effect itself? If you've got a bunch of magi, will the bog-standard soldiers start picking up cantrips and minorly enchanted kit? If magi and normal soldiers don't get along, what about if you've got some kind of inbetween, say the above mentioned spellswords (fighter/mage types)? Will a sizable number of clerics/paladin types start converting the rest of your army? More maliciously, will an army with a heavy dose of necro/biomancers have the rank and file start occasionally getting an odd mutation and a morale penalty (/intelligence loss and increase in loyalty, for a smaller penalty to a larger number of fellow soldiers :P)?
Interesting rambling :). I do want to make sure everybody doesn't just want magic, and that needs both balancing, and making beheading creatures up-close and personal as desirable as possible. Which shouldn't be too hard...
Hmmmm. Good questions. I hope to give armies internal dynamics - not just some factions might like others, but some factions might fight amongst themselves, or dislike others, or try to convert Faction X to belief in God Y, and as I think I touched on above re: BishopX's ideas, there might be some feedback. For mages, awful eldritch things might happen; for a combat-heavy army, there might be tensions that need to be relieved by fighting each other when there's nobody else around to fight, or they might get bored from a lack of combat or desert. I'm also planning to implement streamlined but important systems about keeping your army paid, fed, etc, and the lack of these will produce potential for unrest.
I like this idea... that your soldiers will teach each other skills/help each other out. Maybe it should depend on how much your various soldiers like each other. But if I had an army of 50 swordsmen and 4 potion makers , I might expect that even the potionmakers would learn a bit of how to handle a sword.
One system I'm rather happy with, and still working on, is that AI creatures will share information about you (and other AI foes) with each other. If one Orc starts fighting you and notices after a few turns that your left arm is nearly broken, and then a second Orc comes up, the first will shout to the second that your arm is nearly broken, and stuff like that. I expect I will extend a similar thing into armies, but I'd want to make sure that if you didn't just leave an army around they wouldn't all just train each other up to perfection...
Post by: Dsarker on December 09, 2011, 07:06:54 am
Post by: klingon13524 on December 09, 2011, 07:19:16 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 11, 2011, 06:53:40 am
Maybe they gradually reach an 'average'. So you might have two great fighters, two decent fighters, and two poor fighters. You leave them for a few months, they're all decent fighters.
Interesting suggestion. Some get worse if they stick around with those they can't train usefully with. Hmm. I'll have to think about that one :)
This seems quite.. ambitious... for a one man team. I really look forward to playing this, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to finish this in 10 years.
Undoubtedly! I'm not sure how to define the term 'finished'; a few months should see the first alpha, then it's all adding from there. I'll consider it as having reached beta once there are civilizations and NPCs to interact with, I think...
Post by: Leatra on December 11, 2011, 07:21:17 am
This seems quite.. ambitious... for a one man team. I really look forward to playing this, but I'm not sure if you'll be able to finish this in 10 years.
Undoubtedly! I'm not sure how to define the term 'finished'; a few months should see the first alpha, then it's all adding from there. I'll consider it as having reached beta once there are civilizations and NPCs to interact with, I think...
Most roguelikes are never finished anyway. Even if the dev stops working some other guy continues developing the game. That depends on the programming language and the way how game was made of course.
Maybe they gradually reach an 'average'. So you might have two great fighters, two decent fighters, and two poor fighters. You leave them for a few months, they're all decent fighters.
Interesting suggestion. Some get worse if they stick around with those they can't train usefully with. Hmm. I'll have to think about that one :)
Warriors can get rusty if they don't fight of course but it should be easier to learn the same skills again. You don't forget how to swim if you don't even swim for years. Murdering people around with a greatsword is just like swimming!
Post by: Drevlin on December 11, 2011, 08:19:13 am
(If I understood correctly, it's written in python using libtcod, so there is a chance to have a linux version of it)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 12, 2011, 06:05:17 am
Most roguelikes are never finished anyway. Even if the dev stops working some other guy continues developing the game. That depends on the programming language and the way how game was made of course.
Warriors can get rusty if they don't fight of course but it should be easier to learn the same skills again. You don't forget how to swim if you don't even swim for years. Murdering people around with a greatsword is just like swimming!
True; I'm sure everyone says this, but I have no intention of stopping any time soon :)
That seems like a good balance. And as you say, murdering IS just like swimming!
Will this game be cross-platform?
(If I understood correctly, it's written in python using libtcod, so there is a chance to have a linux version of it)
I'd like to have a linux and mac version; however, python -> exe is a sufficiently confusing process, and I know sufficiently little of linux/macs, that this might not be instant. I'll have to see how hard it is to compile such a version when I come to the first release...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 12, 2011, 10:08:43 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/12/mini-monday-post/
Post by: Deon on December 12, 2011, 11:19:35 am
Also if you can, please add descriptions to anything possible (which you can inspect). You can even make them simple/nonexistent for now, and let the community fill it, it would add a lot of flavor to the world. I would jump on such project gladly!
And of corse: it looks great!
Post by: sebcool on December 12, 2011, 12:20:56 pm
First of all: Will a highly trained mage be able to draw energy out of living creatures and use it for spells? And could he draw energy from heat, movement (as in falling rocks 'n stuff), electricity, wind?
Could he actually end up killing himself by using up all his energy? (like, his heart stops because he is over fatigued)
Would there be drawbacks by using magic (mental problems, sickness, pain)
How powerful would mages be at their highest? Would they be awesomely strong, godlike, one man army's that could throw men and monsters around like leaves in a hurricane and level entire cities without breaking a sweat? Or would they be no stronger than any other man, but with an army of zombies and elementals?
Would magic mostly be focused at singular (fireballs, and magic missiles) or AOE (tornado summoning, oversized air blasts, meteor showers, and mass necromancy) magics? Or would it be a mix?
Could you store mana in objects for later use? Would it drain over time?
Would magic be something rare or common? And how powerful would an 'average' mage be?
And finally... Could you enslave a village, leech energy out of the villagers and then use their drained corpses to make an army of undead and take over the world? :D :D :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 13, 2011, 06:13:38 am
How will be the factions handled? Would it be possible for you to make items/creatures/factions moddable and allow people to make their own factions with modded equipment, stats, rules, description etc? It would provide great customization to anyone who wants to play specific scenarios or to make "whos race wins" bets... Et cetera, it would make the game much more interesting to play with ;).
Also if you can, please add descriptions to anything possible (which you can inspect). You can even make them simple/nonexistent for now, and let the community fill it, it would add a lot of flavor to the world. I would jump on such project gladly!
And of corse: it looks great!
Intelligent creature factions will not exist in the first alpha, but when they do, factions will be generated and then iterated through several simple generations of conflict to create empires and smaller city-states. Each will have a colour, and a randomly generated name, flag, and various other things. I don't plan to allow modding in the traditional sense just yet, but I will likely put in a function to allow you to design specific factions that will exist in a game, or to generate a world with very specific parameters. Say, if you want to let the world generate, that's fine, but if you want a world with one gigantic empire and you start off with just a tiny village, that should be possible too, but that's once factions actually appear! Of course, wild creatures etc have factions, but those aren't the same. And thanks! Stay tuned for the winter screenshot update :)
Oh, there are already descriptions for absolutely bloody everything :). I might end up asking for ideas, though, so thanks a ton for the offer! Currently, creatures all have detailed descriptions. In the next few days I'm going to properly add trees and plants back into the mix, and they'll all get descriptions. Also, the names and histories of forests, mountains etc are all generated, and come with descriptions. You can also view a weapon, which will give you a close-up ASCII image of the weapon, in addition to info about its history, make, benefits, etc, and a general description. There's a bloody lot of words in this game!
Back with some more MAGIC questions :D
First of all: Will a highly trained mage be able to draw energy out of living creatures and use it for spells? And could he draw energy from heat, movement (as in falling rocks 'n stuff), electricity, wind?
Could he actually end up killing himself by using up all his energy? (like, his heart stops because he is over fatigued)
Would there be drawbacks by using magic (mental problems, sickness, pain)
How powerful would mages be at their highest? Would they be awesomely strong, godlike, one man army's that could throw men and monsters around like leaves in a hurricane and level entire cities without breaking a sweat? Or would they be no stronger than any other man, but with an army of zombies and elementals?
Would magic mostly be focused at singular (fireballs, and magic missiles) or AOE (tornado summoning, oversized air blasts, meteor showers, and mass necromancy) magics? Or would it be a mix?
Could you store mana in objects for later use? Would it drain over time?
Would magic be something rare or common? And how powerful would an 'average' mage be?
And finally... Could you enslave a village, leech energy out of the villagers and then use their drained corpses to make an army of undead and take over the world? :D :D :D
In order :):
Living creatures, probably not. Weather etc is much more on the mark!
Hmmm. That could be a good balance, actually, though there are some other ideas for risks from 'over-using' magic.
At their strongest, I'm not sure how strong mages will be, really. It'll all need balancing. They will probably be able to take out a hefty portion of an army at once, at the most, but there will have to be some major negative repercussions of that too!
Individuals might have some small magics, but most of the magic of consequence (or all; not sure yet) will be on a much wider scale, and used by very few individuals.
Super, super, super rare. The average mage'll be pretty strong!
Ah, now, if they're dead, I suspect you'll be able to leach from them :)
Post by: Leatra on December 14, 2011, 11:56:46 am
Making the game moddable as much as possible would be great. I mean, look at Cataclysm. Modders make mods and Whales (developer) merges them into the game. It's like a big community all working together for one game.
I got some questions about MAGIC too :D
Is there going to be a chance to fail casting a spell and also a chance to fail horribly while casting a spell? When you try to use a ranged spell you shouldn't be able to hit exactly where you want with a poor marksmanship. You could kill your allies if you aren't careful. Another example is, while raising a corpse that corpse could be hostile towards you or something. Trying to heal your allies could result in opening more wounds on them maybe. This could balance things and force the player to learn spellcasting from a teacher if the player knows nothing about it. Nobody can learn a subject without a book or a teacher if they know absolutely nothing.
I rembember you mentioned rituals; time-consuming powerful spells that can effect the battlefield considerably. Will there be godly rituals where you ask help from your god(s)? Like, when we are fightining against an evil warlock who worships the god of destruction and death. You could ask for a protection against unholy spells from the god of... creation and life maybe?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2011, 05:01:58 pm
I bet Deon will make a great mod for this game :)
Making the game moddable as much as possible would be great. I mean, look at Cataclysm. Modders make mods and Whales (developer) merges them into the game. It's like a big community all working together for one game.
I got some questions about MAGIC too :D
Is there going to be a chance to fail casting a spell and also a chance to fail horribly while casting a spell? When you try to use a ranged spell you shouldn't be able to hit exactly where you want with a poor marksmanship. You could kill your allies if you aren't careful. Another example is, while raising a corpse that corpse could be hostile towards you or something. Trying to heal your allies could result in opening more wounds on them maybe. This could balance things and force the player to learn spellcasting from a teacher if the player knows nothing about it. Nobody can learn a subject without a book or a teacher if they know absolutely nothing.
I rembember you mentioned rituals; time-consuming powerful spells that can effect the battlefield considerably. Will there be godly rituals where you ask help from your god(s)? Like, when we are fightining against an evil warlock who worships the god of destruction and death. You could ask for a protection against unholy spells from the god of... creation and life maybe?
I'm not yet sure how much 'external' modding support I'm going to have; there will be abilities to create your own scenarios within the game from a very early release onwards. As for actually changing mechanics, creatures, etc, I'm eager for all suggestions, but I'm not sure how moddable those will be :). Now, to your questions (though again, magic won't be around for some time :) ):
Marksmanship is an interesting question, for magic, and bows, and various other projectiles and similar. I'm not quite sure how marksmanship is going to work, though presumably it'll be skill-based. I rather like the idea of potential errors with healing the like, though - I'll have to think about one! For raising corpses, I think I'll definitely put in a chance of that corpse being reanimated but hostile, as that raises potential amusement when reanimating especially strong creatures...
You won't be able to get divine/supernatural assistance on the spur of the moment, because the rituals will be too complex for that. However, you will be able to make preparations for a battle with appropriate deities - though too, of course, will your foes. I think some deities will have in-built alliances and hatreds, and mortal armies playing those out will affect supernatural matters too, perhaps...
Post by: Levi on December 15, 2011, 05:34:33 pm
I could see some fun/desperation in trying to keep a large powerful army as inexpensive as possible. :P
Post by: Ivefan on December 15, 2011, 08:16:15 pm
Will there be morale? If I don't pay/entertain my armies enough will they desert or turn on me?Morale is a must because your newly recruited peasant horde ain't going to stand and fight against that fearsome undead dragon.
Now if they were religious fanatics it would be another matter.
Post by: Frumple on December 15, 2011, 08:17:36 pm
Comes up every few pages, heh.
Post by: Levi on December 15, 2011, 08:26:24 pm
Yeah, morale's been stated to be an intended feature several times already :P
Comes up every few pages, heh.
Ah, thanks. I really should read the whole thread sometime. :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 16, 2011, 04:15:54 pm
Will there be morale? If I don't pay/entertain my armies enough will they desert or turn on me?
I could see some fun/desperation in trying to keep a large powerful army as inexpensive as possible. :P
Oh, you bet they will. Balancing army demands is going to be important. If your army is bored, kill something! If your army is poor, rob someone, loot a town, etc. If they're starving, you could march them to hunt down some huge creatures that could provide meat for all. Obviously, those all have potential downsides, but you'll have to weigh those up :)
Morale is a must because your newly recruited peasant horde ain't going to stand and fight against that fearsome undead dragon.
Now if they were religious fanatics it would be another matter.
Yup, to both. Some groups want to fight some foes, some groups don't, some folks are simply braver, some respect their leaders more/less, and so on...
Yeah, morale's been stated to be an intended feature several times already :P
Comes up every few pages, heh.
Yep - lots of different kinds, though, like bravery, respect for leaders, willingness to fight, willingness to go hungry/thirsty for times, willingness to march, willingness to fight the foe, respect for allies...
Ah, thanks. I really should read the whole thread sometime. :)
I highly recommend it! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2011, 06:14:09 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/19/the-case-of-the-penrose-river-2/
Here's how rivers look at the moment (without any current or indicator of flow shown, currently):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2011/12/River.png)
Post by: Ivefan on December 19, 2011, 06:49:22 am
If they're starving, you could march them to hunt down some huge creatures that could provide meat for all.This is something for the small bands of raiders and such but would be rather tedious when the player gets too many followers.
Unless you mean something like "Lets hunt a dragon, Dragon steaks for everyone!" provisioning your army should be depending on some foraging score, either from an appointed underling or your own score.
That score could be depending on a lot of factors such as the forager being familiar/unfamiliar with the terrain(plains vs jungle) , over foraging like what would happen near a large city(buy provisions instead)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2011, 07:25:38 am
If they're starving, you could march them to hunt down some huge creatures that could provide meat for all.This is something for the small bands of raiders and such but would be rather tedious when the player gets too many followers.
Unless you mean something like "Lets hunt a dragon, Dragon steaks for everyone!" provisioning your army should be depending on some foraging score, either from an appointed underling or your own score.
That score could be depending on a lot of factors such as the forager being familiar/unfamiliar with the terrain(plains vs jungle) , over foraging like what would happen near a large city(buy provisions instead)
Oh, yes, in larger armies you will be able to get supply trains and things going to keep your forces supplied, and some people in your army will be specifically tasked with hunting etc each time your army makes camp. Again, though, even a large army will be challenged by some of the huge creatures, so if you encounter one, it won't be trivially easy, but it WILL provide a ton of food. Also, yeah, proximity to a city will obviously make everything easier, which'll mean expanding empires and leading your army away will need logistical support, lest everyone starve and turn on you : )
Post by: Ivefan on December 19, 2011, 08:09:53 am
Oh, yes, in larger armies you will be able to get supply trains and things going to keep your forces supplied, and some people in your army will be specifically tasked with hunting etc each time your army makes camp. Again, though, even a large army will be challenged by some of the huge creatures, so if you encounter one, it won't be trivially easy, but it WILL provide a ton of food. Also, yeah, proximity to a city will obviously make everything easier, which'll mean expanding empires and leading your army away will need logistical support, lest everyone starve and turn on you : )Being near a city wont necessarily make provisioning easier, especially if its a hostile one that torched all the farms, as you wont be able to hunt due to no game.
Supply trains can be intercepted and would require a city providing it and probably an escort, either by owning the city or contracting merchants if you're a mercenary force.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2011, 10:07:05 am
Oh, yes, in larger armies you will be able to get supply trains and things going to keep your forces supplied, and some people in your army will be specifically tasked with hunting etc each time your army makes camp. Again, though, even a large army will be challenged by some of the huge creatures, so if you encounter one, it won't be trivially easy, but it WILL provide a ton of food. Also, yeah, proximity to a city will obviously make everything easier, which'll mean expanding empires and leading your army away will need logistical support, lest everyone starve and turn on you : )Being near a city wont necessarily make provisioning easier, especially if its a hostile one that torched all the farms, as you wont be able to hunt due to no game.
Supply trains can be intercepted and would require a city providing it and probably an escort, either by owning the city or contracting merchants if you're a mercenary force.
Oh, no, I meant being near a friendly one, simply because the supply chain will then be a lot shorter. And yes, you'll definitely need to assign protection to longer supply chains; but by the same token, you can attack the supply chains of your foes...
Post by: Ivefan on December 19, 2011, 11:03:24 am
You should give settlements traits or some kind of sliders which dictates what you can do or what consequences actions in a city will have.
Like, in a high corruption settlement a bandit can sell their stolen goods without any uncomfortable questions asked.
Or in a theocratic city state you can easily recruit believers for a cause or another.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2011, 07:09:44 pm
I just thought of something.
You should give settlements traits or some kind of sliders which dictates what you can do or what consequences actions in a city will have.
Like, in a high corruption settlement a bandit can sell their stolen goods without any uncomfortable questions asked.
Or in a theocratic city state you can easily recruit believers for a cause or another.
I like all these ideas! I'm still thinking about how civilizations are going to be defined, and I'm thinking along very similar lines to this. Pick a random series of traits for each civilization (with, at least, traits that match up) and then go from there. Obviously you won't get Elves who hate the environment, or dwarves who don't care the least for metalwork, but there should still be a lot of variation in the kinds of things you said - religiosity, corruption, militarism, traditionalism, expansionism, foreign relations, population demographics, etc etc :). It would obviously affect what civs form alliances and wage war, too. Then once the game starts, let you find one you agree with to join; or if none, join one close, and try and influence it in the direction you want...
Post by: Leatra on December 20, 2011, 04:58:53 am
I just thought of something.
You should give settlements traits or some kind of sliders which dictates what you can do or what consequences actions in a city will have.
Like, in a high corruption settlement a bandit can sell their stolen goods without any uncomfortable questions asked.
Or in a theocratic city state you can easily recruit believers for a cause or another.
I like all these ideas! I'm still thinking about how civilizations are going to be defined, and I'm thinking along very similar lines to this. Pick a random series of traits for each civilization (with, at least, traits that match up) and then go from there. Obviously you won't get Elves who hate the environment, or dwarves who don't care the least for metalwork, but there should still be a lot of variation in the kinds of things you said - religiosity, corruption, militarism, traditionalism, expansionism, foreign relations, population demographics, etc etc :). It would obviously affect what civs form alliances and wage war, too. Then once the game starts, let you find one you agree with to join; or if none, join one close, and try and influence it in the direction you want...
I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious. Stuff like that. Sounds awesome!
Don't forget forms of government too. Monarchism, democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy, anarchism, etc.
By the way, will we have strategic options when it comes to rivers? Like using archers to attack from one side to the opposite side.
Post by: Ivefan on December 20, 2011, 05:47:13 am
I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious.On this i guess there is a need for abstraction, else all the different kinds of social structures would need a lot of planning, analyzing and coding.
Consider this; A commercial settlement depends on other settlements to develop, thus the other settlements need to be generated first as the C.Set would probably be developed on a crossroads between other cities that do trade and have desirable resources.
Basically, unless abstracted, every city would need to examine the available resources, such as minerals, fertile ground, forests, strategical value.
How did it develop? Serfdom, slavery, freemen? Mercantile or free trade?
Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious.Depending on URR's take on gods(divine dictating vs clergy politics), unless a theocracy wishes to expand and conquer, they rarely engage in hostile activities unless theres unrest at home. Whats better than a holy war for eternal glory to help those pesky plebs forget about the high taxes?
And i assume that this is a standard fantasy world, meaning that a science attribute is rather mislabeling. Technological advance would be to have sewers, aquaducts, irrigation and such things, rather than the Christianity vs free thinkers that you seem to envision.
URR, If you have time and interest, i suggest reading Malazan books of the fallen series by Stephen erikson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Erikson
Its a good source for ideas.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 23, 2011, 12:34:48 pm
I loved this idea too. Industrial settlements could get a lot of trade agreements from other city and also make it a commercial settlement. Militaristic settlements could be aggressive and attack settlements with a high commercial and industrial score to support their armies. Religious settlements could attack settlements with low religion score and high science score and make it more religious. Stuff like that. Sounds awesome!
Don't forget forms of government too. Monarchism, democracy, dictatorship, oligarchy, anarchism, etc.
By the way, will we have strategic options when it comes to rivers? Like using archers to attack from one side to the opposite side.
Exactly what you said in the first paragraph is what I'm after :). Cities will declare war based on species, gaining resources, gaining land, whatever. Different governmental system - some will be more suited to particular species, but it will otherwise be relatively random which each city/civilization ends up with (though there should be ways to subvert that system...). Oh, yes - when a battle starts, you can lay out your troops, and as a basic tactic, sticking your archers on one side of a river is a great way to protect them and let them deal damage freely. Hills also offer obvious advantages! Depending on the size of your force, how effective a commander you are, whether you're taken by surprise or not, etc, you have a certain period of time to tell your forces where to deploy to at the start of a battle. Similarly, once in battle, you can give orders to your archers to stay safe (though they will probably do that of their own accord, too).
On this i guess there is a need for abstraction, else all the different kinds of social structures would need a lot of planning, analyzing and coding.
Consider this; A commercial settlement depends on other settlements to develop, thus the other settlements need to be generated first as the C.Set would probably be developed on a crossroads between other cities that do trade and have desirable resources.
Basically, unless abstracted, every city would need to examine the available resources, such as minerals, fertile ground, forests, strategical value.
How did it develop? Serfdom, slavery, freemen? Mercantile or free trade?
Hmmm. I see what you mean. I'm not sure how resources are going to work yet; I don't want anything AoE-esque, where you need to (or need to be in a city that does it for you) gather wood, iron, etc - but at the same time, there obviously needs to be a limit on the amount of tempered steel you can make weapons from. I suspect I will end up deploying a resources system, but one that is primarily under-the-hood, and the player only has interaction at the 'output' end - setting mining priorities, etc. But I think cities will appear in locations that are good in terms of rivers, food, etc, and then they will *develop* according to the military etc resources nearby.
Depending on URR's take on gods(divine dictating vs clergy politics), unless a theocracy wishes to expand and conquer, they rarely engage in hostile activities unless theres unrest at home. Whats better than a holy war for eternal glory to help those pesky plebs forget about the high taxes?
And i assume that this is a standard fantasy world, meaning that a science attribute is rather mislabeling. Technological advance would be to have sewers, aquaducts, irrigation and such things, rather than the Christianity vs free thinkers that you seem to envision.
URR, If you have time and interest, i suggest reading Malazan books of the fallen series by Stephen erikson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Erikson
Its a good source for ideas.
Yeah - while I do intend to include gods, I'm not sure how they'll connect to cities yet. We'll have to see. As you say, technology is more 'development' than 'science', but I don't want a totally static/uchronian fantasy world either. I have heard of those, actually - I'll let you know if I find time to give them a look :)! I probably read about a book a week (either fiction/non), but I've already got a gigantic backlog of books on my shelves as it is :(
In the mean time, I'm building up to a big screenshot update on the 26th; will include currents in rivers, and forests, and all kinds of stuff not shown in the http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/19/the-case-of-the-penrose-river-2/ screenshot!
Post by: Ivefan on December 23, 2011, 10:41:00 pm
Hmmm. I see what you mean. I'm not sure how resources are going to work yet; I don't want anything AoE-esque, where you need to (or need to be in a city that does it for you) gather wood, iron, etc - but at the same time, there obviously needs to be a limit on the amount of tempered steel you can make weapons from. I suspect I will end up deploying a resources system, but one that is primarily under-the-hood, and the player only has interaction at the 'output' end - setting mining priorities, etc. But I think cities will appear in locations that are good in terms of rivers, food, etc, and then they will *develop* according to the military etc resources nearby.Unless is a oppressive slave city, workforce allocation is not that flexible. Generally you would have an average with its ups and downs due to poor harvests, accidents or similar events.
When generating the world, you should allocate resources to regions with variables such as total amount, recovery rate(water & forest, max possible yield per time unit. A quality score between 1-5 (for unusable, poor, average, good, perfect) to determine trade value and desirability. This would reflect, for example, a marsh wood with fragile wood thats not worth using.
You could also add supernatural traits to the resource such as sentient forests, nature spirits infested waterfalls or leviathan occupied lakes.
Right now i can only think of the more obvious resources; Forest, minerals, water(lake, river, ground water, springs and oases) and arable land.
When all city sites has been designated, it should check the adjacent ones and examine their resources to determine imports and exports. Say that only one city in the region has abundant arable land, then this city would probably expand its agricultural industry to sell food to the nearby cities as long as those has something that the farmtown wants/needs and this would in turn increase the population growth potential of the trade partner.
TL;DL Every city should end up with the following resource variables; extraction amount and potential, city consumption(local and trade agreements) and excess(what you can buy as an outsider)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 25, 2011, 08:11:03 pm
Unless is a oppressive slave city, workforce allocation is not that flexible. Generally you would have an average with its ups and downs due to poor harvests, accidents or similar events.
When generating the world, you should allocate resources to regions with variables such as total amount, recovery rate(water & forest, max possible yield per time unit. A quality score between 1-5 (for unusable, poor, average, good, perfect) to determine trade value and desirability. This would reflect, for example, a marsh wood with fragile wood thats not worth using.
You could also add supernatural traits to the resource such as sentient forests, nature spirits infested waterfalls or leviathan occupied lakes.
Right now i can only think of the more obvious resources; Forest, minerals, water(lake, river, ground water, springs and oases) and arable land.
When all city sites has been designated, it should check the adjacent ones and examine their resources to determine imports and exports. Say that only one city in the region has abundant arable land, then this city would probably expand its agricultural industry to sell food to the nearby cities as long as those has something that the farmtown wants/needs and this would in turn increase the population growth potential of the trade partner.
TL;DL Every city should end up with the following resource variables; extraction amount and potential, city consumption(local and trade agreements) and excess(what you can buy as an outsider)
Very interesting thoughts. I am going to have some areas with a creature (or creature camp) that obviously limits the ability of the nearby city to use its resources (until you, or another army, clear it out). I definitely agree on arable land and fresh water; I'm composing a quick list of things like iron, copper, bronze etc, that have clear military use; marble and stone for construction; gold for wealth generation; etc. As cities only appear in areas with sufficient resources, any city is at least going to have stone and wood and construction, and something to make weapons from, as a bare minimum. I'm going to get a very basic version of this system going for the alpha to get ruins spawning in the right places - these ruins, of course, will in later builds no longer be ruins any more. I really like the inter-city trading; caravans are actually a pretty early NPC priority, both for the player to trade with, and for cities to trade between themselves, allowing an easy point of attack when trying to starve an empire out, or similar!
Also merry christmas all, and winter screenshot update coming tomorrow!
Post by: shaihulud on December 25, 2011, 08:35:18 pm
Post by: Ivefan on December 26, 2011, 01:32:08 am
marble and stone for construction; gold for wealth generationMarble is also wealth rather than common construction material and either go for precious resources as a common term or include silver, gold and gems(sub-categorized or not).
As cities only appear in areas with sufficient resources, any city is at least going to have stone and wood and construction, and something to make weapons from, as a bare minimum.Humans(your fantasy civilizations is what you make of em) is adaptive, as long as there's water and food they can be almost anywhere, so its just building materials that is a qualifier for settlements.
Bare minimums;
One construction material; Wood, Clay or Stone.
Water.
Source of food; Herds, Agriculture or fishing.
Also consider two rounds of settlement generation, Old settlements that had all requirements from the start, and new settlements that traded for the necessities but have an abundance of other resources or a special resource.
Weapon materials is anything from bone and stone to copper and steel. Simply consider that any currently existing city would either had materials from the start or would have traded for it to stay competitive. If they had not, they would have been conquered.
caravans are actually a pretty early NPC priority, both for the player to trade with, and for cities to trade between themselves, allowing an easy point of attack when trying to starve an empire out, or similar!Caravans is more important to the small time bandit or warlord than the would-be conqueror. Starving a city while not actively sieging it would be to lay waste to farmlands.
Which makes me think of another point, that is crop cycles and harvest time when the farmers bring their yield to the city.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2011, 09:41:13 am
Marble is also wealth rather than common construction material and either go for precious resources as a common term or include silver, gold and gems(sub-categorized or not).
Humans(your fantasy civilizations is what you make of em) is adaptive, as long as there's water and food they can be almost anywhere, so its just building materials that is a qualifier for settlements.
Bare minimums;
One construction material; Wood, Clay or Stone.
Water.
Source of food; Herds, Agriculture or fishing.
Also consider two rounds of settlement generation, Old settlements that had all requirements from the start, and new settlements that traded for the necessities but have an abundance of other resources or a special resource.
Weapon materials is anything from bone and stone to copper and steel. Simply consider that any currently existing city would either had materials from the start or would have traded for it to stay competitive. If they had not, they would have been conquered.
Caravans is more important to the small time bandit or warlord than the would-be conqueror. Starving a city while not actively sieging it would be to lay waste to farmlands.
Which makes me think of another point, that is crop cycles and harvest time when the farmers bring their yield to the city.
I've set up a very quick test system today - cities need to spawn near fresh water; near wood and stone for construction; within range of copper, tin OR iron; and then within range of one of a bunch of other, varied factors (like no monsters nearby, a nearby shrine, nearby gold, near a coast, etc). I'm still working on food, but I guess that'll become clearer once I populate the world with peaceful animals like horses etc.
Interesting old settlement/new settlement idea - like the new ones only appear once an empire is well-established, and really wants to found a city next to a large deposit of gold, say, or next to a particularly vital shrine?
Oh, yeah, caravans are more for weakening production than for starving, but again, this is all in the future. I think after the initial alpha, if I can get a few villages making use of nearby resources, that would be great. Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one... thanks for all the great ideas, anyway :). I quickly put in resources this morning, as I say, and I'll probably start thinking about wild animals (for the initial alpha) very soon, and those will have an effect on city generation...
Post by: Nighthawk on December 26, 2011, 11:06:48 am
Oh, and if you construct a few small houses, will it be possible for them to be populated by traveling caravans?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2011, 03:53:57 pm
Is building small structures and possibly houses on one's lonesome going to be a possibility? It would be interesting to survive alone in the wild, with the wooden shack you constructed yourself.
Oh, and if you construct a few small houses, will it be possible for them to be populated by traveling caravans?
Ah, these are questions I have been pondering. You will, in the very first alpha in a few months, be able to set up camp, light a campfire, and similar. When you are in an army, those in charge of the army will deploy tents, fires, etc - similarly, if you lead them, you'll be able to set up and deploy your camp when you make base during a longer march. I think I will likely allow some basics of construction beyond that, but not many - especially as the focus is on large armies, I'm more interested in encampments and fortifications than small areas for the player, but we'll have to see what makes sense!
In the mean time, I've gone back a bit and added a heightmap in, properly, to the world map. This is enabling hills, more interesting coastlines, and all kinds of other funky stuff.
For instance, a comparison of the same area on the minimap looks like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2011/08/11.png)
I've uploaded a load of new screenshots and looks at the world in today's devblog entry @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2011/12/26/winter-screenshot-update/ - how does everyone think it's looking? :)
Post by: trees on December 26, 2011, 04:23:37 pm
Post by: Ivefan on December 26, 2011, 07:31:37 pm
Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one...I guess you'll abstract the farming so that no specific type of crop is selected which means that the harvest time should be averaged over a time.
Say that crops is harvested and delivered during all of autumn. Although i've forgotten how to to the math for it and the name in English, Take the total crops yield, spread it out over all of autumn starting and finishing with a low yield while it peaks during mid-autumn.
Well, This is just for a temperate climate area, which means that if you're going to implement tropical or warm climates you're going to have to increase the harvest time and yield due to multiple harvests.
thanks for all the great ideas, anyway :).
I'm full of ideas and inspiration, I just dont have an outlet. :(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2011, 06:57:11 am
Looks great! Very excited to get to (eventually) play this, hehe.
Haha, thanks - I'm still pretty confident about the schedule I posted on the blog last week :)
Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one...I guess you'll abstract the farming so that no specific type of crop is selected which means that the harvest time should be averaged over a time.
Say that crops is harvested and delivered during all of autumn. Although i've forgotten how to to the math for it and the name in English, Take the total crops yield, spread it out over all of autumn starting and finishing with a low yield while it peaks during mid-autumn.
Well, This is just for a temperate climate area, which means that if you're going to implement tropical or warm climates you're going to have to increase the harvest time and yield due to multiple harvests.thanks for all the great ideas, anyway :).
I'm full of ideas and inspiration, I just dont have an outlet. :(
Yes, I guess something like that. I'd like to get cities storing grain, eventually, so that you can send forces to destroy it, etc, as another method of weakening a city pre-siege. Well, do keep them coming, I'm eager to incorporate peoples' ideas into URR wherever possible!
Post by: justinlee999 on December 27, 2011, 08:26:20 am
yipeee
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2011, 08:43:45 pm
Oh God my favourite things all in one game...
yipeee
Haha - my initial planning was basically "What would be cool/interesting/awesome in a game?" and I'm proceeding from there :)
Post by: BishopX on December 28, 2011, 02:06:45 pm
Looks great! Very excited to get to (eventually) play this, hehe.
Haha, thanks - I'm still pretty confident about the schedule I posted on the blog last week :)Crop cycles etc - I am going to put in seasons, so I suppose that will effect crops etc! Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about exactly how to program that one...I guess you'll abstract the farming so that no specific type of crop is selected which means that the harvest time should be averaged over a time.
Say that crops is harvested and delivered during all of autumn. Although i've forgotten how to to the math for it and the name in English, Take the total crops yield, spread it out over all of autumn starting and finishing with a low yield while it peaks during mid-autumn.
Well, This is just for a temperate climate area, which means that if you're going to implement tropical or warm climates you're going to have to increase the harvest time and yield due to multiple harvests.thanks for all the great ideas, anyway :).
I'm full of ideas and inspiration, I just dont have an outlet. :(
Yes, I guess something like that. I'd like to get cities storing grain, eventually, so that you can send forces to destroy it, etc, as another method of weakening a city pre-siege. Well, do keep them coming, I'm eager to incorporate peoples' ideas into URR wherever possible!
Assuming all races have more or less baseline human nutritional needs, I think abstracting all food into three catagories is probably your best bet. Basic Food is wheat or the eqivalent (rice, maize, beans, cassava, potatoes etc.). It will keep people fed, although in the long term a diet of just Basic Food is going to lead to malnutrion. Basic food stores well and lasts for quite a while on its own if stored correctly. Good food is more or less everyting else. Meats, cheese, fish, fruits and vegetables are Good Food. Good Food will keep your troops happy, prevent malnutrion and allow people to function optimaly. The problem with Good Food is that on it's own it doesn't keep nearly as long as Basic Food. Unless it's processed or stored properly Good Food will spoil within a month at most. The third type of food is Booze (I supose this should also include other types of recreational drugs). Booze is required to keep any population happy. Soldiers tend to require a lot of booze.
Basic food gets rpoduced in several big chunks each year, depending on the climate (so you could have 0, 1,2,3 or 4 harvest areas) and requires that land be devoted to agriculture. Hunter-gatherer and nomadic grous would have very little basic food. Good food would be produced in much smaller quantities continously, possibly with periodic spikes representing a mass slaughter or a fish run or a fruit harvest. Booze would be produced.
In order to preserve good food you need salt. In order to manufacture booze you need food. Historically salt was a major trade good because it allowed you to preserve food, and it could also be used to make food taste better. Aside from armies, almost all food was consumed near where it was produced. Shipping grains or flour more than 100 miles was very rare. Animals could be driven to slaughter, but once slaughtered the meat didn't travel very far. Salt, of the other hand moved thousands of miles in giant caravans and had towns and road networks explicitly contructed for the production and transport of salt.
A band of twenty people should be able to survive off the land four seasons year round. A band of 100 people should be able to keep themselves alive three seaons out of the year, assuming they keep moving. Anything more than 100 and less than 10,000 should be able to live off the land, provided they are willing to strip it bare and send out foraging parties. Anything over 10,000 troops will require a supply chain or order to keep from starving. Keep in mind that surviving isn't the same as thriving. A well supplied force will always preforms better than equivalent force that's been living off the land, so while twenty people could make it through the woods with some skill with a bow and knowledge of local plants, twenty troops with a commisary wagon will move faster and fight harder.
Post by: Leatra on December 28, 2011, 06:10:41 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on December 29, 2011, 03:45:52 pm
This would make it more worthwhile (to you AND the environment) to raise up an elite squad of skilled fighters.
It would be interesting to see, once the game is capable of handling this sort of thing, a battle between a giant, unskilled army, and a smaller, well-trained force.
I'm getting really excited for this game's release.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 30, 2011, 09:24:33 pm
Assuming all races have more or less baseline human nutritional needs, I think abstracting all food into three catagories is probably your best bet. Basic Food is wheat or the eqivalent (rice, maize, beans, cassava, potatoes etc.). It will keep people fed, although in the long term a diet of just Basic Food is going to lead to malnutrion. Basic food stores well and lasts for quite a while on its own if stored correctly. Good food is more or less everyting else. Meats, cheese, fish, fruits and vegetables are Good Food. Good Food will keep your troops happy, prevent malnutrion and allow people to function optimaly. The problem with Good Food is that on it's own it doesn't keep nearly as long as Basic Food. Unless it's processed or stored properly Good Food will spoil within a month at most. The third type of food is Booze (I supose this should also include other types of recreational drugs). Booze is required to keep any population happy. Soldiers tend to require a lot of booze.
Basic food gets rpoduced in several big chunks each year, depending on the climate (so you could have 0, 1,2,3 or 4 harvest areas) and requires that land be devoted to agriculture. Hunter-gatherer and nomadic grous would have very little basic food. Good food would be produced in much smaller quantities continously, possibly with periodic spikes representing a mass slaughter or a fish run or a fruit harvest. Booze would be produced.
In order to preserve good food you need salt. In order to manufacture booze you need food. Historically salt was a major trade good because it allowed you to preserve food, and it could also be used to make food taste better. Aside from armies, almost all food was consumed near where it was produced. Shipping grains or flour more than 100 miles was very rare. Animals could be driven to slaughter, but once slaughtered the meat didn't travel very far. Salt, of the other hand moved thousands of miles in giant caravans and had towns and road networks explicitly contructed for the production and transport of salt.
A band of twenty people should be able to survive off the land four seasons year round. A band of 100 people should be able to keep themselves alive three seaons out of the year, assuming they keep moving. Anything more than 100 and less than 10,000 should be able to live off the land, provided they are willing to strip it bare and send out foraging parties. Anything over 10,000 troops will require a supply chain or order to keep from starving. Keep in mind that surviving isn't the same as thriving. A well supplied force will always preforms better than equivalent force that's been living off the land, so while twenty people could make it through the woods with some skill with a bow and knowledge of local plants, twenty troops with a commisary wagon will move faster and fight harder.
I must say, that is all fascinating. I really like the food ideas - the thing is, I don't want the logistical side to turn into a DF clone; players don't need that, and that's then time and effort on my part moving away from what I want URR to be. On the other hand, I think the logistical side is important for realism, and I do want to keep a major part of it in. I think a lot of it is going to be abstracted away from the player; rulers choose what foods to harvest, etc, and you only become involved if a) you are destroying the source of enemy food, or b) you come to command army/rule civ, but even in b), you will only make 'high level' decisions about food sources and the like, not specific decisions about places, workers, etc.
I have just thrown in salt as another resource that generates on the world map, though. I'll shortly add in various herds of wild animals, and get their AI to 'tether' them to particular areas, I think. Nevertheless, I really like the Basic/Good distinction; also gives some potential for managing your army's food, rewarding/punishing, morale, and things like that. Basically:
If on your own/small group, you need to find food. People in civs will be making food, and there will be wild animals too.
If in an army, whoever leads that army will handle the supply chain under the hood. If something goes wrong, you will hear about it (say, enemy army razing farms), but otherwise, food will be passed down to you.
If in charge of any reasonable force, you determine where your army gets food from, but only in terms of "Kill all deer in square x," "Raid farm on square y for wheat", "Order soldiers 1-10 to transport Basic Food from City Z to us once a month", etc, and then your minions go about it. However, I think your suggestions are pretty much the level of detail I want the under-the-hood food creation to have :)
Good point. These are very good ideas.
I concur!
Raising up an army of 10,000 strong would take quite a bit of time, money, and as you just mentioned, food.
This would make it more worthwhile (to you AND the environment) to raise up an elite squad of skilled fighters.
It would be interesting to see, once the game is capable of handling this sort of thing, a battle between a giant, unskilled army, and a smaller, well-trained force.
I'm getting really excited for this game's release.
Yes, definitely - a la 300 (or similar), small elite forces should be more than able to survive against many times their number of poorly equipped/trained/led foes. Thanks! I've just made a brief breakthrough tonight, actually, which'll probably get a blog mention before too long...
Post by: Ivefan on January 01, 2012, 10:42:49 pm
rulers choose what foods to harvest, etc, and you only become involved if a) you are destroying the source of enemy food, or b) you come to command army/rule civ, but even in b), you will only make 'high level' decisions about food sources and the like, not specific decisions about places, workers, etc.
I have just thrown in salt...
simply let the player rule by decrees and so only decide upon the percentage of the arable land thats available for farming and if its for basic or good foods.
keep in mind that while basic foods usually only takes a season to harvest, cattle takes time to get a large enough heard and fruit trees takes time to grow.
let salt increase storage time and trade distance of meats.
Yes, definitely - a la 300 (or similar), small elite forces should be more than able to survive against many times their number of poorly equipped/trained/led foes.Depends, if there's enough people it can become a stampede instead. And in that case it does not matter if the foes in front does not want to die, the mass just can't stop.
The roman soldier would be the best to sustain an assault like that, and while pikemen might keep them at bay for longer, as soon as they're past the pikes its bad.
Basically, the situation 10 vs 100 is worse than 1 vs 10.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on January 02, 2012, 05:48:59 am
So a set of high-average-armor/skill & range warriors with a hint of luck (or magic support) will always get the first-strike in on the naked-club-wielding people charging them, but due to a fair amount of luck, a single half-naked-guy could slip though 2-3 spear attacks and start a hope-spot for the rest of them.
In game terms, it would be nice to have the challenge of actually forcing your low-lvl-crap-troops forward hard enough so they overwhelm the elite enemy without breaking.
Post by: Ivefan on January 02, 2012, 05:58:37 am
In game terms, it would be nice to have the challenge of actually forcing your low-lvl-crap-troops forward hard enough so they overwhelm the elite enemy without breaking.
No problem! Just make it more attractive to run through the enemy than away from them like... Having a horde of hungry ghouls behind them.
True, a sword in the gut kills you just as surely as being eaten alive, but i think theres something more attractive with the sword.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on January 02, 2012, 07:55:51 am
Post by: Ivefan on January 02, 2012, 08:06:58 am
Well I would adore a game where you could use (poorly equipped to unarmed) prisoners and beasts of war in this manner, even if only to tire the enemy or make them lose moral because they have to kill those of there own kind/race.Excellent in siege warfare, use prisoners from the adjacent land as meatshields.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on January 02, 2012, 08:18:25 am
As you fight and carry on, you start to get famous... and maybe, if your goals work with whatever goals the local population has (or at least they THINK that you share the goals), they might help you out... a handful of rangers might join you in your battle versus the beasts of old, a mob of peasants joins you in the siege on the capital, a wandering monk seeks to support your claim to godhood and soon many join his cult...)
And in the same vein your constant slaughter of innocents causes enemies to fight more firmly or dark forces to take notice of you.
Then add another complexity layer, where information travels semi-realistically and you can potentially kill all natural witnesses, but have to work extra to take out supernatural observers...
Then add another layer of learning beings (human or smarter) learning from all your fights, learning what you use and adjusting to a degree "What do you mean, the humans started to line there weapons with silver to fight the werwolf spys i have spread among there villages to cause chaos at the 3rd moon of the year? Very well... good thing I invested heavily into buying up all the silver I could find beforehand... now we can buy those same peasants to fight for US - and plenty of them will become quite useful at night." -#Xenos gambit time.jpg
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 02, 2012, 04:49:51 pm
simply let the player rule by decrees and so only decide upon the percentage of the arable land thats available for farming and if its for basic or good foods.
keep in mind that while basic foods usually only takes a season to harvest, cattle takes time to get a large enough heard and fruit trees takes time to grow.
let salt increase storage time and trade distance of meats.
Depends, if there's enough people it can become a stampede instead. And in that case it does not matter if the foes in front does not want to die, the mass just can't stop.
The roman soldier would be the best to sustain an assault like that, and while pikemen might keep them at bay for longer, as soon as they're past the pikes its bad.
Basically, the situation 10 vs 100 is worse than 1 vs 10.
That's about the level I'm thinking, but as you say, with some understanding of the times it takes different foods to become available. Also, crushes is an interesting idea. Hmm. I hadn't considered that. Currently fleeing, although they are fleeing, is very orderly, and nobody fleeing takes damage. That'll clearly have to change!
I would love to see it played a little like Dominions 3...
So a set of high-average-armor/skill & range warriors with a hint of luck (or magic support) will always get the first-strike in on the naked-club-wielding people charging them, but due to a fair amount of luck, a single half-naked-guy could slip though 2-3 spear attacks and start a hope-spot for the rest of them.
In game terms, it would be nice to have the challenge of actually forcing your low-lvl-crap-troops forward hard enough so they overwhelm the elite enemy without breaking.
Interesting - I obviously want elite troops to have major advantages, but I don't want the only tactic for crappy troops to be a) get a huge number and b) throw them at the enemy. I think some kind of leverage over those troops could be interesting to play with.
Well I would adore a game where you could use (poorly equipped to unarmed) prisoners and beasts of war in this manner, even if only to tire the enemy or make them lose moral because they have to kill those of there own kind/race.Excellent in siege warfare, use prisoners from the adjacent land as meatshields.
I have a whole page of thoughts of this sort! Especially for how slaves/prisoners are going to work; you will definitely be able to send them up ahead, or kill them in sight of the enemy forces, or do all kinds of similar, horrible, morale-weakening things.
If you desire a task that can never be finished, add another layer of "fantasy-reality"
As you fight and carry on, you start to get famous... and maybe, if your goals work with whatever goals the local population has (or at least they THINK that you share the goals), they might help you out... a handful of rangers might join you in your battle versus the beasts of old, a mob of peasants joins you in the siege on the capital, a wandering monk seeks to support your claim to godhood and soon many join his cult...)
And in the same vein your constant slaughter of innocents causes enemies to fight more firmly or dark forces to take notice of you.
Then add another complexity layer, where information travels semi-realistically and you can potentially kill all natural witnesses, but have to work extra to take out supernatural observers...
Then add another layer of learning beings (human or smarter) learning from all your fights, learning what you use and adjusting to a degree "What do you mean, the humans started to line there weapons with silver to fight the werwolf spys i have spread among there villages to cause chaos at the 3rd moon of the year? Very well... good thing I invested heavily into buying up all the silver I could find beforehand... now we can buy those same peasants to fight for US - and plenty of them will become quite useful at night." -#Xenos gambit time.jpg
Haha - I strongly suspect I may have already taken on an infinite task :), but I get exactly what you mean. I already planned to have information travel depending on who witnesses things, but these other ideas are particularly interesting. Not only can your fame grow, but the fame of items, mounts, and various other things can grow. Of course, one thing I want is for all intelligent creatures to potentially be 'adventurers'; they will also be making alliances, finding items, raising armies, and doing the rest of it. Just as others hear tell of your deeds, YOU should hear tell of the heroic deeds of others being performed elsewhere! I currently also have a very rudimentary system whereby enemies spread knowledge of your force, though this only currently works in battle. However, if some escape your onslaught in a lost battle, they will try and get back to their homelands to tell of your tactics, army composition, etc etc. And you mention spies... spies are an interesting one. More on this at some later date :)
Lastly, I've just uploaded this week's devblog entry - all about how 'realistic' I want URR to be, and how realism in fantasy settings ends up working out (for better or for worse) - largely an extension of the part few pages of discussion here! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/01/02/the-strange-marriage-of-fantasy-and-realism/
Post by: Ahra on January 02, 2012, 06:01:05 pm
that and for the love of... flank them, sneak at them, burn their camp and fight dirty and night raids.
"oh sorry sir did i push you on the ground and your fancy armour keeps you down/maybe underwater? dont mind me, this hammer will end those problems..."
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2012, 07:50:17 pm
"oh sorry sir did i push you on the ground and your fancy armour keeps you down/maybe underwater? dont mind me, this hammer will end those problems..."Magic, baby.
"Oh, no, no problem, good fellow!" *does a kipup thirty feet into the air, spewing returning throwing weapons around, killing ten to fifteen of your friends, then decapitates you and six other people with a length expanding broadsword.* Fantasy land sez, "Enchanted mythril gives me wings! and still blocks cannonfire from three feet off."
So, my random thought of the day re: URR: Specialists and god-blooded. Will there be characters within a race with unique talents or strange mutations? Any comments on how that'd play out?
I could see a kind of multi-layer mutation system resembling other RLs, except with multiple sets (Kinda' like how Crawl does demonspawn/normal mutations/Jiyva mutations) depending on the source. With a pantheon of gods, you could have each of them having a unique set of mutations (possibly procedurally generated, if the gods themselves are) that divine descendants can manifest, ferex, while the magic node-type stuff mentioned earlier could have their own mutation set based on the node; stuff born or living for too long in the area would start to manifest strange abilities. Then you'd have possibly a few sets of just weird stuff that comes out occasionally.
What about crossbreeding? How much of or is crossbreeding going to be a thing, and could we have strange descendant type-things happening starting from people that, say, contract with elemental spirits or what-have-you? Are we going to be able to crossbreed a hydra with something with wings, and then mix the offspring with a fire elemental to have a giant, flying, regenerating, flaming megabeast of many heads and doom? What about lower key stuff, like introducing trolls or whathaveyou into your preferred recruiting base, causing a rise of half-trolls (that, incidentally, have regeneration and higher than normal strength and toughness, perfect for cannonfodder that's harder to kill than humans but smarter than trolls.)?
... the other question coming from that being timeframe. Is your character going to be subjected to the ravages of time? If so, will there be ways around that (magic!) or means of passing control to another character (de dynasty!), and will different playable races have different lifespans?
... tangential to that, how expansive a choice of race for the main character? If we want to play a hydra, will it go forth into the world and pick out a hydra that just happens to have a strong enough intelligence boosting mutation to justify leading an army?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 03, 2012, 08:21:28 pm
"oh sorry sir did i push you on the ground and your fancy armour keeps you down/maybe underwater? dont mind me, this hammer will end those problems..."Magic, baby.
"Oh, no, no problem, good fellow!" *does a kipup thirty feet into the air, spewing returning throwing weapons around, killing ten to fifteen of your friends, then decapitates you and six other people with a length expanding broadsword.* Fantasy land sez, "Enchanted mythril gives me wings! and still blocks cannonfire from three feet off."
So, my random thought of the day re: URR: Specialists and god-blooded. Will there be characters within a race with unique talents or strange mutations? Any comments on how that'd play out?
I could see a kind of multi-layer mutation system resembling other RLs, except with multiple sets (Kinda' like how Crawl does demonspawn/normal mutations/Jiyva mutations) depending on the source. With a pantheon of gods, you could have each of them having a unique set of mutations (possibly procedurally generated, if the gods themselves are) that divine descendants can manifest, ferex, while the magic node-type stuff mentioned earlier could have their own mutation set based on the node; stuff born or living for too long in the area would start to manifest strange abilities. Then you'd have possibly a few sets of just weird stuff that comes out occasionally.
What about crossbreeding? How much of or is crossbreeding going to be a thing, and could we have strange descendant type-things happening starting from people that, say, contract with elemental spirits or what-have-you? Are we going to be able to crossbreed a hydra with something with wings, and then mix the offspring with a fire elemental to have a giant, flying, regenerating, flaming megabeast of many heads and doom? What about lower key stuff, like introducing trolls or whathaveyou into your preferred recruiting base, causing a rise of half-trolls (that, incidentally, have regeneration and higher than normal strength and toughness, perfect for cannonfodder that's harder to kill than humans but smarter than trolls.)?
... the other question coming from that being timeframe. Is your character going to be subjected to the ravages of time? If so, will there be ways around that (magic!) or means of passing control to another character (de dynasty!), and will different playable races have different lifespans?
... tangential to that, how expansive a choice of race for the main character? If we want to play a hydra, will it go forth into the world and pick out a hydra that just happens to have a strong enough intelligence boosting mutation to justify leading an army?
You both make a fine point - training is only so useful when you have an axe to the face. I'm thinking, in that area, of having the time of day you attack matter, or the time of day you send in an early attack force, or similar things, to catch the enemy asleep, unaware, etc. Anyway:
There will be some who have particular connections to particular deities, but probably nothing beyond that. I want to keep the biology of individuals pretty uniform, I think. It matters much more what equipment you have and what training you have than the specifics of a creature's biology (I mean, within a certain class; obviously a hydra and a dwarf aren't comparable).
Crossbreeding is currently a no. There will be something involving bloodlines for things like vampirism, lycanthropy, assorted unusual conditions, ability to talk to certain deities, basic stats and similar, but crossbreeding is out, at least for the time being. That would be a feature for the far future.
Now THAT is a good question, re: timelines, aging, etc. The honest answer is: I haven't decided yet. I think you will age, but I'm not sure how this will play out. I think the dynasty idea is a tremendous one; when you eventually die, you control your son/daughter, and then there might be a power struggle for the army, etc. It would tie into the history books idea very nicely, that the world is long, and lived-in, and you are having a noticeable effect upon it. Again, that's one for the future, but you will have an age when you start your character, and you will age. As will everybody else, of course - natural deaths can happen! :)
Currently, human/dwarf/elf. I might add in some of the intelligent creature races as options later, depending on how they play out as 'mercenaries' and components of larger armies. I'm not quite sure yet...
Post by: Leatra on January 04, 2012, 12:52:18 pm
Quote
Now THAT is a good question, re: timelines, aging, etc. The honest answer is: I haven't decided yet. I think you will age, but I'm not sure how this will play out. I think the dynasty idea is a tremendous one; when you eventually die, you control your son/daughter, and then there might be a power struggle for the army, etc. It would tie into the history books idea very nicely, that the world is long, and lived-in, and you are having a noticeable effect upon it. Again, that's one for the future, but you will have an age when you start your character, and you will age. As will everybody else, of course - natural deaths can happen! :)
I like that. You also should be able to train your son/daughter so you can start off with some skills when you control your son/daughter.
What happens if you got more than one child? I guess you should be able to choose whoever you want. Also, a cooperation/rivalry between your brothers and sisters could be fun. Maybe your power-hungry brother decides to get a huge army together and you have to fight him or your enemy kidnaps your sister or something. You can actually create a movie with that kind of dynasty mechanism.
Quote
Currently, human/dwarf/elf.You might want to add orcs and maybe halflings to that list in the future :D
Post by: Frumple on January 04, 2012, 01:07:08 pm
You might want to add orcs and maybe halflings to that list in the future :DGolden Horde orcs and imperialistic slaver halflings. That's what T4 did :P
If you're not going to just procedurally generate all that sort of thing, anyway. Which'd probably be more interesting, as you could actually get those two, and plenty more aside. Race being about biology instead of psychology/social organization, perhaps.
It'd be hilarious to have a playthrough with the elves being the underground master smiths :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 06, 2012, 09:05:30 pm
I like that. You also should be able to train your son/daughter so you can start off with some skills when you control your son/daughter.
What happens if you got more than one child? I guess you should be able to choose whoever you want. Also, a cooperation/rivalry between your brothers and sisters could be fun. Maybe your power-hungry brother decides to get a huge army together and you have to fight him or your enemy kidnaps your sister or something. You can actually create a movie with that kind of dynasty mechanism.QuoteCurrently, human/dwarf/elf.You might want to add orcs and maybe halflings to that list in the future :D
I guess that's about right - choose which you want to control. For that matter, you might be able to designate a successor anyway, even if they aren't the player's descendants. Hmm. I'll think more about this one, but I love the dynasty idea - lots of interesting things for power struggles, civil wars, etc could come out of that...
I might, I might! I'm not yet sure if various 'intelligent' monster races will be playable or not...
You might want to add orcs and maybe halflings to that list in the future :DGolden Horde orcs and imperialistic slaver halflings. That's what T4 did :P
If you're not going to just procedurally generate all that sort of thing, anyway. Which'd probably be more interesting, as you could actually get those two, and plenty more aside. Race being about biology instead of psychology/social organization, perhaps.
It'd be hilarious to have a playthrough with the elves being the underground master smiths :P
Haha - that would be... very strange. While I will procedurally generate the rising and falling of individuals within a certain species, the species as a whole are going to be relatively set in stone. With that said, all will have some unusual outliers - you'll get the very rare elf who dislikes the woods, the rare dwarf who dislikes the underground, and so on!
Post by: ChairmanPoo on January 06, 2012, 10:49:04 pm
Quote
I guess that's about right - choose which you want to control. For that matter, you might be able to designate a successor anyway, even if they aren't the player's descendants. Hmm. I'll think more about this one, but I love the dynasty idea - lots of interesting things for power struggles, civil wars, etc could come out of that...
Maybe by giving bonus to the successor's influence among your generals depending on various factors? Eg: being your offspring would be a bonus (dynasty and all that). Being a competent commander would be a bonus, etc.... Being officially designated would be a large bonus. So normally, if you designate as successor someone who stands out of your various liutenaunts (offspring, competent, whatnot), it stays at that. But if there are several mighty candidates, it might be enough evened out so that the others revolt?
Post by: Leatra on January 07, 2012, 01:05:20 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 09, 2012, 05:48:46 pm
Maybe by giving bonus to the successor's influence among your generals depending on various factors? Eg: being your offspring would be a bonus (dynasty and all that). Being a competent commander would be a bonus, etc.... Being officially designated would be a large bonus. So normally, if you designate as successor someone who stands out of your various liutenaunts (offspring, competent, whatnot), it stays at that. But if there are several mighty candidates, it might be enough evened out so that the others revolt?
That sounds really good, actually. If there is one lead candidate (be it the player, or not!) then that person gains control with ease. If your designated successor is that character, great; but if not, you might have to fight for it. Similarly, if your successor character is by far the strongest, things will be easy, but if the top people in your civilization/army are all of roughly equal influence/experience/etc, that'll generate a struggle!
Your first character's background is important too. Like in Mount&Blade, if your father is a thief, farmer, smith or someone else without renown, you are a nobody. If your father is a noble, you have a slightly higher renown.
Agreed; I'm not sure how skills and other attributes will 'pass down' to your offspring/chosen successor yet, so I'll have to think about that one...
Also, URR now has a delicious sidebar! This week's devblog entry discusses this, the UI, and the direction I'm moving in in terms of ease of use, the UI, and getting efficiently around the map. What does everyone think of the sidebar, and the UI in general? :)
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/01/09/sidebars-and-scrolling/
Post by: trees on January 09, 2012, 06:20:41 pm
Also, URR now has a delicious sidebar! This week's devblog entry discusses this, the UI, and the direction I'm moving in in terms of ease of use, the UI, and getting efficiently around the map. What does everyone think of the sidebar, and the UI in general? :)
I like it! I think it deals with the ever-present problem that roguelikes have of not being able to see landmarks far ahead of you rather well.
Post by: Mephansteras on January 09, 2012, 07:07:12 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on January 09, 2012, 08:08:40 pm
It would be really nice for there to be a quick, easily understandable sidebar that tells you how YOU are doing at the moment (since you're the star of the show and all...).
Post by: Frumple on January 09, 2012, 09:59:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 10, 2012, 06:28:08 am
I like it! I think it deals with the ever-present problem that roguelikes have of not being able to see landmarks far ahead of you rather well.
Cool :) - areas a distance away from you will be a '?' and unexplored, but you start the game aware of all the territory your civilization has, and some territory from surrounding ones, too. Either way, it could likely be a while in the average play until you reach unexplored lands (though you can always see one map grid ahead of you when you do, except when going over mountains).
Looks pretty snazzy!
Excellent - thanks!
Also, regarding menus and such, is your character going to have a status screen? Like, something that tells you when you've gotten your arm lopped off or your lower body cut open?
It would be really nice for there to be a quick, easily understandable sidebar that tells you how YOU are doing at the moment (since you're the star of the show and all...).
There is a status screen. I tried to have a sidebar for exactly that, but it quickly become much too crowded and much too difficult to keep track of. The status screen takes a keypress to bring up, and gives you far, far more information about your wellbeing (or impending death) than the trial sidebars could.
Re: Sidebar: Does that mean we cap out at a max of 15985 critters on our side of the fight?
Ha - I... suppose it does. If anyone reaches that number, I will eat my hat.
Post by: Leatra on January 10, 2012, 06:50:06 am
Re: Sidebar: Does that mean we cap out at a max of 15985 critters on our side of the fight?
Ha - I... suppose it does. If anyone reaches that number, I will eat my hat.
(http://fortnightlitpress.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/knapp01.png?w=480)
Post by: Ivefan on January 10, 2012, 07:07:01 am
Ha - I... suppose it does. If anyone reaches that number, I will eat my hat.
First of all, do you have one?
And secondly; Where do you think you are? This is Bay12forums where people does unreasonable things on a basis :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 10, 2012, 07:12:48 pm
Re: Sidebar: Does that mean we cap out at a max of 15985 critters on our side of the fight?
Ha - I... suppose it does. If anyone reaches that number, I will eat my hat.
(http://fortnightlitpress.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/knapp01.png?w=480)
It's on!
First of all, do you have one?
And secondly; Where do you think you are? This is Bay12forums where people does unreasonable things on a basis :P
I do indeed; it even has ear flap things. And that is a good point, actually...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 13, 2012, 01:06:56 pm
Post by: Lord Dullard on January 13, 2012, 01:11:36 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 13, 2012, 06:14:25 pm
I'd be really interested in seeing what you've got so far. :) I've just finished up with a good portion of the core mechanics of my own worldgen for Cult (though a lot more will necessarily be added as the game engine develops), and I'm curious to see what yours looks like. At any rate, the game is looking awesome so far. Keep up the good work!
Thanks! Just looking at Cult - very cool. At the moment there's a bunch of screenshots on my devblog, and I'll probably be uploading some more in the near future. Still just finishing off rivers at the moment, then it's onto early wild creatures for me, I think...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 13, 2012, 07:29:14 pm
dammit, I want it now!
no sleep! you work! you work!
Haha; it'll now be tomorrow, but I'm no more than 30 minutes from finishing off rivers, and then there's just a bunch of little things to clear up. I need to actually get a good night's sleep for the first time in ages...
Post by: Leatra on January 14, 2012, 09:31:05 am
dammit, I want it now!
no sleep! you work! you work!
Haha; it'll now be tomorrow, but I'm no more than 30 minutes from finishing off rivers, and then there's just a bunch of little things to clear up. I need to actually get a good night's sleep for the first time in ages...
Sleep is important. I just slept for 14 hours and I hardly got my ass out of my room. I still feel sleepy. I didn't know I was this sleep deprived. That's what I get for getting up around 7:00 AM every day including weekends.
So, need for sleeping is going to get included in the game? :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 14, 2012, 04:28:57 pm
Sleep is important. I just slept for 14 hours and I hardly got my ass out of my room. I still feel sleepy. I didn't know I was this sleep deprived. That's what I get for getting up around 7:00 AM every day including weekends.
So, need for sleeping is going to get included in the game? :D
I used to sleep for nearly that long most nights, but these days I force myself onto about 8 hours; it's the only way I can actually get anything DONE! And yes, it will indeed; longer you go without sleep, the poorer your abilities will become. Same goes for other creatures; in the near future (probably before first release) a day/night cycle and nocturnal/diurnal creatures should appear...
Post by: ScriptWolf on January 14, 2012, 07:31:01 pm
Also any political things going on ? Can you run/own a kingdom and stuff and own property or land or something ?
Post by: Ivefan on January 14, 2012, 09:47:26 pm
Also any political things going on ? Can you run/own a kingdom and stuff and own property or land or something ?
Yes. discussed 3-2 pages back.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 15, 2012, 07:11:59 am
This looks like a game of epic proportions! Really wanting to get my hands on it allready ! and any ideas when you will be releasing code for us to play with? :D
Also any political things going on ? Can you run/own a kingdom and stuff and own property or land or something ?
Thanks :)! It's going to take a while, but I think it should be before too long. I'm afraid, however, I'm not planning to release the code, and I'm keeping it closed-source (at least for the foreseeable future). I'm always eager to take suggestions for weapons/items/monsters/ideas/etc and have already added quite a few people suggested, but the source itself I plan to keep closed.
And yep - not so much owning a property, or land, but you'll be able to rise up the military hierarchy of civilizations, and potentially rule the civilization itself (though this is still in the brainstorming stage atm) - you also might have 'control' of land from a territory point-of-view, not from a private ownership point of view. I think. We'll see!
Post by: Leatra on January 15, 2012, 08:36:57 am
Sleep is important. I just slept for 14 hours and I hardly got my ass out of my room. I still feel sleepy. I didn't know I was this sleep deprived. That's what I get for getting up around 7:00 AM every day including weekends.
So, need for sleeping is going to get included in the game? :D
I used to sleep for nearly that long most nights, but these days I force myself onto about 8 hours; it's the only way I can actually get anything DONE! And yes, it will indeed; longer you go without sleep, the poorer your abilities will become. Same goes for other creatures; in the near future (probably before first release) a day/night cycle and nocturnal/diurnal creatures should appear...
I sleep for 4 hours mostly. If I get a chance to sleep until noon I take it happily. :D
I guess, if we and our allies need to sleep, we can ambush an enemy camp at night or be ambushed by enemies at night.
Post by: ScriptWolf on January 15, 2012, 01:00:37 pm
And when I said code to play with I meant a alpha which was playable hehe :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 15, 2012, 08:09:10 pm
I sleep for 4 hours mostly. If I get a chance to sleep until noon I take it happily. :D
I guess, if we and our allies need to sleep, we can ambush an enemy camp at night or be ambushed by enemies at night.
4? Impressive (and scary!). Yep, I think you'll definitely be able to get your forces up at night for an ambush (though, of course, so will your foes). The day/night cycle is something I hope to add in before too long, actually, so maybe even within the next few weeks...
Hey sounds good :) really looking forward to this :) High expectations which you can easily achieve :)
And when I said code to play with I meant a alpha which was playable hehe :P
Why thank you :) - when I consider my utter lack of programming knowledge six months ago and compare it to the current state of the game, it amazes me it's got this far. But there aren't any particularly dreadful issues on the horzion, so I don't foresee stopping/stalling in the near future :P. Ah, splendid! Looking at the middle of this year, I think, but it depends on various things - academic workload, how long some major things take to program, mundane stuff like save files, turning it into an .exe, etc, but I think the middle of this year is about right. Maybe earlier (hopefully!) but I'm covering myself for now by saying just before the middle!
Post by: Nighthawk on January 15, 2012, 10:37:53 pm
15,551,999...
15,551,998...
15,551,997...
I can totally wait that many seconds for a working Alpha.
Post by: Leatra on January 16, 2012, 08:26:07 am
Middle of the year! That's like... 6 months! Or 24 weeks! Or 180 days! Or 4320 hours! Or 259,200 minutes! Or 15,552,000 seconds!
15,551,999...
15,551,998...
15,551,997...
I can totally wait that many seconds for a working Alpha.
I can wait patiently for an epic game like this :D
Post by: klingon13524 on January 16, 2012, 08:48:29 am
Post by: PokemonRocks85 on January 16, 2012, 08:51:34 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 16, 2012, 06:07:40 pm
Middle of the year! That's like... 6 months! Or 24 weeks! Or 180 days! Or 4320 hours! Or 259,200 minutes! Or 15,552,000 seconds!
15,551,999...
15,551,998...
15,551,997...
I can totally wait that many seconds for a working Alpha.
This is good to know :) - though the presence of a countdown, however hypothetical, is oddly terrifying...
I can wait patiently for an epic game like this :D
Cheers! Hopefully the first alpha will actually have some substance to it, which is why I've moved the release back a little bit - I'd simply like there to be a bit more to do!
Tick tick tick, we're waiting....
Argh the pressure
This game is going to be succesful just like dwarf fortress. Remember when making games you need ideas and when you get ideas use them. Because you will never find the same idea unless you retrace your steps Ultima you sir has the title of armok slave. thats pretty good next rank will be armok minion your getting there.
Well, thanks :). Keeping a huge list of ideas and suggestions for just this reason...
New devblog appearing shortly, with screenshots and other such goodies.
Post by: monk12 on January 16, 2012, 06:34:35 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 16, 2012, 07:36:12 pm
Just found this thread, checked out some devlogs, and it looks very promising! I watch with interest.
Thanks! Depending on when you checked, there may already be another, involving oases, mountains, and magma. Three essential components of any gaming experience.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/01/17/the-end-of-the-world/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/01/ZOMVOL.png)
Post by: Frumple on January 16, 2012, 07:41:16 pm
Because the screenshots given are borderline painful to me, in the same way the swamps in Caves of Qud and busier parts of DF (without option changes) are. Being able to simplify the visual experience might be nice of those of us with lower tolerance for eye strain :P
E: They're pretty enough, to clarify, just painful. Too busy, at least for my tolerances. Is why option would be nice, yeah.
Post by: Ivefan on January 16, 2012, 07:47:49 pm
Will there, uh, be an option to simplify non-tactically important symbols? Like, have all the ground be just . instead of . : ) }, etc.Speaking of that, consider leaving the option for a graphical overlay open as ASCII only tends to some people away, and you can just leave it open for modders to deal with =P
Because the screenshots given are borderline painful to me, in the same way the swamps in Caves of Qud and busier parts of DF (without option changes) are. Being able to simplify the visual experience might be nice of those of us with lower tolerance for eye strain :P
E: They're pretty enough, to clarify, just painful. Too busy, at least for my tolerances. Is why option would be nice, yeah.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 16, 2012, 07:53:51 pm
Will there, uh, be an option to simplify non-tactically important symbols? Like, have all the ground be just . instead of . : ) }, etc.
Because the screenshots given are borderline painful to me, in the same way the swamps in Caves of Qud and busier parts of DF (without option changes) are. Being able to simplify the visual experience might be nice of those of us with lower tolerance for eye strain :P
E: They're pretty enough, to clarify, just painful. Too busy, at least for my tolerances. Is why option would be nice, yeah.
That's really interesting, and I'm glad you've brought it to my attention. Hadn't even considered it. I will definitely put in such an option :)
Speaking of that, consider leaving the option for a graphical overlay open as ASCII only tends to some people away, and you can just leave it open for modders to deal with =P
I will - eventually - but that requires more competence in dealing with tilesets than I think I actually have at the moment. I'll get to that one too, though, I promise... once I figure out how...
Post by: Ivefan on January 16, 2012, 08:16:30 pm
I will - eventually - but that requires more competence in dealing with tilesets than I think I actually have at the moment. I'll get to that one too, though, I promise... once I figure out how...Considering all the other things you've been coding I would have thought that tilesets would have been simpler.
Learning programing only due to the making of this game or do you have classes?
Post by: Little on January 16, 2012, 08:21:34 pm
Post by: Leatra on January 17, 2012, 04:31:36 am
I hope we will have a forum for this game soon.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2012, 06:27:47 am
Considering all the other things you've been coding I would have thought that tilesets would have been simpler.
Learning programing only due to the making of this game or do you have classes?
I know! But oddly not. Then again, I haven't given it a lot of time yet, so maybe it'll turn out much simpler than I expect. It's on the list, though...
Nope; prior to six months ago, I hadn't even touched Python. I've just been teaching myself. There are classes on campus but I've found teaching myself is by far the best method, and more than sufficient for everything I've needed so far.
Chiming in to say this look really cool! :D
Cheers!
I got a question about magic. Will we have different "schools" for magic? You know, like the ones in Skyrim.
I hope we will have a forum for this game soon.
Currently got four intended - pyromancy, hydromancy, geomancy, and necromancy. They're in the skills list, anyway, though obviously they don't *do* a lot yet...
I'll put up a forum once there's a first release, and therefore I need a real area for feedback, discussion, bug reports, etc etc :)
Post by: Ivefan on January 17, 2012, 07:27:35 am
Interesting. Except pyromancy, your selection of magical categories tends to take lesser roles in other games. Necromancy is usually there but to me it never seems to be as useful as the other choices available.I got a question about magic. Will we have different "schools" for magic? You know, like the ones in Skyrim.
Currently got four intended - pyromancy, hydromancy, geomancy, and necromancy. They're in the skills list, anyway, though obviously they don't *do* a lot yet...
Are these the only ones you want or do you perhaps choose to extend the selection?
As i see it, if strictly limited to what the name implies;
Pyromancy - Manipulation and conjuration of fire. If speaking if physics, molecular friction. Unsubtle, simple and destructive.
Assuming that simple magics would be various forms of throwing fire at your foe I make the conclusion that conjuring fire
is easier the closer to the caster than far away and simultaneous conjurations is a measure of the mages skill. So causing
friction to set fire to the pants of ten enemies in the back of the ranks of a force a hundred meters away would be harder
than bursting a spray of fire from infront of the caster. Although I guess that the amount of fire should correspond to the
amount of mana put into it.
Hydromancy - Control of water... Eh, I guess a high pressurized stream of water cuts well or at least throws 'em back. Seems rather
bulky to manipulate and unless theres a source of water naturally, then the mage would have to use the moisture in the
air and in my opinion that would take time and/or not provide enough water to do some fun stuff, like tsunamis. Though
a skilled caster would be able to drain/drown his foes by drawing water into the lungs. Or even be able to control
enemies by manipulating the water in the bodies.
Geomancy - Weeh, manipulating the crust of the earth. Fissures, trembles, earthquakes, magma geysers, stone golems and what not.
Rather indiscriminating destructive power here, depending on how strongly the mage could manipulate it.
Necromany - How to define this... Control of life energies? of Souls? Is it just the control of dead things or would you be able to siphon
life from living being?
Nope; prior to six months ago, I hadn't even touched Python. I've just been teaching myself. There are classes on campus but I've found teaching myself is by far the best method, and more than sufficient for everything I've needed so far.Been considering to do something like that myself for a long time but i'm rather unsure if i would be getting into deep waters and make it a wasted effort.
So you're making this in python then? How good is that language for what you want it for?
Post by: Leatra on January 17, 2012, 09:47:50 am
Post by: Ivefan on January 17, 2012, 09:58:03 am
Can we do telekinesis? You know, the art of impaling pointy stuff into your enemies without using your hands :DDoes not fit into any of aforementioned groups, and all things considered, telekinesis would basically just make your mage into either a chaingun with whatever small object you can get or a siege weapon, throwing boulders.
Post by: Leatra on January 17, 2012, 10:12:01 am
If you have unlimited magic power. You can pop two volcanoes in a row and create an earthquake between them, for that matter. Also only masters of telekinesis should be able to lift heavy things like boulders. Even if you lift can a boulder, if you lift it more than a few inches count yourself lucky.Can we do telekinesis? You know, the art of impaling pointy stuff into your enemies without using your hands :Dtelekinesis would basically just make your mage into either a chaingun with whatever small object you can get or a siege weapon, throwing boulders.
And I'm sure we will have more than just 3 schools. That's too limiting. What about illusion spells?
Post by: Frumple on January 17, 2012, 10:16:53 am
This has come up a few times in the thread already, heh.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 19, 2012, 04:53:34 pm
Interesting. Except pyromancy, your selection of magical categories tends to take lesser roles in other games. Necromancy is usually there but to me it never seems to be as useful as the other choices available.
Are these the only ones you want or do you perhaps choose to extend the selection?
As i see it, if strictly limited to what the name implies;
Pyromancy - Manipulation and conjuration of fire. If speaking if physics, molecular friction. Unsubtle, simple and destructive.
Assuming that simple magics would be various forms of throwing fire at your foe I make the conclusion that conjuring fire
is easier the closer to the caster than far away and simultaneous conjurations is a measure of the mages skill. So causing
friction to set fire to the pants of ten enemies in the back of the ranks of a force a hundred meters away would be harder
than bursting a spray of fire from infront of the caster. Although I guess that the amount of fire should correspond to the
amount of mana put into it.
Hydromancy - Control of water... Eh, I guess a high pressurized stream of water cuts well or at least throws 'em back. Seems rather
bulky to manipulate and unless theres a source of water naturally, then the mage would have to use the moisture in the
air and in my opinion that would take time and/or not provide enough water to do some fun stuff, like tsunamis. Though
a skilled caster would be able to drain/drown his foes by drawing water into the lungs. Or even be able to control
enemies by manipulating the water in the bodies.
Geomancy - Weeh, manipulating the crust of the earth. Fissures, trembles, earthquakes, magma geysers, stone golems and what not.
Rather indiscriminating destructive power here, depending on how strongly the mage could manipulate it.
Necromany - How to define this... Control of life energies? of Souls? Is it just the control of dead things or would you be able to siphon
life from living being?Nope; prior to six months ago, I hadn't even touched Python. I've just been teaching myself. There are classes on campus but I've found teaching myself is by far the best method, and more than sufficient for everything I've needed so far.Been considering to do something like that myself for a long time but i'm rather unsure if i would be getting into deep waters and make it a wasted effort.
So you're making this in python then? How good is that language for what you want it for?
I really like your hydromancy idea about drowning people through moisture, control of bodily water, etc. Interesting. I've had some ideas for a serious game mechanic involving ships and similar, and it would obviously prove particularly useful/vital on voyages. Agreed on pyro/geo; I am not quite sure how necromancy will yet play into my thoughts on the mechanics around the undead, though I do have a few interesting ideas on it. Especially related to the 'dynasty' concepts I've been playing around with and the importance of history.
Yep, in Python. Apart from BASIC when I was very young, I've never touched any other programming language, so I don't know if Python is stronger/weaker for this project, but it's serving me perfectly well so far :)
If you have unlimited magic power. You can pop two volcanoes in a row and create an earthquake between them, for that matter. Also only masters of telekinesis should be able to lift heavy things like boulders. Even if you lift can a boulder, if you lift it more than a few inches count yourself lucky.Can we do telekinesis? You know, the art of impaling pointy stuff into your enemies without using your hands :Dtelekinesis would basically just make your mage into either a chaingun with whatever small object you can get or a siege weapon, throwing boulders.
And I'm sure we will have more than just 3 schools. That's too limiting. What about illusion spells?
Telekinesis is an interesting one. I'm really not sure. Though, I stress, that goes for all magic - it isn't something I've thought a lot about, nor a major focus (for now, anyway). I think telekinesis could be really interesting, actually, though I'm not sure where it would go. Which ties into:
It's been stated previously that those four "schools" are for big-time, ritual-type spells; (comparatively) large scale, large cost, large setup. There is (or was, anyway) a second way of doing magic intended, which was mentioned as being more free-form and combat-centered. I'd imagine various status-inflicting spells (Which most illusion-type things would fit under, in some sense) would fall easily under the latter style.
This has come up a few times in the thread already, heh.
That's gone on the back burner for now. I actually think I'm now working towards a combination of the two - more schools, each bigger than normal, but still not THAT many. Probably more like 5-6 total, rather than just the 4. I want to keep them rare, and special, and powerful, though, and that's important. I think most of the effects of illusion spells could either be acquired by other, non-magical means, or would be too 'small scale' to have much of an effect in a battle. Magical options to have significant strategic effect, and make more of a difference than a soldier or two from one side taking on a mage. But, I stress, magic is by far an immediate priority. For the first alpha, I want worldgen (99% done) and a reasonable amount of wild creatures and item generation (each about 50% done). Since magic is also intended to be a high-level strategy aspect, it still needs some more consideration. However, I will let everyone know once I've re-thought the schools. Those 4 will likely still exist, but I have ideas for one or two others...
Still, having all but finished world generation (a few fixes needed in the next few days, once I have some spare time from work/teaching) I'll be moving back onto the stats of creatures next, and how their body parts are handled. I don't think I was doing it in a very efficient way before - it can definitely be improved...
Post by: Frumple on January 19, 2012, 05:33:20 pm
It's also not uncommon for it to turn towards blood manipulation if you're getting particularly nasty about things.
Post by: monk12 on January 19, 2012, 05:41:01 pm
Post by: Leatra on January 19, 2012, 05:43:40 pm
Post by: da dwarf lord on January 19, 2012, 07:56:50 pm
Yep, in Python. Apart from BASIC when I was very young, I've never touched any other programming language, so I don't know if Python is stronger/weaker for this project, but it's serving me perfectly well so far :)
Hey just wanted to say this has grown unbelievably since I first saw it on the python/libtcod forums, wish one of my projects had grown this much this quickly. But the main thing I found that limited my projects is the fact that python is soooooo slow when compared to C++. I was just wondering if you had noticed this and just have ridiculously optimised code, or if you found another way around it?
Awesome game, can't wait for it to be released :).
Post by: Leatra on January 19, 2012, 09:05:16 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on January 19, 2012, 09:10:11 pm
Magic should not be undodgeable. That is, all magic should be able to be avoided, or resisted. But from the previous comment about the 4 schools of magic, it seems some clever wizard could just come along and suck the moisture out of your body from a distance, killing you.
I'm hoping you plan to make magic more fair. Powerful, but fair.
Post by: Ivefan on January 19, 2012, 09:33:36 pm
But from the previous comment about the 4 schools of magic, it seems some clever wizard could just come along and suck the moisture out of your body from a distance, killing you.So... Encountering a giant that proceeds bashing you into a pulp with a tree, walking into that dragons lair, catching a stray arrow with your eye or slipping on a banana peel by a cliff is just equally unfair?
I'm hoping you plan to make magic more fair. Powerful, but fair.
Magic will be rare and presumably there will be magical countermeasures, which you probably wont gain that easy, just as wizards won't get their powers easily.
Post by: Nighthawk on January 20, 2012, 01:56:31 pm
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the game should be easy. I'm just saying that it should be possible to fight these forces, or at least run away. If you were stupid enough to get close to a big, dumb giant wielding a mace the size of a tree, you deserve to die. If you decided to enter a dragon's lair and you weren't prepared, you deserve to die. If you're walking next to a cliff, you're asking for trouble, and deserve to die. If you took an arrow to theBut from the previous comment about the 4 schools of magic, it seems some clever wizard could just come along and suck the moisture out of your body from a distance, killing you.So... Encountering a giant that proceeds bashing you into a pulp with a tree, walking into that dragons lair, catching a stray arrow with your eye or slipping on a banana peel by a cliff is just equally unfair?
I'm hoping you plan to make magic more fair. Powerful, but fair.
Magic will be rare and presumably there will be magical countermeasures, which you probably wont gain that easy, just as wizards won't get their powers easily.
Likewise, if you run into an enemy mage, you should have the option of fleeing, or a chance of surviving if you fought. They should NOT be capable of simply destroying you from a distance with a flick of their wrist.
My overall point is, the game should not be the kind of game where something just comes along every single time you play and casually wipes you off the face of the earth. There should be foes capable of that, but it should have some level of realism. For example, a dragon in flight should not stop and murder you simply because you're there. Unless it's hungry. Then it may stop in order to fill its belly with your tasty human flesh.
See, DF Adventure mode currently lacks this. If you run into a creature that is labeled, "hostile" it will kill you simply because it can. And that's not realistic. Powerful creatures and beings should not stop to pick off the small fries, in my opinion.
Post by: BishopX on January 20, 2012, 02:23:10 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on January 20, 2012, 02:40:45 pm
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
It takes dedication and a willingness to screw up. A lot. The best way to start is to give yourself some really, really simple goals. Like, make a flat field of grass. Then add a dude. Then get the dude to be able to walk around. Stuff like that. You're probably going to have to scrap the first two or three iterations anyway as you learn what you're doing, so there's no reason to try and add in the crazy stuff early on.
Now, not saying you can't design the crazy stuff ahead of time, since that's fun. Just don't try to actually code any of it until you have the basic stuff down and working ok.
Post by: Biag on January 20, 2012, 02:45:59 pm
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
I swear by this (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod) roguelike tutorial. Python is definitely the language you want to start with if you're learning on your own. Khan Academy has a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy#g/c/36E7A2B75028A3D6) on Python and computer science, although I haven't watched it so I can't speak to its quality. Best of luck to you! :D
Post by: PokemonRocks85 on January 20, 2012, 02:48:02 pm
EDIT: Oh my armok how the heck do i install python :o
Post by: Clownmite on January 21, 2012, 10:52:08 am
EDIT: Oh my armok how the heck do i install python :o
Are you on Windows? It should be as easy as downloading the version you want (I'd go with 2.7.2) and then double-clicking the .msi file to go through the installer. You'll then have IDLE, which is an interpreter you can use to type code into one line at a time, or you can create scripts which IDLE will run (and print out error messages).
As Biag said, the roguelike tutorial using libtcod is awesome, which is what I'm using to base the code for my game off of (The creator of the tutorial doesn't mind if people use his code).
Post by: Leatra on January 21, 2012, 11:38:43 am
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
It takes dedication and a willingness to screw up. A lot. The best way to start is to give yourself some really, really simple goals. Like, make a flat field of grass. Then add a dude. Then get the dude to be able to walk around. Stuff like that. You're probably going to have to scrap the first two or three iterations anyway as you learn what you're doing, so there's no reason to try and add in the crazy stuff early on.
Now, not saying you can't design the crazy stuff ahead of time, since that's fun. Just don't try to actually code any of it until you have the basic stuff down and working ok.
I got some crazy ideas but I don't know if I can do them. My only experience with scripting is a few mods I made for Oblivion which required scripting but that's it. I guess I'll give Python a try.
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
I swear by this (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod) roguelike tutorial. Python is definitely the language you want to start with if you're learning on your own. Khan Academy has a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy#g/c/36E7A2B75028A3D6) on Python and computer science, although I haven't watched it so I can't speak to its quality. Best of luck to you! :D
Thanks! I'll try to complete that tutorial as soon as I got some free time (Summer, I guess)
My overall point is, the game should not be the kind of game where something just comes along every single time you play and casually wipes you off the face of the earth. There should be foes capable of that, but it should have some level of realism. For example, a dragon in flight should not stop and murder you simply because you're there. Unless it's hungry. Then it may stop in order to fill its belly with your tasty human flesh.
See, DF Adventure mode currently lacks this. If you run into a creature that is labeled, "hostile" it will kill you simply because it can. And that's not realistic. Powerful creatures and beings should not stop to pick off the small fries, in my opinion.
URR said magic is going to be rare but powerful. It's not like we are going to fight against a spellcaster every couple of hours. If the player did something to piss off a spellcaster, he should be ready for it. But I agree, there should be a way to resist spells. Maybe amulets, small charms, blessings from priests or something.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 22, 2012, 08:01:30 am
A few throwaway thoughts re: Hydromancy: Water manipulation is often seen as part of the traditional arts of fleshcrafting of various sorts in fantasy settings. Mutation, creature husbandry, crossbreeding, etc. There was a particular race of seadwellers in a fantasy setting I worked with a bit that were basically magical bioengineers, ferex, breeding ships and various servant species for personal use and trade. If you're looking for strategic applications for it, crossbreeding, mutations, strange beasts, etc., is a thematically viable direction to go. Biological battering rams, artillery, specially bred domestic creatures (Food/moral bonii), so on, so forth.
It's also not uncommon for it to turn towards blood manipulation if you're getting particularly nasty about things.
All interesting thoughts! I'm not sure what I'm thinking about breeding and similar at the moment; I guess it will, in part, depend on what kind of creature system I end up implementing, which is a major thing I'm thinking about at the moment. However, I really like the idea of 'biological battering rams' and similar; the siege weapon for the undead is... well, I'm not going to give that away yet, since I rather like it. But I'm definitely interested in adding more unusual 'biological weapons', but I'm not sure if crossbreeding and similar are the ways to produce them!
If you feel like weaponizing water, Ice is a popular choice- firing sharp ice like shotgun pellets, coating a battlefield in it, freezing armor (which is really quite unpleasant if you're still wearing it,) so on and so forth. Water also rusts, which has obviously detrimental effects on iron weapons and armor. Lacking an Air school, Water also does well for causing storms and other weather effects. And a final thought, Water magic tends to play a role in divination magics, for settings that don't have that as a separate school, or being fulfilled by Air instead.
Yeah - I was actually currently thinking of getting away from the ice option, but I totally agree with you on storms, diversions, rusting, etc. I think ice has been done far more than water (precisely because, as you say, it's an obvious way to weaponize it) so I'm interested in whether water per se can prove useful :)
I know we have these schools for rituals but what about smaller spells? Does it go to "non-epic-stuff" category?
Not sure. Probably, they won't exist! Strategic-level spells only, most likely, and not for some time.
Yep, in Python. Apart from BASIC when I was very young, I've never touched any other programming language, so I don't know if Python is stronger/weaker for this project, but it's serving me perfectly well so far :)
Hey just wanted to say this has grown unbelievably since I first saw it on the python/libtcod forums, wish one of my projects had grown this much this quickly. But the main thing I found that limited my projects is the fact that python is soooooo slow when compared to C++. I was just wondering if you had noticed this and just have ridiculously optimised code, or if you found another way around it?
Awesome game, can't wait for it to be released :).
Thanks! I'm not sure how optimized my code is :). Before release I'm obviously going to profile it and try and speed up every bit I possibly can, but loading a chunk of a map normally takes 15-20 seconds, so that gets a loading screen (though it's not a hugely common occurrence to move to a new map chunk anyway). Otherwise, everything seems to run fine. It's possible as the game grows I'll have to make more changes, but at the moment, there aren't any real speed issues, imo!
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
Cool :). I thought it seemed bloody terrifying before I got started, but I found it pretty easy to teach myself. Find a good tutorial or two, and buy a book or two (I recommend ones that are more general reference for the code, rather than 'tutorials', as code reference books make it easy to look up whatever you need) and I guarantee it'll go well.
Just got to say something about magic and... well, fairness in the game.
Magic should not be undodgeable. That is, all magic should be able to be avoided, or resisted. But from the previous comment about the 4 schools of magic, it seems some clever wizard could just come along and suck the moisture out of your body from a distance, killing you.
I'm hoping you plan to make magic more fair. Powerful, but fair.
I would hope to keep it fair. There will be ways for both you and other creatures to develop/deploy resistances to various magics, but again, magic is a long-term goal, so I don't know yet how that will pan out. However, I do need some idea, since I'm currently redoing creature code, and I want to leave 'space', as it were, for magic resistances and similar in the future. I strongly suspect a lot of magic resistance will come from either a) a friendly mage protecting your force, or b) specific items that resist specific magics.
So... Encountering a giant that proceeds bashing you into a pulp with a tree, walking into that dragons lair, catching a stray arrow with your eye or slipping on a banana peel by a cliff is just equally unfair?
Magic will be rare and presumably there will be magical countermeasures, which you probably wont gain that easy, just as wizards won't get their powers easily.
Yep; and while there WILL be horrific deaths out there, I think since you're likely to be fighting in a force much of the time, I'd like to keep combat realism high while trying to reduce the number of truly sudden, unexpected deaths. Somehow.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the game should be easy. I'm just saying that it should be possible to fight these forces, or at least run away. If you were stupid enough to get close to a big, dumb giant wielding a mace the size of a tree, you deserve to die. If you decided to enter a dragon's lair and you weren't prepared, you deserve to die. If you're walking next to a cliff, you're asking for trouble, and deserve to die. If you took an arrow to thekneeeye... well, bad luck.
Likewise, if you run into an enemy mage, you should have the option of fleeing, or a chance of surviving if you fought. They should NOT be capable of simply destroying you from a distance with a flick of their wrist.
My overall point is, the game should not be the kind of game where something just comes along every single time you play and casually wipes you off the face of the earth. There should be foes capable of that, but it should have some level of realism. For example, a dragon in flight should not stop and murder you simply because you're there. Unless it's hungry. Then it may stop in order to fill its belly with your tasty human flesh.
See, DF Adventure mode currently lacks this. If you run into a creature that is labeled, "hostile" it will kill you simply because it can. And that's not realistic. Powerful creatures and beings should not stop to pick off the small fries, in my opinion.
I entirely agree about things not killing you 'just because they can'. I intend to give a lot of creatures basic routines - as in, they might hunt at night, or only certain creatures, or only certain areas, and so on. Every single deadly wild creature will not attack you on sight under certain conditions. Behemoths, for instance, will almost never fight back at night, and if you go past them and don't bother them, they are unlikely to stir. Similarly, I intend to get Dragons moving long distances, and only stopping to fight you if you're threatening their nest, or attacking them, or if they're hungry, etc, otherwise they'll just fly on by...
I would love to see (relatively) mundane counters to common magical/demonic issues. Things like salt circles, running water, cold iron or religious verse working to stymie some forms of magic. The effect would basically be that magic users had to worry about a different set of constraints than foot soldiers and generals have to. Soldier worry about food, shelter and harsh terrian in addition to the guys out there wanting to stab them in the eye. If magic uses instead have to worry about rivers (with or without fords), temples, mines and magical threshholds instead of (or in addition to) the more mundane constraints, you can have a very powerful magic system in the game which adds to the tactical and strategic realities of the game rather than steam rolling them as is so often the case in fantasy.
This is *exactly* what I think would be good. I'd like a lot of the countermeasures - that aren't granted by a friendly mage countering the effects of your foe - to be counters of this sort. Of course, mages fighting might have fallout, other effects, etc, but I like the ideas of magic that can be countered by non-explicitly-magical means, like salt, iron, etc. That could be particularly interesting, though I'll have to think about how to 'scale it up' to army level.
Seeing URR working on his game with a passion and ambition like this is encouraging me to start developing roguelikes myself (which I have been thinking about, for like a year) but the majestic world of codes seems a little scary. Is it difficult, teaching yourself and not taking any classes about it?
It takes dedication and a willingness to screw up. A lot. The best way to start is to give yourself some really, really simple goals. Like, make a flat field of grass. Then add a dude. Then get the dude to be able to walk around. Stuff like that. You're probably going to have to scrap the first two or three iterations anyway as you learn what you're doing, so there's no reason to try and add in the crazy stuff early on.
Now, not saying you can't design the crazy stuff ahead of time, since that's fun. Just don't try to actually code any of it until you have the basic stuff down and working ok.
Yep - I started from the Python tutorial posted in this thread, then made the screen scroll, and I've thus far rewritten the basic code a good four times. I'm fairly confident this will be the last time I do this :). I had to realize that what I wrote when I was starting out was probably going to be utterly terrible; it was, and I had to force myself to re-write it, but what I have now is so much faster and more complex.
I swear by this (http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Complete_Roguelike_Tutorial,_using_python%2Blibtcod) roguelike tutorial. Python is definitely the language you want to start with if you're learning on your own. Khan Academy has a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy#g/c/36E7A2B75028A3D6) on Python and computer science, although I haven't watched it so I can't speak to its quality. Best of luck to you! :D
Agreed; that was my start too. A great tutorial!
EDIT: Oh my armok how the heck do i install python :o
Are you on Windows? It should be as easy as downloading the version you want (I'd go with 2.7.2) and then double-clicking the .msi file to go through the installer. You'll then have IDLE, which is an interpreter you can use to type code into one line at a time, or you can create scripts which IDLE will run (and print out error messages).
As Biag said, the roguelike tutorial using libtcod is awesome, which is what I'm using to base the code for my game off of (The creator of the tutorial doesn't mind if people use his code).
I concur with staying with 2.7.2 for now. I'm sure I'll move to 3 at some point, though...
URR said magic is going to be rare but powerful. It's not like we are going to fight against a spellcaster every couple of hours. If the player did something to piss off a spellcaster, he should be ready for it. But I agree, there should be a way to resist spells. Maybe amulets, small charms, blessings from priests or something.
Pretty much this. Finding a competent spellcaster is going to be as rare as finding any other high-level creature. Similarly, becoming one is a long-term goal, if you want to that direction. Spell resistance is... being worked out, let's put it that way. Either get a friendly mage to support you, or have items/blessings/similar that will negate other effects. Or, of course, just find a non-magical way to kill the opposing mage at the start of the battle. I suspect mages will be a very important initial target like Commanders, for that matter...
Post by: Ivefan on January 22, 2012, 08:58:08 am
Ice isn't water magic per say in my opinion. Although you are using water as a base component, making ice would belong to another branch and even though it might sound strange at first it's closer to pyromancy(in this case) than Hydromancy.If you feel like weaponizing water, Ice is a popular choice- firing sharp ice like shotgun pellets, coating a battlefield in it, freezing armor (which is really quite unpleasant if you're still wearing it,) so on and so forth. Water also rusts, which has obviously detrimental effects on iron weapons and armor. Lacking an Air school, Water also does well for causing storms and other weather effects. And a final thought, Water magic tends to play a role in divination magics, for settings that don't have that as a separate school, or being fulfilled by Air instead.
Yeah - I was actually currently thinking of getting away from the ice option, but I totally agree with you on storms, diversions, rusting, etc. I think ice has been done far more than water (precisely because, as you say, it's an obvious way to weaponize it) so I'm interested in whether water per se can prove useful :)
Why? Pyromancy is fire and fire is Heat. Ice requires a lack of heat. Draw the heat from the water to somewhere else and you get ice.
Using the same principles you could in theory drain the bodyheat from half of your foes to get the heat to combust the other half... Well, less than half due to needing more heat than one body can provide to ignite another one.
URR, Try decide upon one general principle/rule that dictates a magic type and from there you can start branching out with ideas that apply under said rule.
Yep; and while there WILL be horrific deaths out there, I think since you're likely to be fighting in a force much of the time, I'd like to keep combat realism high while trying to reduce the number of truly sudden, unexpected deaths. Somehow.
Sudden and unexpected deaths isnt necessarily unfair. If you go stand in the frontlines in a charge against giants you have yourself to blame. If one is standing in the back and directing ones forces there isn't much that would could happen and you can do a risk calculation simply.
Okay, So you were unfortunately standing in the wrong spot as a dragon swept over your forces, coughing fire. Or that catapult stone bounced one time too many and your character was provided with a rather modest gravestone.
But the thing is, you can dismiss the risk 99.9% of the time and if it actually happens... well, just don't fuck with dragons without a water barrel to hide in.
Post by: monk12 on January 22, 2012, 11:10:52 pm
Ice isn't water magic per say in my opinion. Although you are using water as a base component, making ice would belong to another branch and even though it might sound strange at first it's closer to pyromancy(in this case) than Hydromancy.If you feel like weaponizing water, Ice is a popular choice- firing sharp ice like shotgun pellets, coating a battlefield in it, freezing armor (which is really quite unpleasant if you're still wearing it,) so on and so forth. Water also rusts, which has obviously detrimental effects on iron weapons and armor. Lacking an Air school, Water also does well for causing storms and other weather effects. And a final thought, Water magic tends to play a role in divination magics, for settings that don't have that as a separate school, or being fulfilled by Air instead.
Yeah - I was actually currently thinking of getting away from the ice option, but I totally agree with you on storms, diversions, rusting, etc. I think ice has been done far more than water (precisely because, as you say, it's an obvious way to weaponize it) so I'm interested in whether water per se can prove useful :)
Why? Pyromancy is fire and fire is Heat. Ice requires a lack of heat. Draw the heat from the water to somewhere else and you get ice.
Using the same principles you could in theory drain the bodyheat from half of your foes to get the heat to combust the other half... Well, less than half due to needing more heat than one body can provide to ignite another one.
URR, Try decide upon one general principle/rule that dictates a magic type and from there you can start branching out with ideas that apply under said rule.
It really depends on how you choose to define things. For example, if Water magic is defined as the ultimate control over H20, then all you're doing to make Ice is forcing it into a crystalline formation, which would also have the interesting side effect of shedding a LOT of heat, very fast. You could theoretically burn rain-soaked victims this way. Similarly, taking liquid water and forcing it into Steam would actually cool the target- this is the basic reason sweating cools you down. Counterintuitive, maybe, but true.
As far as using liquid water directly as a weapon, well, water is pretty damn heavy. Not dense, maybe, but if you can keep it from splooshing everywhere you've got a pretty effective whip. Water would also make a versatile shield- it can obscure or completely hide the wielder, or mislead enemies (through clever use of diffraction- ever try to stab a fish from above-water?), slow down and redirect projectiles, etc. And, what happens if you combine water and earth? You get mud, and presumably a hydromancer would have some influence over it, though maybe not so dramatic as using the raw element.
Sorry to run at the mouth there, this kind of conversation is my meat and potatoes :P
Post by: Biag on January 23, 2012, 02:28:54 am
Post by: Ivefan on January 23, 2012, 04:13:41 am
Sorry to run at the mouth there, this kind of conversation is my meat and potatoes :P
I prefer pasta over potatoes.
True, watery mud might be controllable. But that all depends on whatever ruleset is being applied.
Perhaps the extent will be limited to just making the mud loose, or maybe you can't do anything because it falls under the domain of another type of magic.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 23, 2012, 11:20:56 am
Ice isn't water magic per say in my opinion. Although you are using water as a base component, making ice would belong to another branch and even though it might sound strange at first it's closer to pyromancy(in this case) than Hydromancy.
Why? Pyromancy is fire and fire is Heat. Ice requires a lack of heat. Draw the heat from the water to somewhere else and you get ice.
Using the same principles you could in theory drain the bodyheat from half of your foes to get the heat to combust the other half... Well, less than half due to needing more heat than one body can provide to ignite another one.
URR, Try decide upon one general principle/rule that dictates a magic type and from there you can start branching out with ideas that apply under said rule.Yep; and while there WILL be horrific deaths out there, I think since you're likely to be fighting in a force much of the time, I'd like to keep combat realism high while trying to reduce the number of truly sudden, unexpected deaths. Somehow.
Sudden and unexpected deaths isnt necessarily unfair. If you go stand in the frontlines in a charge against giants you have yourself to blame. If one is standing in the back and directing ones forces there isn't much that would could happen and you can do a risk calculation simply.
Okay, So you were unfortunately standing in the wrong spot as a dragon swept over your forces, coughing fire. Or that catapult stone bounced one time too many and your character was provided with a rather modest gravestone.
But the thing is, you can dismiss the risk 99.9% of the time and if it actually happens... well, just don't fuck with dragons without a water barrel to hide in.
I see what you mean about water/ice. I think I'm interested in Hydromancy as manipulation of water (and therefore Pyromancy as manipulation of fire, and so on) more than explicitly weaponized versions. For instance, if you had a skilled Pyromancer in your force and you fought a Dragon, he might be able to bend the fire it breathed away towards a harmless location; similarly, a Hydromancer could calm an ocean, or try to wash a Kraken onto shore where it would be much easier to kill (Nethack style). And as you say; sudden deaths are fine if you're doing something daft, but the number of deaths when you take all appropriate precautions should be balanced so they aren't too common and annoying, but also not impossible, because otherwise every new foe you encounter will seem like a totally safe proposition.
It really depends on how you choose to define things. For example, if Water magic is defined as the ultimate control over H20, then all you're doing to make Ice is forcing it into a crystalline formation, which would also have the interesting side effect of shedding a LOT of heat, very fast. You could theoretically burn rain-soaked victims this way. Similarly, taking liquid water and forcing it into Steam would actually cool the target- this is the basic reason sweating cools you down. Counterintuitive, maybe, but true.
As far as using liquid water directly as a weapon, well, water is pretty damn heavy. Not dense, maybe, but if you can keep it from splooshing everywhere you've got a pretty effective whip. Water would also make a versatile shield- it can obscure or completely hide the wielder, or mislead enemies (through clever use of diffraction- ever try to stab a fish from above-water?), slow down and redirect projectiles, etc. And, what happens if you combine water and earth? You get mud, and presumably a hydromancer would have some influence over it, though maybe not so dramatic as using the raw element.
Sorry to run at the mouth there, this kind of conversation is my meat and potatoes :P
Don't worry about it, that's all really interesting! I think the water-as-shield idea is a really interesting one, but I think makes more sense for geomancy; perhaps the ability to raise and lower terrain, for instance, to both obstruct line of sight and provide tactical advantage. As you say, water could very easily knock people back and similar; I should probably start drawing up a list of ideas for each school...
If we're saying "ultimate" control, then don't forget how much influence you have over the weather. Enemy army on the march? Cast a spell that keeps the air around them nice and humid, and make sure no pesky clouds get in the way of the sun. Enemy general trying to give a rousing speech? Hide in the bushes and make his mouth so dry he can barely speak. Someone coming at you with a sword, but you don't want to injure them for whatever reason? Make their hand so slippery they drop the weapon. Your general went partying last night, but the forces of evil are nearby at 6 AM? Wake him up and instantly rehydrate him to get rid of the hangover.
I'm debating something very similar, which one could reasonably call 'tempestomancy' - ie control of weather. I'm sure if a lot of that wouldn't fall under hydromancy anyway, and some of it wouldn't be in sticking with a lot of the rest of the game, I think. I do like those ideas, but I think they're more of the individual-magic variety, not on the strategic level, though I do like the weather control/humidity one a lot!
True, watery mud might be controllable. But that all depends on whatever ruleset is being applied.
Perhaps the extent will be limited to just making the mud loose, or maybe you can't do anything because it falls under the domain of another type of magic.
Probably the latter, I think! Also, lastly, devblog entry appearing in a little while on the redoing of creature stats, and what stats creatures actually need to have in-game :) - a lot of the stats I originally gave creatures are no longer relevant, and a lot of new things have gone on the drawing board since then, too...
Post by: Leatra on January 23, 2012, 02:15:30 pm
[Quote pyramid, discussing if use of ice is Hydromancy or Pyromancy]
I think a combination of schools could be used in certain situtations like this. If you are trying to affect the heat of a liquid and move it, for example, Pyromancy and Hydromancy skill could be used but not at the same time. You can use your Pyromancy first and turn water into steam, and then use your Hydromancy and control the steam to create a distraction for your escape. Here, I just created a magic smoke bomb. If you fail at the Hydromancy check but succed at the Pyromancy check, you would still create a cloud of smoke but you couldn't control it.
This system would work very well for complex spells. A rough example:
1. Draw water from the sea nearby and lift it up in the air [Hydromancy check. Spell takes 5 seconds to cast] Fail, you can't control it.
2. Move it on top of the enemy forces [Hydromancy check. +10 seconds] Fail, water falls back to sea.
3. Turn water into ice and thus, rain ice on your enemies [Pyromancy check. +5 seconds] Fail, you simply created rain
That spellcasting time I mentioned is made up of course. I know it's turn based.
Why should spells take just one step, when you can have more control? You can add a step 4 to make the ice more sharper before it falls. Any combination you want. Possibilities are endless.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 23, 2012, 07:24:34 pm
I think a combination of schools could be used in certain situtations like this. If you are trying to affect the heat of a liquid and move it, for example, Pyromancy and Hydromancy skill could be used but not at the same time. You can use your Pyromancy first and turn water into steam, and then use your Hydromancy and control the steam to create a distraction for your escape. Here, I just created a magic smoke bomb. If you fail at the Hydromancy check but succed at the Pyromancy check, you would still create a cloud of smoke but you couldn't control it.
This system would work very well for complex spells. A rough example:
1. Draw water from the sea nearby and lift it up in the air [Hydromancy check. Spell takes 5 seconds to cast] Fail, you can't control it.
2. Move it on top of the enemy forces [Hydromancy check. +10 seconds] Fail, water falls back to sea.
3. Turn water into ice and thus, rain ice on your enemies [Pyromancy check. +5 seconds] Fail, you simply created rain
That spellcasting time I mentioned is made up of course. I know it's turn based.
Why should spells take just one step, when you can have more control? You can add a step 4 to make the ice more sharper before it falls. Any combination you want. Possibilities are endless.
A multi-turn version is a great idea, as is the combination. I don't know how I'm going to have the different schools - and therefore different specialisms - play out, but I'm sure both you/the AI should be able to combine schools if appropriate or useful. And having multiple-turn spells would mean that they could be larger in scale and still allow for appropriate movement around their effects, too. I like it :).
I also really like the idea of different effects if it fails at different points, too, like the rain example! As you say, the longer the spell spends 'building up' the better it would be, and there's no real reason to put that much of a limit on that. Every moment the opposing force spends not stopping the mage is time for the spell to improve. Of course, interrupting a mage in the middle of a complex spell might not have such a good effect...
Anyhoo, long before magic even makes an appearance, I'm pretty much redoing the creature system from scratch. It should be much more dynamic, changeable, sophisticated, and (importantly) realistic. Enjoy! This is the first of a series about creatures:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/01/24/building-a-creature-part-1/
Post by: Nighthawk on January 23, 2012, 08:16:43 pm
Also, to bring up a new topic, how much detail will the player receive in the midst of battle? There's a skill in DF... what's it called? Observation. That's it. The higher it is, the better you are at avoiding getting ambushed. However, observation in battle may be important, too. A good observer would watch not only his foe's weapon, but his face. His expression. Whether he is pained from injury, or demoralized from the sight of dead comrades.
For example, in the midst of battle, this message could occur:
You hack the spearman's upper right arm!
The spearman grimaces in pain. <-------
And on a simliar note, are you planning on finding a way to smooth the text that tells what is going on? Like so:
The dragon roars in agony.
The dragon collapses.
vs.
The dragon roars in agony and collapses. <---------- This is nicer.
These are just little things, and you don't have to get serious about them right now, but I'm just wondering what plans you have for them, if you have plans for them.
Post by: monk12 on January 23, 2012, 10:22:57 pm
The other example that sprang to mind (and perhaps more applicable to this discussion) was the webcomic Erfworld. For those not in the know, Erfworld is basically about a world based on a tabletop strategy game, hexes and all. I highly recommend it, and if you haven't read it then avoid the spoiler I'm about to reveal.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
RE: Devblog- Is experience awarded solely for kills, or per attack, or per encounter, or what?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2012, 04:29:11 am
This is good - optimization is key when creating a game that will have a lot of content in the long term. The more streamlined you make it now, the less pain you'll have to deal with trying to add stuff in the future.
Also, to bring up a new topic, how much detail will the player receive in the midst of battle? There's a skill in DF... what's it called? Observation. That's it. The higher it is, the better you are at avoiding getting ambushed. However, observation in battle may be important, too. A good observer would watch not only his foe's weapon, but his face. His expression. Whether he is pained from injury, or demoralized from the sight of dead comrades.
For example, in the midst of battle, this message could occur:
You hack the spearman's upper right arm!
The spearman grimaces in pain. <-------
And on a simliar note, are you planning on finding a way to smooth the text that tells what is going on? Like so:
The dragon roars in agony.
The dragon collapses.
vs.
The dragon roars in agony and collapses. <---------- This is nicer.
These are just little things, and you don't have to get serious about them right now, but I'm just wondering what plans you have for them, if you have plans for them.
Good question; I think these things are really important. At the moment, all messages involving you are displayed by default, and you have full detail - if you wound an opponent, it will give you information about whether you cut them, or damaged the bone, or knocked off a limb, etc. Similarly if you are wounded. There's an option in the option menu which allows you to decide whether or not it will show messages about the rest of the combat you can see. As you're not omniscient, you can only get messages about other combat you can see, but if turned on, it will give you some (less) information about the rest of the battle around you. If not, you only see messages about your personal fights. Also, in large battles, you'll be able to dispatch a runner to get information from other parts of the battle and return to you with detail of how they're progressing. Also, agreed, and I have tried to combine two into one wherever possible!
RE: Magic shenanigans- I've always like the ability to use magic in concert, especially since it can make for a very versatile magic system. Example- Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time book series. Magic is broken up into 5 elements (Air, Fire, Earth, Water, and Spirit,) and the spells are made of combinations of each element- for instance, Lightning is a combination of Fire and Air. The added wrinkle there is that some magic users are stronger with certain elements, making some more likely to turn the ground into lava geysers, or some more likely to bludgeon their foe with Air, or whatever.
The other example that sprang to mind (and perhaps more applicable to this discussion) was the webcomic Erfworld. For those not in the know, Erfworld is basically about a world based on a tabletop strategy game, hexes and all. I highly recommend it, and if you haven't read it then avoid the spoiler I'm about to reveal.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
RE: Devblog- Is experience awarded solely for kills, or per attack, or per encounter, or what?
Hmm, interesting - I think the combining magic idea is one that's definitely worth looking into (haven't read the Wheel of Time, but might at some point). I think things of the sort mentioned in the spoiler would be very cool to add. Experience comes from using a particular stat - doing something, whatever it is, raises whichever skills have an influence on it (for example, archery is Dexterity, Strength, and a little bit of Intelligence). When you kill something, the way you fought it then determines which of your five stats gain experience for its death. Basically, you have 5 central experience bars (though not visible on screen), one for each of the five basic stats, and they're raised by using them, and battling foes with them.
Post by: Ivefan on January 24, 2012, 05:22:28 am
Hmm, interesting - I think the combining magic idea is one that's definitely worth looking into (haven't read the Wheel of Time, but might at some point).My favorite series, started reading em when i was about 10 years old :)
The magic system in WoT is based on the fore mentioned five elements. The user then takes the components and 'weaves' them into a spellform.
Strength in the power defines simultaneous spells, the magnitude and partially range.
There's more rules to that than this, like affinity to one type, joining power etc.
Didn't even suggest this type of system as you seemed more inclined to strict powerhouse magics rather than this flexible one.
Post by: Man of Paper on January 24, 2012, 10:52:33 am
You can expect my full attention from this point forward.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 25, 2012, 11:42:29 am
Hmm, interesting - I think the combining magic idea is one that's definitely worth looking into (haven't read the Wheel of Time, but might at some point).My favorite series, started reading em when i was about 10 years old :)
The magic system in WoT is based on the fore mentioned five elements. The user then takes the components and 'weaves' them into a spellform.
Strength in the power defines simultaneous spells, the magnitude and partially range.
There's more rules to that than this, like affinity to one type, joining power etc.
Didn't even suggest this type of system as you seemed more inclined to strict powerhouse magics rather than this flexible one.
Interesting - does there have to be a difference between powerhouse and flexible systems? Well, maybe there does. Hmm.
I don't know, though - can magic not be kept rare, powerful and strategic, but also have more flexibility within it? I'm not sure how it would work from a coding perspective, nor from a gameplay one. I don't see why that would be that much tougher than creating a stricter but equally powerful magic system.
I haven't really looked into this thread before now, and I regret it (the not looking bit). I wasn't introduced to roguelikes before I faceplanted into DF, and since then all the roguelikes I've played have kind of fallen short of the hopes and dreams DF jammed into my brainspace. Sure, Cataclysm, Nethack, and IVAN are fun, but none of them have the whole package: a robust combat system, a large open world, and glorious, glorious deaths. But this gem being developed here seems to be hitting on all my desires in a roguelike. If it were a woman I'dprobablydefinitely propose.
You can expect my full attention from this point forward.
Haha, well, thanks! Glorious deaths are definitely the order of the day at the moment, and will probably be even more so soon once I'm done adding in more creatures :)...
Also, how many loading screens do you think there are in Skyrim? As in, how many segments of text? I can't find a total, but URR now has around 120, all of which are a paragraph, and the loading times are both pretty rare & short. I think it's a good compromise. I'll throw up a screenshot of a loading screen at some point. Also, a lot of the loading screens for each game are going to be procedurally-generated! More on this later...
Post by: monk12 on January 25, 2012, 12:21:50 pm
RE: Magic Systems
The biggest difference between a flexible Rule Magic system and Whatevermancy is how difficult it is to implement and balance. Whatevermancy is very easy- you define a spell cost, and a specific effect, and you're done. The user has extremely limited power to alter the spell- no toning down a Fireball to light a cigarette, for example. A more flexible system would involve specifying a series of individual effects and modifications a magic user can cause, and then figuring out how they all interact with one another. This obviously makes it more difficult to balance, and more difficult for the AI to use intelligently.
If this was going to be more of an RPG, I'd encourage Rule Magic since learning the ins and outs of an internally consistent magic system is always great fun. Since this is a strategy game, I'd say Whatevermancy with specific spells and effects would be the way to go.
Post by: Leatra on January 25, 2012, 01:06:12 pm
I don't know how many loading screens there are in Skyrim because CK isn't out yet but Oblivion definitely had less than 120. Procedurally generated loading screens are a good idea.I haven't really looked into this thread before now, and I regret it (the not looking bit). I wasn't introduced to roguelikes before I faceplanted into DF, and since then all the roguelikes I've played have kind of fallen short of the hopes and dreams DF jammed into my brainspace. Sure, Cataclysm, Nethack, and IVAN are fun, but none of them have the whole package: a robust combat system, a large open world, and glorious, glorious deaths. But this gem being developed here seems to be hitting on all my desires in a roguelike. If it were a woman I'dAlso, how many loading screens do you think there are in Skyrim? As in, how many segments of text? I can't find a total, but URR now has around 120, all of which are a paragraph, and the loading times are both pretty rare & short. I think it's a good compromise. I'll throw up a screenshot of a loading screen at some point. Also, a lot of the loading screens for each game are going to be procedurally-generated! More on this later...probablydefinitely propose.
You can expect my full attention from this point forward.
As long as we have a step-by-step magic system, I'm game. I'm glad you liked that idea. Only your imagination should be the limit when it comes to spellcasting, rather than the classic "cast x to make y" kinda spells.
Post by: Mephansteras on January 26, 2012, 01:29:29 am
Post by: Clownmite on January 26, 2012, 07:15:13 pm
I think your loading screens should be squads of guys fighting it out. Doesn't even have to be running the main combat engine, just do some simple calculations so the player can watch little battles go on while they wait. Assuming it's more than a few seconds load time, anyway.
I like that idea a lot. I might have to steal it.
Procedural load screens sound cool. Will they be things like giving abridged histories of cities/nations in the current world?
Post by: Koliup on January 26, 2012, 07:31:12 pm
As long as we have a step-by-step magic system, I'm game. I'm glad you liked that idea. Only your imagination should be the limit when it comes to spellcasting, rather than the classic "cast x to make y" kinda spells.
I agree with this. And building off of what Leatra has said, I would like to suggest a magic system that operates like building blocks(Sorry if I'm stealing your idea, Leatra.), first, you define what it does(animating a corpse/starting a fire), then you add how long/how powerful it should be(super-zombie/cigarette lighting), and then reach/blast(A whole bunch of corpses around X area Y squares away from you are animated as super-zombies/You touch the cigarette on the same square as you and light it.).
I feel it necessary to mention that the 'what it does' bit would probably look like: bolt of [insert negative energy/fire/cold/whatevermancy you do here], touch of [see before], cone of [--], etc.
Each option would add to the total 'cost' of the spell. So super-zombie radius spell would be very expensive(Potent+range+permanent), while lighting the cigarette is peanuts(miniscule+touch+instant).
Thoughts?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 28, 2012, 06:30:59 am
Procedurally generated loading screens. Awesome.
RE: Magic Systems
The biggest difference between a flexible Rule Magic system and Whatevermancy is how difficult it is to implement and balance. Whatevermancy is very easy- you define a spell cost, and a specific effect, and you're done. The user has extremely limited power to alter the spell- no toning down a Fireball to light a cigarette, for example. A more flexible system would involve specifying a series of individual effects and modifications a magic user can cause, and then figuring out how they all interact with one another. This obviously makes it more difficult to balance, and more difficult for the AI to use intelligently.
If this was going to be more of an RPG, I'd encourage Rule Magic since learning the ins and outs of an internally consistent magic system is always great fun. Since this is a strategy game, I'd say Whatevermancy with specific spells and effects would be the way to go.
Glad you like the idea!
Hmm, I see exactly what you mean. I do want the AI to be using everything sensibly (since I think the current version does so very nicely) and a more complex system would certainly be much more challenging. Interwoven systems also makes magic a bigger focus in the game, which it isn't. Thanks for the thoughts - those are all really good points. Hmm. /pondering
I don't know how many loading screens there are in Skyrim because CK isn't out yet but Oblivion definitely had less than 120. Procedurally generated loading screens are a good idea.
As long as we have a step-by-step magic system, I'm game. I'm glad you liked that idea. Only your imagination should be the limit when it comes to spellcasting, rather than the classic "cast x to make y" kinda spells.
Thanks - there's a huge number of preset ones, but there will also be a ton of procgen'd ones each time too. I definitely like the step-by-step, I'm just still not sure about the combination of magic schools or not. Still, it's not going to appear for ages either way; my focus for this next week is on redoing creatures and starting to store them properly in 'Armies', 'Cities' or 'Wild' groupings (these are broad; more on this later)...
I think your loading screens should be squads of guys fighting it out. Doesn't even have to be running the main combat engine, just do some simple calculations so the player can watch little battles go on while they wait. Assuming it's more than a few seconds load time, anyway.
Really nice idea - I might stick that in as a random alternative, sometimes, or maybe for shorter loading screens.
Procedural load screens sound cool. Will they be things like giving abridged histories of cities/nations in the current world?
Exactly this - it'll give you information about a city, nation, particular ruler, particular unique monster, artifact, etc :), with enough variation the same wording, so "Artifact X was created in the city of Y" and "Artifact A was created in the city of B" shouldn't repeat very often. By which I mean, a variety of ways to talk about artifacts, for instance.
I agree with this. And building off of what Leatra has said, I would like to suggest a magic system that operates like building blocks(Sorry if I'm stealing your idea, Leatra.), first, you define what it does(animating a corpse/starting a fire), then you add how long/how powerful it should be(super-zombie/cigarette lighting), and then reach/blast(A whole bunch of corpses around X area Y squares away from you are animated as super-zombies/You touch the cigarette on the same square as you and light it.).
I feel it necessary to mention that the 'what it does' bit would probably look like: bolt of [insert negative energy/fire/cold/whatevermancy you do here], touch of [see before], cone of [--], etc.
Each option would add to the total 'cost' of the spell. So super-zombie radius spell would be very expensive(Potent+range+permanent), while lighting the cigarette is peanuts(miniscule+touch+instant).
Thoughts?
I do like this idea. It also gives room for the AI to make judgments about how much time they have to spend casting a more powerful spell, and lets the AI assign protection to mages according to how powerful they are, and therefore how much time they need to cast their spells. How 'cost' factors in is going to be an interesting one, additionally because I'm vaguely considering tying magic to the deity system, but that's a far future idea.
In the mean time, I should have some more info up in the near future about the work I'm doing on creatures at the moment (devblog on Monday), and maybe soon some improved screenshots of the view-creature screen...
Post by: Ivefan on January 28, 2012, 08:38:59 am
Glad you like the idea!
Hmm, I see exactly what you mean. I do want the AI to be using everything sensibly (since I think the current version does so very nicely) and a more complex system would certainly be much more challenging. Interwoven systems also makes magic a bigger focus in the game, which it isn't. Thanks for the thoughts - those are all really good points. Hmm. /pondering
-cut-
I do like this idea. It also gives room for the AI to make judgments about how much time they have to spend casting a more powerful spell, and lets the AI assign protection to mages according to how powerful they are, and therefore how much time they need to cast their spells. How 'cost' factors in is going to be an interesting one, additionally because I'm vaguely considering tying magic to the deity system, but that's a far future idea.
The flexible or an extensive magic system is awesome ... If you make a game about mages which you've said ain't your focus.
Tying magic to deities would basically turn mages into priests and mana into divine favor, unless mages gain their power by intruding upon the gods.
Or that gods become gods by claiming a realm for them self.
Let me describe the system in Malazan book of the fallen.
We have the mundane world and then we have Warrens. The Warrens each have an affinity such as light, dark, shadow, fire and a bunch that has less clearly defined affinities. A warren can be associated to a god but a god does not necessarily belong to a warren.
Mages usually draw from one warren and his craft is defined by it, but there is exceptions.
Priests is granted power from their god but is usually a mage too.
I should point out that mortals can ascend and become power onto themselves or even gain a throne of a warren and thus become a god.
This is mostly a simple summary because there's exceptions, Elder gods and a lot of other shit going on that to understand you'll actually need to read all 10 books :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 30, 2012, 07:23:22 am
The flexible or an extensive magic system is awesome ... If you make a game about mages which you've said ain't your focus.
Tying magic to deities would basically turn mages into priests and mana into divine favor, unless mages gain their power by intruding upon the gods.
Or that gods become gods by claiming a realm for them self.
Let me describe the system in Malazan book of the fallen.
We have the mundane world and then we have Warrens. The Warrens each have an affinity such as light, dark, shadow, fire and a bunch that has less clearly defined affinities. A warren can be associated to a god but a god does not necessarily belong to a warren.
Mages usually draw from one warren and his craft is defined by it, but there is exceptions.
Priests is granted power from their god but is usually a mage too.
I should point out that mortals can ascend and become power onto themselves or even gain a throne of a warren and thus become a god.
This is mostly a simple summary because there's exceptions, Elder gods and a lot of other shit going on that to understand you'll actually need to read all 10 books :P
Interesting! You've actually touched upon one of my ideas for mages/gods - either it can be gained by favour, or it can be gained by doing something against a particular god and intruding on their domain. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to take that direction, but I think it could offer a logical point to add deities (procedurally-generated ones to some extent, of course!) into the game.
In the mean time, today's devblog entry! I talk a bit about falling down stairs and killing yourself and a bit about climate, but mostly about resistances. I'd really like to get people's views on the fact I've decided to put only two resistances in the game, and how this might work out. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/01/30/building-a-creature-part-2/
Post by: BishopX on January 30, 2012, 08:01:07 pm
In terms of heat resistance, I think a hot/cold continuum would work best, since things like frostbite and hypothermia from fording an icy stream are fun too. What this would mean is that things that deal well with cold (e.g. yetis) probably wouldn't do well in the heat and things that dealt with heat (e.g. cyclops) would have exceptionally poorly in the cold. A complete resistance to fire (e.g. demons) would just be an extreme version the ability to tolerate heat. Clothing and armor should probably also alter this stat.
With regards to resistances you missed, I think disease resistance and some form of psychic resistance are the only two that come to mind (acid resistance being stupid, and lightning resistance being too boolean due to the amounts of current a medieval warrior is likely to encounter).Disease resistance is important enough to separate from constitution and poison resistance because a)it allows soldiers raised in cities to be hardy in a different way than the barbarian from the frozen north and b) big strong hearty hydras get sick too. Much like poison, disease plays a big part in medieval warfare (arguably a bigger role than battles), and while tracking the number of your soldiers who have the the sniffles might be a little boring, things like cholera, bubonic plague, severe flu, scarlet fever, polio, whooping cough, smallpox, malaria, legionaries disease, leprosy and whatever fantastic maladies you dream up would be fun to track.
Post by: Ivefan on January 30, 2012, 08:19:42 pm
In terms of heat resistance, I think a hot/cold continuum would work best, since things like frostbite and hypothermia from fording an icy stream are fun too. What this would mean is that things that deal well with cold (e.g. yetis) probably wouldn't do well in the heat and things that dealt with heat (e.g. cyclops) would have exceptionally poorly in the cold. A complete resistance to fire (e.g. demons) would just be an extreme version the ability to tolerate heat. Clothing and armor should probably also alter this stat.
(acid resistance being stupid, and lightning resistance being too boolean due to the amounts of current a medieval warrior is likely to encounter)
Problem is that there can exist creatures that is very resistant to anything.
Say a stone golem(UUR include that in geomancy or not) would probably not take damage from fire, cold or lightning, unless its hot enough to melt stone, cold enough to freeze it in place.
If you want DF level of complexity you can add resistances to fire and ice as a temperature that needs to be overcome, but then you'll need to define the temperature of everything. electricity resistance is a bit more complicated due to messing with nerves of organics and giving heat.
Post by: BishopX on January 30, 2012, 09:54:23 pm
In terms of heat resistance, I think a hot/cold continuum would work best, since things like frostbite and hypothermia from fording an icy stream are fun too. What this would mean is that things that deal well with cold (e.g. yetis) probably wouldn't do well in the heat and things that dealt with heat (e.g. cyclops) would have exceptionally poorly in the cold. A complete resistance to fire (e.g. demons) would just be an extreme version the ability to tolerate heat. Clothing and armor should probably also alter this stat.
(acid resistance being stupid, and lightning resistance being too boolean due to the amounts of current a medieval warrior is likely to encounter)
Problem is that there can exist creatures that is very resistant to anything.
Say a stone golem(UUR include that in geomancy or not) would probably not take damage from fire, cold or lightning, unless its hot enough to melt stone, cold enough to freeze it in place.
If you want DF level of complexity you can add resistances to fire and ice as a temperature that needs to be overcome, but then you'll need to define the temperature of everything. electricity resistance is a bit more complicated due to messing with nerves of organics and giving heat.
Well, the first question is whether or not there are golems, the second question is how "hitpoints" are going to be handled versus a DF style psysics system and the third question is there going to be any kind of electrical damage short of a lightning bolt? With something like a golem I see no reason just giving a massive tolerance for damage wouldn't work, that should solve the "resistant to everything" bit. The reason we tend to think that golems have "resistances" is that D&D separates physical and energy damage. Everything else follows from there. I see no reason to continue that separation in URR, beyond separating hot and cold from physical damage.
In terms of temperature, while it's possible to convert the temperature in damage via some sort of physics engine, I think it is completely unnecessary in URR. All I'm saying is that resistance to fire and ice based damage should be tied to a creatures ability to withstand hot and cold temperature, stat wise. URR mentioned in his blog post that he wanted a mechanic which would limit the range of certain creatures. I thought it would be handy if he rolled one of his two resistances into that mechanic, just to keep things simpler.
In terms of electricity, I'm not foreseeing any situation where electricity will come into play aside from lightning bolts. Not much is resistant to lightning bolts. I see know reason to muck around with lower level of electric power and how much they'll make a given creature twitch when applied to them. Obviously this is a design decision up to URR, but I don't think we need to worry about it all that much.
Post by: Ivefan on January 31, 2012, 04:30:21 am
The reason we tend to think that golems have "resistances" is that D&D separates physical and energy damage. Everything else follows from there. I see no reason to continue that separation in URR, beyond separating hot and cold from physical damage.Or, by not even mixing in D&D into it, just applying logic to it. Burning a rock does not do much, unless you rapidly cool it afterwards. A golem of stone would be the same but with the addition of joints and source of animation as weak points.
The question of resistances mostly only concern magical or supernatural creatures, and who is to say that a creature isn't simply immune to external temperature influences?
The fire/cold scale could be defined as normal temperature and thresholds of what a creature can withstand.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2012, 09:38:07 am
In the context your using the term resistances, I really don't like that term. I think that susceptibility to heat/cold and tolerance for toxins are important things to track, but once you move away from nethack style boolean resistances to some sort of continuum, they should just be considered another stat. I think this is especially true when you talk about poison resistance. While it's cool that hydra's are hard to poison and have a toxic bite, in a strategy roguelike centered out medieval warfare, the most important test of poison resistance is probably how it handles water. Water near armies has a tendency to be vile. Either it's a mile down stream from another unit and filled with waste, or it's a mile down stream from some dead bodies, or it's been poisoned by some dastardly guerrilla warrior. Unlike hydra's, which are dealt with by heroes and monstrous soldiers and the cream of the crop, everyone has to drink.
In terms of heat resistance, I think a hot/cold continuum would work best, since things like frostbite and hypothermia from fording an icy stream are fun too. What this would mean is that things that deal well with cold (e.g. yetis) probably wouldn't do well in the heat and things that dealt with heat (e.g. cyclops) would have exceptionally poorly in the cold. A complete resistance to fire (e.g. demons) would just be an extreme version the ability to tolerate heat. Clothing and armor should probably also alter this stat.
With regards to resistances you missed, I think disease resistance and some form of psychic resistance are the only two that come to mind (acid resistance being stupid, and lightning resistance being too boolean due to the amounts of current a medieval warrior is likely to encounter).Disease resistance is important enough to separate from constitution and poison resistance because a)it allows soldiers raised in cities to be hardy in a different way than the barbarian from the frozen north and b) big strong hearty hydras get sick too. Much like poison, disease plays a big part in medieval warfare (arguably a bigger role than battles), and while tracking the number of your soldiers who have the the sniffles might be a little boring, things like cholera, bubonic plague, severe flu, scarlet fever, polio, whooping cough, smallpox, malaria, legionaries disease, leprosy and whatever fantastic maladies you dream up would be fun to track.
I totally agree. It's been changed to heat resistance and cold resistance as of now :). Additionally, clothing and armor will indeed affect that stat; also, I've made a note that the more a creature is wearing, the sooner it'll become exhausted from heat in battle, too.
Disease resistance is in, for the reasons you said. I like it, and especially the list of assorted dreadful conditions - I'm sure I'll be able to come up with a few fictional horrific ones, too!
Problem is that there can exist creatures that is very resistant to anything.
Say a stone golem(UUR include that in geomancy or not) would probably not take damage from fire, cold or lightning, unless its hot enough to melt stone, cold enough to freeze it in place.
If you want DF level of complexity you can add resistances to fire and ice as a temperature that needs to be overcome, but then you'll need to define the temperature of everything. electricity resistance is a bit more complicated due to messing with nerves of organics and giving heat.
Well, this kind of resistance comes from materials that creatures might be made from - eg flesh, bone, thick flesh, hide, scales, stone, iron, whatever. I have actually added a temperature function to metals and some other materials, but I intend to expand it to all of them. That's not so much 'resistances' as materials, but I guess having changed hot/cold to a continuum, there's very little difference now.
Well, the first question is whether or not there are golems, the second question is how "hitpoints" are going to be handled versus a DF style psysics system and the third question is there going to be any kind of electrical damage short of a lightning bolt? With something like a golem I see no reason just giving a massive tolerance for damage wouldn't work, that should solve the "resistant to everything" bit. The reason we tend to think that golems have "resistances" is that D&D separates physical and energy damage. Everything else follows from there. I see no reason to continue that separation in URR, beyond separating hot and cold from physical damage.
In terms of temperature, while it's possible to convert the temperature in damage via some sort of physics engine, I think it is completely unnecessary in URR. All I'm saying is that resistance to fire and ice based damage should be tied to a creatures ability to withstand hot and cold temperature, stat wise. URR mentioned in his blog post that he wanted a mechanic which would limit the range of certain creatures. I thought it would be handy if he rolled one of his two resistances into that mechanic, just to keep things simpler.
In terms of electricity, I'm not foreseeing any situation where electricity will come into play aside from lightning bolts. Not much is resistant to lightning bolts. I see know reason to muck around with lower level of electric power and how much they'll make a given creature twitch when applied to them. Obviously this is a design decision up to URR, but I don't think we need to worry about it all that much.
Hitpoints don't exist, but rather limbs and body parts, etc. There are tentatively golems, though they don't exist yet. Lightning/shock/electricity isn't going to play a role at all; I've never been a huge fan of it in fantasy contexts, actually, and I've decided not to include it. Agreed re: hot/cold being related to climate; I've made a note to get a specific formula for that, but I think it'll actually be unique to each creature with a general trend based on climate too.
Or, by not even mixing in D&D into it, just applying logic to it. Burning a rock does not do much, unless you rapidly cool it afterwards. A golem of stone would be the same but with the addition of joints and source of animation as weak points.
The question of resistances mostly only concern magical or supernatural creatures, and who is to say that a creature isn't simply immune to external temperature influences?
The fire/cold scale could be defined as normal temperature and thresholds of what a creature can withstand.
I intend to define them each as exactly that - what they like, and what ranges in each direction they can handle. The further into that region they get, the weaker and less willing to fight creatures will become, though if they're particularly loyal and willing to die from you before, things won't be changed too much if they just get a bit too warm :).
Post by: Leatra on February 01, 2012, 10:53:02 am
Poison/disease resistance could be important if there is a plague in the city you are in. Chance of becoming ill, chance of dying from the disease, etc.
Will the player be able to have a home? I understand what this game is about (epic warfare!) but it would be nice to have a house for safety, storage and sleeping if you are just adventuring around solo.
Post by: Muz on February 01, 2012, 01:04:40 pm
Got an idea about when you are going to release the Alpha? I don't mean to push you but I'm just excited for the game :D
Ha, I'm aching for a good combat sim roguelike too. Either URR or that new release of DF is looking good. Ah well, I guess I'll just go back to playing IVAN.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2012, 08:21:26 pm
Got an idea about when you are going to release the Alpha? I don't mean to push you but I'm just excited for the game :D
Ha, I'm aching for a good combat sim roguelike too. Either URR or that new release of DF is looking good. Ah well, I guess I'll just go back to playing IVAN.
Still looking at some time before the middle of this year, but I can't give any more accurate than that. World generation is basically done, along with various components of various parts of the combat mechanics, which all need pushing into a coherent whole. It may be sooner than I anticipate, but I think it's best to err on the side of caution :)
In other news, the world generation algorithms have been redone. No longer do we get massive blob-continents, but rather things like this:
(http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3356/smallmap.png)
Full size @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/02/map1.png
Post by: Mephansteras on February 01, 2012, 09:37:27 pm
Post by: darkflagrance on February 02, 2012, 02:08:38 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 02, 2012, 06:02:42 am
Looks pretty good. Obviously a fairly low-water world, but reasonable for the most part. Although the mountain ranges are oddly N-S/E-W alligned. Might want to tweak them a bit so they don't look so artificial.
To an extent, I've kept them like that on purpose to ensure the number of 2x2 and 3x3 mountain squares which allow for extra mountains. But you're right, I could have them shift diagonally slightly more...
On the topic of fire resistance - have you considered making it a more comprehensive slider of heat/cold alignment (creatures with defenses against heat/cold depending on position on the scale) or insulation (simple defense of body temperature against adverse temperature change)?
I think I'm going to have two different sliders, since some creatures might not really care about temperatures unless it's extreme in either direction (say, the undead), while some will have high resistance in one direction but not the other, and so on. For creatures that can wear items, insulation will definitely make a difference, but no number of scarves is going to persuade a Cyclops into the poles :)
Post by: Frumple on February 03, 2012, 01:57:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 03, 2012, 02:59:27 pm
well, about how long until a download is released? it says before the end of the year, but that is a bit ambiguous, given the amount of time to the end of the year.
That hasn't been the release date for a long time - that was referring to LAST year :). Looking at around the middle of this year, realistically.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 05, 2012, 07:23:36 pm
Um, great, uh. Two URR posts above you. On this page. The one with the picture? Just up a bit? Yeah. I think you botched your spot check.*facedesks*
well, now there is a profuse amount of blood coming from my nose, I can feel good that I facedesked appropriatl-
*blacks out*
:(. I have been known to do the exact same thing before. I might actually adjust the front page, maybe, with a summary of current thoughts or similar at some point...
Post by: Leatra on February 06, 2012, 06:43:58 am
Anywho, how's the game going? :D
We talked a lot about magic but what about magic weapons and armor? If it's going to get implemented, I don't want it to be like Skyrim's enchanting (40 pts fire damage, that's all?) soooo, I don't have any brights ideas really. What do you guys think?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 06, 2012, 11:42:53 am
Believe me, I did worse :-[
Anywho, how's the game going? :D
We talked a lot about magic but what about magic weapons and armor? If it's going to get implemented, I don't want it to be like Skyrim's enchanting (40 pts fire damage, that's all?) soooo, I don't have any brights ideas really. What do you guys think?
Well! Working on the user interface at the moment; finishing up the skills menu, updating the map key, adding an options menu, working on the worldgen page, letting the player toggle nine-directional movement if they don't have a numpad, etc. Working mostly on creatures at the moment. Now that everything on the map is done, I'd like to finish up the UI by the end of tomorrow, then from Wednesday I'll be focusing entirely on creatures. As for magic weapons/armor, I'm not sure yet; I think I'm going to have a ritual system for adding enchantments to weapons, though I think those are going to be very, very rare.
In the meantime, there's a new devblog entry! In it, I talk all about BLOOD in Ultima Ratio Regum, and the various effects that various kinds of creature blood might have. Go read!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/02/06/building-a-creature-part-3/
Post by: Clownmite on February 07, 2012, 01:09:34 am
Post by: Leatra on February 07, 2012, 08:02:27 am
Post by: GMichelIV on February 07, 2012, 09:16:11 am
I began working on a project in Python slightly after you began URR, and you are far far far ahead of me, so I would love to learn some sekrets.
Post by: ductape on February 07, 2012, 09:47:29 am
Post by: GMichelIV on February 07, 2012, 09:51:54 am
Post by: Nistenf on February 07, 2012, 10:09:43 am
Post by: Leatra on February 07, 2012, 02:02:12 pm
URR is written in Python?Yup. He is using python + libtcod if I remember right.
Post by: Xeron on February 07, 2012, 03:03:43 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 09, 2012, 05:53:20 pm
Hi Ultima, in response to your blog update, I'd definitely be interested in reading more entries about how you do things code-wise.
Cool - thanks for the feedback :)
Yeah, most roguelike players at least dabble in coding anyway. Last time I dabbled in coding, I was writing scripts for TES:Oblivion. So, I don't know much about coding but I know most people would want to know the code-y side of the game.
I've modded quite a few games in the past to a reasonable level (a few C&Cs, OMF:2097, a couple of others) but this was my first experience of an 'actual' programming language, as it were.
I agree, I would love to hear about your coding.
I began working on a project in Python slightly after you began URR, and you are far far far ahead of me, so I would love to learn some sekrets.
Cheers - I will oblige!
URR is written in Python?Yup. He is using python + libtcod if I remember right.
Indeed so. Found tutorial; bought Python books; went from there.
Can't wait for this.Take your time and good luck.
Thanks, for both the comments :) - have been simultaneously working on creatures and the UI this week, though this coming week might see things slowing down. I'm giving a lecture and teaching a few classes and I have quite a bit of general thesis work. There *might* not be a blog entry this Monday, but if there isn't, I'll make sure next Monday's is longer. Not sure yet. Regardless, middle of this year is probably still about right for release, since creatures are moving faster than I expected (touch wood). UI is coming to an end, though, so I'll be fully focusing on creatures in the not-too-distant future.
Post by: Nighthawk on February 09, 2012, 09:22:22 pm
And even if you don't, we here at Bay12 will be more than happy to do so. :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2012, 07:10:12 am
If you get a forum going, I'm sure plenty of people would LOVE to make recommendations on creatures that you should add to the game.
And even if you don't, we here at Bay12 will be more than happy to do so. :D
Cool! I think IndieDB provides its own forum function, so depending how hard it is to produce my own, I might get one going over there instead. Regardless, it won't happen until the first alpha is released, but I think I'm definitely going to put up some kind of forum feature around then :)
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on February 13, 2012, 09:19:16 am
1: Will their be battlefield building: Ergo, constructing catapults from parts on the fly, battering rams and the like, quick fort defenses?
2: Can you be carried around on a palanquin with soldiers of any race carrying you?
3: How far does your influence to generals reach. Can you sit all the way back in a fort and send commands or just within a certain radius
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 14, 2012, 05:21:08 am
Curious questions
1: Will their be battlefield building: Ergo, constructing catapults from parts on the fly, battering rams and the like, quick fort defenses?
2: Can you be carried around on a palanquin with soldiers of any race carrying you?
3: How far does your influence to generals reach. Can you sit all the way back in a fort and send commands or just within a certain radius
1) I think catapults/ballistas etc will likely be transported by horses etc, but they'll definitely need some setting up. Quick defenses I'm not sure about; most likely not, and certainly not out in the open, though if you hang around a certain location long enough your camp should hopefully gradually develop into something slightly more defended.
2) Heh. Possibly. For now, if you're commanding the army, you just ride on a horse. Palanquins are a nice idea, though...
3) Entirely depends on how strong the lines of communication are. If your orders will get through (logistics-wise), I intend to let you command at any distance, though you can always delegate second-in-commands or others to do the equivalent from slightly closer to other battles.
Post by: Ivefan on February 14, 2012, 07:09:21 am
1) I think catapults/ballistas etc will likely be transported by horses etc, but they'll definitely need some setting up. Quick defenses I'm not sure about; most likely not, and certainly not out in the open, though if you hang around a certain location long enough your camp should hopefully gradually develop into something slightly more defended.Just a trench to get into or making a pile of dirt to get behind and on top of can make a lot of difference and all you need is shovels.
Sharpened stakes to discourage speedy but non-jumpy creatures.
Large Wicker shields is mostly used in sieges to defend the attackers but can be used defensively too.
there's a lot of small things that can be done fast that can make a large difference but the question is what your engine can support.
Post by: BishopX on February 14, 2012, 11:27:09 am
Curious questions
1: Will their be battlefield building: Ergo, constructing catapults from parts on the fly, battering rams and the like, quick fort defenses?
2: Can you be carried around on a palanquin with soldiers of any race carrying you?
3: How far does your influence to generals reach. Can you sit all the way back in a fort and send commands or just within a certain radius
1) I think catapults/ballistas etc will likely be transported by horses etc, but they'll definitely need some setting up. Quick defenses I'm not sure about; most likely not, and certainly not out in the open, though if you hang around a certain location long enough your camp should hopefully gradually develop into something slightly more defended.
2) Heh. Possibly. For now, if you're commanding the army, you just ride on a horse. Palanquins are a nice idea, though...
3) Entirely depends on how strong the lines of communication are. If your orders will get through (logistics-wise), I intend to let you command at any distance, though you can always delegate second-in-commands or others to do the equivalent from slightly closer to other battles.
The Roman Legions were in the habit of including sharpened logs in their baggage train, allowing them to set up a palisade and ditch for every nights encampment. That's probably on the upper end of what the game should be looking at right now in terms of organization, professionalism and army size. In general term, having a camp-set up mechanic/mini-game could be a solid addition. Things like horse-lines, defenses, latrines, where the camp followers and baggage trains set up, locations of officers quarters (all together for staff meetings and ease of guarding or with their units) and patrols could all be located and set up as a template, allowing you to apply it every night. Having an overly complicated set up would cut down on the time your troops could rest and march, but would protect against calamity (night ambush, dysentery, fire, horse thieves, generals assassinating each other).
In terms of lines of communications, what's your feeling about horse messenger relays?
Post by: ZebioLizard2 on February 14, 2012, 11:54:06 pm
Quote
2) Heh. Possibly. For now, if you're commanding the army, you just ride on a horse. Palanquins are a nice idea, though...
I've had this thought of having imps carry my throne into combat, ala Father nurgle type things (And hopefully with actual nurglings later on should there be modding!)
As for constructing in the open, I guess I was meaning for siege warfare, should you lose your catapults/siege weaponry and need to build things over periods of months
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 17, 2012, 08:47:10 pm
Just a trench to get into or making a pile of dirt to get behind and on top of can make a lot of difference and all you need is shovels.
Sharpened stakes to discourage speedy but non-jumpy creatures.
Large Wicker shields is mostly used in sieges to defend the attackers but can be used defensively too.
there's a lot of small things that can be done fast that can make a large difference but the question is what your engine can support.
Mm. All true, and should be supportable. Trenches are an interesting idea, as are sharpened stakes. I'll have to think about how I'd implement them, and what roles I'd want them to play...
The Roman Legions were in the habit of including sharpened logs in their baggage train, allowing them to set up a palisade and ditch for every nights encampment. That's probably on the upper end of what the game should be looking at right now in terms of organization, professionalism and army size. In general term, having a camp-set up mechanic/mini-game could be a solid addition. Things like horse-lines, defenses, latrines, where the camp followers and baggage trains set up, locations of officers quarters (all together for staff meetings and ease of guarding or with their units) and patrols could all be located and set up as a template, allowing you to apply it every night. Having an overly complicated set up would cut down on the time your troops could rest and march, but would protect against calamity (night ambush, dysentery, fire, horse thieves, generals assassinating each other).
In terms of lines of communications, what's your feeling about horse messenger relays?
Yeah; you will be able to gather a very, very basic 'party' for the first alpha, but then setting up camp properly is a near-term goal. Creatures that spawn in certain places have generated patrols laid out already (though it needs perfecting) and I definitely intend to let you let up a patrol route for any creatures you want at night. Protect against calamity - exactly! Horse messengers are my primary intention at the moment - you'll be able to use them in battle to gain information (you have no kind of omniscience to sense the entire battle) and same goes for passing messages between cities, allies, etc. Of course, if you're serving in an army, you might become the horse messenger, which hopefully could give you all kinds of options for passing on false messages, and also surviving through the wilderness on the way back, etc...
I've had this thought of having imps carry my throne into combat, ala Father nurgle type things (And hopefully with actual nurglings later on should there be modding!)
As for constructing in the open, I guess I was meaning for siege warfare, should you lose your catapults/siege weaponry and need to build things over periods of months
That may, hopefully, one day, be doable... as for siege weapons, I think you will have a choice of transporting them built (so you need, say, two horses per catapult, etc) or you construct them loose (in which case just people can transport them) but then you have to set them up. I think developments on that idea could get a good risk/reward thing going...
Post by: alamoes on February 17, 2012, 10:58:18 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 19, 2012, 05:41:59 pm
For magics it would be neat to have diferent random dimensions that are filled with energies that can be channeled through to the mortal world. At lower levels of mahgiks trying to use the cursed daedra/fire king/random deity's staff taken would cause a gate for said "energies" of evil, good, or even fire or water coming through and cause that huge mutiple ork siege to disapear. It would also be cool for those "energies" to cause another siege. Obviously late game dev stuff though that should be and probably is already planned
There may be other, smaller, world maps for deities. Not sure about details yet. Stay tuned :)
And, finally, another blog entry coming tomorrow, as the academic workload has slacked off a bit - which is another way of saving I've been doing nothing the past week except thesis work...
Post by: fred1248 on February 19, 2012, 11:44:01 pm
Post by: Shadowscales on February 20, 2012, 02:06:26 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 20, 2012, 07:37:52 am
I've read your dev blog, and it came to my mind that you'll need a better towns/cities system. Currently, It seems that you're thinking something very similar to DF system, and I can assure you that it won't work. At least it won't fit the theme you are aiming for. It's not detailed enough to hold any deplomatic events other than.. well, slaughtering them. You could try something else, like baronies, counties, duchies, castles, cities, and small villages. This way, territorial disputes and army management gets far more interesting than traditional DF towns. Like, soldiers from castles are very well trained, but upkeep costs a lot, soldiers from villages are hardly combat trained, but they are free, as they are levies. I can go on and on but you get the idea. Think of all the things you can do with that. A Dwarven king orders his dukes to attack the elves, and the dukes raise their army, various counts and barons answer the call to arms, and player gets to fight as a soldier / captain / mercenery whatever you name it. You can be the nobleman himself as you play. Also, from what I understood, this game is not a strategy game focused on the nation, but rather on the character, so conquering the world yourself as a general of an army seems a bit.. stupid. Again, with the help of the feudal system, you can greatly enhance the quality of the game while lengthening the gameplay.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. How am I doing it 'like the DF town' system, and why won't this system work? I am having towns and cities, but I'm programming them from scratch, and events beyond "everyone died" are a hugely important factor. Each settlement is part of a wider empire and each will, eventually, have the kinds of connections you mention. I don't see how you can judge the kinds of diplomatic/settlement connections I'm going to have when I haven't even programmed it in yet myself! Do you mean because there are only cities/towns/forts in terms of size? I do like the idea for training differences between different locations you could draw your troops from, but I'm not sure how my intentions so far wouldn't allow for that ???. It is a strategy game, but the 'focus' is on the character; how does it seem stupid to have a strategy game where you're actually a player character, rather than an omniscient commander? Relatively untested, sure, but I think it will be interesting. I don't specifically want to tie myself into the feudal system; I'm actually thinking through different systems for humans, dwarves and elves (and each of the monster races), each of which should hopefully be quite different and allow for gameplay variations there. Humans might be predominantly feudal, but the others won't be.
Will this game be moddable and will it support interactions that can change/add/remove body-parts?
No and yes, respectively : ). Body parts can currently be chopped off, picked up, wielded, etc. I'm not sure how gaining body parts back will work (if you can) but there will probably be magic/herbal possibilities for that. Alternatively, if you lose a limb, it stays lost no matter what. Not sure.
Also, today I (finally) have a new devblog entry, including a new minimap key (see below) and stuff about where creatures spawn, where they live, and what humanoid civilizations around them have to say about it:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/02/20/the-secret-lives-of-creatures/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/02/Key-screenshot.png)
Post by: fred1248 on February 20, 2012, 08:19:05 am
snip
...English is not my first language, and I might have been kind of obscure. What I meant was that with the town genning system like similar to DF, it will be kind of hard to put all the management stuff inside. I should have said making it more like Mount & Blade style would be sort of better for that. Trading / recruiting / arming soldiers etcetera for your army consisted of one thousand men df style can quite.. you know, break the immersion. Running around from building to building as a commander to get a few hundred breastplates somehow reminds me of Monty Python and the holy grail. Now that I think of it, I might have entirely misjudged your intention... and I have nothing against the character based system, In fact I'm dying to try the alpha release out just because of it.
Anyways, that minimap looks wicked. Keep up the good work :D
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2012, 10:15:57 am
-snip-Im not saying its true, But by going by, say standard army structure, you start out alone and either join or employ others.
If you employ others, then you're basically a squad leader and lets say that one squad is 10 soldiers and one leader(i.e. You).
But now you employ another 5 guys and go over that limit so you designate another guy as leader for that squad but your fighting force is still to small to make use of higher ranks and thus the control interface would stay as it were for controlling the lone squad.
But your force grows to nine squads, and controlling all your men gets unwieldy. So now you put two men, each in charge of three squads, which you give orders to while you control the remaining three.
Later when your army gets large enough you'll just send out orders to your officers.
Atleast i assume something like this, If URR can get the A.I intelligent enough to not require direct intervention at all times.
Post by: Leatra on February 20, 2012, 10:20:13 am
Post by: monk12 on February 20, 2012, 10:49:55 am
Quote
have a strategy game where you're actually a player character, rather than an omniscient commander?
This actually touches on one of my own ideas for a game (my own in the sense that nobody else who's thought it has followed through, anyway.) That is, instead of having perfect view of the battlefield you only have view of whatever is in line of sight, and only have direct control of units in earshot. You knowledge of the rest of the map would be based on scouting reports your other commanders gave you, and would be noted as being "x turns out of date" so you have a better chance to try and predict enemy movements. If you wanted to alter the battle plan mid-engagement you'd have to send messengers to those commanders, who may or may not disregard or alter those orders based on their own assessment of the engagement (they won't come to reinforce you if they're holding off a surprise rear assault, for example, and will instead ask you for help!)
"Their own assessment" of the engagement is the kicker, and would involve the commander's skill as a leader, personality traits, and perhaps a bit of how much he likes you/the person he's ordered to bail out. A big part of the game becomes cultivating a good staff of commanders you work well with, and matching up those commanders with the types of units and assignments they are best suited for. This then leads into a meta-game of recruiting/promoting promising officers, perhaps competing with other factions for talent. And intra-faction competition would be interesting as well- all kinds of possibilities there.
Re:Devblog, whee deities!
Post by: Clownmite on February 20, 2012, 02:05:08 pm
Quotehave a strategy game where you're actually a player character, rather than an omniscient commander?
This actually touches on one of my own ideas for a game (my own in the sense that nobody else who's thought it has followed through, anyway.) That is, instead of having perfect view of the battlefield you only have view of whatever is in line of sight, and only have direct control of units in earshot. You knowledge of the rest of the map would be based on scouting reports your other commanders gave you, and would be noted as being "x turns out of date" so you have a better chance to try and predict enemy movements. If you wanted to alter the battle plan mid-engagement you'd have to send messengers to those commanders, who may or may not disregard or alter those orders based on their own assessment of the engagement (they won't come to reinforce you if they're holding off a surprise rear assault, for example, and will instead ask you for help!)
"Their own assessment" of the engagement is the kicker, and would involve the commander's skill as a leader, personality traits, and perhaps a bit of how much he likes you/the person he's ordered to bail out. A big part of the game becomes cultivating a good staff of commanders you work well with, and matching up those commanders with the types of units and assignments they are best suited for.
I'm pretty sure that's exactly how this game will work. The developer's stated that you'll need to send runners to your lieutenants in order to deliver orders in the middle of battle, and the lieutenants can override their orders if they think things aren't going well.
Post by: monk12 on February 20, 2012, 09:51:35 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 21, 2012, 07:08:15 am
...English is not my first language, and I might have been kind of obscure. What I meant was that with the town genning system like similar to DF, it will be kind of hard to put all the management stuff inside. I should have said making it more like Mount & Blade style would be sort of better for that. Trading / recruiting / arming soldiers etcetera for your army consisted of one thousand men df style can quite.. you know, break the immersion. Running around from building to building as a commander to get a few hundred breastplates somehow reminds me of Monty Python and the holy grail. Now that I think of it, I might have entirely misjudged your intention... and I have nothing against the character based system, In fact I'm dying to try the alpha release out just because of it.
Anyways, that minimap looks wicked. Keep up the good work :D
Ah, no worries - that makes a lot more sense now :). The town generation system I'm working on (which you may see an early version of in the alpha) is linked to the histories generated for the world; towns start off with vital buildings and grow from there. Ha, yes - you won't have to do all the running. If you're a general, you can certainly just get others to go around collecting troops, raising money, etc. If you enlist in an army, a job might be to go around and collect troops, but there will be others doing the same thing at the same time. Anyway, cheers!
Im not saying its true, But by going by, say standard army structure, you start out alone and either join or employ others.
If you employ others, then you're basically a squad leader and lets say that one squad is 10 soldiers and one leader(i.e. You).
But now you employ another 5 guys and go over that limit so you designate another guy as leader for that squad but your fighting force is still to small to make use of higher ranks and thus the control interface would stay as it were for controlling the lone squad.
But your force grows to nine squads, and controlling all your men gets unwieldy. So now you put two men, each in charge of three squads, which you give orders to while you control the remaining three.
Later when your army gets large enough you'll just send out orders to your officers.
Atleast i assume something like this, If URR can get the A.I intelligent enough to not require direct intervention at all times.
Units consist of twelve creatures, and armies can have a large number of units (within a high limit of units). If you're in charge, you basically command each squad, and that gets carried out. If it gets particularly large, you might be able to assign people to handling each squad; not sure yet. If you're in charge of a unit, orders come down to you and you're free to carry them out as you see fit. In practicing with the basic squad programming at the moment, squads as a whole are... mildly competent at deciding when to attack, fall back, etc, but it needs a lot more work. The trickiest part is getting them to accurately assess what part of the enemy is coming for them, and what part isn't; maybe trivial for a human, but tricky for AI. Still, it's definitely coming along.
I think he is talking about counties, duchies, kingdoms, empires and vassals who manage them like the way Paradox done it in Crusader Kings. You know, vassals rebel, kings assassinate vassals who are not loyal, civil wars start when a new heir appears, vassals plot the downfall of the tyrant king, vassals have their own influence, etc.
I'm uncertain how many 'levels' of society I want (i.e. of the sort you've listed). For the time being (and I stress, for the time being) there are civilizations, and if a city/group breaks off, that becomes a new one. If a city rebels, that might be handled a little differently. These dynamics won't exist in the first alpha, but I'm still considering how I want to classify different levels/types of civilizations at the moment anyway.
This actually touches on one of my own ideas for a game (my own in the sense that nobody else who's thought it has followed through, anyway.) That is, instead of having perfect view of the battlefield you only have view of whatever is in line of sight, and only have direct control of units in earshot. You knowledge of the rest of the map would be based on scouting reports your other commanders gave you, and would be noted as being "x turns out of date" so you have a better chance to try and predict enemy movements. If you wanted to alter the battle plan mid-engagement you'd have to send messengers to those commanders, who may or may not disregard or alter those orders based on their own assessment of the engagement (they won't come to reinforce you if they're holding off a surprise rear assault, for example, and will instead ask you for help!)
"Their own assessment" of the engagement is the kicker, and would involve the commander's skill as a leader, personality traits, and perhaps a bit of how much he likes you/the person he's ordered to bail out. A big part of the game becomes cultivating a good staff of commanders you work well with, and matching up those commanders with the types of units and assignments they are best suited for. This then leads into a meta-game of recruiting/promoting promising officers, perhaps competing with other factions for talent. And intra-faction competition would be interesting as well- all kinds of possibilities there.
Re:Devblog, whee deities!
I'm pretty sure that's exactly how this game will work. The developer's stated that you'll need to send runners to your lieutenants in order to deliver orders in the middle of battle, and the lieutenants can override their orders if they think things aren't going well.
Yep : ). Your information goes out of date, and you need to renew it, and the better you are at commanding your soldiers and getting them to keep you up-to-date, the better. By contrast, if you're serving an army, your commands may sometimes seem 'outdated' if the commander is unaware of what's been happening in your part of the battle. There's a number of command skills, which I'll show when I upload a screenshot of the skills selection screen in the near future. Raising each one is independent, so you will become better at some and so will other commanders, which is exactly what you said about picking the right person for the job. Similarly, if you enlist, then you'll be assigned to whatever squad best suits your combat/command talents. Officers will definitely compete among each other if you're in charge, and if you're in an army, you might have to fend off others trying to advance their way up the tree too. As I think I said somewhere before, I want to get all intelligent creatures acting like 'adventurers', rather than just the player character. They have the same goals you do. Obviously that's a longer-term goal - at the moment I'm working on streamlining combat, damage, losing limbs, wielding weapons etc, and trying to get it sufficiently speedy that vast battles won't be slowed by it :).
Post by: varsovie on February 21, 2012, 07:53:34 am
and trying to get it sufficiently speedy that vast battles won't be slowed by it :).
How do you optimize it?
Simply wise coding (bottleneck hunt), use of multi threading, use of GPU computing, use of assembly code, "simplification" of combats far away or even the creation of a new CPU with specific hardware acceleration for the game?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2012, 08:39:39 am
and trying to get it sufficiently speedy that vast battles won't be slowed by it :).
How do you optimize it?
Simply wise coding (bottleneck hunt), use of multi threading, use of GPU computing, use of assembly code, "simplification" of combats far away or even the creation of a new CPU with specific hardware acceleration for the game?
Mostly a bottleneck hunt, and I'm considering a simplification of combats that are far away. I'm looking into Python's multi-threading ability, but I don't think I'm going to go down that route.
Post by: Lord Dullard on February 22, 2012, 08:57:35 am
and trying to get it sufficiently speedy that vast battles won't be slowed by it :).
How do you optimize it?
Simply wise coding (bottleneck hunt), use of multi threading, use of GPU computing, use of assembly code, "simplification" of combats far away or even the creation of a new CPU with specific hardware acceleration for the game?
Mostly a bottleneck hunt, and I'm considering a simplification of combats that are far away. I'm looking into Python's multi-threading ability, but I don't think I'm going to go down that route.
It's ridiculously handy (the multi-threading, that is).
This is looking really cool. Can't wait to play. :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2012, 09:05:43 pm
It's ridiculously handy (the multi-threading, that is).
This is looking really cool. Can't wait to play. :D
Is it? Interesting. Maybe I should look more into it... and thanks :D! Gearing up for a week of pretty solid coding from Saturday onwards at the moment, by the end of which I'm hoping for a lot of progress on creatures/combat etc...
Post by: fred1248 on February 23, 2012, 03:38:12 am
Post by: Frumple on February 23, 2012, 08:25:52 am
Post by: Muz on February 23, 2012, 10:47:18 am
It's ridiculously handy (the multi-threading, that is).
This is looking really cool. Can't wait to play. :D
Is it? Interesting. Maybe I should look more into it... and thanks :D! Gearing up for a week of pretty solid coding from Saturday onwards at the moment, by the end of which I'm hoping for a lot of progress on creatures/combat etc...
These days, multithreading is almost a coding requirement. Core speeds won't be going up by much anymore, just the number of cores and multithreading efficiency will keep increasing.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 23, 2012, 04:48:51 pm
So.. when will the game be released? :D
Yep, middle of the year-ish, for first alpha :).
These days, multithreading is almost a coding requirement. Core speeds won't be going up by much anymore, just the number of cores and multithreading efficiency will keep increasing.
Intriguing. I'll look into it a lot more.
Post by: varsovie on February 23, 2012, 09:37:05 pm
These days, multithreading is almost a coding requirement. Core speeds won't be going up by much anymore, just the number of cores and multithreading efficiency will keep increasing.
Well, Core speed will continue to speed up... but mostly on high end CPU since Intel seems to fight on smaller and more low power CPU. But prefetch, better cache, technologies like "turbo boost" and maybe new instructions will help maintaining single core perf.
As for multithreading, use "import threading" in Py http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html (http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html). At first I recomande you to multithread only different part of your program ( like the logs, the UI, the music and the AI that aren't related ). Then you can monitor witch thread is the bottleneck, and try to make like one thread for ally AI, and another for the foe, then another for faraway combats. You know, with proper multithreading, my fortress in DF could at least three time bigger. :'(
Post by: alamoes on February 24, 2012, 09:14:25 pm
*often family, because you know family won't do bad.
#worst case scenario they become slaves and slavery is invented. Best case they lose a title.
Somehow one day I will translate this into numbers and chances. But for now I give you this very, very, very watered down look into my convoluted and biased (towards liberalism of course :P) mind.
Post by: Leatra on February 24, 2012, 10:04:53 pm
Just look at Dwarf Fortress. People debated about it for a long time but I understand. It could mean Toady spending a year rewriting codes for multithreading. You don't just go "meh, I'll multithread this shit" while in development.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 27, 2012, 05:47:28 pm
Well, Core speed will continue to speed up... but mostly on high end CPU since Intel seems to fight on smaller and more low power CPU. But prefetch, better cache, technologies like "turbo boost" and maybe new instructions will help maintaining single core perf.
As for multithreading, use "import threading" in Py http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html (http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html). At first I recomande you to multithread only different part of your program ( like the logs, the UI, the music and the AI that aren't related ). Then you can monitor witch thread is the bottleneck, and try to make like one thread for ally AI, and another for the foe, then another for faraway combats. You know, with proper multithreading, my fortress in DF could at least three time bigger. :'(
That makes a lot of sense. Thing is, though, Python seems to imply it still only uses one thread 'at once', so I'm unclear how this is faster than just using a single thread. Excuse my hardware ignorance :(. Surely using multiple cores, but in sequence, is no different from using one? Still, I've started looking at the documentation for the multithreading Python stuff...
I always thought that civilization could be simulated with simple voting rules. First, the people of a family eventually learn to elect a leader. The leader gets old. He tries to make sure *someone he trusts* gets the succession. People elect different guy upon death. Fighting ensues. If monarchs son gets it the people will be sad, but eventually try again to restore monarchy. If the elected gets it, he will try to get his son in power causing possible fighting again. Fighting can occur in stalemate. Losers become #slaves# based on law. This was inspired by CK2 motives. I want CK2, but I gots macs :'(
*often family, because you know family won't do bad.
#worst case scenario they become slaves and slavery is invented. Best case they lose a title.
Somehow one day I will translate this into numbers and chances. But for now I give you this very, very, very watered down look into my convoluted and biased (towards liberalism of course :P) mind.
I think that would all be awesome. Some of that is being incorporated in the very basic histories I'm having the game generate for now, though these will only get more advanced as time goes on. Whoever leads a particular group - be it a bandit chief of the king of an empire - should have a history (of varying length) behind them explaining how they got that position/throne, and what's happened since they got it. Once you enter as a player character, you should be able to get to the top in the same ways...
If you don't implement multithreading now, you'll have lots of fanboys (including me) begging you to include it later :P
Just look at Dwarf Fortress. People debated about it for a long time but I understand. It could mean Toady spending a year rewriting codes for multithreading. You don't just go "meh, I'll multithread this shit" while in development.
I'm thinking about it :)! I'm just not clear what the advantage is to using many if Python only actually accesses one at once. But maybe I'm misunderstanding this. Anyway - I'll keep looking into it this week, and I'll post here once I've made a decision (which is to say, once I've understood it...)
Meanwhile, this week's devblog is on species-specific name generation. I think it's producing some great dwarf names and elf ones, but I think the human names might need a little work... thoughts?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/02/27/whats-in-a-name/
Post by: Lord Dullard on February 27, 2012, 06:22:18 pm
Well, Core speed will continue to speed up... but mostly on high end CPU since Intel seems to fight on smaller and more low power CPU. But prefetch, better cache, technologies like "turbo boost" and maybe new instructions will help maintaining single core perf.
As for multithreading, use "import threading" in Py http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html (http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html). At first I recomande you to multithread only different part of your program ( like the logs, the UI, the music and the AI that aren't related ). Then you can monitor witch thread is the bottleneck, and try to make like one thread for ally AI, and another for the foe, then another for faraway combats. You know, with proper multithreading, my fortress in DF could at least three time bigger. :'(
That makes a lot of sense. Thing is, though, Python seems to imply it still only uses one thread 'at once', so I'm unclear how this is faster than just using a single thread. Excuse my hardware ignorance :(. Surely using multiple cores, but in sequence, is no different from using one? Still, I've started looking at the documentation for the multithreading Python stuff...
Believe me when I say that using the threading module still speeds multiple threads up significantly. That's all I've been using so far, because I started coding Cult when Python was on version 2.4, but you should also know that Python 2.6 just came out with a module that does implement true multiple processes by circumventing the global interpreter lock: http://docs.python.org/library/multiprocessing.html
I'm probably going to be switching over to that module in the next couple of weeks. Can't tell you about the speed difference yet, but I imagine it'll be considerable, at least on a machine like the one I'm using (four core @ 3.4ghz/core).
But yes, right now, even just using the old module... still big speed leaps.
Post by: Leatra on February 27, 2012, 06:41:40 pm
Quote
I also thought about lore as a skill. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not. I’m talking about things like necro lore, infernal lore, ocean lore, nature lore, mythological lore, etc. For example, if you have a very low necro lore, your character can’t tell the difference between a lich and a zombie. If your character has a very high necro lore, your character can identify necromancers at sight. When you encounter a human necromancer he would be identified as an ‘a male human necromancer’. Lore skills could be learned by reading books.
It sounds a little hardcore role-playing but I’m just brainstorming. Feel free to use the idea however you like. Maybe add a ‘magic lore’ skill so players can identify spells and spellcasters.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 28, 2012, 05:43:28 am
Believe me when I say that using the threading module still speeds multiple threads up significantly. That's all I've been using so far, because I started coding Cult when Python was on version 2.4, but you should also know that Python 2.6 just came out with a module that does implement true multiple processes by circumventing the global interpreter lock: http://docs.python.org/library/multiprocessing.html
I'm probably going to be switching over to that module in the next couple of weeks. Can't tell you about the speed difference yet, but I imagine it'll be considerable, at least on a machine like the one I'm using (four core @ 3.4ghz/core).
But yes, right now, even just using the old module... still big speed leaps.
Cool. In that case, I'll try putting it in. At least, I'll try figuring it out, since I have to confess I can't make *any* sense of it right now. A few questions, then, if you've got it working - how significant is the issue in the red box at the top of that page? And it says it only works for windows/unix; for a mac release, would I have to remove it all? And, lastly, how hard was it to implement the old version (and what stage did you start putting it in at)?
Hey, I just had a thought:
will the materials be like DF or more like other RPGs as in, like DF, will a warhammer be super effective if made out of silver, but steel or some other light metal will be crap for a hammer, and vice versa for stabby/slashy weapons?
As it so happens, one of the things I did yesterday was create a database of all materials and what effects they have. So, yes! Crappier materials will make a big difference. It also allowed me to make "flesh" a proper material for "weapons" that are the severed limbs of foes, which was obviously great.
...
I think it's a great idea - see reply on blog!
Post by: gimli on February 28, 2012, 08:04:12 am
It's ridiculously handy (the multi-threading, that is).
This is looking really cool. Can't wait to play. :D
Is it? Interesting. Maybe I should look more into it... and thanks :D! Gearing up for a week of pretty solid coding from Saturday onwards at the moment, by the end of which I'm hoping for a lot of progress on creatures/combat etc...
These days, multithreading is almost a coding requirement. Core speeds won't be going up by much anymore, just the number of cores and multithreading efficiency will keep increasing.
This is correct....at one point [when tons of new features will be added] DF will be extremely slow since it's only using 1 core. +1 for gfx but it's no biggie. The FPS in fortress mode is aleady very low if your fortress is big enough. [My processor is E8400 3Ghz]
Post by: Lord Dullard on February 28, 2012, 11:28:17 am
Cool. In that case, I'll try putting it in. At least, I'll try figuring it out, since I have to confess I can't make *any* sense of it right now. A few questions, then, if you've got it working - how significant is the issue in the red box at the top of that page?
From a brief check of the linked issue page, it appears to affect OpenBSD/FreeBSD/related platforms. I guess the seriousness depends on how multi-platform-friendly you are determined to make your game.
Quote
And it says it only works for windows/unix; for a mac release, would I have to remove it all? And, lastly, how hard was it to implement the old version (and what stage did you start putting it in at)?
That I can't tell you, unfortunately. As for the difficulty of implementation, it can be a bit tricky to learn how to have two processes running in parallel that don't interfere with each other or do weird things to your output, but it's not too crazy to figure out. The actual code structure itself is relatively simple; you create a class that inherits from the multiprocessing class provided in the module, then set it up as instructed, and run it by creating an instance of the class and using, say, MyThreadingInstance.start().
I think I started using it... geez, I can't recall exactly, but originally it was just for some lightweight trickery with a couple of display classes that did fancy things like fading text and variable lighting and whatnot, so pretty early on. But you could always switch over something like your pathfinding algorithm just by restructuring the way it works. Even if you only switch pathing to multiprocessing, you'll likely still see a big boost in game speed.
Post by: Leatra on February 28, 2012, 12:43:32 pm
...
I think it's a great idea - see reply on blog!
Awesome! :D
Now that you mention it, I'm very curious about the skill table. I think skills and attributes are essential in RPGs and the power of the character you are role-playing is much more important than the skill of the player.
Post by: Man of Paper on February 28, 2012, 01:45:04 pm
Post by: Leatra on February 28, 2012, 01:50:33 pm
Will we be able to load people into catapults and launch them over walls haphazardly?It's funny how many people ask that :P
Post by: Man of Paper on February 28, 2012, 04:37:37 pm
Will we be able to load people into catapults and launch them over walls haphazardly?It's funny how many people ask that :P
I ask only because if the answer is yes, that means I may be able to launch corpses, or my enemy's corpses, or maybe even my enemy's flaming corpses.
Post by: darkflagrance on February 28, 2012, 05:27:01 pm
bay12 and you wonder WHY people ask that?Will we be able to load people into catapults and launch them over walls haphazardly?It's funny how many people ask that :P
Ironically, in Dwarf Fortress the only thing catapults can launch are rocks. Not even flaming rocks. And they don't even do much damage. >:(
Post by: varsovie on February 28, 2012, 08:20:10 pm
once seige weapons are moddable, someone will make a dragon firing ballistapult.Ironically, in Dwarf Fortress the only thing catapults can launch are rocks. Not even flaming rocks. And they don't even do much damage. >:(bay12 and you wonder WHY people ask that?Will we be able to load people into catapults and launch them over walls haphazardly?It's funny how many people ask that :P
The ability to launch elven children is the bare minimum. Bonus point if the catapult is mounted on a flying carp.
Post by: Nighthawk on February 28, 2012, 09:19:03 pm
Why mount the catapult ON the carp and fire elven children when you could be FIRING the carp AT elven children?once seige weapons are moddable, someone will make a dragon firing ballistapult.Ironically, in Dwarf Fortress the only thing catapults can launch are rocks. Not even flaming rocks. And they don't even do much damage. >:(bay12 and you wonder WHY people ask that?Will we be able to load people into catapults and launch them over walls haphazardly?It's funny how many people ask that :P
The ability to launch elven children is the bare minimum. Bonus point if the catapult is mounted on a flying carp.
Or maybe you could fire elven parents at their own children... that would be even crueler. 8)
Post by: fred1248 on February 28, 2012, 09:21:23 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 29, 2012, 02:55:45 pm
Cool. In that case, I'll try putting it in. At least, I'll try figuring it out, since I have to confess I can't make *any* sense of it right now. A few questions, then, if you've got it working - how significant is the issue in the red box at the top of that page?
From a brief check of the linked issue page, it appears to affect OpenBSD/FreeBSD/related platforms. I guess the seriousness depends on how multi-platform-friendly you are determined to make your game.QuoteAnd it says it only works for windows/unix; for a mac release, would I have to remove it all? And, lastly, how hard was it to implement the old version (and what stage did you start putting it in at)?
That I can't tell you, unfortunately. As for the difficulty of implementation, it can be a bit tricky to learn how to have two processes running in parallel that don't interfere with each other or do weird things to your output, but it's not too crazy to figure out. The actual code structure itself is relatively simple; you create a class that inherits from the multiprocessing class provided in the module, then set it up as instructed, and run it by creating an instance of the class and using, say, MyThreadingInstance.start().
I think I started using it... geez, I can't recall exactly, but originally it was just for some lightweight trickery with a couple of display classes that did fancy things like fading text and variable lighting and whatnot, so pretty early on. But you could always switch over something like your pathfinding algorithm just by restructuring the way it works. Even if you only switch pathing to multiprocessing, you'll likely still see a big boost in game speed.
Thanks a ton for the info :). Probably going to give it a first shot this weekend.
Awesome! :D
Now that you mention it, I'm very curious about the skill table. I think skills and attributes are essential in RPGs and the power of the character you are role-playing is much more important than the skill of the player.
The skill table is... big. Very big. I think there's 90 skills at the moment, unless I'm greatly mistaken, each of which gives out something special (for you, and for creatures) at 30, 50
-snip-so a copper war hammer would do more damage than an iron one, opposite for swords?
yay!
Hmm.. why that way around? There is a clear hierarchy of materials, but I've put iron above copper. I'm interested to know why you'd put damages that way around for different weapons, though.
Lastly, in reply to everyone on catapults:
There will be siege weapons (one is in the very early stages of testing, but it won't see the first alpha by any means), you will be able to hurl rocks, fireballs, corpses, etc. Also live captured enemies, if you're feeling particularly evil. But not carps, dwarves, people, dwarf-carps, carp-people, or anything else. Sorry guys :(
Post by: Draxis on February 29, 2012, 04:13:07 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on February 29, 2012, 06:39:05 pm
If you have equipment wear/damage in place you could model things like that. A copper mace might be nice and powerful, but it'll hold up worse than a steel one.
Economic forces also come into play. Bronze is a better metal in many ways than a really mild steel (what most 'Iron' weapons and armor were). However, it requires both copper and tin, which are rarer than Iron. Especially tin. So once people got Ironworking to the point where it was basically as good as Bronze you stopped seeing bronze for anything other than expensive/ceremonial stuff. Once better steel was available, the only reason to make anything out of bronze was for show. Well...excluding cannons and the like, where bronze has less friction so it's actually better than steel. But I don't know if you're going to use those or not.
Post by: Mephansteras on February 29, 2012, 07:39:43 pm
That's why most period weapons only weighed a few pounds at most. If you're going to have to fight for an extended amount of time, like all afternoon, you need to be able to do so without exhausting yourself. It doesn't really matter if you incapacitate the first 10 guys you come across if you're so tired that the 11th cuts you down easily. Your side might win battles that way, but it's a bad way to stay alive as a soldier.
Post by: varsovie on March 01, 2012, 12:00:05 am
The skill table is... big. Very big. I think there's 90 skills at the moment, unless I'm greatly mistaken, each of which gives out something special (for you, and for creatures) at 30, 50
Will it be possible to randomize a bit these bonus? Instead on fixed level 20, make it happen at level 18 + 1D4. So this way something with level 20 won't necessarily have the cutting edge on a level 19 one. And maybe shift the level up or down depending of the species. Like elven recieve the bonus for the bow skill at 28 + 1D4 - 2 and Dwarfs get it at 28 + 1D4 + 4. This way it might be a little incentive to specialize accordingly to the species strengths.
And for the piercing hammer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 01, 2012, 06:37:17 am
Thanks all for your thoughts/contributions. There are currently twenty classes of weapons (and this will almost certainly not be added to), which fall into categories of short weapons, slashing weapons, long weapons, & heavy weapons:
In order of approximate best-to-worst:
Short weapons are kunais, daggers, stilettos, knives, and sais.
Slashing weapons are scimitars, shortswords, sabres, katanas and longswords.
Long weapons are pikes, spears, halberds, ranseurs and naginata.
Heavy weapons are clubs, warhammers, flails, maces and axes.
HOWEVER, some have particular specialties - warhammers will be best at pulling foes off horses, etc.
increased mass with identical acceleration would result more force, so a hammer made out of copper (fairly dense) would be better than a hammer made out of iron (less dense) because a hammer would be attempting to put as much force into the other person's body.
a sword, on the other hand, would be better is made out of iron than copper because iron is harder and can hold an edge (and get a sharper one) than copper, so it's be better for slicing through someone.
This; even without implementing the physics models of DF, there should be different hierarchies for different roles. Also, warhammers are generally piercing weapons.
That... is an interesting point. Currently materials make all weapons deadlier the better the material they are made out of. Different weapons and different classes are better at doing internal damage, external damage and various other factors, but the materials are a linear progression. On the one hand, changing the hierarchy for each weapon seems like the kind of detail I want, but on the flip side I don't want to make the process by which weapons are assessed too bizarre for the player to easily understand. Additionally it would make it far tougher for the AI to assess the quality of weaponry. However, I do see what you're saying; I'll have to think about it :).
-snip-
If you have equipment wear/damage in place you could model things like that. A copper mace might be nice and powerful, but it'll hold up worse than a steel one.
-snip-
Both weapons and armor can be damaged, deform, etc, though it's in a fairly basic form at the moment. I actually intend to keep this aspect quite simple since I don't want constant repair/management etc to detract from the gameplay I'm actually interested in. Basically, they drop in condition as you use them, and once they're at the lowest condition, they then carry a risk of breaking. There is also a risk of breaking at the second-lowest level of condition if something particularly violent happens to the item, too.
yes, but if you had weapons degrade, depending on what it is made of, you could have an interesting choice. A steel mace that'll last ages, or a silver one that'll be demonic in combat, buit will deform after a few whacks, and after a while, will become completely unusable...
-snip-
also, will there be fantasy metals? if so, will they have any special effects, or just be super-strong etc.?
Materials do degrade at different speeds, you'll be pleased to hear!
No fantasy metals at the moment, and I'm 99% sure it'll be staying that way.
Another thing to keep in mind with bashing weapons is that heavier isn't always better. A really heavy maul will hit hard, but you might have a hard time hitting at all with how slow it is. Also, you're going to tire out a lot faster using that heavy of a weapon.
That's why most period weapons only weighed a few pounds at most. If you're going to have to fight for an extended amount of time, like all afternoon, you need to be able to do so without exhausting yourself. It doesn't really matter if you incapacitate the first 10 guys you come across if you're so tired that the 11th cuts you down easily. Your side might win battles that way, but it's a bad way to stay alive as a soldier.
Definitely - the weights of weapons is important for how rapidly you can swing them. Heavy and long weapons are tougher to swing than a sword, which is in turn tougher than a knife. Using weapons will affect stamina appropriately, too.
The skill table is... big. Very big. I think there's 90 skills at the moment, unless I'm greatly mistaken, each of which gives out something special (for you, and for creatures) at 30, 50
Will it be possible to randomize a bit these bonus? Instead on fixed level 20, make it happen at level 18 + 1D4. So this way something with level 20 won't necessarily have the cutting edge on a level 19 one. And maybe shift the level up or down depending of the species. Like elven recieve the bonus for the bow skill at 28 + 1D4 - 2 and Dwarfs get it at 28 + 1D4 + 4. This way it might be a little incentive to specialize accordingly to the species strengths.
And for the piercing hammer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_hammer).
Oops - I actually didn't finish typing that sentence, and what's there is hugely inaccurate since I changed it in the process of writing the reply. Disregard it! Each skill goes from 0->100, and special upgrades are currently going to come at 40, 70 and 100. However, I like the idea about changing it a little for each person, and each species. I might alter it so that certain species reach certain landmarks a little sooner, but I'm less sure about introducing a little randomness for each creature. With that said, I'm not yet entirely certain that the idea of offering special upgrades at certain levels is actually entirely in keeping with the theme of the rest of the game. For now, these upgrades exist, but it's actually very possible they won't make the final cut and there will simply be a linear progression of skill as your skill raises. Or, more likely, for command skills each 10 levels allows you to control an extra squad, or something of that sort, so each 'landmark' and the kind of landmark will be unique to each skill.
Post by: mendonca on March 01, 2012, 08:42:22 am
e.g. say copper is ~20% more dense than iron, that just means you use 20% more iron to make the same weight ...
There would also be strong arguments to say the superior rigidity and hardness of iron would far outweigh the density benefits of copper in creating a weapon design useful for fighting.
Just some thoughts, anyway.
Post by: monk12 on March 01, 2012, 11:57:35 am
In a game where you're more worried about the actual fighting than the making of the weapon, a linear progression is an acceptable break from reality. It would be neat if it was more detailed/realistic, but it would also require a good enough AI Quartermaster to make sure everyone is using the best available, and we all remember how the Arsenal Dwarf went down in DF.
Although as an aside, I always imagined that Silver Warhammers weren't pure silver- they were silver plugs inside a metal hammerhead, thus imparting the weight without being as malleable as pure silver. I don't know as there's historical precedent for that, but I don't know as there's historical precedent for pure Silver weaponry outside of werewolf-hunting nutjobs.
Post by: Man of Paper on March 01, 2012, 04:29:33 pm
I've tried reading through as much of this thread as possible, but it's hard to keep up, so I apologize if this was asked before. Have you had any thoughts on traps like pitfall traps, spike pits, swinging log ram things, and so on?
Also, since this is a strategic game, terrain is going to do a good bit of tactic dictating. But would these have any numerical value? (For example, an enemy charging up a hill would get fatigued faster and hit the defenses with less force, or a force wading through a stream being much easier to hit than a similar force moving through a field)
My questions might be worded poorly, but it's just that once I get started thinking about this game, my mind wanders off and I lose my train of thought.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 05, 2012, 08:42:26 am
I think a linear progression makes some sense in gameplay terms, and there are plenty of arguments for this in design terms, as opposed to just the consideration of pure material properties.
e.g. say copper is ~20% more dense than iron, that just means you use 20% more iron to make the same weight ...
There would also be strong arguments to say the superior rigidity and hardness of iron would far outweigh the density benefits of copper in creating a weapon design useful for fighting.
Just some thoughts, anyway.
Indeed- it works well in Dwarf Fortress because the gameplay emphasis is on crafting and preparation, not tactics. Thus, it behooves the player to learn about the different material properties to create a variety of interesting and effective weapon/material combinations, instead of just spamming Ubermetal Weapons.
In a game where you're more worried about the actual fighting than the making of the weapon, a linear progression is an acceptable break from reality.
I am wary of avoiding any 'simplification', but I do think as monk12 says that the gameplay emphasis isn't on crafting/construction, and therefore I don't want to make learning about material properties unnecessarily complex. However, I might add in requirements for different volumes of different metals to create the same weapons, and different crafting requirements, but in terms of damage/combat, I think the progression will remain linear.
A few slightly more serious questions than my last one:
I've tried reading through as much of this thread as possible, but it's hard to keep up, so I apologize if this was asked before. Have you had any thoughts on traps like pitfall traps, spike pits, swinging log ram things, and so on?
Also, since this is a strategic game, terrain is going to do a good bit of tactic dictating. But would these have any numerical value? (For example, an enemy charging up a hill would get fatigued faster and hit the defenses with less force, or a force wading through a stream being much easier to hit than a similar force moving through a field)
My questions might be worded poorly, but it's just that once I get started thinking about this game, my mind wanders off and I lose my train of thought.
No problem :). I have considered traps, and they're certainly a possibility, but a long-term one. I think I'd be most inclined to put them in for cities than camps, but I think it would be nice if you could quickly throw up some basic traps.
Yep, moving up a hill will slow you if you enter combat immediately after, and going up a z level will take more stamina to do so. Wading through a stream has a chance of your movement being unsuccessful each turn. I'm hoping to also add effects based on snow, sand, weather conditions, etc. Similarly, you can see any z level below you but not the ones above, so that's a huge incentive to reach the high ground by default (both for you, and for the AI).
also, would having archers attack from a hill give them a range bonus, and archers attacking up a hill have the opposite?
Yes for attacking from a hill heading down (since I'm actually going to the effort to model projectiles in an 'arc', so aiming at something lower will get it 'further' than aiming at the same level), not sure about fighting upwards, since targets will likely be out of sight. I'll probably just leave it to whatever projectile function I dream up!
Post by: Dariush on March 05, 2012, 10:21:20 am
Short weapons are kunais, daggers, stilettos, knives, and sais.Why are you going with such exotic varieties (many of which are subtypes of other types, e.g. katana is a Japanese variety of longsword), but don't use more common types like a basic two-handed sword?
Slashing weapons are scimitars, shortswords, sabres, katanas and longswords.
Long weapons are pikes, spears, halberds, ranseurs and naginata.
Heavy weapons are clubs, warhammers, flails, maces and axes.
warhammers will be best at pulling foes off horsesI'm pretty sure warhammers weren't intended for that, but rather for piercing armor.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 05, 2012, 11:52:14 am
Short weapons are kunais, daggers, stilettos, knives, and sais.Why are you going with such exotic varieties (many of which are subtypes of other types, e.g. katana is a Japanese variety of longsword), but don't use more common types like a basic two-handed sword?
Slashing weapons are scimitars, shortswords, sabres, katanas and longswords.
Long weapons are pikes, spears, halberds, ranseurs and naginata.
Heavy weapons are clubs, warhammers, flails, maces and axes.
No particular reason (and I'd argue a katana and a longsword are reasonably different things!) - I just think the variety is interesting, and allows for different groups and civilizations to have different martial preferences.
warhammers will be best at pulling foes off horsesI'm pretty sure warhammers weren't intended for that, but rather for piercing armor.
That also, but pulling off horses/attacking horses is also a major function of the warhammer, I believe. But yes, they do have a bonus to armor penetration.
Post by: Lord Dullard on March 05, 2012, 12:45:13 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Those big, nasty billhooks are for pulling and knocking off balance, after all.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 05, 2012, 06:47:19 pm
and a thought: will pikes, being so long as they are, be able to attack units several tiles in front? I can remember that they actually used their length for something like this:
Halberds/bills were also used for pulling cavalry off their horses a lot, methinks.
A very interesting idea. I am currently intending to have them extend by one square, and just in front of the direction you/AI last moved (but this may be changed). They should definitely have horse effects too... but I'm still working on the specifics for each weapon class.
In the mean time, a significant screenshot update. It's been a while since I uploaded any, and a *lot* has changed this week, so:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/06/the-benefits-of-invincibility/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/06/the-benefits-of-invincibility/)
Not to engage in self-trumpet-blowing, but I think things are actually beginning to look like a real game, at long last!
Post by: Leatra on March 05, 2012, 07:47:20 pm
I'm curious about how are you going to handle horseback fightining. When you are not riding anything, maybe there should be an indicator to show how many moves the guys on horses can make until you can make one. Being able to magically know the speed of every horse doesn't make it such a nice idea though. Maybe it could be a little vague like "5-9" depending on... one of your skills. Hell, it could work for all creatures and not just horsemen. It could work like a skill to not only predict their speed but their strengths and weaknesses as well... I got a little carried away.
Post by: Ivefan on March 05, 2012, 07:52:19 pm
so the archers were protected (from cavalry, at least) and the archers were still able to fire.Not really. The cavalry would get a few losses but the pike density is too thin to actually protect the archers. better with a stake wall in that case, or putting the archers behind the pikes.
And thinking of that. what about mixed weapons units? First row is sword/shortspear and shield with the second and third row is pikemen and the rest behind is pikemen ready to fill in the holes but while they wait they can throw javelins.
Right, so this will need lots of training but it's damn efficient against anything other than archers
Post by: Leatra on March 06, 2012, 06:20:08 am
First, game shows you a list of soldiers you command. You click the ones you want to add into your group and assign a commander. Then, you drag and drop until you have the formation you want. It looks like this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That one above is a one man army!
I don't think this idea can be applied to a roguelike though :-\
Post by: Mephansteras on March 06, 2012, 12:33:42 pm
Post by: varsovie on March 07, 2012, 06:35:32 pm
so the archers were protected (from cavalry, at least) and the archers were still able to fire.Not really. The cavalry would get a few losses but the pike density is too thin to actually protect the archers. better with a stake wall in that case, or putting the archers behind the pikes.
And thinking of that. what about mixed weapons units? First row is sword/shortspear and shield with the second and third row is pikemen and the rest behind is pikemen ready to fill in the holes but while they wait they can throw javelins.
Right, so this will need lots of training but it's damn efficient against anything other than archers
In this case the wall might be dense enough to frighten the horses (they don't charge in walls!), and there should be at least three consecutive rows of pikes. And anyway, when the enemy is at 15m, do you think archers would stay in front? It look like a tercio formation, and I like it. http://forum.milua.org/archive/TactiqueUk.htm (http://forum.milua.org/archive/TactiqueUk.htm)
Post by: Rowanas on March 07, 2012, 08:07:18 pm
Looking back at ancient pike formations, the classic phalanx generally didn't combine arms with archers because 1: Combined arms weren't really a "thing" until the likes of Clausewitz. 2: Phalanxes had to be homogenous in order for any man in any rank to step forward to take the place of the man in front, and archers would've stuffed that right up.
I can't think of any army that used anything like what Ivefan describes.
Also, I know that this is waaaaaay off topic, but.. artillery? Please say yes. I've always been of the "over there, over kill" mindset, in which massed artillery plays a huge part. You've mentioned siege engines, but not artillery specifically, so I'm hoping for a definitive answer.
Post by: Ivefan on March 08, 2012, 08:20:18 pm
I can't think of any army that used anything like what Ivefan describes.Because it's not really feasonable. The required coordination, dicipline, regiment cohersion and weapons training would turn because of cost and time.
Romans, diciplined and rather well protected units, and they used pilums(javelins at times. But they were professional soldiers and required upkeep.
Longbow men? Got replaced by arbalests due to the demands of archery training even though longbows are 'better'.
Pikemens. Rather unwieldy and clumsy but great in a defensive stance.
Post by: Nighthawk on March 08, 2012, 09:59:56 pm
artilleryYES.
Rows upon rows of catapults and ballistae, lined up...
"FIRE!"
*THUNKTHUNKWHOOSHTHUNKWHOOSH*
*Smashing sounds and screams*
And epic battle is not complete without artillery.
Post by: Leatra on March 09, 2012, 08:51:25 am
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on March 09, 2012, 09:40:45 am
Post by: Leatra on March 09, 2012, 09:46:12 am
Will these corpse-a-pults lower the enemy morale/spread diseases?Yup, both.
These quotes are from the dev
Quote
There will be siege weapons (one is in the very early stages of testing, but it won't see the first alpha by any means), you will be able to hurl rocks, fireballs, corpses, etc. Also live captured enemies, if you're feeling particularly evil. But not carps, dwarves, people, dwarf-carps, carp-people, or anything else. Sorry guys :(
Quote
... as for siege weapons, I think you will have a choice of transporting them built (so you need, say, two horses per catapult, etc) or you construct them loose (in which case just people can transport them) but then you have to set them up. I think developments on that idea could get a good risk/reward thing going...
Quote
Quotewhat about screamin´ magical skulls for the catapults for extra mind-fuck?
Definitely. Consider them on the list.
How strange almost everyone is so interested in catapults :P
You might want to wait for the dev to talk about corpses as a way to reduce morale and spread diseases. I'm not sure with that one.
Post by: Robosaur on March 09, 2012, 09:47:46 am
Post by: Ahra on March 09, 2012, 02:23:07 pm
"HaHa, no little greenhorn, Dragons fly, its Wyverns that have to be catapu... AW FRACK"live animals on the catatapaults?dragons?
actually...
'What is it? Dragons?'
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 09, 2012, 05:13:56 pm
Hell yeah for the neat looking UI! :D
I'm curious about how are you going to handle horseback fightining. When you are not riding anything, maybe there should be an indicator to show how many moves the guys on horses can make until you can make one. Being able to magically know the speed of every horse doesn't make it such a nice idea though. Maybe it could be a little vague like "5-9" depending on... one of your skills. Hell, it could work for all creatures and not just horsemen. It could work like a skill to not only predict their speed but their strengths and weaknesses as well... I got a little carried away.
Thanks! I've been wondering similar, about how you judge the speed of horses (and, for that matter, what the speed of horses actually is). Again, it depends on how much depth I want in this area - I'm thinking about having different 'qualities' of horse in terms of breeds, etc, and the more you know about riding, the more you can identify a breed, and thus the player will know Breed A is only twice as fast, but Breed X is fast and tough, etc. There are skills centered around your knowledge of creatures, and the higher those skills are, a) the more you can identify and b) the more skillful you are at dealing damage to their weak points - again, that'll appear in the skills list in the near future! : )
so the archers were protected (from cavalry, at least) and the archers were still able to fire.Not really. The cavalry would get a few losses but the pike density is too thin to actually protect the archers. better with a stake wall in that case, or putting the archers behind the pikes.
And thinking of that. what about mixed weapons units? First row is sword/shortspear and shield with the second and third row is pikemen and the rest behind is pikemen ready to fill in the holes but while they wait they can throw javelins.
Right, so this will need lots of training but it's damn efficient against anything other than archers
A 'squad editor' is in the very early stages - which is to say, you might be able to make squads out of archers and pikemen, or all swordsmen, or heavy weapons soldiers backed up by Cyclopes, etc. You select how you want the squad to deploy itself, and then command it like a squad of just one unit. This is proving to be a complex (but workable, I stress) component of the game which isn't going to make the first release. For the time being, squads consist of one kind of unit, but I 100% intend to change that in the future and allow you to custom-build squads from the ground up.
Game is starting to look really good!
Cheers! :D
In this case the wall might be dense enough to frighten the horses (they don't charge in walls!), and there should be at least three consecutive rows of pikes. And anyway, when the enemy is at 15m, do you think archers would stay in front?
Again, in the very early stages of issuing what I'm calling standing orders - as in, you can command a squad to move to Location X, and that's a normal command. But when you create a squad, you can give it commands that it will always follow - protect its leader at all cost, protect the archers, let the Cyclops lead, etc, and those standing orders remain whatever other commands they get. I think the interplay of the two could be really interesting.
Also, I know that this is waaaaaay off topic, but.. artillery? Please say yes. I've always been of the "over there, over kill" mindset, in which massed artillery plays a huge part. You've mentioned siege engines, but not artillery specifically, so I'm hoping for a definitive answer.
Yes! Well... some kind of siege engine. Specifics, and mechanics, not yet decided. I'll probably put in ballistas first, as (in URR, at least) they will not be powerful enough to damage buildings beyond flimsy walls, and thus will be the easiest to code :)
You might want to wait for the dev to talk about corpses as a way to reduce morale and spread diseases. I'm not sure with that one.
Corpses are great. They will knock down morale and spread diseases - a very basic implementation of one exists at the moment, wherein any AI creature coming along a corpse of its own species and faction will take a morale hit (severity determined by lots of other factors), even more so if the dead creature in question was known personally. By contrast, if Creature X hates Creature Y and finds a corpse of creature Y, Creature X will be cheered up a little.
"HaHa, no little greenhorn, Dragons fly, its Wyverns that have to be catapu... AW FRACK"live animals on the catatapaults?dragons?
actually...
'What is it? Dragons?'
I have no particular objection to catapulting Wyverns.
Post by: Leatra on March 09, 2012, 05:32:54 pm
Different breeds of horses and a skill that allows the player's character to know about breeds. That sounds awesome! I'm looking forward to the skill list.Hell yeah for the neat looking UI! :D
I'm curious about how are you going to handle horseback fightining. When you are not riding anything, maybe there should be an indicator to show how many moves the guys on horses can make until you can make one. Being able to magically know the speed of every horse doesn't make it such a nice idea though. Maybe it could be a little vague like "5-9" depending on... one of your skills. Hell, it could work for all creatures and not just horsemen. It could work like a skill to not only predict their speed but their strengths and weaknesses as well... I got a little carried away.
Thanks! I've been wondering similar, about how you judge the speed of horses (and, for that matter, what the speed of horses actually is). Again, it depends on how much depth I want in this area - I'm thinking about having different 'qualities' of horse in terms of breeds, etc, and the more you know about riding, the more you can identify a breed, and thus the player will know Breed A is only twice as fast, but Breed X is fast and tough, etc. There are skills centered around your knowledge of creatures, and the higher those skills are, a) the more you can identify and b) the more skillful you are at dealing damage to their weak points - again, that'll appear in the skills list in the near future! : )
I have no particular objection to catapulting Wyverns.You really know how to attract the Bay12 community :P
Post by: Mephansteras on March 10, 2012, 12:22:59 pm
Post by: Rowanas on March 11, 2012, 05:12:58 pm
Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.
You've obviously never tried to strangle a shetland pony with it's own illustrious mane because it Kept. Goddamn. Staring.
Oh wise and mighty developer, as much as I appreciate ballistae, may I make one small additional suggestion to improve the overall quality of your fine work? More ballistae. :P
Post by: BishopX on March 11, 2012, 06:57:46 pm
Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.
I think that it makes sense to invert the typical way knowledge skills work here. Normally games have it set up so that low levels of knowledge provide knowledge of capabilities and high levels of knowledge provide insight into a creatures weaknesses (or just straight bonus damage). While this makes some sense in terms of analyzing fighting styles, it makes very little sense when you're talking about horses, or elephants or bears. Essentially once you know a little bit about the creature you have a general sense of it's anatomy and have some idea about it's weaknesses. What's harder is noticing the slight differences in appearance and behavior that signal it's intentions or capabilities.
This ability to evaluate is especially crucial when it comes to cavalry. Are the enemy mounted on destriders or plow horses? being able to tell at a glance from a couple of hundred yards away which is which is a)much harder than knowing that horses hooves a full of nice delicate bones that crunch well under the butt of your spear and b) more important to a leader.
My recommendation would be to remove the bonus damage from knowledge skills, and instead have an ignorance penalty for lack of basic familiarity. This could manifest as both a decrease in combat effectiveness (you don't know where to stab) and greater morale penalties. Increases in a knowledge skill past this point would give you greater insight into the state a capabilities of creatures, how fast they move, how fatigued they are, how well trained they are and so on.
Post by: Man of Paper on March 11, 2012, 09:08:06 pm
Post by: Ivefan on March 11, 2012, 09:30:46 pm
My recommendation is the ability to force an enemy force over a cliff.Insert obligatory "This. Is. Sparta." joke here
Post by: Alhash on March 11, 2012, 09:55:58 pm
- will there be large cities implemented? (including racial cities like dwarven halls)
- Do you plan to implement non-combat oriented details (such as being a caravan master, or a possibly run a business).
- Can you conquer kingdoms and wrest land from people?
(sorry if some of these questions have already been asked)
Post by: Ivefan on March 11, 2012, 10:05:20 pm
-From general talk; In a manner, yes. But it seems like the business will involve some aspect of combat.
-You can either join up with a city/land/king/etc and go up the ranks for the army, perhaps make a coup. Or you can start out privately and gain followers to conquer with.
Post by: adwarf on March 11, 2012, 11:06:16 pm
By that I mean whats the size of things we can build, could we say build an entire fortress city surrounded by smaller villages with strongholds dotted around the area, or would it just be like army camp kind of construction (Tent arrangement, palisade construction, ditch placements, log walls, etc.)
Post by: NRDL on March 11, 2012, 11:10:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 13, 2012, 05:51:35 am
You really know how to attract the Bay12 community :P
Ah, I try :)
Hmm. Knowledge on the specific weaknesses of animals/creatures could be good. Although with horses you don't really need to know anything besides it being a horse to know the weak spots, as all of the various horse breeds are pretty fragile.
True - expect differences will be more down to speed/stamina, probably.
Oh wise and mighty developer, as much as I appreciate ballistae, may I make one small additional suggestion to improve the overall quality of your fine work? More ballistae. :P
Consider it noted!
I think that it makes sense to invert the typical way knowledge skills work here. Normally games have it set up so that low levels of knowledge provide knowledge of capabilities and high levels of knowledge provide insight into a creatures weaknesses (or just straight bonus damage). While this makes some sense in terms of analyzing fighting styles, it makes very little sense when you're talking about horses, or elephants or bears. Essentially once you know a little bit about the creature you have a general sense of it's anatomy and have some idea about it's weaknesses. What's harder is noticing the slight differences in appearance and behavior that signal it's intentions or capabilities.
This ability to evaluate is especially crucial when it comes to cavalry. Are the enemy mounted on destriders or plow horses? being able to tell at a glance from a couple of hundred yards away which is which is a)much harder than knowing that horses hooves a full of nice delicate bones that crunch well under the butt of your spear and b) more important to a leader.
My recommendation would be to remove the bonus damage from knowledge skills, and instead have an ignorance penalty for lack of basic familiarity. This could manifest as both a decrease in combat effectiveness (you don't know where to stab) and greater morale penalties. Increases in a knowledge skill past this point would give you greater insight into the state a capabilities of creatures, how fast they move, how fatigued they are, how well trained they are and so on.
Interesting. Morale penalties for fighting creatures you don't know a lot about is an interesting one, actually. As you say, it seems logical that a low-level of knowledge would give you much of the basic info, and then you'd have to get more and more knowledge to learn the specifics of each creature's activities. I'm still not sure precisely what information I want knowledge to give (their attacks, their defenses, their habitats, alliances, habits, food, where they can be found, etc, or some combination), so I need to think that over.
I've been following your site for a couple of months now. I'm hooked on it and I hope to ask a few questions.
- will there be large cities implemented? (including racial cities like dwarven halls)
- Do you plan to implement non-combat oriented details (such as being a caravan master, or a possibly run a business).
- Can you conquer kingdoms and wrest land from people?
(sorry if some of these questions have already been asked)
Well that's good to know :).
- Yes, each settlement for each species has a different generator. Dwarf settlements will look utterly unlike Cyclopean ones, which are utterly unlike a necropolis, and so on. Some of these are in their early stages now, but for the first alpha I'm only aiming for ruins and ancient cities as civilizations need a lot of programming outside the cities themselves.
- I've thought about the economic/'business' side of the game, but I'm not sure yet. It would be great to hear any thoughts on it, though!
- That's planned as one of the main focuses of the game! There's even a 'territory' option in the minimap to view land according to who owns it.
What level of construction will have at our disposal?
By that I mean whats the size of things we can build, could we say build an entire fortress city surrounded by smaller villages with strongholds dotted around the area, or would it just be like army camp kind of construction (Tent arrangement, palisade construction, ditch placements, log walls, etc.)
Only very basic constructions - city-building isn't a focus of the game at all. If you're in charge of a city, I think you'll be able to dictate the kinds of buildings you want, but you won't have an active role, and building construction will be realistically slow. As for camps, you'll be able to put up tents, traps, ditches etc, but that's about the full extent of it.
PTW this looks really cool.
Thanks!
Lastly, a more game design/mechanic-centric blog entry for once, hopefully answering a few more questions about magic: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/13/superweapons/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/13/superweapons/). However, since magic is way off, the focus for now is still on combat/weapons/armor for the near future, and certainly for the rest release. From this point onward, any magic questions will be met with a bemused shrug! :)
Post by: BishopX on March 13, 2012, 07:51:40 pm
In there are generally two ways of handling speed in roguelikes, either fast creates get a free move every X turns, or every turn a fast creature has a Y probability of getting an extra free move. Additionally, waiting generally advances time at the same rate that movement advances, which makes it hard for the slow creature to gain the initiative. Either ap proach has interesting and possibly deleterious implications for URR.
If fast creatures get regular extra moves,charges against enemies slower than you will be sensitive to initial conditions. For example if I can an extra move after every third regular move, charging against a static foe (say a stake wall with archers behind it)from a distance of 3, 7, 11 or 15 will always result in an initial free attack by the cavalry, while charging from 4,5,6,8,8,10.... will not. Since cavalry charges don't make sense in interia-less environments (the momentum of the horse is the weapon), allowing charging horses to 'wait' a turn to regain the correct positioning mid-charge doesn't make sense.
The other option, a random free move, is just as problematic. Imagine a squad of ten horse men charging who get a free move 33% of the time. The group is going to separate out over time, so for particularly long charges you will have a bell curve like distribution of your forces...again since units can't wait this would be sub optimal.
Post by: darkflagrance on March 14, 2012, 12:33:34 am
Post by: NRDL on March 14, 2012, 05:33:55 am
Cool. Common sense and confidence, those are interesting qualities that I don't think I've seen really in other video games.
Post by: Leatra on March 14, 2012, 06:58:46 am
Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.
Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.
Post by: NRDL on March 14, 2012, 07:44:00 am
Post by: Dutchling on March 14, 2012, 12:47:01 pm
What if you're an Ogre and Elves tend to use Ogres for religious sacrifices?Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.
Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on March 14, 2012, 03:14:27 pm
What if you're an Ogre and Elves tend to use Ogres for religious sacrifices?
Any plans of this kind of unique relations between different races? If they are implemented, will they be randomized for each game or pre-set?
In one game, Elven and Dwarven civs are mortal enemies while in another one they will be like Rohan and Gondor in the third age?
Post by: Rowanas on March 15, 2012, 10:32:49 am
Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.
Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.
But this would be a function of the unit type, not the strange nature of their bodies. Even if all orcs get a bonus to scaring things shitless, you're still not suffering a penalty because they're weirdly shaped, but because they cause fear. Ignorance and terror are not the same thing.
Post by: BishopX on March 15, 2012, 06:19:56 pm
Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.
Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.
But this would be a function of the unit type, not the strange nature of their bodies. Even if all orcs get a bonus to scaring things shitless, you're still not suffering a penalty because they're weirdly shaped, but because they cause fear. Ignorance and terror are not the same thing.
But think about how scary war elephants are, especially if you've never seen an elephant before. Once you get over the "what the hell is that" reaction you can respond better to the threat.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 17, 2012, 06:11:37 am
could there be some form of greek-fire using person.
has limited fuel, not common at all, but by gods will anything in their way know about itt (unless it has fire resistance)
by greek fire, I mean the flamethrower type, not the throwy bottle type.
I hadn't thought of the possibility of something like that as a semi-siege weapon - I like the idea!
So I had a long, boring drive home from work today, and I spent most of it thinking about the implications of rogue-like speed systems on unit combat, particularly mounted charges.
In there are generally two ways of handling speed in roguelikes, either fast creates get a free move every X turns, or every turn a fast creature has a Y probability of getting an extra free move. Additionally, waiting generally advances time at the same rate that movement advances, which makes it hard for the slow creature to gain the initiative. Either ap proach has interesting and possibly deleterious implications for URR.
If fast creatures get regular extra moves,charges against enemies slower than you will be sensitive to initial conditions. For example if I can an extra move after every third regular move, charging against a static foe (say a stake wall with archers behind it)from a distance of 3, 7, 11 or 15 will always result in an initial free attack by the cavalry, while charging from 4,5,6,8,8,10.... will not. Since cavalry charges don't make sense in interia-less environments (the momentum of the horse is the weapon), allowing charging horses to 'wait' a turn to regain the correct positioning mid-charge doesn't make sense.
The other option, a random free move, is just as problematic. Imagine a squad of ten horse men charging who get a free move 33% of the time. The group is going to separate out over time, so for particularly long charges you will have a bell curve like distribution of your forces...again since units can't wait this would be sub optimal.
Very interesting thoughts, and something I hadn't considered. A few potential solutions off the top of my head:
a) A compromise could be made by combining the two - initially extra moves are given at random, but as more time goes by while Unit X hasn't had an extra move, the chance increases. So they will average out onto having their extra moves very close together. Additionally, there will be an option to 'force' creatures to maintain their formation for as long as possible, so if you tick that, a cavalry charge will remain constant at least until they meet combat.
b) Creatures can only move or attack in one turn 'sequence'. So if they get three turns, they can only use those three turns moving, or attacking. Again, have an option for forcing them to stick to formation. Thus, the cavalry will reach the line, and then combat will begin for them next turn.
I'm not sure either of these solutions is good, and this is actually a really important question. In fact, so much so, this week's blog entry is going to be on this. I'm glad you've brought this to my attention; the extra-turns-each-turn model is fine for most roguelikes, but it could be very detrimental here.
Regarding penalties for fighting unfamiliar creatures, it's likely that whether you fight an orc, a human, or an elf, you'll be fairly familiar with their humanoid structure. Even if this is your first orc battle, maybe you'll be confident enough that you can take them that your morale remains constant.
Agreed, at least in terms of knowing/not knowing weak spots.
Huh. So, if for example, a humanoid being fights a quadrupedal creature, or something I dunno, without legs, the humanoid would suffer a penalty, because it doesn't know how to proceed?
Cool. Common sense and confidence, those are interesting qualities that I don't think I've seen really in other video games.
Yep - and thanks :), I try. Also, initial combat with weird creatures will have your knowledge climb quickly at first, as you'll quickly learn obvious things while the more obscure, nuanced things will take longer...
Orcs are ought to be scary. A berserker orc charging into you while shouting a battle cry isn't the same thing with a fragile elf swordsman.
Elves always get the short end of the stick. I'm sure there are SOME burly elves out there!
I think every civ should have its own form of individual scariness, for pyschological warfare.
Species certainly will, and civilizations may based on their past activities - a civ known for burning villages down will be feared much more than an empire-builder that's willing to incorporate any culture/religion as long as they pay taxes.
What if you're an Ogre and Elves tend to use Ogres for religious sacrifices?
Hmmmm. I suppose the extra anger/determination as a morale boost would be balanced against how heartless and evil those elves are (as the Orcs see it), and how big a problem these sacrifices are.
Any plans of this kind of unique relations between different races? If they are implemented, will they be randomized for each game or pre-set?
In one game, Elven and Dwarven civs are mortal enemies while in another one they will be like Rohan and Gondor in the third age?
Yes, absolutely, and this will not be preset. Species relationships will be randomized each game, and then civ relations will be randomised within that.
But this would be a function of the unit type, not the strange nature of their bodies. Even if all orcs get a bonus to scaring things shitless, you're still not suffering a penalty because they're weirdly shaped, but because they cause fear. Ignorance and terror are not the same thing.
But think about how scary war elephants are, especially if you've never seen an elephant before. Once you get over the "what the hell is that" reaction you can respond better to the threat.
Agreed - you can have a morale hit because they are scary, and/or because you don't know how to fight them. Of course, against some creatures, that's going to be the same thing at the start :)
Post by: Rowanas on March 17, 2012, 06:47:59 am
Post by: Man of Paper on March 17, 2012, 09:09:24 am
Take a three turn sequence for the charge. When the cavalry charges, they move one step for free so long as the area is not occupied. Give each unit a 75%, or whatever you deem fair, for another free step forward (or engage in combat with an enemy in front of him/her/it). Then another 25% or whatever chance to move yet another time. I think it'd effectively portray the loss of unit cohesion over a prolonged charge.
Post by: Edmus on March 17, 2012, 04:49:58 pm
Maybe the cavalry charge could work like this (though I have exactly zero knowledge of what's possible with programming):Maybe the breed of horse could determine the odds.
Take a three turn sequence for the charge. When the cavalry charges, they move one step for free so long as the area is not occupied. Give each unit a 75%, or whatever you deem fair, for another free step forward (or engage in combat with an enemy in front of him/her/it). Then another 25% or whatever chance to move yet another time. I think it'd effectively portray the loss of unit cohesion over a prolonged charge.
Post by: Man of Paper on March 17, 2012, 05:37:17 pm
Maybe the cavalry charge could work like this (though I have exactly zero knowledge of what's possible with programming):Maybe the breed of horse could determine the odds.
Take a three turn sequence for the charge. When the cavalry charges, they move one step for free so long as the area is not occupied. Give each unit a 75%, or whatever you deem fair, for another free step forward (or engage in combat with an enemy in front of him/her/it). Then another 25% or whatever chance to move yet another time. I think it'd effectively portray the loss of unit cohesion over a prolonged charge.
I think the horseman's skill would determine the odds, and maybe have the breed determine the maximum number of possible moves. So you could see a horse bred for war with a novice rider having a possibility of 5 moves but they'd go 100%->30%->15%->8.5%->2%, while a master horseman mounted on a lion would have a max of three moves at 100%->95%->90%.
Post by: Leatra on March 17, 2012, 05:44:30 pm
Only because riders have more turns than the infantry, that doesn't mean they can attack 5 times in a row. If a horseman has like... 6 turns, he should be only allowed to use 1 for attacking.
Also, if you keep moving without changing your direction much, you should gain more speed by acceleration.
Post by: Man of Paper on March 17, 2012, 06:18:24 pm
Post by: Leatra on March 17, 2012, 06:49:04 pm
Though maybe if the enemy line is deeper than one man they can get an extra attack movement if they obliterate the first unit (which would be like a sweeping decapitation as the horseman rode past). Other than that I agree completely.Of course, I forgot that.
Post by: BishopX on March 18, 2012, 08:15:34 am
Though maybe if the enemy line is deeper than one man they can get an extra attack movement if they obliterate the first unit (which would be like a sweeping decapitation as the horseman rode past). Other than that I agree completely.
That might want to be a flag on some weapon, like lances and horses. It probably doesn't work so well with a mace.
I do think a separate attack/move timer would help though, and there would be plenty of instances where you could attack but not move or move but not attack.
Post by: Leatra on March 21, 2012, 08:07:29 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 21, 2012, 06:41:46 pm
Hmm. You might have some success with "smart" charging. As in, fast creatures will use their charge if there's nothng to stop them, or if it would bing them into melee range with an advantage. Otherwise, they'll charge up to just before the point at which they get stabbed (2 tiles away, generally), and use their extra movement on the turn after, in order to get full use of their charging bonus and to win the initiative.
So do you mean they get to attack as part of the charge? And if they don't, they get an EXTRA move the turn after? This sounds like an interesting idea - could you elaborate? :)
Maybe the cavalry charge could work like this (though I have exactly zero knowledge of what's possible with programming):
Take a three turn sequence for the charge. When the cavalry charges, they move one step for free so long as the area is not occupied. Give each unit a 75%, or whatever you deem fair, for another free step forward (or engage in combat with an enemy in front of him/her/it). Then another 25% or whatever chance to move yet another time. I think it'd effectively portray the loss of unit cohesion over a prolonged charge.
Something like that might be possible with far lower chances (say, only 5% of dropping behind each move), as I think the numbers you describe would cause almost instant loss of cohesion. However, over a long charge, I think something like this would be good, but the skills of those riding the horses would reduce the amount of cohesion lost.
There is only one thing I'm certain about horseback fightining.
Only because riders have more turns than the infantry, that doesn't mean they can attack 5 times in a row. If a horseman has like... 6 turns, he should be only allowed to use 1 for attacking.
Also, if you keep moving without changing your direction much, you should gain more speed by acceleration.
Definitely - a horseman will only get one attack even if the horse gets two or three moves. Interesting direction-changing idea; I like it.
Though maybe if the enemy line is deeper than one man they can get an extra attack movement if they obliterate the first unit (which would be like a sweeping decapitation as the horseman rode past). Other than that I agree completely.
That might want to be a flag on some weapon, like lances and horses. It probably doesn't work so well with a mace.
I do think a separate attack/move timer would help though, and there would be plenty of instances where you could attack but not move or move but not attack.
These are very interesting suggestions. If I keep allowing the free attack, I like the idea of a chance to sweep past in a chance, especially against open units, and keep moving to continue attacking. That would definitely only go for certain weapons; as you say, not a mace! I think I'm leaning towards a separate move/attack timer, though I'm still not sure. Perhaps the chance of a free attack is the fundamental advantage that cavalry SHOULD be given, so it's not an issue?
Also, there should be an indicator that shows which direction the horse is running.
ARGH, this idea! That's a tricky one - I'm not sure whether to implement directional functions or not, yet. I'll get back to you on that one :).
Lastly, here's a (belated) blog entry about exactly these issues, with my current proposed solution below! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/19/speed-and-strategy/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/19/speed-and-strategy/)
Post by: Mephansteras on March 21, 2012, 08:01:11 pm
Something like that might be possible with far lower chances (say, only 5% of dropping behind each move), as I think the numbers you describe would cause almost instant loss of cohesion. However, over a long charge, I think something like this would be good, but the skills of those riding the horses would reduce the amount of cohesion lost.
There are two skills that really should effect that. The skill of the rider at riding, and the skill of the rider at maintaining discipline. Staying in formation takes a very different mindset than simply being good at a horse (or even being good in combat in general). It's an important skill in general, and one that often made the difference between the most successful armies and ones only moderately successful, even if the soldiers in general were evenly skilled/equipped.
Same thing applies to being in any formation, of course, but it's even harder on horseback where you have to carefully control your mount to stay with the others.
Post by: Rowanas on March 22, 2012, 04:46:53 am
Hmm. You might have some success with "smart" charging. As in, fast creatures will use their charge if there's nothing to stop them, or if it would bring them into melee range with an advantage. Otherwise, they'll charge up to just before the point at which they get stabbed (2 tiles away, generally), and use their extra movement on the turn after, in order to get full use of their charging bonus and to win the initiative.
So do you mean they get to attack as part of the charge? And if they don't, they get an EXTRA move the turn after? This sounds like an interesting idea - could you elaborate? :)
Happily. I propose that fast units should never charge into combat unless they would get the first strike. That's kind of the point of charging, no? In real life it's not an issue, because there are no turns. In URR, I suggest that cavalry should get a bonus action every turn (or several, although you'll want to limit the number of actions that can be used to attack). Normally cavalry will use that bonus action to run towards things, but they will hold back if they would end their turn within 1 tile of an enemy (which would give the defenders the first strike). If bonus actions are left at the end of a cavalry turn, one of them will be added to the beginning of the -next- turn, which would allow the cavalry to close using their bonus movement, strike once using their rollover action and then once more in their normal action. This way, cavalry will have a proper, massive charge (double attacks) in the first turn, without having to give them any sort of speed or charging bonus (and the effects will only be increased if you do decide to give them other bonuses)
The problem I see with this system, however, is that this would give cavalry 2 attacks every turn if they don't use up their full bonus action allowance. A cavalry unit that doesn't move will always have that action rollover, so they'll receive a bonus action every single turn. Alternatively, you could specify when exactly cavalry can have 2 attacks instead of 1, which also seems like a pain in the arse.
Perhaps it would simply be better to have this system, but without the action rollover. If cavalry get bonuses for each combat turn they spend moving without attacking, that might have the same impact on the initial charge, without requiring extra. They'd still refuse to use bonus actions if they wouldn't get the first strike, but it would be so much simpler. Not sure if it's better though.
Post by: Ivefan on March 22, 2012, 06:43:02 am
If distance to target=3
Enable Charge
Move 2
Attack
End if
Post by: Rowanas on March 22, 2012, 06:58:55 pm
Post by: Clownmite on March 22, 2012, 10:34:17 pm
Each tick represents a fixed moment of time, say, 1 second. Each creature has a "speed" attribute that determines the next turn they can act on, lower speed means faster acting. So, on turn 1, the player moves, causing the game world to advance by, say, 6 ticks. The game loops through each creature on every tick, and checks if the creature has been "scheduled" to take a turn.
On each creature's turn, it takes the current tick and adds its speed to it to figure out the next tick that it will move. Creatures with a lower "speed" attribute therefore get to act more often than ones with a higher "speed" attribute.
I go a step further and add a tiny bit of randomness to each creature's speed every turn. Also, while coordinating movements, creatures in the same squad all act on the slowest speed of anyone in their unit so that they stick together. This way horsemen, with a speed rating of, say, 2, would move coherently at the same time, getting to move twice as fast as a speed 4 unit and 3x as fast as a speed 6 unit.
My opinion is that "bonus actions" seem a bit game-y, and that boiling everything down to a time-locked approach makes much more sense, plus it's not too difficult to implement.
Post by: Mephansteras on March 23, 2012, 01:54:55 pm
Post by: varsovie on March 23, 2012, 03:09:52 pm
Anyway, no need to indicate the direction with an arrow if you manage to put some *dust* behind charging cavalry.
Post by: Clownmite on March 23, 2012, 05:52:12 pm
Downside to that system is there is a big difference between movement speed and attack speed.
Definitely. My plan is to eventually have every action take a certain time cost. Attacking, moving, getting up from the ground, etc. I don't think that would be too hard to implement.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 25, 2012, 12:46:29 pm
There are two skills that really should effect that. The skill of the rider at riding, and the skill of the rider at maintaining discipline. Staying in formation takes a very different mindset than simply being good at a horse (or even being good in combat in general). It's an important skill in general, and one that often made the difference between the most successful armies and ones only moderately successful, even if the soldiers in general were evenly skilled/equipped.
Same thing applies to being in any formation, of course, but it's even harder on horseback where you have to carefully control your mount to stay with the others.
That's a very good thought, and fits nicely under one of the currently-existing skills on the list.
Happily. I propose that fast units should never charge into combat unless they would get the first strike. That's kind of the point of charging, no? In real life it's not an issue, because there are no turns. In URR, I suggest that cavalry should get a bonus action every turn (or several, although you'll want to limit the number of actions that can be used to attack). Normally cavalry will use that bonus action to run towards things, but they will hold back if they would end their turn within 1 tile of an enemy (which would give the defenders the first strike). If bonus actions are left at the end of a cavalry turn, one of them will be added to the beginning of the -next- turn, which would allow the cavalry to close using their bonus movement, strike once using their rollover action and then once more in their normal action. This way, cavalry will have a proper, massive charge (double attacks) in the first turn, without having to give them any sort of speed or charging bonus (and the effects will only be increased if you do decide to give them other bonuses)
The problem I see with this system, however, is that this would give cavalry 2 attacks every turn if they don't use up their full bonus action allowance. A cavalry unit that doesn't move will always have that action rollover, so they'll receive a bonus action every single turn. Alternatively, you could specify when exactly cavalry can have 2 attacks instead of 1, which also seems like a pain in the arse.
Perhaps it would simply be better to have this system, but without the action rollover. If cavalry get bonuses for each combat turn they spend moving without attacking, that might have the same impact on the initial charge, without requiring extra. They'd still refuse to use bonus actions if they wouldn't get the first strike, but it would be so much simpler. Not sure if it's better though.
Apart from the potential for cavalry getting a double initial attack, I really like this system. I think having a 'free' attack would be a logical advantage that cavalry get, and having them only move forward if they would get that attack would negate the initial conditions issue for the most part. Instead of a potential double attack on the rollover (if I'm understanding you correctly) I might just make their attack on the subsequent turn slightly better since, say, they have a little longer to prepare the move. I think that sounds like a very good solution; I'll think about how to implement it.
-ticks-
That is an interesting system, and sounds like an excellent one for a roguelike, but I don't think it would fit perfectly in here, having pondered it a bit. I think that would fit into a roguelike with more focus on wild creatures and smaller, more intricate battles than larger ones; plus having bonus actions, I think, could be developed in interesting gameplay ways, actually. Additionally I want the speeds of all creatures pegged, to use a financial metaphor, to the player, and I want a certain level of regularity there.
Downside to that system is there is a big difference between movement speed and attack speed. A knight charging on horseback with a lance can cover a lot of ground, but he really can't get too many attacks in with a lance. One, usually, unless it's a really clean hit or he misses. Splitting Speed into two attributes - Movement and Actions, is a decent way to fix that issue.
Agreed - I'm doing this fully at the moment, actually, also for things like picking up, dropping, wearing, wielding, etc. There will be a certain number of actions you can perform in a turn, but I think things like this - moving, attacking, wearing, eating, throwing, whatever - and the time they take will need careful balancing.
That's why you should use a (light)saber and camel mounted religious fanatics!
Anyway, no need to indicate the direction with an arrow if you manage to put some *dust* behind charging cavalry.
Exactly! And nice solution, actually.
Blog entry coming on time tomorrow!
Post by: Leatra on March 25, 2012, 07:30:06 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2012, 11:28:47 am
Any chance on revealing the skill list? :D
BOOM! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/26/a-probably-not-final-skills-list/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/03/26/a-probably-not-final-skills-list/)
Post by: Lord Dullard on March 26, 2012, 12:56:57 pm
Also, that border is really cool.
Post by: Leatra on March 26, 2012, 02:48:58 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Will it be possible to murder leaders without anyone noticing you are the killer if you have a high infiltration and/or stealth skill?
"ALL HAIL THE REGICIDE KING!"
EDIT: Hey, what about a mapping skill of some sorts? Being able to record the areas you visit and seeing the lands known to you without running around or zooming in and out. If you don't have a high mapping skill your character will "forget" those areas and it will be blank in the world map. Maybe you can buy maps from shopkeepers or ask around for surroundings like in DF.
Post by: Sundial on March 26, 2012, 10:56:23 pm
Post by: Rowanas on March 27, 2012, 06:04:57 am
Post by: Leatra on March 27, 2012, 07:24:49 am
And we already concluded that magic was going to have different schools.
Post by: mendonca on March 27, 2012, 08:27:09 am
My concern would be the computer / player interface, and whether the human brain is keyed up to really be able to understand and care enough about all this esoterica, which it may not if not presented carefully.
It is really up to the game designer to implement these methods in a useful and elegant way. I hope you can do it, because I think the system sounds really interesting.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 27, 2012, 05:42:02 pm
That's quite an extensive skill list.
Also, that border is really cool.
Thanks! Glad you like it - it's in for all the initial menu options.
That's list is...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Will it be possible to murder leaders without anyone noticing you are the killer if you have a high infiltration and/or stealth skill?
"ALL HAIL THE REGICIDE KING!"
EDIT: Hey, what about a mapping skill of some sorts? Being able to record the areas you visit and seeing the lands known to you without running around or zooming in and out. If you don't have a high mapping skill your character will "forget" those areas and it will be blank in the world map. Maybe you can buy maps from shopkeepers or ask around for surroundings like in DF.
Hahaha, thank you! And I agree, perks no longer really fit with this. I hope so - it wouldn't be unlike killing anybody else, in that some could notice, but if nobody is aware, then it's a mystery. Again, maybe in the long, LONG term, I could add a crime system for NPCs to try and deduce criminals, but that is literally years in the future. That's an interesting one - currently the 3x3 around your location is revealed each time you move on the world map, but I could certainly be persuaded to change that, or have a forgetting function. Definitely intending to have maps that can be purchased.
What is the purpose of tearing every weapon skill and every magic skill into 3-5 pieces? Is there really a need for separate aim and force skills, especially since there's already a strength stat and a dexterity stat kicking around to ensure strong creatures hit hard and deft creatures hit accurately?
I'ma have to back sundial up on this. 5 seems... a little excessive. I could understand 2, perhaps even 3 if there's a good argument for it, but 5 seems like it's a little...too comprehensive. Balance, sir. Balance.
I kinda liked it myself. First 3 skills is same with every weapon and last to 2 skills changes according to the weapon type. Like, dual wielding for short weapons.
And we already concluded that magic was going to have different schools.
I see your point, sundial. Maybe I should remove the stats! I realize that wasn't the point you were making, but now you say it, maybe the stats are redundant with this many skills. Hmm. Actually, yeah - stats are redundant here, I think. I shall likely remove them and have only skills. Thanks for the (I think unintentional!) pushing me towards getting rid of the pointless stats :)
I think there is a need for separate skills for much the reason Leatra said - each serves a different function, can be tailored specifically to the foes you're fighting, and then each weapon type gets two unique aspects to it too. Obviously the first two you want for any weapon type, the third is for fighting armored foes, then the fourth/fifth are 'specialist' ones depending on your needs. Indeed, one way to look at it would be that - the first two you always want, the third you sometimes want, and the fourth/fifth depend on your play style, enemies, objectives, etc.
If the computer and the 'dice-roll' algorithms can handle these skills in interesting and unique ways (which it sounds like it will), all these different skills could be absolutely wonderful.
My concern would be the computer / player interface, and whether the human brain is keyed up to really be able to understand and care enough about all this esoterica, which it may not if not presented carefully.
It is really up to the game designer to implement these methods in a useful and elegant way. I hope you can do it, because I think the system sounds really interesting.
Thanks! I've already got the computer in combat using the correct skills, but I think an important facet of this many skills being developed well is to give the computer intelligent control over which skills they choose to train up, recruit into an army, etc.
I think that while there is a ton, there aren't a lot of skills that will apply to any given situation. A lot of the skills apply to one particular facet, and while some are important 'general' skills, there aren't that many of those. I'd be interested to hear what you mean by presenting it carefully - do you mean in terms of this page, or in terms of how they are deployed in game, or something else?
Post by: Rowanas on March 27, 2012, 06:06:11 pm
I notice that only short weapons have a dual wielding skill. Will light weapons be the only ones we can use in each hand, or will we be able to try more exotic combinations, with only the "off-hand" light weapon benefitting from the dual-wield skill bonus? Obviously, either way, you can use a two handed weapon in each hand, unless you're big enough for the weapon to count as one handed (dual-pike-wielding giants, go!).
Post by: Mephansteras on March 27, 2012, 06:15:20 pm
Granted, if your main hand has been injured switching hands better than doing nothing, but you're much more likely to get killed using your off hand.
Personally, I think it'd be better to simply give a penalty for any weapon wielded with your off hand with skills that can help offset it. Have the penalty be relative to the weight of the weapon, and you have a more logical system with a similar result. Except that if the player really wants a troop of dual axe wielding maniacs he can specifically train them to be at least reasonably decent at it. It may be a bad idea, but it could be fun!
Not sure how ambidexterity would work. It's a pretty rare trait. Maybe if people could have 'Talents' that give them a natural boost to certain skills, it could be one of them? Talents like that could be neat in general. I certainly know people who are good with certain weapons with very little training, even though they're bad at most others, so natural talent is certainly a reasonable thing to have.
Post by: Edmus on March 28, 2012, 12:23:16 am
Had a thought which is a little off topic though; how will death and saving work?
I mean to say that if you spend hours of work getting some minor goons on your side it would be annoying if that were undone in seconds and be unrecoverable. Will there be an auto saving type-thing or instant unforgiving death?
I guess it comes down to pacing, will it be lightning quick or a slow build up?
Thanks.
(Sorry if this already came up but a quick search said it didn't)
Post by: Dutchling on March 28, 2012, 11:46:11 am
If you die will you play as your successor of the group/civ you were leading?
Will you be able to get a spouse and children (not necessarily in that order)? (I don't want a sex mini-game but it is relevant to the first question.)
Are there other (randomly generated) people in the world who do the same as you? (greatly advancing in power instead of starting as a bandit and dying as a bandit.)
How is religion handled in-game and can you play a part in it? (e.g. being a false messiah)
Post by: Dutchling on March 28, 2012, 05:11:31 pm
I said a false messiah.(e.g. being a false messiah)I can imagine B12 users using this to (if possible) get worshippers to believe that being permanantly drunk is the only way to heaven or what have you.
Post by: Ivefan on March 28, 2012, 08:30:46 pm
yeah, false messiah. claim you were sent by their god then convince evryone who follows that religion that drunkeness is a state of peace. or something.I do believe he is implying that "being permanantly drunk is the only way to heaven or what have you." is the true way and thus a true messiah.
Post by: Rowanas on March 30, 2012, 02:02:30 am
...a rabbit would do nothing to a human...
Ae you kidding? If someone threw a rabbit at you, it would probably cave your chest in. Rabbits are bigger and heavier than you think. Fluffy wamblers are deadly for a reason!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2012, 06:06:47 pm
Hmm. Considering that we're unlikely to bother using more than 2 different weapon skills, it might work out alright.
I notice that only short weapons have a dual wielding skill. Will light weapons be the only ones we can use in each hand, or will we be able to try more exotic combinations, with only the "off-hand" light weapon benefitting from the dual-wield skill bonus? Obviously, either way, you can use a two handed weapon in each hand, unless you're big enough for the weapon to count as one handed (dual-pike-wielding giants, go!).
Some weapons are one-handed, but most are two-handed. You can wield two sabres, if you want, but you won't be very good with them! Only short weapons get the two-handed bonus. You've also preempted something very accurately; large/strong creatures will intend be able to wield two-handed weapons in one hand.
Personally, I think it'd be better to simply give a penalty for any weapon wielded with your off hand with skills that can help offset it. Have the penalty be relative to the weight of the weapon, and you have a more logical system with a similar result. Except that if the player really wants a troop of dual axe wielding maniacs he can specifically train them to be at least reasonably decent at it. It may be a bad idea, but it could be fun!
Not sure how ambidexterity would work. It's a pretty rare trait. Maybe if people could have 'Talents' that give them a natural boost to certain skills, it could be one of them? Talents like that could be neat in general. I certainly know people who are good with certain weapons with very little training, even though they're bad at most others, so natural talent is certainly a reasonable thing to have.
I originally had left/right-handedness, but it turned out to be FAR more effort than it was ever going to be worth in gameplay terms. From now on, both limbs are of equal value/dexterity/skill, and the only things that affect them will be injury. You will be able to train to use larger weapons in each hand, I think (simply by raising their accuracy skills, etc) but it's short weapons that get the bit dual-wielding bonus. I considered a Talent system, and they will almost certainly not exist, though that particular kind is negated by removing chirality.
That skill list is epic.
Had a thought which is a little off topic though; how will death and saving work?
I mean to say that if you spend hours of work getting some minor goons on your side it would be annoying if that were undone in seconds and be unrecoverable. Will there be an auto saving type-thing or instant unforgiving death?
I guess it comes down to pacing, will it be lightning quick or a slow build up?
Thanks.
(Sorry if this already came up but a quick search said it didn't)
Thanks! Each character gets one life, but I intend to add 'legacy' optoins whereby you can continue as your top general, your closest ally, partner, child, whatever. Probably slow :). For the time being, death is permanent, but I do intend to let you play on as a related character. Also, you will be able to start a new game as a new character in that same word, affected by the actions of your first character.
Next one has lots of questions, so I've bolded my replies:
wubblebubblegubble*faints*
are you trying to make a game more complex than DF?
Yes! Well... no, but complex in different ways.
also, will certain weapons have multiple uses? (e.g. using a halberd for stabby AND slashy)
Yes, most weapons will have multiple functions, and most be used in any context, but how effective they are is the question...
and will certain weapons have certain effects like causing more damage to an opponent with armour than another weapon would? (e.g. a dagger would be useless against chainmail, but a hammer would almost go 100% through it)
Yes, classes of weapons have different dis/advantages re: armor, flesh, bone, and various other things. More details soon!
also, could we please go beyond the normal seige machines of (normally) ballistae, catapults and sometimes battering rams?
I want to see maybe some kind of suicide unit that'll charge at walls and blow themselves up (be it in a magical or gunpowder based explosion), ladders to climb up said walls, maybe even chained beasts (chained dragon seige weapons, anyone?)
I like the suicide unit idea, and I think the chained beasts one is a fantastic idea. Consider it added to the list.
and, finally, will there be natural disasters, and if so, will the arichecture of the areas prone to these natural disasters be different? (e.g. in Japan, walls were required to withstand earthquakes, but their architecture made them climable, so they built them as death traps on the inside, rather than being made to keep things out as much as possible)
One day when it wouldn't just be feature-bloat, yes, I'd like natural disasters, but I'm not sure how much gameplay effect they'd have. Probably not things of that sort, simply a disposition away from settling in a certain area, I expect. But that's far from fixed.
ok, ok, THIS is the final one. will a falling object (e.g. giant) landing on a unit damage them, and will creatures be able to throw smaller ones, potentially causing damage to other creatures, and if so, will both of them be based on mass of the falling and fallen-upon (for example, a giant landing on a human will squish him, a rabbit would do nothing to a human, and a giant landing on another giant would be the same as a human landing on a human) and will fall height effect said damage done up to a point (after falling X amount of cubes, the giant wouldn't do more damage than if it fell X+5 cubes, due to reaching terminal velocity)
Yes, a creature landing on another does damage; yes, big creatures can already throw smaller ones, and I've had my spine broken by a Titan throwing me into a tree; it is based on mass, generally, and rarely other factors like the material the creature is made from. And yes, damage scales to a certain point :).
if that last one was added, it could lead to intresting traps, such as knocking boulders off edges or knocking people off of cliffs.
if any of these questions have been asked, then I'm ignorant/forgetful and missed/forgot it.
NINJAEDIT: thought of another thing: could you get crutches for if you get your leg chopped off, and if you had a mage that was able to do so, could you have the limb grown back, or some kind of controllable prosthetic limb? (I'd love a solid steel moveable arm, punches from that'd be knockout blows)
I think replaceable limbs are going to be either prosthetic, or magical, but these are in the early stages so far.
These are some questions I thought of about the game long term goals. My apologies if they already have been answered earlier.
If you die will you play as your successor of the group/civ you were leading?
Will you be able to get a spouse and children (not necessarily in that order)? (I don't want a sex mini-game but it is relevant to the first question.)
Are there other (randomly generated) people in the world who do the same as you? (greatly advancing in power instead of starting as a bandit and dying as a bandit.)
How is religion handled in-game and can you play a part in it? (e.g. being a false messiah)
Yes, if you want to. Yes, I *think* so, but I'm not sure. Absolutely; my eventual hope is to give a large number of NPCs the ability to no be tied down to a specific place and choose a life of adventure. Religion is based around a semi-random pantheon, but is still being worked out. It will certainly not be in the first alpha! I'm not sure how religious hierarchies will work re: the player and other NPCs, but that's quite a neat idea...
...a rabbit would do nothing to a human...
Ae you kidding? If someone threw a rabbit at you, it would probably cave your chest in. Rabbits are bigger and heavier than you think. Fluffy wamblers are deadly for a reason!
Yup.
Post by: Leatra on April 02, 2012, 04:37:32 pm
perhaps make sentient animals chained up actually become friendly to someone who releases them, or the civ that releases themThis sounds good. Infiltrate an enemy fort and free some beasts and watch the chaos as you hide in some corner? !!FUN!!
Post by: varsovie on April 03, 2012, 01:29:11 am
Religion is based around a semi-random pantheon, but is still being worked out. It will certainly not be in the first alpha! I'm not sure how religious hierarchies will work re: the player and other NPCs, but that's quite a neat idea...
Will gods have an effect on the world (bless, divine powers, wraths, needs...) or will they only be different for the sack of having different names.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on April 03, 2012, 02:38:55 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 06, 2012, 06:54:43 pm
right. so I contributed to possibly an awesome feature that will kill many people as they chain dragons, only to have them breathe fire on them.
epic.
also, another thought on chained beasts, maybe they could be released via them struggling, or the enemy loosening them, or them just eroding. and perhaps make sentient animals chained up actually become friendly to someone who releases them, or the civ that releases them, provided they didn't chain them up in the first place.
Also, for that rabbit thingy, I was think about dropping from 2 meters above you. a rabbit coming down to earth at the same velocity as a comet would certainly be incredibly damaging to a human, as well as depositing a ready-made meal and a huge fuck-off crater.
I hope so. Dragons will obviously need muzzling, I think, then you'll have to send ahead some poor soldier to get the muzzle off... I like all those ideas re: chained animals. As with everything, that'll need a lot of thought about the particular mechanics. And yes, that would be rabbit-induced devastation.
This sounds good. Infiltrate an enemy fort and free some beasts and watch the chaos as you hide in some corner? !!FUN!!
Definitely this!
Will gods have an effect on the world (bless, divine powers, wraths, needs...) or will they only be different for the sack of having different names.
Depends on what you mean by an effect on the world. They will be randomized according to name, power, traits, shrines, sacred creatures, and a bunch of other things. Again, gods are a long-term goal, though you may be able to find an abandoned shrine or two in the first alpha...
Rabbits kill more humans then sharks.
My mind is BLOWN.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 09, 2012, 05:44:43 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/04/09/april-screenshots/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/04/09/april-screenshots/)
Post by: Nighthawk on April 09, 2012, 12:27:01 pm
There's not really anything I can find to complain about, but for the fact that you can't aim for an opponent's eyes. :P Perhaps you can hit two keys, such as + and - to make the attacks more or less specific? That way, if you keep hitting + you can eventually have the option to strike at your enemy's fingers and toes.
Post by: Rowanas on April 09, 2012, 06:21:25 pm
Post by: varsovie on April 09, 2012, 09:16:51 pm
Like 1 for head, 2 for torso, 3 for left leg...
Because I prefer to hit only one key when attacking instead of three time arrow key, then enter whenever I decide to attack another limb.
Post by: agertor on April 09, 2012, 11:19:44 pm
Post by: Leatra on April 10, 2012, 06:03:56 am
There's not really anything I can find to complain about, but for the fact that you can't aim for an opponent's eyes. :P Perhaps you can hit two keys, such as + and - to make the attacks more or less specific? That way, if you keep hitting + you can eventually have the option to strike at your enemy's fingers and toes.Yeah, that's what I thought. If I'm using a blunt weapon, I like going for the lower body to damage guts. Sometimes I attack upper torso hoping to penetrate lungs. DF's lower arm, upper arm, back right tooth, etc is seen as an overkill by some players but I'd like to behead my enemy by slashing the throat if the opportunity presents itself :D
Other than that, it looks great. UI is really neat.
Will battles I take part of have effect, such as a battle for control over a town or village? So many questions I have, but I be pleased if you answered these.According to dev, yes.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 10, 2012, 12:34:25 pm
The new world map looks really nice. You're doing a great job of giving the important information in an easy-to understand manner. Same with the attacking box - it's great to know how armored each part of your opponent is, as well as how damaged.
There's not really anything I can find to complain about, but for the fact that you can't aim for an opponent's eyes. :P Perhaps you can hit two keys, such as + and - to make the attacks more or less specific? That way, if you keep hitting + you can eventually have the option to strike at your enemy's fingers and toes.
Thanks - I'm glad to hear it's all looking pretty clear. I debated allowing that (creatures do have eyes, necks, jugulars, of course) but I was concerned that would be too much to scroll through. Additionally, I don't think one can realistically be that accurate, so dealing damage to components of a limb remains random, but you get to choose the limb. Lastly, if you could target a particular bit (e.g. 'Left eye') you would be missing most of the time, so targeting limbs allows you to hit your targeted limb much more of the time.
Nice. With the Gearhead 2 conversion on ice, this is my single most anticipated game. Hurry the hell up, man! You're killing me!
Awesome! This summer, this summer!
In the attack screen, is all options tied to an hotkey?
Like 1 for head, 2 for torso, 3 for left leg...
Because I prefer to hit only one key when attacking instead of three time arrow key, then enter whenever I decide to attack another limb.
Nice idea; at the moment, it remembers which limb on each creature you last attacks and selects that one by default. So if you hit a creature in limb 4 once, limb 4 starts selected next time, so you just need to hit Enter to confirm. Do you think that'll be enough?
An interesting looking game. So I can serve in armies, as in go into giant wars with them or how will that work, just be like squad battles. Will battles I take part of have effect, such as a battle for control over a town or village? So many questions I have, but I be pleased if you answered these.
Well, thank you :). Yes, you will be able to join up to existing armies - the largest battles are going to be on the scale of the low hundreds of units per side - but the level of command you have depends on the rank you are in that army. Yes, battles will affect empires and civilizations, and I'm hoping to get a way of the computer identifying 'campaigns', and where one begins/ends. No problem - feel free to shoot with any more!
Yeah, that's what I thought. If I'm using a blunt weapon, I like going for the lower body to damage guts. Sometimes I attack upper torso hoping to penetrate lungs. DF's lower arm, upper arm, back right tooth, etc is seen as an overkill by some players but I'd like to behead my enemy by slashing the throat if the opportunity presents itself :D
Other than that, it looks great. UI is really neat.
Hmmmm. As I say, I did consider allowing you greater accuracy, but I didn't think it would be realistic, and I thought it would just breed annoyance since you'd miss so often at first. Plus, I don't think that's particularly appropriate for large-scale combat; however, maybe you'll be able to set a preference to each weapon type, or something like that, for what part you'd like to hit. But I think I'm going to keep it at the limb level (heads/torsos/wings/arms/legs). I also don't want to unbalance things by having everybody instantly GO FOR THE EYEBALLS!!! And thanks re: the UI, Leatra!
Post by: agertor on April 10, 2012, 05:22:04 pm
Post by: NRDL on April 11, 2012, 02:17:08 am
Post by: Ivefan on April 11, 2012, 02:21:04 am
Post by: Blaze on April 11, 2012, 03:40:17 am
Post by: Rowanas on April 11, 2012, 07:29:59 am
We could always go with a Sliding system like in EU, would spice things up when looking for followers for your kingdom/army. You'd have to either recruit from kingdoms with similar values or otherwise spread/force your own.
I wasn't aware that the European Union had any such system.
Post by: NRDL on April 11, 2012, 07:34:12 am
Post by: Blaze on April 11, 2012, 03:54:56 pm
It's Europa Universalis.We could always go with a Sliding system like in EU, would spice things up when looking for followers for your kingdom/army. You'd have to either recruit from kingdoms with similar values or otherwise spread/force your own.
I wasn't aware that the European Union had any such system.
Post by: Leatra on April 11, 2012, 04:46:18 pm
It is REALLY hard to tell of someone's being sarcastic on a forum.
Post by: Rowanas on April 12, 2012, 04:42:40 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2012, 03:20:34 pm
Since you insisted on me asking more, more you shall get. Such as how often will we encounter, weaponry/magic? Is it more common to see different things between species, or will a lack of metals cause more magic to be used, or if excessive, will magic dull in knowledge? As well, if we are soldiers, that would also mean if we ranked up in armies, will we be granted land and therefore eventually perhaps our own village? I'd like people to call me m'lord. As well, how will animals be used, do I expect war horses/dogs/hawks or are they a later feature. For the adventure aspect of it, can a political marriage happen, or even a campaign from an evil force *which I am totally apart of or leading*, will they take brides/grooms forcibly as prizes? Ending questions here for now.
Weapons, constantly; magic, very very rarely. Magic will vary between species in terms of specialisms, but the specifics are far from decided. It may be randomised each game. Yes, one of the major ways of gaining power will be serving in an army and rising up through it, but some armed forces for some species will expect other methods (say, killing the person at the top to become the person at the top?). Yes, animals you can use as mounts will exist; I don't think horses will exist in the first alpha, but they'll be coming pretty soon. Elephants after that. And yes, as I'm considering a system whereby you can continue the game after death as, say, your heir, then marriages and things may be important. We'll see! :)
I'm wondering what type of society civs will have. Will they use the standard, oddly centralised "king is absolute ruler", or say, feudalism? I'm a big fan of feudalism, titles, knights, etc. That way, through lots of political maneuvering and assassination, we CAN be called mi'lord.
No - I aim for the three humanoid species and all monster species to have unique social structures.
We could always go with a Sliding system like in EU, would spice things up when looking for followers for your kingdom/army. You'd have to either recruit from kingdoms with similar values or otherwise spread/force your own.
Exactly this - either you recruit, or you enslave. Or... other things I don't want to mention yet. There are variations planned.
one thing I'd LOVE would be the ability to just blind a creature and watch him flail about, hitting teammates.
that'd be fun.
Also, can some mounts get scared? I liked it on medieval 2 total war where elephants could run amock, ad start flattening a load of stuff. (my favorite thing was when my brother played, an elephant actually flattened the enemy general, causing the whole army to rout.)
You can of course blind creatures; you just need to aim for the head! Particularly effective with arrows, as they do less damage to body parts, but they sure do destroy eyes well. And mounts can indeed get scared; all creatures can (well, most) and frightening war elephants should be a great idea.
Sorry. Next time I'll add a smiley.that's why I always put a :P at the end of my sarcastic comments. or my shitty jokes.
My next game is an EU Political Simulation. Fact.
Post by: agertor on April 12, 2012, 03:35:55 pm
As well you talk of enslavement and heirs, would that mean there could be half breed elf/humans eventually? I would assume not at first, but if the DNA were to be semi-compatible, it could make half-breeds.
Will other ways be available to us in terms of jobs? Perhaps as gladiators (if we ourselves are captured alive), or to do actual work to raise our strength, lumberjack, miner, etc.
Also if we are able to get married, will it depend on the type of species how it happens? (ex: Humans must ask father for daughter/son's hand, Elves must do a favor for their lover, Dwarves actually gain relationship with the other, Golbins simply take.)
Post by: varsovie on April 12, 2012, 04:12:05 pm
Also if we are able to get married, will it depend on the type of species how it happens? (ex: Humans must ask father for daughter/son's hand, Elves must do a favor for their lover, Dwarves actually gain relationship with the other, Golbins simply take.)
Anyway I will always conquer a harem. :D
I would like to see a system of alliance/wedding, like in medieval time.
Post by: Blaze on April 12, 2012, 04:31:19 pm
Hm, any chance of an Ethic system ala DF? Even if government allows/forbids/whatever some activities, religion might say otherwise.Also if we are able to get married, will it depend on the type of species how it happens? (ex: Humans must ask father for daughter/son's hand, Elves must do a favor for their lover, Dwarves actually gain relationship with the other, Golbins simply take.)Anyway I will always conquer a harem. :D
I would like to see a system of alliance/wedding, like in medieval time.
Of course, that depends on what diety you/they believe. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgc11PnghA)
Post by: Edmus on April 12, 2012, 06:50:22 pm
dammit, I want to post an idea, but I'm out of them presently...How about explosives in general?
magma bombs?
Post by: Edmus on April 12, 2012, 07:14:27 pm
True; yet we must take the good with the bad.but magma bombs result in an explosion of !!FUN!!dammit, I want to post an idea, but I'm out of them presently...How about explosives in general?
magma bombs?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2012, 04:35:47 am
While I can understand species having similar morals, what would the considered aggressive/passive ratio be, I would assume depending on resources and such humans will declare war on other humans?
As well you talk of enslavement and heirs, would that mean there could be half breed elf/humans eventually? I would assume not at first, but if the DNA were to be semi-compatible, it could make half-breeds.
Will other ways be available to us in terms of jobs? Perhaps as gladiators (if we ourselves are captured alive), or to do actual work to raise our strength, lumberjack, miner, etc.
Also if we are able to get married, will it depend on the type of species how it happens? (ex: Humans must ask father for daughter/son's hand, Elves must do a favor for their lover, Dwarves actually gain relationship with the other, Golbins simply take.)
Hm, any chance of an Ethic system ala DF? Even if government allows/forbids/whatever some activities, religion might say otherwise.Also if we are able to get married, will it depend on the type of species how it happens? (ex: Humans must ask father for daughter/son's hand, Elves must do a favor for their lover, Dwarves actually gain relationship with the other, Golbins simply take.)Anyway I will always conquer a harem. :D
I would like to see a system of alliance/wedding, like in medieval time.
Of course, that depends on what diety you/they believe. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQgc11PnghA)
To answer both - alliances in humanoid species will be generally along species lines, but I also intend to have a selection of moral/political/ethical/social choices that societies make, and sometimes they will band across species if they share common goals/outlooks/religions/societies. Obviously, the inverse of these may cause wars. I'm going to have some civilizations a little more predisposed to some traits, but I think I'll keep a fair bit of randomness there too. Especially religion, which I intend to have almost entirely random.
Not sure about cross-species marriage; I'll ponder it, and almost certainly allow it in the end. Gladiator/arena ideas were actually ones I've been throwing around myself for a bit as jobs, but I'm not sure how many there will be yet. I really like the idea for different kinds of marriage 'proposal'!
True; yet we must take the good with the bad.but magma bombs result in an explosion of !!FUN!!dammit, I want to post an idea, but I'm out of them presently...How about explosives in general?
magma bombs?
Explosives are in the brainstorming stages. I have a few ideas, but I'm both a) researching them historically, and b) considering how to implement them at the moment.
Post by: agertor on April 14, 2012, 09:56:15 am
Another thing I want to ask is, assuming towns are settled around some kind of resources and there is a lot of trading, will caravans be travelling from town to town so as we can actually attempt to intercept them for their resources OR be paid to protect them on a voyage *temporarily putting them in our character's party* As well other guards could be protecting ones we are trying to loot, depending on the value of what is inside.
Post by: NRDL on April 14, 2012, 10:08:12 am
However, that part where the caravan joins your party...do you mean you'll follow them, or will they actually, inexplicably, join you on adventurers/military campaigns you may have?
In any case, I like the idea of settlements forming near resources, that's how it happened in ancient history, after all.
Post by: agertor on April 14, 2012, 10:22:35 am
Another thing is, if we can become royalty and therefore eventually king, queen, leader, at that point what would we be able to do, change laws, I mean, I'm interested to hear an idea bout how that would work for us.
Post by: NRDL on April 14, 2012, 10:25:12 am
Post by: agertor on April 14, 2012, 10:44:12 am
Post by: agertor on April 14, 2012, 11:17:48 am
Post by: Leatra on April 14, 2012, 02:06:06 pm
Anybody played Assassin's Creed: Revelations? You can make customized bombs and it would work very well for URR.
1. Bomb case. Does it bouce, stick, explode on impact or be planted and triggered?
2. Gunpowder. Better gunpowder, wider range.
3. Bomb's effect. Fire, shrapnel, posion, smoke bomb, or a liquid.
Wil there be anything steampunky in the game? Like replacing a severed arm with a mechanical one.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 14, 2012, 02:21:55 pm
Post by: Dutchling on April 14, 2012, 02:28:14 pm
Post by: Rowanas on April 14, 2012, 03:59:48 pm
I agree with Urist. Steampunk is like Darth Vader winning Holland's Next Top Model. It would be awesome but not something I'd like in this game.
You sir, have earnt yourself a quoting.
Post by: Leatra on April 14, 2012, 04:14:27 pm
So, magical regeneration for severed limbs it is.
Post by: agertor on April 14, 2012, 04:43:13 pm
Post by: Leatra on April 14, 2012, 05:11:45 pm
Crutches it is.
My eyes are getting bloody.
Post by: Korbac on April 14, 2012, 05:17:04 pm
Okay.
Crutches it is.
My eyes are getting bloody.
Then you'll need...
An eye patch!
;)
Post by: Edmus on April 14, 2012, 06:36:14 pm
Pirates...
sea-travel?
I have a feeling this has already been brought up though.
Post by: Some1fromMKD on April 15, 2012, 04:12:24 am
About the magic in this game. How will we be able to learn it? Will we read books or raid tombs and what not? Or will we be able to make a really low-skill magician at character creation? I actually prefer learning magic in-game if it is actually possible at first.
I know that this won't be in the first alpha build, but any idea at all when will it be implemented?
Again if these questions have been asked already, I apologize.
Great game by the way. An extremely complex DF adventure mode is what I always wanted since I discovered Dwarf Fortress.
Post by: varsovie on April 15, 2012, 08:52:28 pm
Ooookay.
So, magical regeneration for severed limbs it is.
Nha, just tame and strap a Gnome to your stump. ;)
Post by: WraithLord24 on April 16, 2012, 01:56:16 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:-[ (Coughs) Question after reading whole thread
.will you be able to upgrade units with better stuff like your one elite badass Cyclopes from simple loincloth to Plate Mail and gaint maul that fits him but is very hard to get. Or will he just have to get lucky with finding stuff on the battlefield?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 16, 2012, 09:42:27 am
I'm glad you like the idea for the cultural difference marriage proposal idea. I've got plenty more. I'm actually quite excited for this game.
Another thing I want to ask is, assuming towns are settled around some kind of resources and there is a lot of trading, will caravans be travelling from town to town so as we can actually attempt to intercept them for their resources OR be paid to protect them on a voyage *temporarily putting them in our character's party* As well other guards could be protecting ones we are trying to loot, depending on the value of what is inside.
Glad to hear it :). Yes, absolutely; starving your foes of resources is going to be an important method of attack, and you'll definitely be able to assign guards to your caravans (just as the AI will depending on importance, danger, etc). When you send out a caravan or some other group, you'll be able to decide what level of protection you want to go with them (and, of course, you could go with them too, and if serving an army, you might be assigned to that).
Caravans, that sounds nice, this is shaping up to be an awesome and complicated ( aweplicated ) game.
However, that part where the caravan joins your party...do you mean you'll follow them, or will they actually, inexplicably, join you on adventurers/military campaigns you may have?
In any case, I like the idea of settlements forming near resources, that's how it happened in ancient history, after all.
Thanks! Depends, I think; if you are in charge, you should be able to create caravans, send them out, keep track of them, etc. Caravans independently may try to trade with you/other sides too, I think.
they will inexplicably join yours under the assumption you are leading them to their destination, so I would say that since you are supposed to lead the way, you could lead them into an ambush go back to the king, shrug your shoulders and say "There was nothing we could do."
Another thing is, if we can become royalty and therefore eventually king, queen, leader, at that point what would we be able to do, change laws, I mean, I'm interested to hear an idea bout how that would work for us.
Would laws be made entirely random in the first place? If civs and sentient creatures have certain leanings towards certain values and morals, changing laws that are opposite to them will anger them, right?
Laws are an interesting one. Different societies are going to have different social structures, and therefore alongside different laws, I think. Attacking the chief might be illegal among humans, say, but it might be perfectly acceptable for Orcs to decide upon a new ruler, etc.
Ooooh Revolutions/Civil Wars would be cool, be a good way for new empires to be founded if the map is taken up territorially. So there will always be opponents!
Yes! I'd like to enable both in the long run, but I think the map is so vast you're never going to run out :)
vast cave systems?
by which I mean vast, non-twisty cave systems, like in journey to the center of the earth (that place with the hugeass sea in it)
also, to get a mount, can we tame them, or will we always have to buy them? and if we tame them, will they have difficulty (trivial to impossible?(literally impossible))
There will be a subterranean world, primarily accessed via volcanoes and harboring Fiends. There will be some larger underworld areas too, and possibly even some civilizations down there.
Please no, I was under the impression that this was medieval high-fantasy. Steampunk hopefully will not make an appearance here, not that ive anything against it but I think it would somewhat ruin this game.
It's more like medieval mythological, not so much high fantasy. No real steampunk, though replacement limbs will likely exist. The next blog entry is actually going to be a lot about the "setting" of the game, so that should be clearer then.
Eye-patch...
Pirates...
sea-travel?
I have a feeling this has already been brought up though.
Hell yes.
I have a question which may have been brought up, but I can't seem to find it so here it goes.
About the magic in this game. How will we be able to learn it? Will we read books or raid tombs and what not? Or will we be able to make a really low-skill magician at character creation? I actually prefer learning magic in-game if it is actually possible at first.
I know that this won't be in the first alpha build, but any idea at all when will it be implemented?
Again if these questions have been asked already, I apologize.
Great game by the way. An extremely complex DF adventure mode is what I always wanted since I discovered Dwarf Fortress.
Mostly books, or dealing with gods, though you will be able to create the basics at character creation. I'm still not certain how big a role magic will have, and how important gods will be, so this is all largely in the air. No problem :). And thanks!
Wow :o you never know what you'll find when looking through forums like ...Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:-[ (Coughs) Question after reading whole thread
.will you be able to upgrade units with better stuff like your one elite badass Cyclopes from simple loincloth to Plate Mail and gaint maul that fits him but is very hard to get. Or will he just have to get lucky with finding stuff on the battlefield?
Haha, thanks a lot! I'm glad to hear it looks so exciting! Yes, definitely. You'll be able to manage your forces as intricately or not as you want, but creatures will automatically deal with armor. If they feel they don't have adequate armor and your army is stopping off in a town, for instance, I think it would be neat if they spent some of their own money on improved armor. In general, larger creatures don't wear armor, but Titans and Cyclopes and things do, and so you'll have to find, made or buy appropriately large armor.
Lastly, new blog entry on the breaking of roguelike convention, and a mini-screenshot. Enjoy! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/04/16/size-and-roguelikes/
Post by: agertor on April 16, 2012, 09:59:43 am
Post by: WraithLord24 on April 16, 2012, 01:16:15 pm
In general, larger creatures don't wear armor, but Titans and Cyclopes and things do, and so you'll have to find, made or buy appropriately large armor.Sweeeett! Right now my mind is racing with images of a squad of Cyclopes and Giants in full plate mail wielding massive axes/mauls crashing into squads of terified milita. :D
Another question: in the first post you meantion Liches and Zombies but what about other undead like Wrights, Vampires, Wraiths and the others? I have to ask because as my name says I am a Lord of the Undead (well the incorporeal ones at least) ;D
Post by: Rowanas on April 16, 2012, 02:08:33 pm
In general, larger creatures don't wear armor, but Titans and Cyclopes and things do, and so you'll have to find, made or buy appropriately large armor.
...and if I want to outfit even my most gigantic of creatures with armour? If my dragons are ill-protected against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and I feel like pimping those scaly bastards? If I have a lonely titan, and his shins and feet are in constant agony? If I have money to burn and feel like fielding the world's first ever roc cataphracts?
What will I tell my wide-eyed children when they point to the screen and say "Why did the big-thingy have to go away, daddy?" WHAT WILL I TELL THEM?
(I don't have children. But I am a manchild. Does that count?)
Post by: varsovie on April 16, 2012, 04:15:53 pm
Quote
This class is for enemies that are larger than just a single square.
Please, make a kraken like in dungeon crawl!
Do you plan to make some creatures that are smaller than a square? (and that can be stacked)
Hail the Leprechaun Warlock!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 17, 2012, 04:18:17 am
Pretty exciting stuff, So population count, I'm assuming you can kill everyone in a village, town, city, etc. I tend to not want goblins to live.
Definitely; lower population means lower upkeep on a town, and 0 population means the town quickly becomes a ghost-town, and then a ruin.
In general, larger creatures don't wear armor, but Titans and Cyclopes and things do, and so you'll have to find, made or buy appropriately large armor.Sweeeett! Right now my mind is racing with images of a squad of Cyclopes and Giants in full plate mail wielding massive axes/mauls crashing into squads of terified milita. :D
Another question: in the first post you meantion Liches and Zombies but what about other undead like Wrights, Vampires, Wraiths and the others? I have to ask because as my name says I am a Lord of the Undead (well the incorporeal ones at least) ;D
There's a wide selection of undead intended, ranging in size, corporeality, deadliness and general makeup, and that does include Wraiths, and maybe Vampires too! There's also one or two undead of my own creation which I think are rather snazzy. The undead are going to be a big focus for one of the earlier releases, but probably not #1.
...and if I want to outfit even my most gigantic of creatures with armour? If my dragons are ill-protected against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and I feel like pimping those scaly bastards? If I have a lonely titan, and his shins and feet are in constant agony? If I have money to burn and feel like fielding the world's first ever roc cataphracts?
What will I tell my wide-eyed children when they point to the screen and say "Why did the big-thingy have to go away, daddy?" WHAT WILL I TELL THEM?
(I don't have children. But I am a manchild. Does that count?)
Hahaha - all good questions. I may put in the option to create/place an order for armor of particularly obscure sizes/designs for creatures that don't normally wear armor. Thinking about it, people have always put armor on war animals or other creatures, so I guess I could/should make it possible...
QuoteThis class is for enemies that are larger than just a single square.
Please, make a kraken like in dungeon crawl!
Do you plan to make some creatures that are smaller than a square? (and that can be stacked)
Hail the Leprechaun Warlock!
No creatures below a square, I'm afraid (dwarves/small quadrupeds like wolves etc being the smallest); who told you about the Kraken?...
Post by: agertor on April 17, 2012, 10:05:23 am
Post by: varsovie on April 17, 2012, 03:46:59 pm
who told you about the Kraken?...
8)
Post by: Rowanas on April 17, 2012, 07:26:36 pm
Will armour/weapons be thicker/larger for bigger creatures? If a titan had a shield that was the same relative size, it would end up being several feet thick and utterly impenetrable to anything significantly smaller. Will this be the state of things, or will all shields be 3/8ths of an inch thick, for example? If size doesnt scale, I assume that large creatures would batter through gigantic armour like tin foil, because relative to them, that's exactly what it is.
Post by: Leatra on April 18, 2012, 01:21:01 pm
Will ruins eventually return to life?Or, will outlaws use ruins as HQs?
Post by: agertor on April 18, 2012, 08:10:03 pm
Post by: Some1fromMKD on April 20, 2012, 05:42:10 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 21, 2012, 08:37:29 am
Will ruins eventually return to wildlife? I would like to think so, assuming we play 100 years in. Also, a function that I would personally like to ask between making characters is to wait some time. Perhaps years, most likely our characters take on a peasant job or such during this time. I would hate having to wait day after day ingame for my population to rise just so I could recruit soldiers.
Yes; shrines and ruins and things currently look a bit overgrown. I'll probably make it more specific according to how old they are, which shouldn't actually take too long. That's an interesting suggestion; I'll have to think about how that would work, if needed.
Woo!
Will armour/weapons be thicker/larger for bigger creatures? If a titan had a shield that was the same relative size, it would end up being several feet thick and utterly impenetrable to anything significantly smaller. Will this be the state of things, or will all shields be 3/8ths of an inch thick, for example? If size doesnt scale, I assume that large creatures would batter through gigantic armour like tin foil, because relative to them, that's exactly what it is.
Oh, yes - you can only hold/wield things made for your size. And larger shields and armor are indeed thicker and much tougher, while large creatures will find it much easier to break through lesser armors :).
Or, will outlaws use ruins as HQs?
Potentially - they may also make their own camps, the latter being the one I'm working on more atm, but I definitely want to allow ruins to be taken over.
That'd be cool too, but if not they should use tents or something burnable... yes burnable.... I like to burn said things. Burn anything wooden, please let me burn everything?
There is fire, but I'm not sure how much is going to be flammable yet, or how it spreads, or things like that...
Well now I know that you can serve in an army. But how will it work? Will we have to follow the leader around wherever he goes? Will it be automatic(the game moves your character wherever the leader goes)? Will we be given orders (for example: Regroup near city X, raid village Y)? I assume it will get very boring having nothing to do while following your commander or if it's automatic waiting and doing nothing while the game moves your character (or squad if you're in charge of one). For example if I'm the lowest rank in an army without anyone under my command will I just have to mindlessly follow my squad leader, or will I get orders from my leader to go to city X or help raid village Y?
Well, if you join a 'campaign' (as in, a military campaign, not campaign in the singleplayer-RTS sense) you will be serving in the army. You will have specific orders, but that's not exactly much different to objectives in any other game. Your troop will move around the map according to the commander's decisions, and you'll fight in appropriate battles. However, you will always have a choice about how to fight, whether to disband, to loot, sign up for optional missions the commander may want, volunteer, desert, turn on your allies, etc. Also, even at the lowest level, I think you'll be making collegiate decisions within your squad, and making those decisions well will have you quickly rise up to have command of a small squad of your own. However, all of this is in its earliest stages, but I hope to avoid making it 'mindless' :). But then, is following an objective in Skyrim any less mindless? You should have just as much choice about how to do the objective and whether to do it at all, and you should quickly be able to give your own objectives, too. When serving in an army your meta-objective, as it were, is to rise through the ranks, impress your superiors, etc. Additionally, there will be other options as well as the conventional military, like special units and similar. Stay tuned on that one.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on April 21, 2012, 09:16:41 am
Oh, yes - you can only hold/wield things made for your size. And larger shields and armor are indeed thicker and much tougher, while large creatures will find it much easier to break through lesser armors :).
Work-In-Progress and all that, but this makes me question one thing. How will things balance out? That makes it sound like a single giant (or similar creature), kitted out in decent gear, would be able to beat several human sized units in an even fight.
While you talk of fully kitted titans as a possibility, will they be absent most of the time due to lack of resources (small ratio of giants to smaller humanoids, metal working is expensive). That actually leads to my second question. Will majority of the armies be equipped semi-historically or hollywood style? That is, are majority of the units peasant levy types or knights in full gear?
Post by: BishopX on April 21, 2012, 09:22:22 am
There has been some discussion of being able to play a successor once you die, which implies that there are some options at game start. One of those options could be buying your own squad of soldiers so you start off semi-independent versus playing a successor from an old game or starting off as a new recruit.
Post by: NRDL on April 21, 2012, 09:35:34 am
I actually think that starting a common foot soldier would make an excellent setting a tutorial.
That....is an exceedingly good idea. Getting acquainted with the basics of combat, warfare, etc. Real nice.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on April 21, 2012, 09:36:26 am
There has been some discussion of being able to play a successor once you die, which implies that there are some options at game start. One of those options could be buying your own squad of soldiers so you start off semi-independent versus playing a successor from an old game or starting off as a new recruit.
Seeing how this will be a medieval/fantasy setting, I'm fully expecting the ability to play as the head or subordinate of your own mercenary company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_companies) at some point down the road. Who says you have to suck up to the sovereigns?
Post by: Leatra on April 21, 2012, 11:34:51 am
Post by: BishopX on April 21, 2012, 05:26:57 pm
I'd love to play as a free mercenary company leader who cares nothing about wars and loyalty.
Seconded. I want to play a namby-pamby drunkard who's exceedingly good at switching sides when the situation looks grim.
Post by: Rowanas on April 23, 2012, 04:45:18 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 24, 2012, 04:32:16 am
Oh, yes - you can only hold/wield things made for your size. And larger shields and armor are indeed thicker and much tougher, while large creatures will find it much easier to break through lesser armors :).
Work-In-Progress and all that, but this makes me question one thing. How will things balance out? That makes it sound like a single giant (or similar creature), kitted out in decent gear, would be able to beat several human sized units in an even fight.
While you talk of fully kitted titans as a possibility, will they be absent most of the time due to lack of resources (small ratio of giants to smaller humanoids, metal working is expensive). That actually leads to my second question. Will majority of the armies be equipped semi-historically or hollywood style? That is, are majority of the units peasant levy types or knights in full gear?
Yes, that is certainly true; large creatures have a significant advantage, both in terms of practical combat and in terms of the fear they instill in their foes. That's why they'll be suitably rare, and at the moment anyway, giants and colossi are not recruitable. As for question #2, the larger an army gets, the poorer equipped most of its forces are likely to be; I hope to get peasant militias as well as those that are actually kitted out, and most often a combination of the two. And yeah, fully-kitted titans will be supremely rare :).
I actually think that starting a common foot soldier would make an excellent setting a tutorial.
There has been some discussion of being able to play a successor once you die, which implies that there are some options at game start. One of those options could be buying your own squad of soldiers so you start off semi-independent versus playing a successor from an old game or starting off as a new recruit.
I agree - that's a great idea. I don't want to make it an explicit 'Tutorial', but I will certainly make it very easy to sign up in the army regardless of what civ you start off in, and make a clear suggestion to the player they do. Good thinking! As for starting conditions, I don't intend to let you start off with a squad of soldiers; either a continuation, or a new player. However, you choose your stats, your skills, and also have a significant level of choice over your starting items, too. I'm also debating allowing you to choose what kind of biome/climate zone you start in, depending on the kind of civilization you select (e.g. 'Nomadic' might give you desert, etc).
Seeing how this will be a medieval/fantasy setting, I'm fully expecting the ability to play as the head or subordinate of your own mercenary company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_companies) at some point down the road. Who says you have to suck up to the sovereigns?
Yep, I'd definitely like that possible (and will probably exist before armies!)
Just a little hint of the history of the title of this game: It is latin for "The final argument of kings." It was inscribed on French cannons by the order of Louis XIV.
Yup - military force being the 'final argument'. On the topic of history/setting/etc (given that quite a few people have mentioned it lately), here's a blog entry about the thematic setting of URR. Enjoy! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/04/24/opj/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 25, 2012, 04:52:29 pm
Post by: varsovie on April 25, 2012, 08:10:43 pm
I agree - that's a great idea. I don't want to make it an explicit 'Tutorial', but I will certainly make it very easy to sign up in the army regardless of what civ you start off in, and make a clear suggestion to the player they do. Good thinking! As for starting conditions, I don't intend to let you start off with a squad of soldiers; either a continuation, or a new player. However, you choose your stats, your skills, and also have a significant level of choice over your starting items, too. I'm also debating allowing you to choose what kind of biome/climate zone you start in, depending on the kind of civilization you select (e.g. 'Nomadic' might give you desert, etc).
If you randomize the starting biomes/conditions, then people will just restart the game until they get what they want.
e.g. For the game rogue, where starting stats are randomized, someone made a tool that restart the game until they are maxed out (or near). Ok, it takes a lot of time, but you could start the software the morning and then play your maxed-out guy back from work.
Post by: agertor on April 26, 2012, 12:18:06 am
Quote from: Delta Foxtrot
Seeing how this will be a medieval/fantasy setting, I'm fully expecting the ability to play as the head or subordinate of your own mercenary company at some point down the road. Who says you have to suck up to the sovereigns?
Quote from: Ultima Ratio Regum
Yep, I'd definitely like that possible (and will probably exist before armies!)
Indeed, I believe being a mercenary would be a bit more profitable as you can change sides and go to different wars, while being loyal to a kingdom could get you ranked up higher in said environment, you may run out of things to do, due to peace or otherwise. You could always hunt during this time, but what fun? Although I will still try to become king.
So in essence, I think being a mercenary if somehow implemented comes in. I think they should hire you for battles. Such as *We are planning the Battle of the Hill of Horror* And they would offer you, for this example, 1000 moneys. While the other guys you talked to before offered you 1200 moneys, you could go back and choose to work for the enemy in this case. Or will mercenaries become a semi-permanent job to the kingdom? Which would not be very fun in the merc's shoes. At least to me.
Another thing is, when peasants come to revolt, they won't have a lot of money to give in such cases, but in the kindness of my heart, I will accept their horrible sum of 5 moneys to liberate this village! Then with the good relations I have just gained, take a woman from their village, marry her, and become the King of the Village! Yes! Yes! I will die horribly trying to defend this village with little supplies! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 26, 2012, 05:48:43 am
I agree - that's a great idea. I don't want to make it an explicit 'Tutorial', but I will certainly make it very easy to sign up in the army regardless of what civ you start off in, and make a clear suggestion to the player they do. Good thinking! As for starting conditions, I don't intend to let you start off with a squad of soldiers; either a continuation, or a new player. However, you choose your stats, your skills, and also have a significant level of choice over your starting items, too. I'm also debating allowing you to choose what kind of biome/climate zone you start in, depending on the kind of civilization you select (e.g. 'Nomadic' might give you desert, etc).
If you randomize the starting biomes/conditions, then people will just restart the game until they get what they want.
e.g. For the game rogue, where starting stats are randomized, someone made a tool that restart the game until they are maxed out (or near). Ok, it takes a lot of time, but you could start the software the morning and then play your maxed-out guy back from work.
Ah, sorry if I wasn't clear - I mean you get to choose which biome you start in, if I allow that. And there is 0 otherwise randomization in character creation apart from what empire/civ you start in, and you won't know much about the world situation until you start playing it. If I allow you to choose a civ type, it'll start you in that kind of civ; if not, then it will start you in a random location, but I'll make sure all are reasonably well-balanced (taking into account, as I say, that you can only know so much about an empire before you actually start the game).
Indeed, I believe being a mercenary would be a bit more profitable as you can change sides and go to different wars, while being loyal to a kingdom could get you ranked up higher in said environment, you may run out of things to do, due to peace or otherwise. You could always hunt during this time, but what fun? Although I will still try to become king.
So in essence, I think being a mercenary if somehow implemented comes in. I think they should hire you for battles. Such as *We are planning the Battle of the Hill of Horror* And they would offer you, for this example, 1000 moneys. While the other guys you talked to before offered you 1200 moneys, you could go back and choose to work for the enemy in this case. Or will mercenaries become a semi-permanent job to the kingdom? Which would not be very fun in the merc's shoes. At least to me.
Another thing is, when peasants come to revolt, they won't have a lot of money to give in such cases, but in the kindness of my heart, I will accept their horrible sum of 5 moneys to liberate this village! Then with the good relations I have just gained, take a woman from their village, marry her, and become the King of the Village! Yes! Yes! I will die horribly trying to defend this village with little supplies! :)
I intend to make sure that 'peace' is a brief, fleeting concept at best! I think a mercenary system would work very nicely, actually, as a separate system from banditry etc; I'd also want some civilizations to be specifically against mercenaries, and specifically hunt them down, while some try to use only mercenaries, and various options in the middle. I think it would be good if villages that either a) weren't part of empires or b) are far from empire protection could put out offers for protection to mercenaries in the same way that states/armies would in the way you mentioned!
Post by: NRDL on April 26, 2012, 07:00:02 am
Post by: Urist McDonalds on April 26, 2012, 08:19:37 am
Post by: Leatra on April 26, 2012, 08:27:07 am
A good mercenary system is important since most players may try being a mercenary to build some capital for leading their own army.
Oh, and you should make earning money not so easy like most other roguelikes. Resources are the power in strategy games after all. Maybe make the player pay tax if he is a citizen or add buyable/rentable buildings.
Post by: Techhead on April 26, 2012, 01:18:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 26, 2012, 01:26:43 pm
So...the world is in a state of almost total, unceasing war? Is there any way to stop the wars? It may sound boring, but it would be interesting to play as a diplomat, if only to protect a kingdom, city or village that you control.
Oh, no; I fully intend to allow diplomacy and for potential 'Cold War' variations too. I just mean I want to ensure there will always be something to do; larger and more successful empires may be more likely to produce civil wars, say, or for a portion to attempt to secede, etc. Additionally, if there is no war, there may be internal issues, or bandits attacking here, or creatures attacking there, or...
When is an alpha going to be released?
This summer, at some point.
As a mercenary, you also should be able to hunt bandits for bounties if you aren't strong and/or don't have a big company. Also, if you abandon the army in the middle of the battle, you should expect a severe relationship penalty with the said army (and nation). Army commanders tend to get a little aggresive against deserters after all.
A good mercenary system is important since most players may try being a mercenary to build some capital for leading their own army.
Oh, and you should make earning money not so easy like most other roguelikes. Resources are the power in strategy games after all. Maybe make the player pay tax if he is a citizen or add buyable/rentable buildings.
Agreed, I like both those ideas. Similarly, if you're in a selection of bandits, you should have to avoid mercenary groups as well as traditional armies. I definitely intend to make earning money harder; you won't just find it on fallen foes, lying around dungeons, etc etc, as that's not in the slightest in keeping with the strategy-game feel to it.
This is pretty cool. I'm posting to keep an eye on this thread.
Well, thank you! I normally stick on blog updates, and replies to questions/comments.
Post by: Some1fromMKD on April 26, 2012, 03:56:10 pm
-Having different kinds of raising dead. For example: a)Raising a mindless zombie with no abilities other than walk, hit and eat brain. b)Reanimating a corpse able to understand what you are saying and able to obey your commands. c)Making a zombie able to speak, not being oblivious of the world around it and able to inform you of what is happening on a distant part of a battle (other than sending a runner who can get himself killed, send a zombie). and d)Reanimating a dead person who still retains his memories and can continue on with his life or serve you in gratitude of you giving him life again.
-Like I mentioned before but the more advanced corpse raising methods can be used only by better necromancers and those who have practiced their methods for years. Say I'm a novice necromancer with not much knowledge of the act of raising the dead. I can only make a mindless zombie with no abilities. But a more advanced necromancer can reanimate a corpse with no effort and the zombie being unrecognizable from all the normal "living" people.
It would be great sending a zombie who can take an arrow or a sword in the head without feeling any pain to inform me or bring new orders to squad leaders to and from the far reaches of a battle instead of sending a runner who might get killed by a stray arrow or a dragon swooping by and breathing fire on the poor guy.
And about the alpha. Since you moved back the release date from before the end of 2011 to summer 2012, can we expect some features that wouldn't have been included in the first release date, or will we still have an alpha heavily based on combat with no NPCs?
Post by: agertor on April 26, 2012, 06:49:21 pm
Post by: Leatra on April 26, 2012, 07:16:07 pm
Wait... then everyone is broke?... But.... I wanted to kill the king and take his moneys on him... Sad...Well, most people try to become the king after they kill the king :D
Post by: Blaze on April 26, 2012, 07:45:45 pm
Post by: agertor on April 26, 2012, 11:10:05 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Blaze on April 26, 2012, 11:36:21 pm
But Power... I require...Then go raid one of those disturbingly common groups that are entrusted with some super-powered MacGuffin but are too cowardly use it and too incompetent to protect it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: agertor on April 27, 2012, 01:04:06 am
I don't wanna... The only weapon I need are my trusty fists.But Power... I require...Then go raid one of those disturbingly common groups that are entrusted with some super-powered MacGuffin but are too cowardly use it and too incompetent to protect it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: varsovie on April 27, 2012, 01:18:17 am
Wait... then everyone is broke?... But.... I wanted to kill the king and take his moneys on him... Sad...Well, most people try to become the king after they kill the king :D
Some become the new Queen instead. ;)
Post by: Alhash on April 28, 2012, 09:13:04 pm
Post by: Rowanas on April 29, 2012, 04:44:30 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on April 29, 2012, 06:34:39 pm
They are Combat and Physics. THOSE are the two things I really hope can be perfected.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 30, 2012, 05:47:05 am
I have a few suggestions about necromancy based on some other thoughts if you still haven't finished the magic\necromancy system.
-Having different kinds of raising dead. For example: a)Raising a mindless zombie with no abilities other than walk, hit and eat brain. b)Reanimating a corpse able to understand what you are saying and able to obey your commands. c)Making a zombie able to speak, not being oblivious of the world around it and able to inform you of what is happening on a distant part of a battle (other than sending a runner who can get himself killed, send a zombie). and d)Reanimating a dead person who still retains his memories and can continue on with his life or serve you in gratitude of you giving him life again.
-Like I mentioned before but the more advanced corpse raising methods can be used only by better necromancers and those who have practiced their methods for years. Say I'm a novice necromancer with not much knowledge of the act of raising the dead. I can only make a mindless zombie with no abilities. But a more advanced necromancer can reanimate a corpse with no effort and the zombie being unrecognizable from all the normal "living" people.
It would be great sending a zombie who can take an arrow or a sword in the head without feeling any pain to inform me or bring new orders to squad leaders to and from the far reaches of a battle instead of sending a runner who might get killed by a stray arrow or a dragon swooping by and breathing fire on the poor guy.
And about the alpha. Since you moved back the release date from before the end of 2011 to summer 2012, can we expect some features that wouldn't have been included in the first release date, or will we still have an alpha heavily based on combat with no NPCs?
Thanks for the thoughts! I fully intend to have degrees of zombification, as it were. That will also be reflected in the kinds of undead armies fielded, but that's still being worked on at the moment. And as you say, the more skilled you are, both a) the wider the choices for necromancy you will have, and b) the more effective you will be at putting those choices into action. I do really like your idea about the specific uses of zombies; that's an interesting suggestion, and fits nicely into my intentions to have different species/creature types competent or not at different parts of battle. You can expect the latter; the initial alpha will contain world generation, some creatures, and combat. Those are the big 3. And hopefully nice UI, too.
Wait... then everyone is broke?... But.... I wanted to kill the king and take his moneys on him... Sad...Well, most people try to become the king after they kill the king :D
Exactly! Or kill him/have him killed for other political reasons, etc...
But Power... I require...Then go raid one of those disturbingly common groups that are entrusted with some super-powered MacGuffin but are too cowardly use it and too incompetent to protect it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Let me assure you there will be no such groups! If a group has a special weapon, that weapon will have a history (though you might not yourself know what it is) and it'll be there for a reason. And someone in the group will, of course, be using it.
I'm not sure if you've already answered this, but do you think if it would possible to implement a Multiplayer supported version, whether directly through the game or through an application like Hamachi?
If you can't, or choose not to dedicate any time to it until every possible other thing has been completed, tweaked and balanced, I won't shed a single tear.
Right now, the two things I care most about are not Multiplayer or in-game Politics.
They are Combat and Physics. THOSE are the two things I really hope can be perfected.
I have no idea if it would be, and I have absolutely no intentions of doing it. That's both far beyond my skill, and far outside what I want for the game, I'm afraid. Combat and physics are pretty much (along with world generation) the focus of the first alpha; you should be able to wield weapons, don armor, find creatures, fight them, use bows, throw things, fall off cliffs, knock them back, sever their limbs, get thrown around the map, eat, drink, be blinded, swim... I think that's the full combat-related alpha 0.1 list.
Post by: Edmus on April 30, 2012, 07:02:40 am
The focus of the first alpha; you should be able to wield weapons, don armor, find creatures, fight them, use bows, throw things, fall off cliffs, knock them back, sever their limbs, get thrown around the map, eat, drink, be blinded, swim... I think that's the full combat-related alpha 0.1 list.Don't forget find lots of pesky bugs and oversights.
;D
Looking forward to this alpha and care very little about the absence of multiplayer.
Edit: that was worded poorly, fixed.
Post by: NRDL on April 30, 2012, 09:10:25 am
Post by: Felius on April 30, 2012, 10:12:56 pm
Post by: Rowanas on May 02, 2012, 09:30:25 am
Hmm... Will falling be instantaneous? I would weep tears of pure, liquid joy if it were possible to participate in a mid-air falling duel. Obviously the winner is fairly unimportant, you're both paste.
How would falling onto large creatures work? If a dragon or roc or some other large, flying animal passed beneath you as you fell, could you (in theory, at least), fall onto it's back and fly away? Same for horses passing on the horizontal. Grabbing a (not-too-fast) moving steed and swinging up would be waaaaay cool.
Post by: Urist McDonalds on May 02, 2012, 10:06:28 am
Ah, of course, my first run will include finding out how falling works. I will kick one of every species I encounter off of a ledge. Then I will throw myself off of a ledge to experience the mechanics of falling.
Hmm... Will falling be instantaneous? I would weep tears of pure, liquid joy if it were possible to participate in a mid-air falling duel. Obviously the winner is fairly unimportant, you're both paste.
How would falling onto large creatures work? If a dragon or roc or some other large, flying animal passed beneath you as you fell, could you (in theory, at least), fall onto it's back and fly away? Same for horses passing on the horizontal. Grabbing a (not-too-fast) moving steed and swinging up would be waaaaay cool.
The first thing I would probably do in this game is ride a rhino, if possible.
And then direct it to a hill and jump off the rhino and skydive.
EDIT: Rowanas, I'm pretty sure falling to the ground will be instant, and you will not be given much time to ride on a horse, etc.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 04, 2012, 05:17:02 am
Don't forget find lots of pesky bugs and oversights.
;D
Looking forward to this alpha and care very little about the absence of multiplayer.
Edit: that was worded poorly, fixed.
Oh, yeah; I fully expect there to be many of them :). At the moment there are 3 I'm conscious of and fiddling with, of which two I think I can easily fix, but the other one has me temporarily stumped. It's only a small one though.
How will stuff like NPC relations and loyalty work? Like in Crusader Kings 2, where every character has an opinion of another character?
Every character will have an opinion of other factions, and opinions of some specific characters. If they have an opinion of a character, they use that (e.g. someone they like in an empire they hate), otherwise they just default to the view of the faction. Most times it'll be a factional view, most likely.
Looking forward to playing the game. Posting to keep tracks of the thread.
Thanks!
Ah, of course, my first run will include finding out how falling works. I will kick one of every species I encounter off of a ledge. Then I will throw myself off of a ledge to experience the mechanics of falling.
Hmm... Will falling be instantaneous? I would weep tears of pure, liquid joy if it were possible to participate in a mid-air falling duel. Obviously the winner is fairly unimportant, you're both paste.
How would falling onto large creatures work? If a dragon or roc or some other large, flying animal passed beneath you as you fell, could you (in theory, at least), fall onto it's back and fly away? Same for horses passing on the horizontal. Grabbing a (not-too-fast) moving steed and swinging up would be waaaaay cool.
I think that's a hilarious/great idea! I currently intend to have falling fast, but not instant; I think you (and creatures) will fall maybe six or so z-levels or so per turn, to give time to try and cling onto a cliff, for instance. I may still make it instant, though, but I haven't decided yet. I suppose you would be able to hit something that was at the same level as you... maybe. You could indeed fall onto its back, I hope, and obviously it would then try to swing you off. For that matter I intend to allow you/smaller creatures to climb up larger creatures in combat anyway to attack higher parts, and again, they'd then be trying to bat you off them.
The first thing I would probably do in this game is ride a rhino, if possible.
And then direct it to a hill and jump off the rhino and skydive.
That is beautiful. Sadly, there are no rhinos, but there probably will be elephants in the first alpha, but riding isn't going to be implemented for the very first release in a few months, I'm afraid.
would it be possible for me to basically become a mass-murderer, ninja assasin?
I'd love that.
If not, I'm doing something wrong.
Post by: Rowanas on May 04, 2012, 01:05:04 pm
Post by: Ahra on May 04, 2012, 01:12:15 pm
wait, can we use earth mages to create an pit under that unbreakable phalanx or shear of the top of something?
Post by: Leatra on May 04, 2012, 04:54:29 pm
Will there be something like DF's Arena to test the combat system and have fun?
Post by: agertor on May 04, 2012, 06:52:44 pm
Post by: Chronomancer on May 05, 2012, 11:52:17 pm
Post by: agertor on May 06, 2012, 12:38:23 am
Post by: Some1fromMKD on May 06, 2012, 05:26:49 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 07, 2012, 05:42:24 am
great, im gonna find the biggest mountain, jump down it with an enemy, kill him midair and pretending im riding his corpse down the mountain...
wait, can we use earth mages to create an pit under that unbreakable phalanx or shear of the top of something?
Excellent! Potentially, but magic (in whatever form it takes, if any!) is still a long way off. That's the kind of thing I'd like magic to be able to do, though.
Kinda surprising how many players want to jump off a cliff and land on a creature or something. Then again, maybe not. This is Bay12 after all!
Will there be something like DF's Arena to test the combat system and have fun?
Haha; I'm not sure about an arena system, actually. It's not a priority, but I might add one in a later release. I don't want everything to become too transparent, but at the same time I recognize the use something like that would have. Additionally, since a lot of the game is exploring and discovering creatures - and since a lot of creatures stats will be randomized for each game - I'm reluctant to let you instantly spawn a Cyclops and have at it. On the other hand, the first alpha is going to have locating creatures vastly easier than in later, more advanced versions, so... maybe!
Bringing up the subject of the community, how easy would it be to mod this game? Somewhere around DF level?
And PLEASE make the game at least a bit moddable. I(and many others I presume) would want the game to get a bit more variety after playing for 16 hours a day. Not trying to offend or anything, but I don't think you can make every request of every player.
I'm afraid I have absolutely no plans to introduce modding. I'm very keen to take suggestions from players (hence this thread, and many have already been incorporated/been added to the long-term plan) but I don't plan to let people change things. No offense taken whatsoever, and I know you're right, and I can't possibly put in everything people want; at the same time, I know precisely the kind of theme/direction I want the game to take. Anything I feel 'should' be in the game I intend to put in (though it will take a while). Additionally, I don't want to make the game mechanics transparent in the way that modding would do, since a major theme is the unknown of the generated world. I also realize this will disappoint some people, and you have my apologies, but making it moddable would require a ton of effort on my part, and isn't something I'm keen on irrespective of the effort required.
also, I'm happy you'll be able to be some kind of stealthy dude. I'd like to manipulate a government, rather than just invade it. slowly force it into being what I want it to be, without force.
It'd make for an interesting game.
Yes, definitely. I have some fairly thought-out ideas for diplomacy, politics and similar and how those are going to work, and I very much want to let the player play a big role in that.
Looks great. Can't wait to play it.
Thanks! Just a couple of months left :).
Post by: NRDL on May 07, 2012, 07:54:41 am
Post by: Urist McDonalds on May 07, 2012, 10:43:43 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 07, 2012, 06:09:43 pm
you'd better include those Greek fire type units!
because medieval flamethrowers are fun!
also, sorry if it's been asked, and assuming you can make armour out of animal hides, if you made armour out of, say, a dragon's hide, would it be much tougher than that of a wolf or something? possibly being fireproof, too? (not necesarrily YOU being fireproof, just the armour)
Planning to! Yes, you'll be able to make some things from hides, and things like dragon scales will be much stronger than wolf hides. To be honest, 99% of hides will be far worse than even basic metal armor; it'll only be things like dragon scales which are really worth considering (unless you simply have *no* other way of getting any armor). Something like that may very well end-up fireproof; I'm working on the fire mechanics at the moment, though I suspect they are going to have to wait for alpha 0.0.2 or beyond, not 0.0.1...
What will be the Cassus Bellis available to civs to formally declare full scale war? Will crusades be possible, against a hated civ or species?
There is a complex answer to that question I don't want to give away fully, but here's a bit on it :). I have planned out a fairly complex system of justifications/descriptions for war and a variety of ways in which wars will come across. Crusades, civil wars, wars for territory, resources, revenge, and anything else; I have a system of 'properties', effectively, lined up that wars can have, and different combinations will produce different kinds of war, different public perceptions of wars, etc. The greater the justifications as perceived by those being recruited, the greater their default morale will be. You (and CPUs declaring war) will have to effectively 'put together' a a convincing package/reason for a campaign; obviously if your empire is being attacked itself, no reason is really needed, but if you are the attacker, one will be; of course, that's not to say that money/fear can't do some of the talking. If you persuade your people a war is just, they'll be more likely to go along with it than a king who declares war simply because, say, he once lost his crown in enemy territory and really wants to get it back...
Will elephants be used as war elephants?IIRC, yus.
and, IIRC, they will be able to run amok at some point, should they get frightened.
Yes, and indeed, they will be very powerful units to mount soldiers on, but risky if they get panicked.
And, finally, a blog entry after the two week hiatus, including a gif animation of world generation, something I've wanted to put in for some time. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/05/07/map-generation-redux/
Post by: varsovie on May 07, 2012, 06:24:18 pm
you'd better include those Greek fire type units!
because medieval flamethrowers are fun!
also, sorry if it's been asked, and assuming you can make armour out of animal hides, if you made armour out of, say, a dragon's hide, would it be much tougher than that of a wolf or something? possibly being fireproof, too? (not necesarrily YOU being fireproof, just the armour)
Planning to! Yes, you'll be able to make some things from hides, and things like dragon scales will be much stronger than wolf hides. To be honest, 99% of hides will be far worse than even basic metal armor; it'll only be things like dragon scales which are really worth considering (unless you simply have *no* other way of getting any armor). Something like that may very well end-up fireproof; I'm working on the fire mechanics at the moment, though I suspect they are going to have to wait for alpha 0.0.2 or beyond, not 0.0.1...
What about archer/peltast/assassin (light units)? Will they still benefit more from Steel than hide/leather? Don't you have a weight/encumbrance system?
Post by: NRDL on May 08, 2012, 02:26:05 am
Post by: agertor on May 08, 2012, 11:47:58 am
As well second question, assuming you cut off resources, could we starve/dehydrate out our enemies through sieges? I would like to think so if we ourselves are susceptible to it, that everyone else would be as well, it will also add to their routine of the day to go get food and water.
edit: Also temperature, I'd like to assume deserts make you thirsty quicker and polar caps pretty much freeze you til you are dead. Anything about how temperature will affect the adventurer?
Post by: Some1fromMKD on May 08, 2012, 01:36:16 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 11, 2012, 05:30:56 am
What about archer/peltast/assassin (light units)? Will they still benefit more from Steel than hide/leather? Don't you have a weight/encumbrance system?
Yes, there is a (basic, for now) weight system, and the more you have, the slightly slower you are. I intend to put in some bonuses for certain types of armor, though, to make assassins etc more viable!
How will strategic information work? Will spies be available?
It will be dependent on your knowledge of other empires; both facts and rumours (which, of course, might be facts themselves) will be at your disposal, along with the ability to send scouts, etc. I think spying and espionage would be a wonderful facet to implement, and I really want to - again, of course, a potential direction for the player, too.
That's too bad about the modding thing. However if I may ask since I've been following this along for a bit now. Why do you not have your own forums? Just wondering.
As well second question, assuming you cut off resources, could we starve/dehydrate out our enemies through sieges? I would like to think so if we ourselves are susceptible to it, that everyone else would be as well, it will also add to their routine of the day to go get food and water.
edit: Also temperature, I'd like to assume deserts make you thirsty quicker and polar caps pretty much freeze you til you are dead. Anything about how temperature will affect the adventurer?
I haven't put up my own forums since it isn't out yet! Once I put out the first alpha in two months or whatever, I might put up my own forum then, though I suspect it will initially be mostly a location for bug reporting :). Yes, I definitely want you to be able to do that to enemies, and they'll be attempting the same. Different biomes do indeed have different ambient temperatures which will affect you and all creatures. It will be particularly pronounced for ones that exist in certain biomes - Cyclopes from the desert will really struggle in polar regions far more than you, while the inverse will also be true...
The mountains in the world generation seem too much as straight lines leading north-south or east-west. Can you fix that? And also how big is the world in square kilometers?
I do see what you mean; I'll try and add in a little more variation. Re: size, that's a tough question to answer. In terms of grid squares the player walks around on (i.e. not the world map) it is 40,000 x 40,000 square across (each world map square is 200x200). I'd say each square is probably more than a square metre, maybe two or three. There isn't an exact measurement, but it's certainly 80km+ along a side, I'd say.
Post by: NRDL on May 11, 2012, 05:48:56 am
Post by: Rowanas on May 12, 2012, 10:49:22 am
It'd be pretty cool if clothing had colours, so that you A: can tell your troops apart from the enemy, and get a decent overview of the battle situation, and B: could wear your very best black night stealthing kit, only to show up starkly against the marble floors of the local keep, instead of somehow still being crazy invisible.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 14, 2012, 10:54:27 am
Hm...if you are gonna implement spies ( for which I will love you and this game even more than I already do ) how will it work? Will there be conversations between NPCs, that you can stand next to, and listen?
I'm not sure how conversations between others are going to work yet. I think I may try and find some way to make it clear when people are conversing, or, have conversations around you show up on the messages window. I'm far from sure how this is going to work yet, though, since I need conversations to be visible/watchable, but not to take up extra space on screen or be really aggravating.
Will we be able to make a larger or smaller world? I haven't seen anything about worldgen preferences in the thread or blog.
It'd be pretty cool if clothing had colours, so that you A: can tell your troops apart from the enemy, and get a decent overview of the battle situation, and B: could wear your very best black night stealthing kit, only to show up starkly against the marble floors of the local keep, instead of somehow still being crazy invisible.
Huh. I thought I'd actually already put up a blog entry about that. That might, therefore, be next week's blog entry, but there are quite a few world generation options (though world size isn't one of them!). For telling troops apart, it's tricky, since I need to a) have 'h' characters (i.e. humans) distinguishable by weapon, unit type, etc, but also have them according to what army they are in, and you can't show both in colour. I intend for the default to be army colour, and in the army view screen it will highlight units of different types, and there may also be an alternative viewing system to show you unit types too. As for clothing colour, that's an interesting idea, and I like it. I may just implement it!
Also, I've now decided to upload a development plan. Let me know what you think, especially in terms of things I intend to put in the first alpha and you think are maybe non-essential, and vice versa: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/05/14/a-cunning-plan/
Post by: agertor on May 14, 2012, 10:28:25 pm
Also, considering we will be able to order military around, could we also devise default pre-battle plans? So they wont appear randomly about us. Maybe just general stuff. Like where I want melee/ranged/other to be.
Post by: Rowanas on May 15, 2012, 08:17:56 pm
PS. Nothing has square brackets. That's depressing.
Post by: BishopX on May 15, 2012, 08:31:32 pm
Huh. I thought I'd actually already put up a blog entry about that. That might, therefore, be next week's blog entry, but there are quite a few world generation options (though world size isn't one of them!). For telling troops apart, it's tricky, since I need to a) have 'h' characters (i.e. humans) distinguishable by weapon, unit type, etc, but also have them according to what army they are in, and you can't show both in colour. I intend for the default to be army colour, and in the army view screen it will highlight units of different types, and there may also be an alternative viewing system to show you unit types too. As for clothing colour, that's an interesting idea, and I like it. I may just implement it!
Also, I've now decided to upload a development plan. Let me know what you think, especially in terms of things I intend to put in the first alpha and you think are maybe non-essential, and vice versa: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/05/14/a-cunning-plan/
Bravo, good sir! I like the presence of non-combat-y stuff in the first two versions. Now if I can die of sepsis before 0.05 and cholera before 0.10 I'll be in heaven!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 16, 2012, 05:31:12 am
Kind of just hit me now, but someone mentioned elephants that they'd ride and you did not dispute it, so besides taming mounts, with enough skill will we be able to tame other things as well? I'd like to tame a wolf. OR BETTER YET. If we could kill parents and take the eggs/baby animals from their parents and they would love us forever! This also coincides my idea with time being able to wait for a year or so and also some sort of house or area to leave them in care. Yes love me forever, I want a panther army. *Sorry if it hasn't been mentioned but I would like it to be clear personally.*
Also, considering we will be able to order military around, could we also devise default pre-battle plans? So they wont appear randomly about us. Maybe just general stuff. Like where I want melee/ranged/other to be.
I'm not sure about taming - I'm currently intending to add just horses and elephants in one of the early alphas. I had considered letting you handle larger and more deadly creatures; while I do intend to allow you to, say, chain a Dragon then try and release it in front of an enemy city, I'm not sure about taming. And, I'm afraid, URR is (for now) a panther-free world :(
Yes, absolutely re: battle plans. I have a draft screen drawn up for exactly that. If your army is marching on the world map and you enter the actual map for combat, depending on various factors you'll get more/less time to arrange your units before battle.
I don't think weapon kill sheets is really necessary, honestly. Kill tracking can wait, can't it?
PS. Nothing has square brackets. That's depressing.
Agreed re: kill sheets. They're a factor for weapons being 'promoted' to noted/famed/legendary etc, but that can wait. Ah, yes, that's true about the square brackets, but the development page is explicitly a list of what I haven't yet done. If you saw the master list, about 95% of what I wanted for the first alpha is done!
Bravo, good sir! I like the presence of non-combat-y stuff in the first two versions. Now if I can die of sepsis before 0.05 and cholera before 0.10 I'll be in heaven!
Thanks! I'm trying to stress the focus of the first few alphas is on the world and the UI, given how few of the actual game mechanics are in a finalized form yet. As for diseases and plagues... hmmm... they may be some way after 0.5, I'm afraid :(
Post by: Urist McDonalds on May 16, 2012, 07:13:24 am
Kind of just hit me now, but someone mentioned elephants that they'd ride and you did not dispute it, so besides taming mounts, with enough skill will we be able to tame other things as well? I'd like to tame a wolf. OR BETTER YET. If we could kill parents and take the eggs/baby animals from their parents and they would love us forever! This also coincides my idea with time being able to wait for a year or so and also some sort of house or area to leave them in care. Yes love me forever, I want a panther army. *Sorry if it hasn't been mentioned but I would like it to be clear personally.*
Also, considering we will be able to order military around, could we also devise default pre-battle plans? So they wont appear randomly about us. Maybe just general stuff. Like where I want melee/ranged/other to be.
I'm not sure about taming - I'm currently intending to add just horses and elephants in one of the early alphas. I had considered letting you handle larger and more deadly creatures; while I do intend to allow you to, say, chain a Dragon then try and release it in front of an enemy city, I'm not sure about taming. And, I'm afraid, URR is (for now) a panther-free world :(
Yes, absolutely re: battle plans. I have a draft screen drawn up for exactly that. If your army is marching on the world map and you enter the actual map for combat, depending on various factors you'll get more/less time to arrange your units before battle.I don't think weapon kill sheets is really necessary, honestly. Kill tracking can wait, can't it?
PS. Nothing has square brackets. That's depressing.
Agreed re: kill sheets. They're a factor for weapons being 'promoted' to noted/famed/legendary etc, but that can wait. Ah, yes, that's true about the square brackets, but the development page is explicitly a list of what I haven't yet done. If you saw the master list, about 95% of what I wanted for the first alpha is done!Bravo, good sir! I like the presence of non-combat-y stuff in the first two versions. Now if I can die of sepsis before 0.05 and cholera before 0.10 I'll be in heaven!
Thanks! I'm trying to stress the focus of the first few alphas is on the world and the UI, given how few of the actual game mechanics are in a finalized form yet. As for diseases and plagues... hmmm... they may be some way after 0.5, I'm afraid :(
This is amazing, can you just show us a video about battles?
How will it be like?
Will there be arrows getting shot from both sides?
Will you hear war cries?
Can you make your own civilization?
So many questions!
Post by: agertor on May 16, 2012, 01:11:41 pm
While we can make camps and stuff like that, if we stay long enough and are prosperous enough, could we attract merchants and therefore eventually peasants that would start a town eventually. Probably asking too much but that would be awesome.
Post by: NRDL on May 17, 2012, 01:42:30 am
An interesting thing Urist has over here.
While we can make camps and stuff like that, if we stay long enough and are prosperous enough, could we attract merchants and therefore eventually peasants that would start a town eventually. Probably asking too much but that would be awesome.
That sounds awesome. How would one go about making a city, anyway? I'd like to go Alexander the Great on the world, destroying nations, and building cities as a testament to my narcissism.
Post by: Rowanas on May 17, 2012, 05:30:20 pm
I read 'narcissism' as 'narcotics'An interesting thing Urist has over here.
While we can make camps and stuff like that, if we stay long enough and are prosperous enough, could we attract merchants and therefore eventually peasants that would start a town eventually. Probably asking too much but that would be awesome.
That sounds awesome. How would one go about making a city, anyway? I'd like to go Alexander the Great on the world, destroying nations, and building cities as a testament to my narcissism.
very important if you screwed those up. suddenly, you'd think Alexander the great was a drug cartel warlord.
He wasn't? I heard that he once teabagged a cup of liquid LSD, just for the rush, and to impress Darius III.
EDIT: Shit, wait, I meant to say something useful as well. Uh.. oh yeah... this was an idea I had after reading about blood effects, but would it be possible to quaff the relevant juices of our foes/plants/etc, for various awesome effects. I'm thinking less of healing potions than hallucinogenic and potentially magically-reality-altering enhancers.
Post by: Leatra on May 17, 2012, 08:46:03 pm
Post by: NRDL on May 18, 2012, 02:38:46 am
Making cities out of camps? That would be awesome! However, I wouldn't want to be too involved with the development of a city. This is not a city-building game after all.
Yeah, that would make the game too frickin complicated. You could start a city, maybe run aspects of it, but to go on the warpath and do other stuff, you leave the city in the hands of...anyone you want really. Like setting up governors.
Post by: Dutchling on May 18, 2012, 04:27:03 am
Post by: Urist McDonalds on May 18, 2012, 08:58:43 am
I myself would like to be a king of a kingdom!
Post by: agertor on May 18, 2012, 10:25:05 am
Post by: Dutchling on May 18, 2012, 12:43:51 pm
At the beginning the city should indeed 'spontaneously' be build but if it grows it should elect a leader to handle more complicated stuff.
Perhaps investing in a city could be possible? Like you loot some place and give the mayor part of the gold so he builds a smithy or something you can then use.
edit: I keep forgetting this is a 'strategy roguelike'. I'm hoping for things which are probably not even intended to be implemented :P.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on May 18, 2012, 03:44:11 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on May 18, 2012, 03:50:55 pm
Post by: Rowanas on May 19, 2012, 03:43:36 am
Saw a mention of arrows flying, and I want to ask something - if you're controlling an archer, will there be an option to make an arced shot or straight shot? Because in huge armies, you're going to have to be able to shoot arrows upward somewhat, unless you want to hit your buddies.
*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* It was only after the first three spearmen fell that I remembered to point -up- a little.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 19, 2012, 06:22:33 am
This is amazing, can you just show us a video about battles?
How will it be like?
Will there be arrows getting shot from both sides?
Will you hear war cries?
Can you make your own civilization?
So many questions!
In order: I'm afraid not, at least not yet; probably in a few months I might release a video with a battle on a decent scale, but that's not realistic at the moment. Hopefully epic! Yes! Probably. No, not at the moment, though I'd like you, if you rise up far enough, to be able to strongly influence a civilization's direction, traits, etc.
While we can make camps and stuff like that, if we stay long enough and are prosperous enough, could we attract merchants and therefore eventually peasants that would start a town eventually. Probably asking too much but that would be awesome.
That sounds awesome. How would one go about making a city, anyway? I'd like to go Alexander the Great on the world, destroying nations, and building cities as a testament to my narcissism.
Making cities out of camps? That would be awesome! However, I wouldn't want to be too involved with the development of a city. This is not a city-building game after all.
I wasn't saying you would make the city, people would just sort of gather and make houses, wagons, trade stalls, going through a progress, you may come back to see a couple more stalls because your army is large enough they trade food or whatever, then a few may decide to live there over time, slowly starting a village or what not. Not building it yourself.
Yes, but if you don't do any of the building there should be someone who does and reports to you / gives you taxes to pay for protection.
At the beginning the city should indeed 'spontaneously' be build but if it grows it should elect a leader to handle more complicated stuff.
Perhaps investing in a city could be possible? Like you loot some place and give the mayor part of the gold so he builds a smithy or something you can then use.
edit: I keep forgetting this is a 'strategy roguelike'. I'm hoping for things which are probably not even intended to be implemented :P.
I'm not sure how camp/town/city creation is going to work. I have a model for it in the generated histories, but in-game, I'm not sure. This also ties in whether you'll be able to have your character 'wait' for a historical period for things to happen; I'm not sure about that, either. I strongly suspect you will, if you are leading an empire or in a comparable rule of power, be able to 'initiate' a city, which will incrementally grow over time. Fast-travelling on the world map uses up significant numbers of turns, so basic wooden/stone settlements should be able to grow quickly, and I'd think the more you commit to the city, the faster it will grow. Just as you can hit '.' to increment a turn without moving, I'll likely put the same in at world map level, so you can increment 200/500/1000 turns or something at once (but it would 'pull you out' of that if something important happened in the process, and I'd need to be very careful people can't just use it to get themselves out of a tricky situation, etc). Caravans/camps, though, are very different, and should be implemented a lot sooner, since I see them as being a vital part of supply lines, etc.
Yeah, that would make the game too frickin complicated. You could start a city, maybe run aspects of it, but to go on the warpath and do other stuff, you leave the city in the hands of...anyone you want really. Like setting up governors.
As this is not a sim city game, I assume there will be some degree of feudalism. How much effort are you going to put into feudal relations? Can we expect barons under dukes under kings etc. or just one king and dozens of mayors?
Each society is going to have a different form of political/social organism, but yes, humans are (predominantly) going to be feudal, though I intend to add some variation. For instance, Dwarves are going to be technocracies; Orcs will be kratocracies; etc. Humans are predominantly monarchic, and predominantly feudal. Governors/mayors, yes, I expect something like this will happen; and if they (or you!) gain a lot of power in that position, they/you should be able to attempt to secede, or start a civil war, or whatever. Empire management is something I have quite a few ideas for...
Considering the first Alpha isn't even out yet it's to be expected that people's imaginations take a wild turn here and there. At least my mind tends to get more focused once I have a tangible framework to look at.
That's what I'm hoping (at least in terms of UI/wandering-around-the-world) the first alpha will do :)
EDIT: Shit, wait, I meant to say something useful as well. Uh.. oh yeah... this was an idea I had after reading about blood effects, but would it be possible to quaff the relevant juices of our foes/plants/etc, for various awesome effects. I'm thinking less of healing potions than hallucinogenic and potentially magically-reality-altering enhancers.
Yeeees, but for very, very few kinds of blood. There are no 'healing potions', I've decided (shock horror!); you'll have to bandage/whatever wounds and similar. A few kinds of blood will effects, though, but those might be randomised each game, too :).
Saw a mention of arrows flying, and I want to ask something - if you're controlling an archer, will there be an option to make an arced shot or straight shot? Because in huge armies, you're going to have to be able to shoot arrows upward somewhat, unless you want to hit your buddies.
*Thunk* *Thunk* *Thunk* It was only after the first three spearmen fell that I remembered to point -up- a little.
Currently, the idea is that you get a crosshair for using a bow; land it on a creature; and fire, and the more skilled you are, the better you are at calculating the arc. However, programming in trajectory arcs is proving interesting, which is why, sadly, there are no bows/arrows in 0.0.1, but there will be 0.0.2! Lastly, check out those square brackets http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/! Things are getting done! Today I plan work on dragons, wolves and general creature mechanics (like leg damage slowing/stopping your movement) so those should, in part, get bracketed today, hopefully...
Post by: Some1fromMKD on May 19, 2012, 09:47:30 am
Post by: Dutchling on May 19, 2012, 10:51:59 am
Post by: Some1fromMKD on May 19, 2012, 05:04:49 pm
Edit:Can you actually make money translating intercepted messages in times of war if you're a linguist or something?
Post by: Rowanas on May 19, 2012, 08:25:36 pm
Perhaps it'd raise the rate of "accidentally drank the wrong thing and now I'm rerolling my character", but I'd like to see the quaffing of many, many things, most of which will be useless and icky.
Also, a lot of the time, rulers have sent off conquerors with the promise that anything they can conquer in the name of the king, they get to keep. I think it'd be appropriate to be able to establish settlements earlier than "absolute ruler" status. Cortez and his (arguably) less successful cousin both raised several towns and forts in their conquest.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 22, 2012, 06:51:26 am
Since there is talk about cities being built, what about being destroyed/burned/whatever? Will there be weapons of mass destruction? Maybe not nuclear bombs or anything, but cannons/gunpowder/explosive barrels or something. Maybe different civilizations are on a different technological development level. Something like one civilization using muskets and cannons, and another using swords and axes. We all know the Chinese had gunpowder and fireworks much before it reached Europe in the medieval era.
Personally I'm against firearms in medieval games but I am of course not the dev. You don't need firearms to completely destroy a city anyway, look at what the Romans did to Carthage.
I'm not yet sure how technology and technological level is going to work. I think there will be explosives, but they will be few and far between, and will likely be used to destroy walls and undermine etc, rather than in firearms. Firearms are definitely not going to exist (though, POSSIBLY, very very basic ones might - not sure). I don't like the idea of the achronological settings much 'fantasy' has, and since I'm trying to make the game explicitly not high fantasy, but rather medieval/mythology (see: removal of Elves/Dwarves, though the latter may get in as a species to recruit, Norse-dwarf-style), I might allow the development of technology. That's still in the very early stages, though.
Also how will languages work? Will it be all gibberish when you speak to someone if you don't know their language, or will you not be able to speak to them at all? Or understanding some words depending on how good you are with their language (example: XXX XXXXXX XXXX giant XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX settlement).
Edit:Can you actually make money translating intercepted messages in times of war if you're a linguist or something?
It will probably be like that, yes - when you talk to someone, a random selection of their words will be understood, and that selection will always stay the same when you talk to them (so you can't just endlessly talk to them and figure out what they say!). The greater your grasp of the language, the more you understand. Re: edit: interesting idea. I like it. Consider it in.
Hmm. Oh wise and mighty dev, you say "very few", but may I suggest instead - "all of them"?
Perhaps it'd raise the rate of "accidentally drank the wrong thing and now I'm rerolling my character", but I'd like to see the quaffing of many, many things, most of which will be useless and icky.
Also, a lot of the time, rulers have sent off conquerors with the promise that anything they can conquer in the name of the king, they get to keep. I think it'd be appropriate to be able to establish settlements earlier than "absolute ruler" status. Cortez and his (arguably) less successful cousin both raised several towns and forts in their conquest.
They will all be drinkable, but very, very few are actually going to have effects, and I have to admit I'm pretty set on that :(. There will be a set few effects - hallucinogenic, for instance - and each effect will be randomly assigned to the blood of a particular species each game. Drinking blood will give you the same minimal sustenance it would anyway, and I think quite a few kinds of blood will be poisonous/unhealthy, but I'm not going after that many 'effects'.
However, I really like the keeping-in-the-name-of-the-king idea. Could make for a nice middle-ground for empires to deploy. Consider it done!
Lastly, font sizes, customizing, the options menu, and even implied support for Dvorak. What more could you want?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/05/22/technicalities/
Post by: Rowanas on May 24, 2012, 03:47:52 pm
Since there is talk about cities being built, what about being destroyed/burned/whatever? Will there be weapons of mass destruction? Maybe not nuclear bombs or anything, but cannons/gunpowder/explosive barrels or something. Maybe different civilizations are on a different technological development level. Something like one civilization using muskets and cannons, and another using swords and axes. We all know the Chinese had gunpowder and fireworks much before it reached Europe in the medieval era.Personally I'm against firearms in medieval games but I am of course not the dev. You don't need firearms to completely destroy a city anyway, look at what the Romans did to Carthage.
I'm not yet sure how technology and technological level is going to work. I think there will be explosives, but they will be few and far between, and will likely be used to destroy walls and undermine etc, rather than in firearms. Firearms are definitely not going to exist (though, POSSIBLY, very very basic ones might - not sure). I don't like the idea of the achronological settings much 'fantasy' has, and since I'm trying to make the game explicitly not high fantasy, but rather medieval/mythology (see: removal of Elves/Dwarves, though the latter may get in as a species to recruit, Norse-dwarf-style), I might allow the development of technology. That's still in the very early stages, though.Also how will languages work? Will it be all gibberish when you speak to someone if you don't know their language, or will you not be able to speak to them at all? Or understanding some words depending on how good you are with their language (example: XXX XXXXXX XXXX giant XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX settlement).
Edit:Can you actually make money translating intercepted messages in times of war if you're a linguist or something?
It will probably be like that, yes - when you talk to someone, a random selection of their words will be understood, and that selection will always stay the same when you talk to them (so you can't just endlessly talk to them and figure out what they say!). The greater your grasp of the language, the more you understand. Re: edit: interesting idea. I like it. Consider it in.
Niiice. It's the little things that make itinerant characters possible that really add value to a game. I fully intend to start a war by purposefully mis-translating things.
I'm not yet sure how technology and technological level is going to work. I think there will be explosives, but they will be few and far between, and will likely be used to destroy walls and undermine etc, rather than in firearms. Firearms are definitely not going to exist (though, POSSIBLY, very very basic ones might - not sure). I don't like the idea of the achronological settings much 'fantasy' has, and since I'm trying to make the game explicitly not high fantasy, but rather medieval/mythology (see: removal of Elves/Dwarves, though the latter may get in as a species to recruit, Norse-dwarf-style), I might allow the development of technology. That's still in the very early stages, though.
Ever read The History of the Runestaff, by Michael Moorcock? It's all pretty low fantasy (if you ignore the eponymous object), but the elite soldiers of the "good guys" have swords and fire lances (super-early spear-mounted guns/flamethrowers) . Everyone else is still going at it with swords, though. I'd recommend giving that a read. There's only about 100 years between the development of the fire lance and the cannon, and it sits firmly in the 1200s.
Post by: Dutchling on May 24, 2012, 04:18:36 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So my question is, how close will is the above post to the ideal completed version of your game?
This is with the player being the leader of a primarily political power, although leading an army would still be an option (you can send your subordinates to lead an army while you stay at home right?).
Note that the quoted post has nothing to do with your game or any roguelike/ASCII game at all.
Post by: agertor on May 25, 2012, 10:51:54 am
But hey, asking about destruction, personally, I'd like to be able to throw people, if I throw them hard enough, through windows, and maybe even wooden houses, and if I were to throw them off a cliff, maybe break a tree or the roof of a straw hut below. Maybe I'm asking a bit much, but I'd like to see a little destructibility, even if its small if we were to do crazy things like jump off a cliff and plummet into a house below, or throwing people into it, or the simple throwing a stone through someone's window cause we really just don't like them.
Again because of this, a bit of assassin's creed goes a bit of a way I suppose, I'm not saying we need the hidden blades and gadgets, but it would be nice, if people checked you for weapons if you went into a place like a castle. Unless you have rights of a nobleman or otherwise, I would want to make it so people can not just waltz up to the king and stab him. The guards and the king himself would provide a challenge to your unarmored, nonweaponised body. However also give a bit of sneaking, so maybe, just maybe you can sneak a vial of poison, or a dagger, or something small in for such situations.
Also, again personal request, I would like to be able to cuddle things mid-fight. Yes I want to cuddle a bleeding lion, leave me alone!
Post by: Some1fromMKD on May 25, 2012, 02:02:44 pm
beating someone to death with a kitten that no longer has an unbroken bone? yes please!
please!
I admire your dwarfy sense of amusement
Post by: exolyx on May 25, 2012, 03:07:00 pm
Post by: Leatra on May 25, 2012, 03:10:14 pm
Post by: agertor on May 26, 2012, 09:59:38 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 28, 2012, 05:22:54 am
Niiice. It's the little things that make itinerant characters possible that really add value to a game. I fully intend to start a war by purposefully mis-translating things.
Ever read The History of the Runestaff, by Michael Moorcock? It's all pretty low fantasy (if you ignore the eponymous object), but the elite soldiers of the "good guys" have swords and fire lances (super-early spear-mounted guns/flamethrowers) . Everyone else is still going at it with swords, though. I'd recommend giving that a read. There's only about 100 years between the development of the fire lance and the cannon, and it sits firmly in the 1200s.
I fully intend to make sure that is possible :). I have not, but that's interesting; I'm not sure yet whether I want technology to 'advance', either, or maybe the age of the world you generate could determine the technology in play?!
A little while ago I posted something in the 'games you wish existed thread' about a medieval game where all information had to be collected personally or by one of your subordinates (unless they are common knowledge). Someone posted the following and I just thought that some of it might be something I'd like to see in your game.
...
So my question is, how close will is the above post to the ideal completed version of your game?
This is with the player being the leader of a primarily political power, although leading an army would still be an option (you can send your subordinates to lead an army while you stay at home right?).
Note that the quoted post has nothing to do with your game or any roguelike/ASCII game at all.
Yes, very close! Things must actually be enacted; the messengers/envoys sent; etc. Similarly, it should be a game of incomplete information, where more information can be gained by sending spies, scouting etc. And if you are in charge, and your army is a long way away, it will take a long time for a) you to contact them, and b) them to contact you with successes/failures etc.
One thing, capture balls, magical capture balls, gotta catch them all. No no, just kidding.
But hey, asking about destruction, personally, I'd like to be able to throw people, if I throw them hard enough, through windows, and maybe even wooden houses, and if I were to throw them off a cliff, maybe break a tree or the roof of a straw hut below. Maybe I'm asking a bit much, but I'd like to see a little destructibility, even if its small if we were to do crazy things like jump off a cliff and plummet into a house below, or throwing people into it, or the simple throwing a stone through someone's window cause we really just don't like them.
Again because of this, a bit of assassin's creed goes a bit of a way I suppose, I'm not saying we need the hidden blades and gadgets, but it would be nice, if people checked you for weapons if you went into a place like a castle. Unless you have rights of a nobleman or otherwise, I would want to make it so people can not just waltz up to the king and stab him. The guards and the king himself would provide a challenge to your unarmored, nonweaponised body. However also give a bit of sneaking, so maybe, just maybe you can sneak a vial of poison, or a dagger, or something small in for such situations.
Also, again personal request, I would like to be able to cuddle things mid-fight. Yes I want to cuddle a bleeding lion, leave me alone!
Furthering my destruction asking, if we throw a living thing into another living thing, i want the possibility of break both their bones, or at least hurting them both. Or even if they are dead, if I swing them around, I would like to think their arm would still break.
Large creatures will be able to throw small; it's not a 0.0.1 objective, but definitely in the reasonably near future. There is destructibility in the basics now; large creatures like Dragons, if running through a forest, will tear trees from the ground, and they will (in 0.0.2) be hurled around and crash into other things, causing an extra threat. I love the checking for weapons idea, and it's actually already on my list! You will not be able to wander around most areas with weapons visible - well, no. If you have a weapon wielded, people will be concerned, but sheathed will normally be fine; but there will be some areas you must be de-weaponed, but I'm sure you'll be able to try hiding something...
when this comes out, the first thing I'm gonna do when I master the controls is grab the cutest animal that is nearby, and snap every bone in it's body, and use it as some sort of weapon, if I can.
beating someone to death with a kitten that no longer has an unbroken bone? yes please!
please!
Haha - I'm afraid there are very few species in the 0.0.1 planned (currently 3, but maybe 4) and none of them are particularly adorable. Which is not to say bones can't be broken...
Ooh, this seems cool. Watching this.
Thanks! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 28, 2012, 07:22:14 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/05/29/the-march-of-progress/
Post by: Clownmite on May 28, 2012, 11:24:05 pm
Post by: Edmus on May 29, 2012, 02:23:26 am
Post by: BishopX on May 29, 2012, 06:33:45 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 31, 2012, 08:31:30 am
Interesting. Can a unit face diagonally, or just the 4 cardinal directions?
Yes it can,
Will there be an awareness attribute as to sense what is behind you?
no there isn't, but I am trying to figure out a way to introduce sound in some way,
How will we be able to see other creatures field of view?
no, but you can see what direction creatures are facing and extrapolate,
Haha - I'm afraid there are very few species in the 0.0.1 planned (currently 3, but maybe 4) and none of them are particularly adorable. Which is not to say bones can't be broken...well, a wolf will do, for now...
and that's good news! :)
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 03, 2012, 01:56:19 am
I would like to ask, will you be able to command forces from a sort of overview map? It could help visualize where your forces will go and such.
Post by: Some1fromMKD on June 03, 2012, 03:40:56 am
I have recently found this (just now, in fact) and I am, suffice to say, extremely excited for this project.
I would like to ask, will you be able to command forces from a sort of overview map? It could help visualize where your forces will go and such.
I'd like to see this, but retaining the delay of sent or received messages. Not like all of the RTSs out there where your army magically knows where you want them to go.
Post by: Some1fromMKD on June 03, 2012, 04:19:38 am
Will combat be just mauling somebody to death by hitting their arms/torso/whatever, or will there be some lethal blows and counterattacks? I would like to see some legendary fighter just plowing through the battlefield with two swords and killing everybody in one lethal hit. And some counterattacking. Something like this
-The swordsman slashes at your head
-You block and counterstrike
-You stab the swordsman through the forehead and into the brain
-The swordsman dies
And some mounted movement. My best idea is horses or other faster than man creatures would take less than a turn to move. Say a rider should take half a turn to move one square while you and other non-mounted people take one. Attacking would also take one turn. So now mounted people can move two squares and attack in two turns (or move one square, attack, and then move one more square), while people on foot can only move one square and attack. This half a turn movement eliminates the cavalry becoming separated from each other while charging. All in all if horsemen are moving slowly (walking) they would take one turn to move one square, and while charging they take half a turn. And now with facing certain directions you can eliminate cavalry from going to somebody, hitting them and then returning back without giving their opponent a chance to fight back if he manages to dodge the attack. You can make charging cavalry take one turn to start facing backwards before they start moving. If this was your idea also, then I am most pleased with this mechanic. If not, can you explain how it's going to work because I'm curious?
Post by: Sennek on June 03, 2012, 08:32:20 am
Quote
no there isn't, but I am trying to figure out a way to introduce sound in some wayHow about you do it in a similar way as it has been done in Catacylsm (the roguelike one)? When someone behind your back is making a noise, a "?" mark appears near the source. Or you could add a panel "Hearing" and make messages like "you hear a woman scream south-west" or something.
Post by: Man of Paper on June 03, 2012, 07:39:25 pm
Quoteno there isn't, but I am trying to figure out a way to introduce sound in some wayHow about you do it in a similar way as it has been done in Catacylsm (the roguelike one)? When someone behind your back is making a noise, a "?" mark appears near the source. Or you could add a panel "Hearing" and make messages like "you hear a woman scream south-west" or something.
I like the Cataclysm-like idea. Imagine what something like the Teutoburg Ambush would feel like. The ? would begin to cause more fear than a &, at least for me. With the panel though, I think we're going to be having to receive a good bit of information anyways. It's a fine idea, but I think things may start to get a bit cluttered (though I'm not sure how things look anyways, so there may very well be plenty of room for a hearing panel. If there is, that is definitely a solid idea in my opinion).
And adding on to the ? idea, there could be some way to differentiate between what you think may be friend and foe. It wouldn't be 100% accurate though. Maybe have it depend on what intel you have, your terrain, etc. Though I'm no programmer, so that may be a little too much work.
Post by: exolyx on June 03, 2012, 07:47:47 pm
Post by: Leatra on June 03, 2012, 07:58:57 pm
I don't know how that would be implemented. Everything has a "loudness" value or something? I'm no programmer and I'm just throwing some ideas around.
If you are going to add a key that enables the player to look at tiles, (and since it's roguelike you are going to have to do it even with tilesets) players could look at ? tiles and it would give some ideas to the player. Like "This is a howling sound. You don't know what it is." and if you have the required skill (I don't know, forest lore?) it will be like "This is a screaming sound. It sounds like it's a wolf"
Again, just brainstorming.
A skill or some kind of a modifier for hearing and sneaking is essential too.
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 03, 2012, 08:26:50 pm
Are there any totally original races? It's always nice to have some kind of distinguishable race that people identify games with, or are just memorable, much like the Bronze colossus, fluffy wambler (and several cave creatures) of DF, or goombas and koopas of Mario, or various other things. They don't have to be completely off the rocker weird, just unique.I would like Lizardmen and not crappy ones that look like its mother was a garden lizard but ones that had crocs for ancestors. 8)
Post by: Nighthawk on June 03, 2012, 09:29:02 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 04, 2012, 08:37:06 am
I have recently found this (just now, in fact) and I am, suffice to say, extremely excited for this project.
I would like to ask, will you be able to command forces from a sort of overview map? It could help visualize where your forces will go and such.
Awesome, thanks! There is a minimap which shows you the world map, from which one can command forces; there are also a number of ways you can view your forces on the ground, and a number of views on the minimap in terms of terrain, territory, height, points of conflict, and other factors which I plan to come later.
I'd like to see this, but retaining the delay of sent or received messages. Not like all of the RTSs out there where your army magically knows where you want them to go.
I 100% intend for that to exist. Orders take time!
Also, some questions and suggestions for the dev.
Will combat be just mauling somebody to death by hitting their arms/torso/whatever, or will there be some lethal blows and counterattacks? I would like to see some legendary fighter just plowing through the battlefield with two swords and killing everybody in one lethal hit. And some counterattacking. Something like this
-The swordsman slashes at your head
-You block and counterstrike
-You stab the swordsman through the forehead and into the brain
-The swordsman dies
And some mounted movement. My best idea is horses or other faster than man creatures would take less than a turn to move. Say a rider should take half a turn to move one square while you and other non-mounted people take one. Attacking would also take one turn. So now mounted people can move two squares and attack in two turns (or move one square, attack, and then move one more square), while people on foot can only move one square and attack. This half a turn movement eliminates the cavalry becoming separated from each other while charging. All in all if horsemen are moving slowly (walking) they would take one turn to move one square, and while charging they take half a turn. And now with facing certain directions you can eliminate cavalry from going to somebody, hitting them and then returning back without giving their opponent a chance to fight back if he manages to dodge the attack. You can make charging cavalry take one turn to start facing backwards before they start moving. If this was your idea also, then I am most pleased with this mechanic. If not, can you explain how it's going to work because I'm curious?
Currently, limbs have various components, each has 'health', successful hits take off one health (components only have 2/3 health each, so you 'injure', then 'badly injure', then 'break' a bone, for instance). In 0.0.2, particularly strong hits will be able to instantly destroy a body part. Counterstrikes and similar will exist, as well as shields to block hits (which are in 0.0.1) and a few instant-kill hits with brains, hearts, etc.
In terms of turning, yes, turning completely around takes one turn, so cavalry will not be able to attack then flee (additionally, I think I will give mounted units, if moving rapidly, a 'turning circle', which I think could be an interesting/realistic mechanic). In terms of attacks, cavalry will be able to move several squares a turn, but the person riding them will be able to get one hit in like any other human could, and the usage of the two turn counters are separate. The current intention is to allow horses to travel between 2 and 4 squares per turn, depending on the speed they are running and the 'quality' of the horse (as in, health, breed, etc), but that's one of those things that needs a lot of playtesting. Do say if my answer wasn't clear, and I shall elaborate!
Quoteno there isn't, but I am trying to figure out a way to introduce sound in some wayHow about you do it in a similar way as it has been done in Catacylsm (the roguelike one)? When someone behind your back is making a noise, a "?" mark appears near the source. Or you could add a panel "Hearing" and make messages like "you hear a woman scream south-west" or something.
The '?' idea is closest to the one I'm considering, and having it in a location close to, but not necessarily exactly on, the source, and the colour/size or something is dependent on the noise. On the other hand, I can see the strength of messages, and I am debating having a second sidebar on the left, as there is an increasingly significant amount of information I think it might be useful to always have on hand. Additionally, there isn't much value to having lots of unseen land in the main window (since the FOV size isn't going to change), so a second sidebar with things (including sound) may appear.
I like the Cataclysm-like idea. Imagine what something like the Teutoburg Ambush would feel like. The ? would begin to cause more fear than a &, at least for me. With the panel though, I think we're going to be having to receive a good bit of information anyways. It's a fine idea, but I think things may start to get a bit cluttered (though I'm not sure how things look anyways, so there may very well be plenty of room for a hearing panel. If there is, that is definitely a solid idea in my opinion).
And adding on to the ? idea, there could be some way to differentiate between what you think may be friend and foe. It wouldn't be 100% accurate though. Maybe have it depend on what intel you have, your terrain, etc. Though I'm no programmer, so that may be a little too much work.
I agree, I don't want clutter, but at the same time I want there to be enough information for the player, and in a large battle the main window is going to be quite full, so there is (perhaps) the strength of sound in a sidebar. Hmm. Interesting idea re: friend/foe - that wouldn't be any effort, but I'm not sure how it would work. Do you mean if you know a friend is roughly where the sound came from, you guess/assume it was likely a friend?
Are there any totally original races? It's always nice to have some kind of distinguishable race that people identify games with, or are just memorable, much like the Bronze colossus, fluffy wambler (and several cave creatures) of DF, or goombas and koopas of Mario, or various other things. They don't have to be completely off the rocker weird, just unique.
Yes, there are, and they are staying secret for now. There are two major ones - one is a subset of Fiends (demonic creatures) and one a subset of the undead, which is a kind of walking siege weapon. They will be unveiled at some point :)
A hearing pannel could be cluttering since not many players would pay attention to it. A "?" mark popping out when you hear about something that's not in your line of sight would be better. Maybe the "?" mark could be colored to give the player an idea about the loudness of the sound. For example, white could be used for quiet things like a kobold sneaking around and red could be used for loud things like a magical earthquake or something. An earthquake would generate a big line of question marks on the map if the player isn't looking at that direction. That would really add some "What the hell? My army is getting flanked by skirmishers! *turns around* OMGEARTHQUAKEWTFFACEPALM" moments for the game.
I don't know how that would be implemented. Everything has a "loudness" value or something? I'm no programmer and I'm just throwing some ideas around.
If you are going to add a key that enables the player to look at tiles, (and since it's roguelike you are going to have to do it even with tilesets) players could look at ? tiles and it would give some ideas to the player. Like "This is a howling sound. You don't know what it is." and if you have the required skill (I don't know, forest lore?) it will be like "This is a screaming sound. It sounds like it's a wolf"
Again, just brainstorming.
A skill or some kind of a modifier for hearing and sneaking is essential too.
This is turning into a good debate about sound! I do know what you mean; would one always check the sound panel in the heat of battle? Lighter/darker sound icons would certainly be more visible, I think. I'm not sure about loudness, but I guess that is what I'd do - the louder a sound is, then the brighter the ?, and that would be determined by a whole range of factors. Again, maybe very loud sounds would get a 2x2 grid of ?s, say, instead of just a single ?. I *very* much like the 'Looking' at ? idea; there is a function, it exists in 0.0.1, and the part of that function that deals with terrain is in fact what I intend to program in today once I've finished these replies! But I very much like the 'examining' sounds idea; there are many skills relating to stealth, also. I'm actually considering significantly retooling the skills list, but that's such a big job it's going to have to wait :).
I would like Lizardmen and not crappy ones that look like its mother was a garden lizard but ones that had crocs for ancestors. 8)
There were lizardmen, but I'm afraid they're gone! :(
Excited for stealth. Being able to sneak up behind people and stab (wherever I WANT to stab them - Take THAT, Skyrim) sounds like it's going to be a blast.
Yes, definitely, stab anywhere. This also relates to the 'facing' value for stabbing people in the back, for instance, or in the legs and damaging hamstrings and similar (this is all 0.0.2 stuff). Now, to programming!
Post by: Nighthawk on June 04, 2012, 10:28:58 am
Quote
a subset of the undead, which is a kind of walking siege weapon.
Kamikaze zombies? :D
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 04, 2012, 01:37:36 pm
Anyways, I have a question on recruiting; will I be able to send out a few of my men, or devote a few men to go out and recruit soldiers instead of me doing it directly? In such a way that I could tell men to recruit X amount of spearmen from X village?
Secondly, will you be able to encamp somewhere, and fortify it? Like, say I have a large group of men camped in some forest, will I be able to make them build up dirt walls and palisades, set up watchtowers and tents, and so on? It'd be interesting to have a base where I can train recruits or build up reserves while I go on marauding.
EDIT: Ah, I should've read more of the thread before posting. Found the answers there. :p
Post by: exolyx on June 04, 2012, 03:45:57 pm
Post by: Leatra on June 04, 2012, 07:03:00 pm
By the way, you are building a very good foundation for the game. UI is very neat and all these things like view options doesn't even clutter the screen. I don't know how you did all this without cluttering the screen. Maybe I just have low UI standarts after all the time I spent playing DF :P
Will there be things like poisons in the game? I'd hope for the standard things that are more common, like numbness, dizzyness, and vomiting from regular things (and not just "you slowly lose health and get weaker") to extremely rare, but insane poisons (that you can utilize) that do things like making your eyes bleed, your limbs changing to stone or such (which would be interesting, harder to destroy, but it encumbers you and you can't use it very well, with a cure obviously) or even turning you slowly into some kind of abomination/other species. All of these things would be very interesting, I'd hope to see something like them (like the poisons of a demon commander or something.)
I like the limbs changing into stone idea. Imagine playing as a hand-to-hand character who drinks potions to turn his hands to stone... KICKASS!
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 05, 2012, 12:09:01 am
NOOOOOOO!!!! :'(I would like Lizardmen and not crappy ones that look like its mother was a garden lizard but ones that had crocs for ancestors. 8)
There were lizardmen, but I'm afraid they're gone! :(
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 05, 2012, 07:53:13 pm
Post by: Some1fromMKD on June 06, 2012, 08:30:11 am
Post by: SeaBee on June 06, 2012, 11:01:36 am
Low-fantasy and reasonably realistic settings are my favorite.
Post by: TempAcc on June 06, 2012, 12:21:29 pm
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 06, 2012, 01:38:50 pm
In the future, do you plan to make it so the world generator is capable of generating high, low and realistic worlds? High fantasy would have all the magicky stuff, low fantasy would have it as well but it would be either very rare or a secret, and realistic could be ASCII mount&blade.I like this idea quite a bit, perhaps even check boxes for magic, different sentient races, or such?
Post by: Sennek on June 07, 2012, 08:48:28 am
Post by: Nighthawk on June 07, 2012, 10:39:41 am
I support the pro-realism movement. And ... ASCII Mount & Blade? My body is ready.Even if a "realism mode" doesn't become part of the vanilla game, I'm sure that some modder(s) (most likely from these forums) will make it happen.
Low-fantasy and reasonably realistic settings are my favorite.
Post by: Dutchling on June 07, 2012, 11:31:48 am
The dev has already said that he does not intend to put any effort into making the game moddable. It's somewhere in this thread.I support the pro-realism movement. And ... ASCII Mount & Blade? My body is ready.Even if a "realism mode" doesn't become part of the vanilla game, I'm sure that some modder(s) (most likely from these forums) will make it happen.
Low-fantasy and reasonably realistic settings are my favorite.
edit: here it is :
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Nighthawk on June 07, 2012, 01:06:29 pm
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 07, 2012, 01:13:39 pm
Post by: Leatra on June 08, 2012, 10:37:01 pm
Post by: Girlinhat on June 08, 2012, 10:52:16 pm
Also what is this? I know there's an OP but it's quite a long thread and things have surely changed since then. So, what do?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 09, 2012, 06:16:53 am
Quotea subset of the undead, which is a kind of walking siege weapon.
Kamikaze zombies? :D
Good guess, but nope!
Great, thanks for the response!
Anyways, I have a question on recruiting; will I be able to send out a few of my men, or devote a few men to go out and recruit soldiers instead of me doing it directly? In such a way that I could tell men to recruit X amount of spearmen from X village?
Secondly, will you be able to encamp somewhere, and fortify it? Like, say I have a large group of men camped in some forest, will I be able to make them build up dirt walls and palisades, set up watchtowers and tents, and so on? It'd be interesting to have a base where I can train recruits or build up reserves while I go on marauding.
EDIT: Ah, I should've read more of the thread before posting. Found the answers there. :p
Yes, definitely; and various factors would determine how successful they were. You will be able to set up camp somewhere with tents, defenses etc, but in a much more 'streamlined' system than DF - which is to say, building will be fairly simple, and just have a few resource requirements and some people to stick on it. Even though traps and barricades and things don't yet exist, I've actually just been putting in a little bit of future support for them today.
Will there be things like poisons in the game? I'd hope for the standard things that are more common, like numbness, dizzyness, and vomiting from regular things (and not just "you slowly lose health and get weaker") to extremely rare, but insane poisons (that you can utilize) that do things like making your eyes bleed, your limbs changing to stone or such (which would be interesting, harder to destroy, but it encumbers you and you can't use it very well, with a cure obviously) or even turning you slowly into some kind of abomination/other species. All of these things would be very interesting, I'd hope to see something like them (like the poisons of a demon commander or something.)
Yes, absolutely. One or two creatures have poisonous attacks, one or two have poisonous/toxic blood, and you'll also be able to buy/create various poisons and similar. Demons will often have poisons available, and a few uniques/unusual creatures/characters will have some special effects too. Long-term, though! I'd also like to allow you to dip weapons in poison and similar, or dip arrows, etc.
I'm glad you liked the examining sounds idea :) Most games give the sounds as a message and if the player doesn't care about the sounds at that moment (if he is fightining for example) it's just clutter. It would also make lore skills more essential since players can recognize the sound creatures make.
By the way, you are building a very good foundation for the game. UI is very neat and all these things like view options doesn't even clutter the screen. I don't know how you did all this without cluttering the screen. Maybe I just have low UI standarts after all the time I spent playing DF :PWill there be things like poisons in the game? I'd hope for the standard things that are more common, like numbness, dizzyness, and vomiting from regular things (and not just "you slowly lose health and get weaker") to extremely rare, but insane poisons (that you can utilize) that do things like making your eyes bleed, your limbs changing to stone or such (which would be interesting, harder to destroy, but it encumbers you and you can't use it very well, with a cure obviously) or even turning you slowly into some kind of abomination/other species. All of these things would be very interesting, I'd hope to see something like them (like the poisons of a demon commander or something.)
I like the limbs changing into stone idea. Imagine playing as a hand-to-hand character who drinks potions to turn his hands to stone... KICKASS!
I really like the idea of recognizing the sounds creatures make. That's an interesting one - I'll have to think over how that would work. Haha, thanks a lot re: the UI :)! I'm currently wondering if I need to add a second (small) sidebar to the right of the screen during normal gameplay to incorporate a few other things, but I'm not sure about that yet. As for petrification... time will tell!
[Lots of realism questions]:
Well, there's currently two options in the world generation screen called 'Legendary Creatures' and 'Intelligent Creatures'. The former increase Dragons, Hydrae etc and the latter Cyclopes, Minotaurs, etc (and both from 'None' to 'Abundant'), so if you want, you can set both to 'None'. Even on Abundant, they are still pretty rare, as the idea is that their existence is largely unknown and they have to be sought out. So, if you set both to None, then you'll get realism (as Demonic/Undeads will also be reduced to 0), but anything above the 'None' settings will allow them to be generated. Additionally, the age of the world (from 'Nascent' to 'Ancient') will also have an effect; brand new worlds will have more demonic creatures, for instance, while old worlds will have more history and therefore more undead forces. But, again, setting those to 0 will eliminate them, if you'd prefer, but I'll definitely keep the mythology generations around!
So I saw this thread months ago. Then I found out about Ultima Online. Now every time someone mentions it, I think about this thread. How similar are they?
Also what is this? I know there's an OP but it's quite a long thread and things have surely changed since then. So, what do?
Well, I've never played Ultima Online, so as far as I know, nothing like it. I believe UO has a lot of magic and a ton of weird creatures, while I have almost no magic (or simply no magic at all, which I'm leaning towards...) and few creatures, and those can be reduced to 0 if you'd prefer. Well, for an update, I'd check the blog; I'm currently pushing for 0.0.1 by the end of this month, which is mostly a UI/world generation showcase with a little bit of combat, and some general mechanics (like moving, climbing, swimming, etc).
Post by: FlyingIcarus on June 09, 2012, 01:44:29 pm
[Lots of realism questions]:
Well, there's currently two options in the world generation screen called 'Legendary Creatures' and 'Intelligent Creatures'. The former increase Dragons, Hydrae etc and the latter Cyclopes, Minotaurs, etc (and both from 'None' to 'Abundant'), so if you want, you can set both to 'None'. Even on Abundant, they are still pretty rare, as the idea is that their existence is largely unknown and they have to be sought out. So, if you set both to None, then you'll get realism (as Demonic/Undeads will also be reduced to 0), but anything above the 'None' settings will allow them to be generated. Additionally, the age of the world (from 'Nascent' to 'Ancient') will also have an effect; brand new worlds will have more demonic creatures, for instance, while old worlds will have more history and therefore more undead forces. But, again, setting those to 0 will eliminate them, if you'd prefer, but I'll definitely keep the mythology generations around!
Will there also be options for magic like this?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 09, 2012, 02:26:49 pm
[Lots of realism questions]:
Well, there's currently two options in the world generation screen called 'Legendary Creatures' and 'Intelligent Creatures'. The former increase Dragons, Hydrae etc and the latter Cyclopes, Minotaurs, etc (and both from 'None' to 'Abundant'), so if you want, you can set both to 'None'. Even on Abundant, they are still pretty rare, as the idea is that their existence is largely unknown and they have to be sought out. So, if you set both to None, then you'll get realism (as Demonic/Undeads will also be reduced to 0), but anything above the 'None' settings will allow them to be generated. Additionally, the age of the world (from 'Nascent' to 'Ancient') will also have an effect; brand new worlds will have more demonic creatures, for instance, while old worlds will have more history and therefore more undead forces. But, again, setting those to 0 will eliminate them, if you'd prefer, but I'll definitely keep the mythology generations around!
Will there also be options for magic like this?
If magic even makes it into the game at all, yes :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2012, 07:32:47 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/11/climbing-fighting-and-trees/
Post by: Dead Pool on June 11, 2012, 11:00:53 am
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 11, 2012, 04:29:10 pm
So all I can say is that when its first released I'll be downloading it in three seconds after Im aware its up.
Holy [CENSORED], how did I never see this?Are you blind? :P
Post by: BishopX on June 11, 2012, 05:28:08 pm
Three questions though:
1)Will the would you make weapons out of have an impact on it's properties? For example a Yew longbow versus a pine or Oak longbow.
2) Will locally available tress affect a cultures weapon choices? For example if there are lots of oak nearby but no yew they might tend toward shields, shillelaghs and quarterstaffs but not use longbows as heavily?
3)What affects climbing speed?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2012, 06:26:59 pm
Holy [CENSORED], how did I never see this?
My thanks for the implied positive reception of what I've got on URR so far!
This game is Moving along great I wish I had some money to donate but I dont. :'(
So all I can say is that when its first released I'll be downloading it in three seconds after Im aware its up.Holy [CENSORED], how did I never see this?Are you blind? :P
Haha, thanks for the thought anyway :). I will be timing that three seconds, just so you know.
I like the trees and climbing very much, although the precise climbing mechanics were a little hard to follow.
Three questions though:
1)Will the would you make weapons out of have an impact on it's properties? For example a Yew longbow versus a pine or Oak longbow.
2) Will locally available tress affect a cultures weapon choices? For example if there are lots of oak nearby but no yew they might tend toward shields, shillelaghs and quarterstaffs but not use longbows as heavily?
3)What affects climbing speed?
I can guarantee (and this isn't just me!) that they are very obvious and logical in-game; I've had a friend play it and they took to it very quickly. As for the questions:
1) Yes, definitely, different woods and metals have different properties (at the moment, not many, but more come the future...)
2) Interesting idea... I'll have to think about that one, but I suppose the answer would be yes!
3) You, i.e. a human, move one square up/down/left/right/whatever per turn. Other creatures will be faster, slower, etc.
Post by: BishopX on June 11, 2012, 07:26:21 pm
I agree that the climbing mechanics are probably very intuitive, I just couldn't follow them in blog form.
Post by: exolyx on June 11, 2012, 07:38:37 pm
about an eating system-
1) Will there be one in the first version?
2) If so, will meat be edible raw? or will you need to cook it into something?
3) would there be more recipes available as your skill gets better?
4) would you be able to create your own recipes?
about writing-
1) Would there be books throughout the land in the first version, with brief randomly generated descriptions of what they are?
2) would you be able to write your own?
3) would you be able to leaves notes to yourself in certain areas, like near a cave reminding you of something, and would there be randomly generated notes from "adventurers" of other races (or your own) where in front of a large cave (or dungeon) giving a hint about what is inside like enemies, loot, and traps? Where if it's in another language you can try to translate it but may screw up, telling you about a different enemy that isn't there, or wrong location of trap, OR getting it translated by a member of your party?
Post by: Girlinhat on June 11, 2012, 07:49:22 pm
Post by: BishopX on June 11, 2012, 09:01:07 pm
Wait, you can climb a dragon's leg?
The blog post mentions climbing creatures as a dev goal of 0.2, and gives dragons as an example of a big creature which you won't be able to hit everywhere from the ground. I think the two go hand in hand.
Post by: Little on June 11, 2012, 10:32:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 13, 2012, 12:11:00 pm
So me (a human) would climb as fast I can walk? This seems odd to me. I know I can't climb a ladder as fast I can walk an equivalent distance, and presumably cliffs and dragon legs are harder to climb than a wooden ladder.
I agree that the climbing mechanics are probably very intuitive, I just couldn't follow them in blog form.
Hmm. Good point. Maybe you should be default climb one square every other turn?
are we going to have to be human, or can we be from different species? (I think this has already been asked)
also, about your modding (or probable lack thereof), hand it over to an internet community, and there WILL be mods.
Humans only; and you're very confident, but I have to intention of making the code open, nor indeed making the code particularly clear (in fact, it may even be deliberately obfuscated, since I don't want all game mechanics to be transparent). If people STILL mess around with it, then I guess they deserve to mod it :)
Another few questions among many,
about an eating system-
1) Will there be one in the first version?
2) If so, will meat be edible raw? or will you need to cook it into something?
3) would there be more recipes available as your skill gets better?
4) would you be able to create your own recipes?
about writing-
1) Would there be books throughout the land in the first version, with brief randomly generated descriptions of what they are?
2) would you be able to write your own?
3) would you be able to leaves notes to yourself in certain areas, like near a cave reminding you of something, and would there be randomly generated notes from "adventurers" of other races (or your own) where in front of a large cave (or dungeon) giving a hint about what is inside like enemies, loot, and traps? Where if it's in another language you can try to translate it but may screw up, telling you about a different enemy that isn't there, or wrong location of trap, OR getting it translated by a member of your party?
Thanks for all the questions! Some replies:
1) No, 0.0.1 will not have eating and similar (similarly, no corpses will appear, as those need to implemented into an eating system); 0.0.2, which I plan to have out only a couple of months after .1, will have mechanics like eating, sleeping, encumbrance, stamina, etc etc.
2) Yes, and cooking; I have a draft of fire mechanics, but they won't make it into .1, but .2 might have the ability to construct campfires. Maybe!
3) Heh, that's a nice idea. I'll think about it :)
4) I... don't see why not. Depends on what I decide about flesh and similar of mythical creatures. Hmm...
Writing:
1) 0.0.1, no-where near. I need to have histories generating, which is a target for 0.1.x (indeed, the target which will move from 0.0 to 0.1). 0.0.2 has the stuff in the development plan; .3 is going to have a lot of work on other kinds of items, menus, usability etc, and then we'll probably be moving onto 0.1.0 with the addition of basic histories to the game.
2) I... don't know. That's a very interesting idea, though. What kind of uses do/could you see for that?
3) I've had an idea for something like that, but I really like the idea of notes being left around. And yes, definitely, you'll be able to mistranslate things if your skills aren't high enough, but it hadn't struck me to have potential enemy/creature mistranslations! Great idea - consider it added :)
Wait, you can climb a dragon's leg?
The blog post mentions climbing creatures as a dev goal of 0.2, and gives dragons as an example of a big creature which you won't be able to hit everywhere from the ground. I think the two go hand in hand.
Yes indeed!
Excited for the demo! Glad to see this is coming along nicely! :D
Thanks! :)
Post by: Leatra on June 13, 2012, 01:49:31 pm
So me (a human) would climb as fast I can walk? This seems odd to me. I know I can't climb a ladder as fast I can walk an equivalent distance, and presumably cliffs and dragon legs are harder to climb than a wooden ladder.
I agree that the climbing mechanics are probably very intuitive, I just couldn't follow them in blog form.
Hmm. Good point. Maybe you should be default climb one square every other turn?
What about making the climbing speed increase as you increase your climbing skill and dexterity? And the failure rate should decrease and monsters should have trouble with getting you off them as you get more skilled. Adding a climbing skill is essential for assassin characters. I don't expect a fragile magician to climb onto dragons and I expect archers to be better at climbing hills.
Post by: Clownmite on June 13, 2012, 06:05:55 pm
Hmm. Good point. Maybe you should be default climb one square every other turn?
Just have the game advance 2 "turns" whenever you make a climbing move?
Post by: Leatra on June 13, 2012, 06:49:16 pm
I'm sure that's what's going to happen if your game catches enough attention (and it will) since we are talking about Bay 12 community. If I had to bet for the first mod, I would bet for a mod that adds dwarves as a playable race. If the game had any real graphics, we would see a mod that removes all the censors from the game like 2 seconds after it's release.I'm confident because unless you do the thing of making unique coding that no-one else understands, someone out there will rip it to shreds, find out what does what, and change something, it may just be an unofficial patch, or it may add other creatures, odds are, it will be modded.are we going to have to be human, or can we be from different species? (I think this has already been asked)
also, about your modding (or probable lack thereof), hand it over to an internet community, and there WILL be mods.
Humans only; and you're very confident, but I have to intention of making the code open, nor indeed making the code particularly clear (in fact, it may even be deliberately obfuscated, since I don't want all game mechanics to be transparent). If people STILL mess around with it, then I guess they deserve to mod it :)
Post by: Man of Paper on June 14, 2012, 09:25:15 pm
I'm sure that's what's going to happen if your game catches enough attention (and it will) since we are talking about Bay 12 community. If I had to bet for the first mod, I would bet for a mod that adds dwarves as a playable race. If the game had any real graphics, we would see a mod that removes all the censors from the game like 2 seconds after it's release.I'm confident because unless you do the thing of making unique coding that no-one else understands, someone out there will rip it to shreds, find out what does what, and change something, it may just be an unofficial patch, or it may add other creatures, odds are, it will be modded.are we going to have to be human, or can we be from different species? (I think this has already been asked)
also, about your modding (or probable lack thereof), hand it over to an internet community, and there WILL be mods.
Humans only; and you're very confident, but I have to intention of making the code open, nor indeed making the code particularly clear (in fact, it may even be deliberately obfuscated, since I don't want all game mechanics to be transparent). If people STILL mess around with it, then I guess they deserve to mod it :)
And then Deon would add genitals.
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 15, 2012, 01:56:07 am
I laughed so hard at that, that I woke my family up. :D
And then Deon would add genitals.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 18, 2012, 06:37:55 pm
So me (a human) would climb as fast I can walk? This seems odd to me. I know I can't climb a ladder as fast I can walk an equivalent distance, and presumably cliffs and dragon legs are harder to climb than a wooden ladder.
I agree that the climbing mechanics are probably very intuitive, I just couldn't follow them in blog form.
Hmm. Good point. Maybe you should be default climb one square every other turn?
What about making the climbing speed increase as you increase your climbing skill and dexterity? And the failure rate should decrease and monsters should have trouble with getting you off them as you get more skilled. Adding a climbing skill is essential for assassin characters. I don't expect a fragile magician to climb onto dragons and I expect archers to be better at climbing hills.
Hmm, that would be ok. For now, though, it's still one move = up by one height, but I realize that might need changing to every other turn as default.
Hmm. Good point. Maybe you should be default climb one square every other turn?
Just have the game advance 2 "turns" whenever you make a climbing move?
Ah, can't have that, otherwise you "miss" a turn and wouldn't be able to respond in that turn! Being able to climb every other turn would work, but climbing taking two turns wouldn't.
I'm confident because unless you do the thing of making unique coding that no-one else understands, someone out there will rip it to shreds, find out what does what, and change something, it may just be an unofficial patch, or it may add other creatures, odds are, it will be modded.I'm sure that's what's going to happen if your game catches enough attention (and it will) since we are talking about Bay 12 community. If I had to bet for the first mod, I would bet for a mod that adds dwarves as a playable race. If the game had any real graphics, we would see a mod that removes all the censors from the game like 2 seconds after it's release.
I laughed so hard at that, that I woke my family up. :D
And then Deon would add genitals.
Well, I don't know what you mean by unique coding; I am intending to make it deliberately confusing before release, anyway. Additionally, every creature has entirely unique AI, which is another reason I think it is going to be difficult to mod because you won't be able to construct a creature with similar traits to other creatures very well. Similarly, there isn't any species menu, and every single creature responds to 'humans' as a species, so other species would have to be added to each of those. Basically, the task will be significant - though it's only a question for the future, as there's very little gameplay in 0.0.1 anyway to be worth modding :). Also, ha - I'm quite glad it's only ASCII now...
And, lastly, a quick update on this week's work: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/18/pre-alpha-update/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 19, 2012, 10:32:34 am
Post by: monk12 on June 19, 2012, 10:47:34 am
It has been said that only coding can make you feel so good about realizing how stupid you've been. I don't remember WHO said it, but it's certainly true enough that it stuck with me.
Post by: Rowanas on June 19, 2012, 06:45:31 pm
Post by: Clownmite on June 19, 2012, 07:24:22 pm
Wow. One of the remaining technical issues was the time it takes to load maps with lots of z levels, like mountains. But now... I've just sped it up by ~95%+, because I discovered something deeply, DEEPLY stupid about the way it was previously being done. Awesome. It now takes a few seconds for even the tallest mountains!
Any chance you can elaborate on the specifics? I might add z-levels into my game eventually.
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 19, 2012, 07:39:44 pm
1)Eventually can you kidnap people and if they are important enough will search & rescure parties be sent out, like kidnap a princess in stereotypical Villain style.
2)Will your actions change how people think of you, like having monsters and raiding & pillaging will make people think your some Demon Lord or something, and if so will units be more inclinded to join you if your more Evil/Good (Demonic creatures flock to you when your really evil. And when your really good maybe angles come join you?)
Post by: Clownmite on June 19, 2012, 09:44:50 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 20, 2012, 06:53:27 am
*high five*
It has been said that only coding can make you feel so good about realizing how stupid you've been. I don't remember WHO said it, but it's certainly true enough that it stuck with me.
Heh. Definitely. Few things are as purely, un-equivocally enjoyable as realising where you've been going wrong, and that you know how to fix it.
Can't disagree with either :). If I have time before 0.0.1, I'm going to massively increase the size of mountains, just because I now can.
Any chance you can elaborate on the specifics? I might add z-levels into my game eventually.
Also, I was wondering if you could talk about multi-tile creature pathfinding? How does that work (from a programming perspective)?
Sure thing; there's quite a bit to say, so I'll do a blog entry on both after 0.0.1's release (and after the inevitable very rapid release of patches in the subsequent days).
Questions:
1)Eventually can you kidnap people and if they are important enough will search & rescure parties be sent out, like kidnap a princess in stereotypical Villain style.
2)Will your actions change how people think of you, like having monsters and raiding & pillaging will make people think your some Demon Lord or something, and if so will units be more inclinded to join you if your more Evil/Good (Demonic creatures flock to you when your really evil. And when your really good maybe angles come join you?)
1) Hmm. I don't see why not; I've been giving some thought to the stealth mechanics, and that could certainly be feasible.
2) Definitely re: demonic, but none of their opposite number will feature! As ever with these games, I'm hoping to have a full system for factions and things, but since I'm going for more of a strategy/4x game (just one where you aren't omnipotent), some of this will be 'abstracted' out; more on this in a later blog entry, but basically yes, there will be a range of metrics by which you and other empires are rated.
Post by: Man of Paper on June 25, 2012, 10:21:40 am
Post by: WraithLord24 on June 25, 2012, 01:58:12 pm
I haven't been this excited for something since I learned how to emulate human emotion.Yeah agreed, I check the development plan everyday and jump with joy eveytime I see one of the things has been finished. :P
Post by: Elfeater on June 25, 2012, 06:11:21 pm
Post by: Yoink on June 25, 2012, 08:09:34 pm
I haven't been this excited for something since I learned how to emulate human emotion.Also, sigged.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2012, 04:59:03 am
I haven't been this excited for something since I learned how to emulate human emotion.Yeah agreed, I check the development plan everyday and jump with joy eveytime I see one of the things has been finished. :P
Excellent and my thanks to both :). Updated it again today, and will likely be doing so again later...
Gods, do they walk among us?
What mean ye?
Eagerly awaiting this release! :D
Thanks! I'm afraid it's going to be another few days (see http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/06/27/closer-and-closer/) but this is the final push now. I have learnt that moving house, and attempting to keep to a deadline, do not work well together...
Post by: Elfeater on June 27, 2012, 06:14:38 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2012, 12:29:11 pm
Both a compliment and a question. Will the gods of the world be able to be interacted with?
I'm not quite sure yet. I think I will add another option to the World Generation screen which allows you to choose whether gods are the bases for religions but cannot be directly interacted with (the default) or whether gods can be actively communicated with.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 30, 2012, 11:38:13 am
Post by: varsovie on June 30, 2012, 01:28:21 pm
To bad for me, I will have no internet access for July, I will have to wait August to hunt these bugs/dragons.
Post by: Reyn on June 30, 2012, 04:05:30 pm
new world types that can be generated (like an ice age pangaea, or a scorching hot island chain, or similar) :).
Will this mean that some time in the future, animals will spawn dependent on climate(i.e. predominant yeti & mammoth for ice age, along with civilization decisions being impacted by it;per say, a emphasis on leather armor more than metal to keep people from dying of cold and such?).
With every update, I think of this game as being THE game. Loving it more and more!
Post by: Dutchling on June 30, 2012, 04:27:42 pm
new world types that can be generated (like an ice age pangaea, or a scorching hot island chain, or similar) :).
Will this mean that some time in the future, animals will spawn dependent on climate(i.e. predominant yeti & mammoth for ice age, along with civilization decisions being impacted by it;per say, a emphasis on leather armor more than metal to keep people from dying of cold and such?).
With every update, I think of this game as being THE game. Loving it more and more!
I think he already said that creatures are tied to climates in some way, and at least sentient creatures will be hard to persuade to come along without you if they don't like the place.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 02, 2012, 07:13:21 pm
:(
To bad for me, I will have no internet access for July, I will have to wait August to hunt these bugs/dragons.
:( - I have only a tiny bit of internet access at the moment myself, having just moved house so I can only get online when I'm (rarely) on campus to teach or something. Regardless, I've got today's update up (see below) and, if anything, the lack of internet at home can only speed development!
new world types that can be generated (like an ice age pangaea, or a scorching hot island chain, or similar) :).
Will this mean that some time in the future, animals will spawn dependent on climate(i.e. predominant yeti & mammoth for ice age, along with civilization decisions being impacted by it;per say, a emphasis on leather armor more than metal to keep people from dying of cold and such?).
With every update, I think of this game as being THE game. Loving it more and more!
Yes indeed; for now I'm just going to have everything spawning everywhere for the sake of speed and simple testing, but by 0.0.2 or at the latest 0.0.3 creatures will be spawning in appropriate biomes, and in appopriate numbers. Similarly, yes, that would be great if I could have civilizations using materials to hand, which would mean I'd have to make sure every biome can, potentially, either cater to a civilization entirely or have enough produce that they can survive on that & trading. And thanks! :)
I think he already said that creatures are tied to climates in some way, and at least sentient creatures will be hard to persuade to come along without you if they don't like the place.
Yep; they'll like to stick to their own climate. Similarly, human civilizations in certain climes, or those with certain policies/social structures, or histories, or similar, might be reluctant to venture too far out. However, all that political 4x stuff is staying tightly secret for now, though I might have a test screenshot in a little while...
In the mean time, lots and lots of worlds! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/03/cartography/
Post by: Trollheiming on July 02, 2012, 08:08:02 pm
I'm more about the rogue-like combat, anyway. It's just an observation.
Post by: BishopX on July 02, 2012, 08:39:42 pm
On the other hand, continents looks cool, and I like the contrast with the DF top level maps.
Post by: FlyingIcarus on July 02, 2012, 09:17:22 pm
Anyways, thoughts on technological progression? Could I, perhaps, be in a world where they only discovered stone tools and wood shacks? Or could I show up in a place full of steel armor and castles?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 04, 2012, 04:26:22 am
I've been watching this since the beginning and I'm looking forward to the first alpha. However, the rivers are a bit of a mess in the cartography update. They really don't seem to travel to the coasts, and while rivers can indeed dry up before they reach the sea, the phenomenon seems far too prevalent here.
I'm more about the rogue-like combat, anyway. It's just an observation.
Interesting; do you mean those that terminate in open land, as it were, or those that reach another mountain or whatever then stop? A lot of rivers stop because they reach higher ground and cannot find a way around, though I suppose the maximum river length value could be upped for some climates. Also, for rivers to combine they need to meet a pretty specific set of conditions; in a later version I'd like to open those requirements up and get more combining, but that would require a lot more map generation work.
Dammit URR, I saw that you had posted and assumed it was the release! I'm very disappointed now.
On the other hand, continents looks cool, and I like the contrast with the DF top level maps.
Sorry! And splendid - I still need a way to show large mountains/volcanoes clearly, though, and I'm also (maybe for 0.1.1; the first release is now going to 0.1.0!) going to add in a few other terrain types like plateaus, maybe highlands, steppe, and (feature bloat for now, but in the future) I'd like to add a way to generate "natural wonders" that are unique/unusual...
Only 7 days, at max! I am incredibly excited now, needless to say.
Anyways, thoughts on technological progression? Could I, perhaps, be in a world where they only discovered stone tools and wood shacks? Or could I show up in a place full of steel armor and castles?
Thanks! It's funny you should mention that; I intend to have the 'human civilization' bar in world generation, which determines the age of human civilization on the planet, have an impact on technology... but more on this later :)
Post by: Sharp on July 04, 2012, 04:57:22 am
Or perhaps if you are in charge of a squad or maybe just friends with fellow soldiers that you can break away from a losing army and defect or become bandits?
I'm just wondering how much of a relationship you can have with other creatures, is it abstracted so it's based on general civ style (so all of a civ's creatures will react to you in the same way) or is it personal(or mixture) so you can cause civil wars and political intrigue or perhaps go Robin Hood style to befriend a village while raiding the empire it is part of?
Post by: Some1fromMKD on July 05, 2012, 03:01:28 pm
Post by: Trollheiming on July 06, 2012, 02:43:34 am
However, the rivers really don't seem to travel to the coasts, and while rivers can indeed dry up before they reach the sea, the phenomenon seems far too prevalent here.
Interesting; do you mean those that terminate in open land, as it were, or those that reach another mountain or whatever then stop? A lot of rivers stop because they reach higher ground and cannot find a way around, though I suppose the maximum river length value could be upped for some climates. Also, for rivers to combine they need to meet a pretty specific set of conditions; in a later version I'd like to open those requirements up and get more combining, but that would require a lot more map generation work.
Well, when a river meets highland, it should pool into a lake, till the water can find a way down to the sea. Rivers stretching from one mountain to another look a little odd. You'd typically at least see an inland sea somewhere between the two river sources.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 07, 2012, 05:49:30 am
I know you said earlier that other creatures can have opinions of you but is it possible to invite intrigue based on these opinions for various nefarious purposes? Say you are commanding a large army can you go all Roman Civil War style by using the loyalty of your soldiers to take over the current head of state and declare yourself dictator/imperator?
Or perhaps if you are in charge of a squad or maybe just friends with fellow soldiers that you can break away from a losing army and defect or become bandits?
I'm just wondering how much of a relationship you can have with other creatures, is it abstracted so it's based on general civ style (so all of a civ's creatures will react to you in the same way) or is it personal(or mixture) so you can cause civil wars and political intrigue or perhaps go Robin Hood style to befriend a village while raiding the empire it is part of?
I hope so; I want to make relationships with individuals, groups and civilizations related, obviously, but there can be variations. Even if you are at war with a civ, some people of that civ might be willing to look kindly upon you if you do something for them, etc. So hopefully a mixture!
I've been meaning to ask this for a long time, but I kept forgetting. If we desert from the army we are serving in, will we be chased and executed like animals, or will all be forgiven. You could add a lot more depth to the game if you make it possible to chase deserters of your army and vice versa.
Almost certainly chased, or at least, not actively chased but put on a Wanted list or similar. I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about systems for morale, loyalty and similar, and things like this could tie in very nicely...
Well, when a river meets highland, it should pool into a lake, till the water can find a way down to the sea. Rivers stretching from one mountain to another look a little odd. You'd typically at least see an inland sea somewhere between the two river sources.
Ah, I can explain what you're seeing. On the world map level, squares have a height of 0-5, and rivers can flow downwards to a square of lesser height, or flow into a square of one height greater, if not a mountain (in which case it carves out a nice valley). When rivers spawn near mountains, they can get near other mountains since those areas have a default height of 4 (only very mountainous regions merit 5). However, I see what you mean; I'll look into a way to reduce rivers coming next to mountains. I might just push mountains up a level, or make sure rivers can't come within a square of another mountain if they intend to terminate there, say. Also, lakes function similarly to inland seas at the moment, but again, at some point I might allow a number of close lakes to pool into a sea, or similar.
In other news, TWO DAYS! There will be some bugs (I have an existing list) but I've decided I'm going to release it on the 9th regardless. I'm going to try and hunt as many more bugs as possible today and tomorrow, then fire it out on the 9th.
Post by: Yoink on July 07, 2012, 07:28:02 am
I... Don't really have anything more constructive to say, sadly. I haven't been following the thread all that closely.
(Seriously, so many posts!)
That means I'm not quite sure what's actually planned for the release, either, so I'll be in for some surprises. :)
Post by: agertor on July 07, 2012, 08:32:42 pm
Post by: Elfeater on July 07, 2012, 08:42:35 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 08, 2012, 01:21:02 pm
Looking foward to it! :D
I... Don't really have anything more constructive to say, sadly. I haven't been following the thread all that closely.
(Seriously, so many posts!)
That means I'm not quite sure what's actually planned for the release, either, so I'll be in for some surprises. :)
Thanks :). Hope it meets your expectations for a first alpha!
Oh good I am taking a little mini-vacation and you are releasing it on a date where I can spend much time playing it, judging it, then judging you by it, oh yes, good times indeed. P.S. Wont really judge you based on a game you released.
Haha; I wouldn't object if you did in a few year's time, but please withhold 0.1.0 judgement :)
release now and we will help you hunt =)
So close now! So close! Considering ditching combat from 0.1.0 as it's pretty patchy at the moment, and it might be better to focus on everything else in the interim, since it's in a far more basic state than the rest of the game in 0.1.0. Any thoughts?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 08, 2012, 01:26:41 pm
Post by: Elfeater on July 08, 2012, 01:30:56 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 08, 2012, 01:43:56 pm
It may only be the eighth but I keep refreshing the download page!
I have a big list of features waiting to upload on that page! It'll probably be around midday/early evening tomorrow (UK time) that it'll actually appear, and *hopefully* with Linux/Mac versions as well as Windows, assuming all the compiling goes well...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 08, 2012, 02:50:39 pm
Now I'm going for a meal.
EDIT: I will try to compile, but will be unable to test, Mac/Linux versions for tomorrow. Hopefully they'll work first time...
Post by: FlyingIcarus on July 09, 2012, 01:00:03 am
Post by: yarr on July 09, 2012, 03:05:58 am
Post by: fred1248 on July 09, 2012, 03:16:41 am
Is it out yet?
Is it out yet?
Is it out yet?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 04:58:01 am
The wait is killing me.
Hmm...will test this... 8)
Is it out yet?
Is it out yet?
Is it out yet?
Is it out yet?
Soon! Soon! Putting in a few final touches, neatening a few things up, trying Linux/Mac compiling soonish. Windows one due out later today, L/M hopefully straight after :)
Post by: Yoink on July 09, 2012, 08:18:20 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 08:21:33 am
I'm not sure what timezone you're in, but in my part of the world you have approximately 34 minutes left if you wish to release it on the 9th... ;) Just sayin'.
Haha; I'm in the UK, so it's only 14:30 here at the moment. But don't worry; I think it'll be going up in the next few hours. Windows executables are sorted; Linux proving a headache. I'm afraid, in the short term, you Linux users might have to use Wine to get the .exe working :(. Apologies!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 10:44:13 am
Post by: monk12 on July 09, 2012, 10:52:15 am
Originally, that was going to be the entirety of my post, but then I felt that it was something of a waste of space to only type a single emoticon of three characters. It kinda bugs me when the only thing somebody contributes to a conversation is half a thought or less, and I'm well aware that not only is it a common pet peeve for forumites, but on many forums I'd face disciplinary action for such lazy posting. Thus, I elected to put a bit more effort into my post, for even if it still fails to contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way, at least I wasted the extra four seconds of your life that it took you to read this.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 10:59:12 am
OnO
Originally, that was going to be the entirety of my post, but then I felt that it was something of a waste of space to only type a single emoticon of three characters. It kinda bugs me when the only thing somebody contributes to a conversation is half a thought or less, and I'm well aware that not only is it a common pet peeve for forumites, but on many forums I'd face disciplinary action for such lazy posting. Thus, I elected to put a bit more effort into my post, for even if it still fails to contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way, at least I wasted the extra four seconds of your life that it took you to read this.
A superlative post; you have my heartfelt thanks. In other news, having been working basically non-stop on this for eight hours, I am uploading the zip now. I think everything is go for a few minutes time!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:03:39 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/09/alpha-0-1-0/
Post by: teoleo on July 09, 2012, 11:04:06 am
Post by: Draxis on July 09, 2012, 11:07:37 am
Which Python version does it need, and what is it supposed to be called?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:13:20 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:15:37 am
Post by: teoleo on July 09, 2012, 11:18:03 am
explored entire game map and found no city '.
Looked inventory, weapons, and that's' crashed
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:19:26 am
first game:
explored entire game map and found no city '.
Looked inventory, weapons, and that's' crashed
Well, there aren't cities yet! What was the crash? What were you doing? Detail is needed...
Hope that dll was the right one!
Post by: teoleo on July 09, 2012, 11:26:06 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:26:42 am
ehm...i have not take the screen sorry.. But i have start another game and no crash with the inventory....
So the INVENTORY crashed it? That's interesting (if that's what you mean?)
Post by: Robsoie on July 09, 2012, 11:28:59 am
Then walking around a bit more i found a copper greave, didn't found on how to check if it was any better than my equipment (i didn't read anything for that 1st run, just quickly giving a look) than proceeding to walk west.
After a while a message appeared with a "loading map", and once it seemed to complete i was back to desktop without a error message, was playing windowed with the 10x10 tileset as the 12x12 was making the window too big for my monitor resolution.
Then i started the game again and noticed it didn't saved anything (probably my bad for not having saved manually after my character appeared in that world) , so i clicked on Quit and it crashed, this time with a log :
Quote
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53601, in place_menu
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Post by: Sharp on July 09, 2012, 11:31:19 am
Created a character, spent the points and noticed that the "shift to increment by 10" didn't seem to increment by 10
That's just a wording problem, it's not shift to increment 10 but shift to move 10 spaces up or down for skill selection.
Post by: monk12 on July 09, 2012, 11:32:26 am
Started a new game, and wandered around a bit while my combat log filled up with "A male dragon attacks a yew tree!" notifications. He murdered a fair bit of the forest before I found him and what appeared to be his chums. After taking a look at him, I went to check out his species information and crashed the game.
Spoiler: URR v010.exe.txt (click to show/hide)
Now to see if I can go smack that tree-hating dragon upside the head!!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:34:01 am
Created a character, spent the points and noticed that the "shift to increment by 10" didn't seem to increment by 10 , then once in the world i walked around and was attacked by a wolf that my character killed by hitting it on the head repeatedly.
Then walking around a bit more i found a copper greave, didn't found on how to check if it was any better than my equipment (i didn't read anything for that 1st run, just quickly giving a look) than proceeding to walk west.
After a while a message appeared with a "loading map", and once it seemed to complete i was back to desktop without a error message, was playing windowed with the 10x10 tileset as the 12x12 was making the window too big for my monitor resolution.
Then i started the game again and noticed it didn't saved anything (probably my bad for not having saved manually after my character appeared in that world) , so i clicked on Quit and it crashed, this time with a log :QuoteTraceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53601, in place_menu
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Ah, the increment is for shifting up/down the list by ten, not across by ten. That's ambiguous, I'll change it. Did it crash on the loading screen, or straight after? Or on the 'saving/loading chunks' notice? Or somewhere in the middle? A few people have reported the quit error; working on it!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:35:09 am
Whee!
Started a new game, and wandered around a bit while my combat log filled up with "A male dragon attacks a yew tree!" notifications. He murdered a fair bit of the forest before I found him and what appeared to be his chums. After taking a look at him, I went to check out his species information and crashed the game.Spoiler: URR v010.exe.txt (click to show/hide)
Now to see if I can go smack that tree-hating dragon upside the head!!
Awesome; I've found exactly what caused it, and I've fixed it :)
Post by: rhesusmacabre on July 09, 2012, 11:35:49 am
Happily, your game has blessed me in the same manner. Liking it so far!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:36:40 am
In my first ever game of DF, I was killed by a wolf.
Happily, your game has blessed me in the same manner. Liking it so far!
That is awesome news :).
Post by: Karlito on July 09, 2012, 11:39:08 am
Post by: Draxis on July 09, 2012, 11:42:59 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:44:34 am
I was not able to get it working on Wine, but it works on my XP fine, until I exited. The log is:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53578, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53781, in gender_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 54167, in stats_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58873, in skills_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58947, in sure_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59011, in name_menu1
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59250, in name_menu2
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60624, in world_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53133, in play_game
File "alphatime.pyw", line 46936, in handle_keys
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Also I kept getting messages about a Dragon attacking trees, but I never saw it.
Yeah, lots of quitting issues. Do you have more information wine can give us :(? If you saw them, there was 100% a dragon on its way to you!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:45:14 am
I killed the first wolf I came across just in time for his friend to come over and finish me off.
I am both saddened and wonderfully pleased by this.
Post by: Labs on July 09, 2012, 11:47:18 am
Post by: Robsoie on July 09, 2012, 11:48:18 am
Post by: Draxis on July 09, 2012, 11:48:26 am
Post by: Robsoie on July 09, 2012, 11:53:22 am
(http://i.imgur.com/GAj8f.jpg)
and got the game crashing with that log :
Quote
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53601, in place_menu
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53595, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 41570, in options_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53578, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53781, in gender_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 54167, in stats_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58873, in skills_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58947, in sure_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59011, in name_menu1
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59250, in name_menu2
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60624, in world_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53133, in play_game
File "alphatime.pyw", line 46922, in handle_keys
ValueError: chr() arg not in range(256)
Apparently it can be reproduced everytime
Post by: monk12 on July 09, 2012, 11:54:59 am
Anyway, after wandering about in circles preparing to exact my justice on the dragon for the rampant deforestation, I blundered into him and started stabbing away at his left leg. At the moment, I've slightly injured it and he's beaten the hell out of me.
1) Is it possible to access the guidebook during play? Because dang I do not remember any buttons, particularly how to get to any kind of save&quit screen.
2) The combat log mentions that the dragon is damaging my armor, but I do not see this information reflected in my Inventory when I examine the armor- they are all listed as being in excellent condition. They have varying quality levels, but I didn't check what their quality was before the fight to determine whether it's a case of crossed wires/misunderstanding.
3) Uh, speaking of I wish I had the guidebook, how do I go about determining how almost-dead I am?
Post by: Elfeater on July 09, 2012, 11:56:36 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 11:58:35 am
@ Labs, excellent!
@ Robsoie, interesting. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one.
@ Draxis, ah, right. I'm trying to get a Linux-specific one going at the moment, but it's proving tricky. I am enlisting help...
@ Robsoie, ah, that's a tough one. Hmm. I'll have to think about a solution!
@ monk, thanks, and 1) yep, '?'; 2) interesting, will look into, 3) use 'L' to look, then look at yourself!
Post by: Elfeater on July 09, 2012, 12:01:37 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:02:09 pm
I was fighting a cyclops, and this error occurred See Logfile C:/(where it is located)/URR v10.exe.log
Can you email me the logfile, or copy it in here?
Post by: monk12 on July 09, 2012, 12:04:42 pm
After the dragon ripped my arm off, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and tried running away. Fortunately, I'd messed up its legs pretty good, so we limped away at about the same rate, but it had to knock over trees to follow (which was fun to watch.) I ran south into a new chunk, and after it loaded I kept running because, y'know, dragon. A few steps later I ran face first into a wolf, which further mauled my left foot. I took a couple shambling steps to the right and then the game crashed with the generic Windows "URR has stopped working" message.
Post by: Karlito on July 09, 2012, 12:05:04 pm
Post by: Elfeater on July 09, 2012, 12:13:14 pm
Its enjoyable, a lot of work has obviously gone into this, I crashed again when fleeing from a dragon, I entered a new map area, and bam it crashed no message or anything
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:16:32 pm
Oooh, I crashed it but this time I don't know what I did (and didn't get an errorlog.)
After the dragon ripped my arm off, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and tried running away. Fortunately, I'd messed up its legs pretty good, so we limped away at about the same rate, but it had to knock over trees to follow (which was fun to watch.) I ran south into a new chunk, and after it loaded I kept running because, y'know, dragon. A few steps later I ran face first into a wolf, which further mauled my left foot. I took a couple shambling steps to the right and then the game crashed with the generic Windows "URR has stopped working" message.
Arrghhh. This is the error that's only just popped up today. I'm working on fixing it properly now...
Is there any particular reason why Look and Inventory are mapped to capital letters? I want to do those things pretty frequently, and it's sort of annoying to push shift every time.
Not really; I quite like shift+L for look, but are you finding that awkward? I could definitely change I to i for inventory without a moment's thought
Its enjoyable, a lot of work has obviously gone into this, I crashed again when fleeing from a dragon, I entered a new map area, and bam it crashed no message or anything
Gaaah, again, this new bug. I have got to hunt this down properly and deal with it. It crashed from the movement, as far as you could tell?
Post by: Yoink on July 09, 2012, 12:21:31 pm
Post by: Robsoie on July 09, 2012, 12:23:08 pm
@ Robsoie, ah, that's a tough one. Hmm. I'll have to think about a solution!could it be because that key can actually display by default an accented character ( é ) in AZERTY keyboard that is not present for that key press for both QWERTY and DVORAK ?
Post by: Yoink on July 09, 2012, 12:26:43 pm
...Hmm, I see what someone was saying about the keymapping, I would rather it was lowercase 'L' to look, etc.
Hang on, why did that wolf have a horn, which I just chopped off? I wish the window was resizable. :P
Still, I'm having fun! Time to figure out just what I'm doing.
Post by: teoleo on July 09, 2012, 12:28:26 pm
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53595, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 41570, in options_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53578, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53781, in gender_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 54167, in stats_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58873, in skills_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58947, in sure_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59011, in name_menu1
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59250, in name_menu2
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60624, in world_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53133, in play_game
File "alphatime.pyw", line 49068, in handle_keys
File "alphatime.pyw", line 36254, in weaponquery
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'terrain'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53578, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53781, in gender_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 54167, in stats_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58873, in skills_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58947, in sure_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59011, in name_menu1
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59250, in name_menu2
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60624, in world_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53133, in play_game
File "alphatime.pyw", line 49359, in handle_keys
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53601, in place_menu
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60806, in <module>
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53597, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 41049, in version_details
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53578, in place_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53781, in gender_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 54167, in stats_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58873, in skills_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 58947, in sure_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59011, in name_menu1
File "alphatime.pyw", line 59250, in name_menu2
File "alphatime.pyw", line 60624, in world_menu
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53133, in play_game
File "alphatime.pyw", line 49359, in handle_keys
File "alphatime.pyw", line 53601, in place_menu
NameError: global name 'quit' is not defined
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:29:12 pm
Downloading now! 'Tis half past 3AM, but damnit I'm gonna try this out before I sleep! :D
Awesome!
@ Robsoie, ah, that's a tough one. Hmm. I'll have to think about a solution!could it be because that key can actually display by default an accented character ( é ) in AZERTY keyboard that is not present for that key press for both QWERTY and DVORAK ?
I think that might be just it; I'll have to limit what characters it can/can't accept. Were you typing your name, or in the inventory for that?
I have got to fix this map-moving bug; I'm going to upload 0.1.1 in a little while, and if you set Wild Creatures to its lowest setting, none will spawn. If people could then test running for long distances in one direction, and let me know a) if it crashes, and if so, b) when, that would be great!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:30:21 pm
First impressions: Oh, this is so exciting! :D So many options!
...Hmm, I see what someone was saying about the keymapping, I would rather it was lowercase 'L' to look, etc.
Hang on, why did that wolf have a horn, which I just chopped off? I wish the window was resizable. :P
Still, I'm having fun! Time to figure out just what I'm doing.
Wolf had a horn?! Heh - fixed. And thanks, that's awesome.
I *might* have just fixed the moving-a-long-distance glitch; trying now.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:32:09 pm
Post by: monk12 on July 09, 2012, 12:34:55 pm
Also, when examining the steel sabre I am currently wielding it is described as "lying on sparse grass 2 levels above where you are standing." And actually, now that I'm paying attention all my equipment says that.
Also also, and this is probably just shame on me for not paying as close attention to development as I should have, but am I always supposed to start with a steel sabre, or has that just been a fluke? I rolled with the Footsoldier preset this time so I have slashing skill, but it was a little strange to start with a slashy weapon playing as the bashy Warrior the previous games.
Post by: Yoink on July 09, 2012, 12:38:23 pm
...It didn't end so well.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:40:38 pm
RE: Keybindings, I'd say that it would be worth the time investment to make them customizable. I myself would probably make Inventory and Look both lower case, though.
Also, when examining the steel sabre I am currently wielding it is described as "lying on sparse grass 2 levels above where you are standing." And actually, now that I'm paying attention all my equipment says that.
Also also, and this is probably just shame on me for not paying as close attention to development as I should have, but am I always supposed to start with a steel sabre, or has that just been a fluke? I rolled with the Footsoldier preset this time so I have slashing skill, but it was a little strange to start with a slashy weapon playing as the bashy Warrior the previous games.
Firstly, keybindings - I agree, that would be handy; I'll add it to the list of things to sort out.
Secondly, heh - fixed that.
Thirdly, nope, I just stuck that in for now for 0.1.0 - characters that you roll in the future will vary, but for now everybody starts with the same.
Also, think I've fixed the movement issue - deploying 0.1.1 shortly!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 12:41:10 pm
So, onto my second character after the game froze up somehow. This time I decided to try fast travel, to look around for any towns or similiar. Unsure what I was looking for, I just wandered aimlessly until I saw a big red triangle- Oh hey, a volcano! Let's explore THAT!
...It didn't end so well.Maybe you shouldn't be able to fast-travel into such a place? :P I liked the message it gave me, though.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Haha; I'll make sure when you fast-travel onto a volcano, it'll put you a little distance from the lava. That one hadn't even occurred to me! Of course, in the future you may not be able to fast travel up mountains/volcanoes without certain abilities, or it might be a lot harder, or something, but for now you can just leap up there...
Post by: Robsoie on July 09, 2012, 12:48:47 pm
@ Robsoie, ah, that's a tough one. Hmm. I'll have to think about a solution!could it be because that key can actually display by default an accented character ( é ) in AZERTY keyboard that is not present for that key press for both QWERTY and DVORAK ?
I think that might be just it; I'll have to limit what characters it can/can't accept. Were you typing your name, or in the inventory for that?
[/quote]
No, i was just randomly pressing on every keys ingame to test ;)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 01:03:16 pm
No, i was just randomly pressing on every keys ingame to test ;)
Haha; hmm. I'll find a way to handle that.
In the mean time, 0.1.1! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Setting Wild Creatures to the lowest setting removes them all, if you just want to explore...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2012, 01:23:39 pm
EDIT: (and also try and get Mac/Linux releases, too)
Post by: WraithLord24 on July 09, 2012, 01:29:00 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: agentorangesoda on July 09, 2012, 01:33:37 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Crash as a dragon appeared.
i also had a crash in 1.0 where i examined the spear i picked up in my inventory.
Post by: BunnyBob77 on July 09, 2012, 02:10:24 pm
Spoiler: errorlog (click to show/hide)
Post by: Elfeater on July 09, 2012, 02:57:56 pm
Post by: BunnyBob77 on July 09, 2012, 03:12:42 pm
Yeah, the only thing I have actually fought is cyclopes I have not seen any wolves, and I run like a little coward from dragons!I've met all of them now. Of course, I've never actually survived a fight, since dragons and cyclopes rip me limb from limb and wolves come in large packs.
Post by: mendonca on July 09, 2012, 04:03:57 pm
Broke a wolf's leg, and then turned to try and get some distance.
It crashed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sharp on July 09, 2012, 04:07:05 pm
Next game I get a message about a Cyclops climbing but I can't see it anywhere, then I find it (trying to sneak up on me again!) and hah I damage it, then it hits my head twice to kill me >.< ahh once I get my bow I will dedicate a character to just blinding every Cyclops I see and leave it stumbling about.
Post by: redwallzyl on July 09, 2012, 06:47:11 pm
Post by: redwallzyl on July 09, 2012, 06:49:48 pm
Post by: enigma74 on July 09, 2012, 07:19:08 pm
I'm running Windows 7 on a wide screen laptop 1366x768. I wonder if the resolution is a problem, because I can't resize the screen either. Can someone tell me what the "normal" key to select new game is?
Post by: Jack_Bread on July 09, 2012, 07:34:04 pm
I was running from dragons who were destroying trees everywhere. In the middle of the lag, the game proceed to run for a moment to move me around a bit and open the menu. I tried to go to quit using the menu, since the X button didn't work. When attempting to quit, the game stopped responding and that was when I was able to close it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2012, 05:10:37 am
Two times has my game crashed one was when I decided to check out a small dormant volcanoe the other was when after I chopped off a Cyclop's leg and taking out the head when it crashed so I checked the log file.Also I can't seem to be able to get it into fullscreen.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The attacklist error can be easily fixed; will be doing so today for 0.1.2. Do you have any more info about the volcano crash (a log would be perfect!)? And are you trying to fullscreen it in the options menu from the main screen, or in the options menu in-game? And are you adjusting any other options at the same time?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Crash as a dragon appeared.
i also had a crash in 1.0 where i examined the spear i picked up in my inventory.
I know exactly what causes both, and both will be dealt with today :).
Played it, quite fun. Was first killed by a cyclops with a naginata that snuck up behind me, and later got a crash checking informational about humans.Spoiler: errorlog (click to show/hide)
Thanks; that's a new one - will check it out, and hopefully get it sorted today.
Congratulations on your first release! Looking awesome indeed :)
Broke a wolf's leg, and then turned to try and get some distance.
It crashed.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Thanks! Interesting; that should be quick to deal with. The move_towards section is pretty confusing at the moment, so I'm sure there's just a mix-up in the different methods creatures can use to pathfind...
I managed to survive a fight with a Cyclops even though it managed to trick me by sneaking up on me and me and spending 3 turns getting hit looking for where that damned thing was (really need sound or some kind of awareness of a few squares behind you), luckily all it managed to do was bruise my armour and lightly damage my leg, then a bit of exploring and I find two wolves , kill one quite easily after poking out an eye and the other one kills me quite easily :(
Next game I get a message about a Cyclops climbing but I can't see it anywhere, then I find it (trying to sneak up on me again!) and hah I damage it, then it hits my head twice to kill me >.< ahh once I get my bow I will dedicate a character to just blinding every Cyclops I see and leave it stumbling about.
That's a really good thought - I'll add a little marker that shows you what said you're being attacked on. Thanks for the idea! Haha; of course, at the moment you need to either a) sever a leg or b) attack them from higher up (try standing on a much higher position) for easy blinding potential :)
it seems to close when you put it in 12 by 12 and fullscreen.
Interesting - close with error, without? With an error log? Main menu or in-game? What settings were you on before?
Downloaded .1.1 and it doesn't work. Specifically, I can load the first screen and see text like "new game, load game, quit, etc." However, I can only scroll up and down the list. I can't move to the next screen or even quit the game. I'm forced to CTRL-ALT-DELETE to get out of game.
I'm running Windows 7 on a wide screen laptop 1366x768. I wonder if the resolution is a problem, because I can't resize the screen either. Can someone tell me what the "normal" key to select new game is?
Odd; 'Enter' is the way forward. Let me know if that works! If not, that's very odd...
Played 0.1.0 and during the "Saving/Loading chunks" (I think) message, the game started lagging a lot. My computer nearly crashed and I was unable to get task manager open. It took about 5 minutes for it to stop lagging and instead opted to not respond. I was able to close it then using task manager.
I was running from dragons who were destroying trees everywhere. In the middle of the lag, the game proceed to run for a moment to move me around a bit and open the menu. I tried to go to quit using the menu, since the X button didn't work. When attempting to quit, the game stopped responding and that was when I was able to close it.
Urgh. Can you remember much else? Was it the first time with the chunks message? Did the message vanish before the lag, or did the lag start with the chunks message which stayed visible? Were you able to move again after the chunks message? Which menu did you try to get back to exit?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2012, 09:46:30 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2012, 10:51:52 am
Will damaging certain parts of an animal's body enable you to get at others?
Something like lopping off a Cyclops' leg, causing it to fall over so you can behead it, or slashing open something's chest to stab at it's heart/lungs or any other vital organs.
also, it had better have the ability to spill guts (Like DF) because I love spilling guts and having all my enemies chasing me with their intestines dangling out behind them.
As a matter of fact, it already does! A creature with either a severed leg, or too few non-broken legs to limp on, falls, and then you can attack any part :). Guts, well... guts might appear. Guts definitely might appear.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2012, 01:38:18 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Many a bug fix (scroll the page for the full list)
Post by: WraithLord24 on July 10, 2012, 02:54:24 pm
1. No there was no log for that one the log I showed you was all of my logs after my screen crashed the second time maybe if I explain what happened it would help you find the problem. I was exploring the map for a few mins. When I pasted this kind of wierd looking symbol that looked alot like a volcanoe so I travel to it hit the button to go to the area map where it seemed it was good because it show me the map and all that stuff but before I could even try to move around the area my computer informed me that the game had stoped working and I needed to close it.
2. For the fullscreen thing I have just tried to go to fullscreen in the title menu and it disappers that makes me thing it's about to go into fullscreen when it never does ever it just disappers.
Note this is all in 0.1.0.
Also Wow I never type this much :o
Post by: Jack_Bread on July 10, 2012, 03:04:46 pm
Yep. It was the second time I had encountered that chunk message, that session. I'm not sure when the lag appeared. The lag started when the message showed up. I kinda was able to move after the chunks message, but the game just repeated my panicked movement I did when I noticed it started lagging, then showed the menu you see when you press the "X" button. I was able to navigate to "Quit" and enter it. It gave an error when quitting and stopped responding. A minute or two later, task manager finally opened and I was able to end the process.-snip-
Urgh. Can you remember much else? Was it the first time with the chunks message? Did the message vanish before the lag, or did the lag start with the chunks message which stayed visible? Were you able to move again after the chunks message? Which menu did you try to get back to exit?
Spoiler: Quit error (click to show/hide)
I hope this information is good. :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2012, 06:57:39 pm
Ok for the answers to your Questions Ultima
1. No there was no log for that one the log I showed you was all of my logs after my screen crashed the second time maybe if I explain what happened it would help you find the problem. I was exploring the map for a few mins. When I pasted this kind of wierd looking symbol that looked alot like a volcanoe so I travel to it hit the button to go to the area map where it seemed it was good because it show me the map and all that stuff but before I could even try to move around the area my computer informed me that the game had stoped working and I needed to close it.
2. For the fullscreen thing I have just tried to go to fullscreen in the title menu and it disappers that makes me thing it's about to go into fullscreen when it never does ever it just disappers.
Note this is all in 0.1.0.
Also Wow I never type this much :o
Thanks for both. 1) I think the volcano error is fixed; try the latest version, and I think volcanoes are now fixed. 2) Odd. Is your screen resolution smaller than the window, which is to say, does the entire *window* fit in your screen before you maximize? And does the black screen stay, or does the game reappear if you leave it a few seconds? :)
Yep. It was the second time I had encountered that chunk message, that session. I'm not sure when the lag appeared. The lag started when the message showed up. I kinda was able to move after the chunks message, but the game just repeated my panicked movement I did when I noticed it started lagging, then showed the menu you see when you press the "X" button. I was able to navigate to "Quit" and enter it. It gave an error when quitting and stopped responding. A minute or two later, task manager finally opened and I was able to end the process.Spoiler: Quit error (click to show/hide)
I hope this information is good. :)
Bluh; that's very strange. So chunks showed up; chunks went away; it was then lagging, and then do you mean it cut back to a really early menu suddenly? Did you press the X button and that brought up the early menu (I'm still unsure why that happens)? And by lagging, do you mean you were getting in very few moves per second, say, or that it was taking a while for your keypresses to have an effect? That's very interesting though; I'll try and figure out the cause. Could you let me know if it's ever happened again, or still happens with 0.1.2b?
On that note, v0.1.2b is up with a few extra tiny fixes. Last release for a couple of weeks, unless something truly game-breaking emerges I just can't live without fixing.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Post by: Jack_Bread on July 10, 2012, 07:35:21 pm
Nope, the chunk messsage stayed for most of the lag. It started when the message appeared.-snip-
Bluh; that's very strange. So chunks showed up; chunks went away; it was then lagging, and then do you mean it cut back to a really early menu suddenly? Did you press the X button and that brought up the early menu (I'm still unsure why that happens)? And by lagging, do you mean you were getting in very few moves per second, say, or that it was taking a while for your keypresses to have an effect? That's very interesting though; I'll try and figure out the cause. Could you let me know if it's ever happened again, or still happens with 0.1.2b?
I didn't cut back to the early menu, it was sort of like the menu options overlayed the regular game. It was after I attempted mashing the X button so that I could get rid of it.
By lag, I meant the game was not reacting to anything I would do and my entire computer was slowing down to the point of near stopping.
It wasn't until I was able to hit quit in the menu that I was able to open task manager to kill it.
I would like to try, but this sort of lag is dangerous for my computer. My only way of shutting off my laptop if it freezes is pulling out it's battery and I don't exactly have a way to get it fixed if it breaks again. :(
Post by: WraithLord24 on July 10, 2012, 09:53:30 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 11, 2012, 05:18:20 am
Nope, the chunk messsage stayed for most of the lag. It started when the message appeared.
I didn't cut back to the early menu, it was sort of like the menu options overlayed the regular game. It was after I attempted mashing the X button so that I could get rid of it.
By lag, I meant the game was not reacting to anything I would do and my entire computer was slowing down to the point of near stopping.
It wasn't until I was able to hit quit in the menu that I was able to open task manager to kill it.
I would like to try, but this sort of lag is dangerous for my computer. My only way of shutting off my laptop if it freezes is pulling out it's battery and I don't exactly have a way to get it fixed if it breaks again. :(
Interesting, and strange. I know what you mean about the menu thing, that needs fixing. Urgh. No, of course, don't try it again if that was the only way you could escape! I'll try and fix it and get back to you :)
Yeah Im on a laptop and the game actually goes off screen a bit so I cant see the newest messages within the game thats why I tried going into fullscreen in the first place(well I also like it too ;D) and there is no black screen it just disappers like it's about to go to the black screen then show the game but it just stays gone till I Start the game agian.
I think if you fullscreen, the current window needs to be less than your total screensize, so you could probably fullscreen on 10x10 or 8x8, maybe? For 0.2.0 I'll disable the possibility to fullscreen for a certain font size if your resolution is too low!
Finally, volcanoes still weren't working, but now I think they are. 0.1.2c, genuinely the last update for a few weeks!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 11, 2012, 09:16:43 am
Post by: Clownmite on July 11, 2012, 10:52:40 pm
Some UI things:
On the ground, it might be useful to let people know when they're approaching a loading area so they can avoid it if they wish. On the same note, the quotes that pop up are nice, but it obscures the view around your character. If you were in the middle of a fight, I might use that loading time to analyze the tactical situation.
For me personally, it is kind of awkward to use backspace as the "go back" key. I instinctively press "escape" if I want to exit something. You could always enable both.
In the skill select screen, you might want to allow people to hold shift + left/right arrows to increase/decrease skill points by 5 or 10 at a time. In general, the 1000 skill points to begin with is huge. I like that things could be fine tailored so much, but I need to sink a lot of time into customizing the character, and frankly the amount of options are overwhelming. The presets are a godsend though.
Anyway, congrats again on your first release.
Post by: Edmus on July 12, 2012, 12:16:10 am
Just downloaded this and got owned by Cyclops. UI is excellent, I can't say much else that hasn't already been said however. It's great to finally be able to play around with this, alpha or no. :)
Post by: Trollheiming on July 12, 2012, 01:09:42 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 12, 2012, 05:36:15 am
I've been following this pretty closely since you started the thread here, and I have to say you're off to an awesome start. I like the aesthetics of the travel mode, the fact that the world is not filling up the whole screen makes it feel like you're navigating a map.
Some UI things:
On the ground, it might be useful to let people know when they're approaching a loading area so they can avoid it if they wish. On the same note, the quotes that pop up are nice, but it obscures the view around your character. If you were in the middle of a fight, I might use that loading time to analyze the tactical situation.
For me personally, it is kind of awkward to use backspace as the "go back" key. I instinctively press "escape" if I want to exit something. You could always enable both.
In the skill select screen, you might want to allow people to hold shift + left/right arrows to increase/decrease skill points by 5 or 10 at a time. In general, the 1000 skill points to begin with is huge. I like that things could be fine tailored so much, but I need to sink a lot of time into customizing the character, and frankly the amount of options are overwhelming. The presets are a godsend though.
Anyway, congrats again on your first release.
Thanks, glad to hear it! Specifics: interesting point re: loading screens. I might move them to the very top of the screen instead. I'll add escape in happily. As for the skills screen, it's going to be completely changed for 0.2.0 and replaced with something much closer to a (madly complex) skill tree (I'm currently working on), which will have few initial options and be a much more gradual thing :). A few people have commented on the skills page, and that, combined with the fact that skills of that type have no choices between a or b, or better/worse routes, or specialities or anything else, makes it rather less interesting than the kind of skill tree I'm imagining.
:o
Just downloaded this and got owned by Cyclops. UI is excellent, I can't say much else that hasn't already been said however. It's great to finally be able to play around with this, alpha or no. :)
Awesome, glad you like the UI! In about a week I'll release a big fix with 0.1.3 so you'll be able to wander around a lot more, and creatures/items will be much, much more visible...
I find it odd that I can slash an ogre's leg to the bone and he still can stand. I think the damage model is a little too generous to the injured. Then I broke his bone, and he still stood and attacked. It's pretty much necessary to break both legs before they fall.
Yep, as I said on the download page, combat takes far too long at the moment. It's going to be significantly reworked for 0.2.0 both in terms of skills that affect combat, and in terms of mechanics, and it will be much quicker (though still equally brutal!). Oh, yes, and one broken leg will definitely knock people down.
Post by: Dutchling on July 12, 2012, 05:59:41 am
'The archive is either in unknown format or damaged'
I will try version b.
edit: Older version aren't downloadable apparently. I guess I'll just wait until you have a new version which hopefully works for me :).
Post by: rhesusmacabre on July 12, 2012, 06:48:33 am
When approaching the sea I got the following message:
Code: [Select]
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Assertion Failed!
Program: [directory]\URR0-1-2c.exe
File: src/console_c.c
Line: 220
Expression: dat != ((void *)0 && (unsigned)(x) < (unsigned)dat->w &&
(unsigned)(y) < (unsigned)dat->hThe game then crashed when I selected "Retry".Also, I can't get the options to save. Are they meant to?
Post by: ThtblovesDF on July 12, 2012, 08:02:47 am
Go to your skill selection at char-gen.
Spend points.
Go back (backspace)
Spend more points
-Repeat.
_____________________
So help says S for skills... but neither S nor s does anything... infact, I can't do much of anything at all besides [T]ravel and walk around, is the help just kind of presenting features to be added in the future?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 12, 2012, 08:12:14 am
URRO-1-2c.zip gives me this error when I try to unzip it.
'The archive is either in unknown format or damaged'
I will try version b.
edit: Older version aren't downloadable apparently. I guess I'll just wait until you have a new version which hopefully works for me :).
Urgh, sorry about that. From now on I'll put up zips and rars together!
It sounds like you just have a bad download, try again maybe?
When approaching the sea I got the following message:Code: [Select]Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime LibraryThe game then crashed when I selected "Retry".
Assertion Failed!
Program: [directory]\URR0-1-2c.exe
File: src/console_c.c
Line: 220
Expression: dat != ((void *)0 && (unsigned)(x) < (unsigned)dat->w &&
(unsigned)(y) < (unsigned)dat->h
Also, I can't get the options to save. Are they meant to?
Common error; fixing it for 0.1.3 on Monday! They will in the future, but they don't just yet.
'Aha, as always i tend to find exploits ...
Go to your skill selection at char-gen.
Spend points.
Go back (backspace)
Spend more points
-Repeat.
Ha, well spotted. However, skills will be *totally* changed come 0.2.0, so that won't matter for too long!
Post by: Blaze on July 12, 2012, 09:52:00 am
Edit: Tried again, started a warrior and got mauled by wolves.
I notice even with skill level 30 in heavy weapon aim I still kept attack their legs even though I was aiming at their heads.
Oh, this time I *did* get an error message when I pressed "J" to quit.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: FlyingIcarus on July 12, 2012, 01:31:32 pm
Post by: Elshar on July 12, 2012, 03:41:31 pm
Any plans on a forum soon? We could definitely use a place to discuss the game and such.
Post by: Rowanas on July 12, 2012, 06:18:52 pm
P.S. I have a couple of busy days and when I finally get some time on the forums, I find you've released!? Damnit!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 13, 2012, 04:38:43 am
Hm, well I downloaded it and made a soldier character. Then a dragon came and I poked it until it died (it didn't attack), then I left the map and the game crashed when I tried to leave the current chunk (By heading east, not via "t"ravel.). No error log.
Edit: Tried again, started a warrior and got mauled by wolves.
I notice even with skill level 30 in heavy weapon aim I still kept attack their legs even though I was aiming at their heads.
Oh, this time I *did* get an error message when I pressed "J" to quit.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ah, the Dragon didn't attack? Bah. Were you standing right next to it? And could it reach you? Actually, #2 must be true; Dragons are taller than you, so if you could reach it, it could reach you. Hmm. Any more detail about its failure to attack? :). That's because the skills aren't well implemented and are getting a major change for 0.2.0; and lastly, the bug you mention has been fixed!
Any plans on a forum soon? We could definitely use a place to discuss the game and such.
I've had another request or two about this, and I'll try and look into it soon. It'll definitely be around by 0.2.0, but after 0.1.3 I need to focus on my academic work for a bit while I get 0.2.0 off the ground.
Hey, URR, you said you were in the UK. Anywhere near Exeter?
P.S. I have a couple of busy days and when I finally get some time on the forums, I find you've released!? Damnit!
Haha, apologies! I'm afraid not, I'm doing my doctorate in York and I'll be staying there until the end of that :(
Post by: enigma74 on July 13, 2012, 04:34:03 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 14, 2012, 06:49:37 am
Downloaded .2c, still cannot proceed past loading screen. Forced to ctrl-alt-delete close the program. Windows 7 laptop.
Do you mean loading, or saving/loading chunks? And what do you mean by cannot proceed past? If you take 3/4/5 steps after a loading it crashes, and I know that one, and I've fixed it for 0.1.3 (this coming Monday).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 16, 2012, 12:01:45 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/16/aftermath/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 16, 2012, 05:45:44 pm
y'know, I think you'll have to write a tribute to us B12ers somewhere in the game, given the number of ideas and bug reporting we've done :P
See the acknowledgements page! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 16, 2012, 07:59:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 17, 2012, 05:18:00 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Right, that's the final release for a while. I'm now working on combat and skill trees for 0.2.0, as I decided a skill tree system would be much more interesting, and much more balanced. It'll also allow me to put in choices for the player to make about prioritizing some areas over others rather than being able to just train any skill. Plus the original skills list was a little... long...
Post by: fred1248 on July 17, 2012, 06:30:52 am
0.1.3b released:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Right, that's the final release for a while. I'm now working on combat and skill trees for 0.2.0, as I decided a skill tree system would be much more interesting, and much more balanced. It'll also allow me to put in choices for the player to make about prioritizing some areas over others rather than being able to just train any skill. Plus the original skills list was a little... long...
A little? :P
Post by: Man of Paper on July 17, 2012, 07:56:07 am
This game being released, even in this barest of forms, has been one of my top highlights of this month so far (seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall is the only thing right now that I can think of that I was more amped for).
Even including the bugs that you've been stomping at an awesome pace, I find myself starting up URR before I realize what's going on. As was previously stated, I can see this quickly becoming the game.
Also, you're awesome, and you should know that.
Post by: Mephansteras on July 17, 2012, 11:23:03 am
Killed most of them, but died to the last one.
Fun! I'll have to try it some more. Although the random materials for items was a bit odd. How do you get an Amber Halbard?
Post by: agertor on July 18, 2012, 04:34:01 pm
Fun! I'll have to try it some more. Although the random materials for items was a bit odd. How do you get an Amber Halbard?
Jurassic Park obviously. Which begs the question and/or suggestion. Can we have a secret volcanic island that would be home to dinosaurs on spawn. And perhaps neanderthals for a civ? Kind of like "The unclaimed new world" That would be a cool little adventure to have on a boat. Just saying. Then you could get amber-material weapons. Aww yeah.
Post by: monk12 on July 18, 2012, 04:51:13 pm
Post by: agertor on July 18, 2012, 06:09:32 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on July 18, 2012, 06:26:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 20, 2012, 05:52:28 pm
As long as you don't Post-Morrowind the skill list (referencing The Elder Scrolls and the baleetion of a good 50-60% of the skills between Morrowind and Skyrim [not saying their skill list didn't need some clipping!]). I definitely trust you know what you're doing though.
This game being released, even in this barest of forms, has been one of my top highlights of this month so far (seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall is the only thing right now that I can think of that I was more amped for).
Even including the bugs that you've been stomping at an awesome pace, I find myself starting up URR before I realize what's going on. As was previously stated, I can see this quickly becoming the game.
Also, you're awesome, and you should know that.
Oh no - and thanks, hopefully I do! I've been doing a lot of sketching and design work on skill trees this week (I've been helping out at a conference, and between talks there's a lot of spare time). I'll probably upload some blurry teaser photos at some point :). Thanks so much, both re: highlights, and awesomeness; it really means a lot that you're that taken with the game. I think enough bugs have been stomped for the time being, so 0.1.3b is going to be the last until 0.2.0...
Finally got a chance to try it out last night. Looks great, good interface, played smooth. No crashes, but then I didn't get to do much. Mostly just walked around, picked up some random stuff (a wooden mace and an Amber? Halbard). Then got attacked by wolves.
Killed most of them, but died to the last one.
Fun! I'll have to try it some more. Although the random materials for items was a bit odd. How do you get an Amber Halbard?
Excellent! Ah, yes, materials need changing at some point. They were implemented in that fashion back when I thought it was going to be much more of a dungeon-crawling game. I have no idea how you get an amber halberd :(
oh awesome, B12 in acknowledgements!
trying to think of other quotes that'd be suitable. closest I got was 'before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes, because then you'll be a mile away, and have their shoes.'
I need to work on finding more suitable quotes :/
Ninjaedit: 'I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy'-John Adams
knowing me though, you already go that one
Haha; I do like the shoes one. I've heard the pol/war one before, but it wasn't on the list - it is now, though!
Jurassic Park obviously. Which begs the question and/or suggestion. Can we have a secret volcanic island that would be home to dinosaurs on spawn. And perhaps neanderthals for a civ? Kind of like "The unclaimed new world" That would be a cool little adventure to have on a boat. Just saying. Then you could get amber-material weapons. Aww yeah.
I heartily endorse any and all Dino-biomes
Yeah, see Im not the only one who wants this lol. Of course itd be down the road, but something to think about.
It's... an interesting idea. I can't promise anything, but I may add in other external world generation sliders in the far future that would make something like that possible. If you pick younger human civilizations, there may be mammoths and things around, at the very least...
I don't recall if it was discussed, probably was knowing you guys, but I'd love to eventually have the opportunity to interact with tribal or civilizations similar to the Aztecs, Mongols, Native Americans and the like. They could have unique weapons and such, and of course their troops and customs would vary widely. It'd also add another interesting aspect if a base magic is introduced (I'm in favor of a magic system that remains mid(?)-fantasy, like alchemy and rituals and the like), especially with groups similar to the Central American tribes, centering it around a few high priests, sacrificial rituals, and neat junk like that. Of course, that'd be so far down the line (and unlikely to happen) that I feel silly mentioning it.
Yes - I 100% don't want all civilizations to have the same technological level, for one thing. Setting the age of human civilization will determine the *highest possible* technology, but it's unlikely all civilizations will have reached it. I have a massive file in notepad++ with civilization/political/social/cultural ideas, and these are very similar. However, I can guarantee magic is never going to make an appearance in the game, I'm afraid :(. Everything else about varied civilizations I fully want to implement, though! I'd like there to be a mix of empires, countries, city-states, tribes, civilizations cut off from the rest of the world, cosmopolitan ones... I think (especially in younger worlds) it would be really fun to play around with civilizations like the aztecs, and get a nice bit of culture shock going!
Post by: Elshar on July 20, 2012, 06:57:52 pm
retrieved the proper quote, and the name:
"Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes."
~ Jack Handey
EDIT: protip: if in need of quotes, look at the Civ series.
lol I love those Jack Handey quotes. Ever see the SNL bits with them?
Post by: Devling on July 20, 2012, 08:00:12 pm
But I have to say this.
Fuck Yes Please.
That is all.
Post by: Nighthawk on July 20, 2012, 08:14:55 pm
No complaints, everything that was promised works perfectly. I'm sure the next release will be even more awesome!
Post by: Frumple on July 20, 2012, 08:38:22 pm
However, I can guarantee magic is never going to make an appearance in the game, I'm afraid :(.!!!
Haven't been keeping too much up with the thread, but... plans for magic were dropped?
Post by: inEQUALITY on July 20, 2012, 08:45:26 pm
However, I can guarantee magic is never going to make an appearance in the game, I'm afraid :(.!!!
Haven't been keeping too much up with the thread, but... plans for magic were dropped?
Same here, haven't been following in here either, and this makes me a little disappointed. However, I'm sure there's good reasons for it. Power level, coding issues, possibility of it becoming too much of a 'unfun' mechanic, etc. etc.
This game can be (and is on track to be!) an amazing game without it, so that in itself is one reason not to include it, I suppose. :P
Post by: agertor on July 20, 2012, 10:31:18 pm
Post by: Weirdsound on July 21, 2012, 08:32:41 pm
Gratz on release.
Post by: Devling on July 22, 2012, 02:27:06 am
*sigh*
waiting eagerly...
Post by: fred1248 on July 22, 2012, 02:32:53 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 22, 2012, 07:34:34 pm
I haven't read a fraction of this thread, I haven't even played the game.
But I have to say this.
Fuck Yes Please.
That is all.
Excellent.
Played a bit after finally getting back from a long family vacation. It works really well - the interface is easy to navigate, makes sense, and is great in general. Went and fought a couple cyclops, found that they're insanely strong and incredible at messing up my skull. Died twice due to a shattered skull, managed to kill one by taking out its torso.
No complaints, everything that was promised works perfectly. I'm sure the next release will be even more awesome!
Glad to hear it; yeah, combat needs a lot of balancing. See 0.2.0 for details. Thanks! :)
However, I can guarantee magic is never going to make an appearance in the game, I'm afraid :(.!!!
Haven't been keeping too much up with the thread, but... plans for magic were dropped?
Same here, haven't been following in here either, and this makes me a little disappointed. However, I'm sure there's good reasons for it. Power level, coding issues, possibility of it becoming too much of a 'unfun' mechanic, etc. etc.
This game can be (and is on track to be!) an amazing game without it, so that in itself is one reason not to include it, I suppose. :P
The basic reasons are, 1) I want a 95% realistic world if you enable mythical creatures, 100% without; 2) a thousand other games have magic, 3) I don't want to spend the amount of time I would spend on magic on magic, since I could be spending it on all the strategy/4x/political/social stuff I want to explore instead, which remain totally new to ASCII games (as far as I know). The default setting is very much 100% realism; you can add mythical creatures if you want, but their role will be small. Also, thanks! There was also an issue about not being sure how to balance magic in a large-scale game like this...
So expanding from what you said to my idea, there is a time to technology level? Ranging from basic stones and sticks to arrows and swords, to perhaps basic firework artillery and basic firearms? Or wut?
Yeah, I've been thinking about technology levels for a bit. Depending on the setting, I'd like to go from absolute basic weapons (the lowest will likely be bronze age weaponry) up to perhaps very, very early gunpowder (or maybe even modern era, but let's not ahead of ourselves!). You choose the amount of history in the world generation.
Oh. This is out now? Awesome. I've been peeking at Other Games and checking at this every so often. Can't wait to give it a try when I'm not bogged down with forum games.
Gratz on release.
Thanks - feels great to have it playable, and to have a coherent plan for the next two releases, too.
Have... Have towns been implemented?
*sigh*
waiting eagerly...
I'm fairly certain that we need to wait at least 2 or 3 more years until all the core features are fully implemented.
Not even close, Devling :)! Give it six-eight months for history generation (after all combat and basic gameplay mechanics) then we'll see what the next priority is.
Post by: fred1248 on July 22, 2012, 08:52:42 pm
Don't push it too hard, man. We can wait.
Post by: Weirdsound on July 22, 2012, 11:48:21 pm
I also noticed 'undead civilization' mentioned several times on the world gen options. Can't wait to see how undeath will be handled without magic.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 23, 2012, 06:52:47 pm
Something tells me you'll be suffering from sleep deprivation for the next 6 to 8 months :(
Don't push it too hard, man. We can wait.
I think you're right - two/three months for skills, another two after that for mechanics, then history. I mean, history MIGHT end up way easier than expected, but... I wouldn't count on it. Thanks :) - don't worry, I'll take the time to get it right.
I think he mentioned he was a Grad Student. Sleep deprivation should in theory be his default state.
I also noticed 'undead civilization' mentioned several times on the world gen options. Can't wait to see how undeath will be handled without magic.
Yes, I am indeed doing a PhD, which is my priority for the coming month, as I have 40k words to submit before the next academic year starts, and I'm working on a paper to try and get published in a journal. There's a blog entry up today on z levels (go read! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/07/24/faux-3d/) and there will be another in a fortnight, but development is slow at the moment. This is also because I'm doing a lot of concept work on how I want skill trees to function before I actually go around and implement the things. Yes, if you enable mythical creatures, the undead will appear, but I'm not sure about the specifics...
Post by: Devling on July 23, 2012, 08:03:40 pm
"Mount and Blade meets Dwarf Fortress? Have you been looking into my dreams?"
I'm sure this will be worth the wait.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 25, 2012, 06:56:43 pm
When I first saw this I was like,
"Mount and Blade meets Dwarf Fortress? Have you been looking into my dreams?"
I'm sure this will be worth the wait.
Yes, yes I have. Most of it was horrifying, but I did extract the M&B/DF blend you desired...
Thanks :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 26, 2012, 10:22:11 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/
Post by: Rowanas on July 26, 2012, 07:31:51 pm
Post by: Batman Wayne on July 26, 2012, 11:09:10 pm
Post by: ductape on July 26, 2012, 11:16:35 pm
Make a forum, Bay12 can't be your forum.
Not sure where this is coming from, this thread is fine here, BUT...
I have often thought this thread belongs in Creative Projects, since thats what it is. I like to this of the Other Games section as a place we share with each other interesting games to play. Not sure if theres really any hard and fast rules, but I personally would rather see completed games or games that are moving toward release status soon. Long rambling development threads just dont seem to fit here as well, but I honestly dont care hat much.
Post by: Weirdsound on July 27, 2012, 12:20:45 am
Quote
Visual arts, music, writing, and anything else you are working on that you'd like to share. Video game projects work here or in Other Games. General workshops and questions about this sort of thing are welcome here. Reviews and discussion about stuff by other people would be better over at General Discussion.
Acording to Toady, this is fine where it is.
Post by: monk12 on July 27, 2012, 12:22:25 am
Post by: BishopX on July 27, 2012, 06:49:24 am
Until you need to have multiple discussions running separably or a large player base outside of b12, there's no need for a separate forum.
Besides, forums take work. Do your grad school and your development and leave the infrastructure of your fan base to someone else.
Post by: fred1248 on July 27, 2012, 08:14:40 am
In my expereince, many games start here, move to their own forums and I promptly lose track of them (I'm looking at you cataclysm and prospector).
Until you need to have multiple discussions running separably or a large player base outside of b12, there's no need for a separate forum.
Besides, forums take work. Do your grad school and your development and leave the infrastructure of your fan base to someone else.
^ that
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2012, 04:19:20 am
The absence of Mac version still makes me sad. I can play it fine, but I have to open up the XP VM to do so.
I'm working on a Linux version, but a Mac version is proving very tough, especially given that libtcod isn't really compatible with OSX. A good six hours' work couldn't get it to compile; I'll give it another shot for 0.2.0, but I'm not hopeful :(
As for a forum, I do intend to add one to my site eventually, but let's be honest, there isn't much point yet. Come 1.0.0, I'll put one up, but for the next year until all the combat mechanics, other unit mechanics (sleep, food, etc etc) and some basic history generation is in, there isn't that much to discuss. I'll definitely put one up once history generation is fully implemented, though, as I'll be interested to see what people make of that...
Post by: Dutchling on July 30, 2012, 09:22:36 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2012, 09:44:57 am
If you do get a forum, please keep posting the changelogs here as well. I'm interested in a lot of games, and I just can't check all their fora/blogs regularly.
Worry ye not, I definitely would/will keep posting here and on other sites too!
Post by: Rowanas on July 30, 2012, 03:20:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2012, 06:09:58 am
Just after you post saying "OSX unlikely", my XP VM dies on me, forcing a full hard reset every time i try to oepn it. No more URR for me, it seems :(
Nooo! Would a Linux version be more palatable? I'm working on that for 0.2.0.
Post by: pilgrimboy on August 04, 2012, 11:07:03 am
Post by: Weirdsound on August 04, 2012, 11:52:02 am
I can't get my screen to allow me to see the bottom of the game window. Is there some trick that I don't know?
I have that problem as well.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2012, 07:43:09 pm
I can't get my screen to allow me to see the bottom of the game window. Is there some trick that I don't know?
I have that problem as well.
Huh. This is a new one. Do you have a screenshot?
Post by: Devling on August 04, 2012, 11:12:45 pm
Go to options, change resolution.
If that doesn't help then I can't help.
Post by: Rowanas on August 05, 2012, 04:28:22 am
It's alright.. I'll just.. sit over here and watch URR. *soft weeping*
Post by: Man of Paper on August 05, 2012, 07:05:34 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2012, 04:22:30 pm
I had this problem as well at when I started the game.
Go to options, change resolution.
If that doesn't help then I can't help.
Can you print-screen and show me what it looks like?
Never mind. My windows virtual machine has crashed, and I deleted my linux VM because I never use it.
It's alright.. I'll just.. sit over here and watch URR. *soft weeping*
:(:(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2012, 04:35:24 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/08/06/brainstorming/
Enjoy!
Post by: a1s on August 07, 2012, 07:23:30 pm
You mention in the downloads section that people found too many skills in your alpha release. I couldn't even find one. Actually I couldn't find anything (no humans, no shops, no animals) except occasional cyclops (huh?) attacking me with a naginata (wth?). Is my version bugged, or were you talking about something else, and it's working just as intended?
Post by: Mephansteras on August 07, 2012, 07:31:18 pm
Personally, I'd probably end up using the option with the most information most often. Not because I'd want things to be easy, but because it'd be interesting to see how the world ended up. Also, I could pick an area that would have interesting things going on in it for me to do and try to effect.
Which is nice, because your system allows for different ways to get challenges. Just because I know what's going on doesn't mean I can't pick a difficult situation to throw myself into. :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2012, 04:57:07 am
Hi. I didn't actually read the 50+ pages of this thread, so maybe this was asked before.
You mention in the downloads section that people found too many skills in your alpha release. I couldn't even find one. Actually I couldn't find anything (no humans, no shops, no animals) except occasional cyclops (huh?) attacking me with a naginata (wth?). Is my version bugged, or were you talking about something else, and it's working just as intended?
Because of that, skills were removed from the first alpha, and are being redone for 0.2.0, which I'm working on at the home. And no, the version isn't bugged; it's a first alpha of a one-man development team, there isn't a lot there yet! And things are going to change pretty significantly in the near future: for 0.2.0, humans will appear if only to test out the redone combat/skills on, and mythical creatures are going to take a break...
Just your your latest post. Sounds interesting, and this is something I've wanted someone to do for quite a while. I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works in execution.
Personally, I'd probably end up using the option with the most information most often. Not because I'd want things to be easy, but because it'd be interesting to see how the world ended up. Also, I could pick an area that would have interesting things going on in it for me to do and try to effect.
Which is nice, because your system allows for different ways to get challenges. Just because I know what's going on doesn't mean I can't pick a difficult situation to throw myself into. :)
Yeah, I think I'm going to change it to 3 options - no civ, random civ, total choice of civ; I think options 2) and 3) I identified in the list are actually a little redundant. Still, glad you like the sound of it; that kind of civ selection probably won't appear for 1.0, which'll be focused on history generation and getting the civilizations and appropriate data stored in the game, then 2.0 will have them appear, I think :).
Post by: silverskull39 on August 08, 2012, 11:18:31 am
Post by: Girlinhat on August 09, 2012, 07:41:03 pm
Is your character supposed to be retarded at combat? I attacked the left leg every time, but I did more damage to the torso and the right leg than to the left leg! I mean, a bit of skill-based randomization might be neat, but statistically speaking I'm hitting my intended target less often than if I were randomly swinging.
And I know it's in alpha/beta, but are there like key game elements missing? Claiming to be a strategy roguelike, but it seems that the skills and army management screens aren't in yet, and there appear to be no towns or cities at all. So it's neat and all, but it currently doesn't do anything it wants to, or am I just missing it?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 11, 2012, 07:28:47 pm
My personal opinion is that you should include options 2 and 3 or some other form of "partial knowledge" choice. A really intriguing way to do it in my opinion would be to tie the knowledge given into the character you start as. I.e. if you start as a general you know all about the size of the territory and the army etc, but next to nothing about the economic side of things, or if you start as a diplomat or lawmaker of some sort you know all its policies but relatively little about the army.
That... is an interesting suggestion. I'll mull it over. Hmm. Yeah, that is an interesting idea! Maybe I'll have a 'Character Knowledge' option as well as total knowledge, which is dependent on the kind of class you start as...
So I started playing, and immediately ran into a cyclops. I figure I'm dead anyways, but meh I'm still gonna fight.
Is your character supposed to be retarded at combat? I attacked the left leg every time, but I did more damage to the torso and the right leg than to the left leg! I mean, a bit of skill-based randomization might be neat, but statistically speaking I'm hitting my intended target less often than if I were randomly swinging.
And I know it's in alpha/beta, but are there like key game elements missing? Claiming to be a strategy roguelike, but it seems that the skills and army management screens aren't in yet, and there appear to be no towns or cities at all. So it's neat and all, but it currently doesn't do anything it wants to, or am I just missing it?
Well, no - as I've said assorted times, 0.2.0 is going to address that and totally redo combat. And you aren't hitting the intended target less over a sufficient sample size; even with low skills you currently hit accurately more than you don't. Also, again, see above - one man development team, part-time. Those components are not in yet, and will not be until 1.0.0 at the earliest; 0.2.0 is going to redo combat and skills, 0.3.0 implement remaining individual mechanics (hunger, thirst, tiredness, etc) and then 1.0.0 will start with history generation and civilizations. And by "currently doesn't do anything it wants to" - apart from the world generation, user interface, inventory systems and a huge amount of under-the-hood work on saving, loading, data structures which have about fifteen months work behind them...
it's a sort of 'tech demo'
it's nowhere near complete, it's just a sort of download that shows what some systems are like.
This is accurate. I have started what will probably be a project for maybe a decade, and not all features are going to be in from the start.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 19, 2012, 12:56:22 pm
Post by: Devling on August 19, 2012, 01:38:48 pm
The age of discovery? The Modern age?
Then little mini eras in between, like an ancient era before the medieval era, then between the age of discovery and the modern age the industrial revolution?
That's the first thing that popped into my head, but I am interested in what you plan on doing.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 20, 2012, 11:54:19 am
So what will the other 2 eras be?
The age of discovery? The Modern age?
Then little mini eras in between, like an ancient era before the medieval era, then between the age of discovery and the modern age the industrial revolution?
That's the first thing that popped into my head, but I am interested in what you plan on doing.
I'm afraid that's going to remain a secret for a bit! I just increasingly realized the mechanics I wanted didn't all 'fit' into a single era. I'm also further considering the extent to which the world will be 'open' or not (especially in the later eras...) but that's a topic for another entry. There will not be mini-eras, but naturally not every civilization in one era will have reached the 'maximum' level of technology for that era. So in the medieval era, you'll get everything from what you'd expect down to hunter-gatherers elsewhere on the planet.
In the mean time, Skill Trees!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/08/20/skill-trees-part-i/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/08/SwordTree.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 28, 2012, 09:48:37 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/
Post by: Mephansteras on August 28, 2012, 12:37:46 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on August 28, 2012, 03:47:07 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 28, 2012, 03:56:57 pm
My brain keeps trying to figure out how to make a boardgame out of that skill tree diagram of yours...
That would be some boardgame (especially across all the trees)...
MY brain keeps trying to figure out how the hell I'm ever going to micromanage those skill trees for every single unit in my 10,000 man army.
Simply, you're not! All other humans and creatures and the like will have skill trees effectively 'diluted' according to their class and their specialisms. It would just be madness otherwise, I decided (and would take a lot of extra programming to get them to intelligently use their XP, etc). They still get better, but other creatures are much more 'narrow' than the player. I didn't originally intend this to still be the case, and in terms of AI I still want other NPCs to do interesting things, but in terms of skills, they are much more specialized.
Post by: Mephansteras on August 28, 2012, 04:00:04 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/08/SwordTree.png)
I was just talking about this one. My brain just keeps going "That looks like a fascinating layout for a game board."
In any case, looking forward to the next version. :)
Post by: Rowanas on September 02, 2012, 04:56:57 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 03, 2012, 06:52:53 pm
I was just talking about this one. My brain just keeps going "That looks like a fascinating layout for a game board."
In any case, looking forward to the next version. :)
That is splendid to hear :). Programming is slow but steady; got all the medieval trees visible and you can navigate around them; now I just need to get them to actually have an effect!
I'm going to download the 0.2.0, since apparently a little OSX work will get done on it, and see if I can apply my reasonable experience to making it compile properly for mac os 10.5.8. If I buy a new computer, I may well send you this one if you want it. It kinda sucks (hence new computer), but if it helps you get URR working, all the better. Dunno if I can afford a new computer yet, though.
Sounds awesome, and that would be great if you could find a way; and, wait, are you offering to send me a mac?! Have I read that correctly?! I'm really going to try and get Linux working for the next release, but Macs remain the toughest (and, sadly, the smallest userbase, so the lowest priority :(). Nevertheless, there seem some solid methods of getting it to work people have found; I've listed a few of them on the Downloads page.
MEANWHILE, a new blog entry! With lots of words, and no pictures. The next entry, however, will have lots of pictures and few words. Such is life. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/04/pretentious-gaming-talk-i/
Post by: BishopX on September 03, 2012, 10:25:57 pm
To remedy this I have four possible suggestions
1) break up the goodies so that you don't need to complete a tree to get special moves or stat points, some are available along the path. This will encourage people to build a more well rounded character as they go for specific attainable goals.
2)Make XP costs scale by branch rather than by tree. So investing points in slashing damage wouldn't increase the difficulty of learning slashing accuracy.
3)Mix up trees a little bit. Damage II doesn't need to come after Damage I, it could come after accuracy I. By weighting the frequency of accuracy, damage and specials on each branch you could present alternatives that are less munchkiny
4)Add cross-requisites to force players to broaden their skill selection. For example, require a special move learned on the accuracy tree to advance the ability to chop off limbs past level 2. This would make the skill tress massively more complex, but would force players to broaden their skill selection.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 04, 2012, 05:44:35 am
Looking at the example skill tree you posted URR, I think that min/maxing may be an issue. All of the 'rewards' on the tree are at the end of branches. So in order to get special moves and more stat points you need to focus your XP on a specific branch because the experience consts of each skill go up as you any skill in the tree. So buying a point of accuracy will make it harder to buy another point of damage.
To remedy this I have four possible suggestions
1) break up the goodies so that you don't need to complete a tree to get special moves or stat points, some are available along the path. This will encourage people to build a more well rounded character as they go for specific attainable goals.
2)Make XP costs scale by branch rather than by tree. So investing points in slashing damage wouldn't increase the difficulty of learning slashing accuracy.
3)Mix up trees a little bit. Damage II doesn't need to come after Damage I, it could come after accuracy I. By weighting the frequency of accuracy, damage and specials on each branch you could present alternatives that are less munchkiny
4)Add cross-requisites to force players to broaden their skill selection. For example, require a special move learned on the accuracy tree to advance the ability to chop off limbs past level 2. This would make the skill tress massively more complex, but would force players to broaden their skill selection.
Very interesting, and good point. I see exactly what you mean. Of all the possibilities, #4 appeals to me the most, and I think one solution could be that when you reach the "Special Attack" boxes on each tree, it doesn't instantly unlock, but rather gives you a menu of potential special attacks. This is something I intended to do anyway; the special attacks aren't fixed, but give you a choice of, say, 4 special attacks, so a tree with two SA boxes lets you unlock two. However, each one has specific requirements, some of which will require multiple parts of a given tree; you can view the potential special attacks early on and see what the requirements in each tree are. I still want you to have to explore a direction in a tree to reach them, but there might be, for instance, 6 attacks - one requires nothing but damage, one nothing but accuracy, whilst the others require damage/1-handed combo, or accuracy/2-handed, etc, and so you can also plan your development accordingly. I want to make the special attacks/abilities very important, and I think making them dependent on a variety of unlocks (even though they are at the end of specific branches) could balance it nicely. At the same time, though, I do conceive of damage-focused and accuracy-focused combat resulting in very different gameplay as it is, so in that way I don't mind splitting the branches. What do you think? I'm glad you raised this issue!
Post by: ThtblovesDF on September 04, 2012, 09:25:47 am
You have a special attack. One alternative option for it makes it hit more enemys. Another makes it hit twice. You can focus on the whole tree and max that one attack. Or you could branch.
Removing player choice seems like a unneeded move in a game of this complexity level, we are not the average gamer that needs a double D pointing out how to move.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 05, 2012, 09:00:10 am
Why not split a little more?
You have a special attack. One alternative option for it makes it hit more enemys. Another makes it hit twice. You can focus on the whole tree and max that one attack. Or you could branch.
Removing player choice seems like a unneeded move in a game of this complexity level, we are not the average gamer that needs a double D pointing out how to move.
I'm not sure you mean; split up the A/D branches? Or do you mean that the idea for special attacks with varying requirements is a good one? I think the system outlined above would let you focus on the whole tree or max out attacks, hopefully.
Post by: ThtblovesDF on September 05, 2012, 09:47:25 am
Depending on the finer mechanics, there are many ways to deal damage - especially, getting it to the target, from armor penetration, to amount of hits, accuracy, range, stamina/mana cost and therelike. Allowing one to choose the strenghts of a specific skill and the way you deliver the damage is what I'm refering to.
Example:
Code: [Select]
Instead of D->D+->d++->D++->New skill
this:
Code: [Select]
/ Accuracy +------Accuracy ++ ----- Special: Focus - your next attack will be far more likly to hit.
/
Start--------Penetration + ------->Penetration ++
\
\ Range + -----Range ++ -------Range +++
\\
Special: Max Range attack, take a round to rest/higher cost
Note: Each Step also gives a small damage boost.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 07, 2012, 10:09:22 am
For now as I see it, you have "Damage" and then "more Damage" as a single path for... well damage.
Depending on the finer mechanics, there are many ways to deal damage - especially, getting it to the target, from armor penetration, to amount of hits, accuracy, range, stamina/mana cost and therelike. Allowing one to choose the strenghts of a specific skill and the way you deliver the damage is what I'm refering to.
Example:Code: [Select]
Instead of D->D+->d++->D++->New skill
this:Code: [Select]/ Accuracy +------Accuracy ++ ----- Special: Focus - your next attack will be far more likly to hit.
/
Start--------Penetration + ------->Penetration ++
\
\ Range + -----Range ++ -------Range +++
\\
Special: Max Range attack, take a round to rest/higher cost
Note: Each Step also gives a small damage boost.
That's very true if we count 'damage' as meaning just 'the basic number of damage you do', rather than, say, DPS or rather DPT (damage per turn). Naturally, the boost in accuracy will up your effective damage, and indeed the same goes for all parts of the skill tree. And they do currently have little branches of the sort you describe, that may enhance your chances of spotting openings, or boost two special things for each weapon type. In the screenshot, the damage, one-handed, two-handed, and accuracy trees all have little upgrades off the side. Same goes for each tree - for instance, slashing weapons can raise their chance to parry incoming attacks or sever limbs; heavy weapons can invest points in knocking back and stunning opponents; etc; and these are scattered through-out the trees too. The kind of tree you've illustrated is exactly what I'm going for - there are skills along the route, and whilst the special attacks/special moves are at the ends, I think that's necessary. But I think I actually have the kind of tree you have! All the main branches are going to up effective damage, but I specifically want accuracy-centred and damage-centred combat to be noticeably different. I'm also reluctant to put in something like increased penetration; increased damage could come from a stronger swing, instead accuracy from greater skill, but I'm trying to avoid skills that wouldn't be obviously present in the *character*. I mean, I know a lot of games would have something like that, but I can't see how a human training with a weapon could improve its penetration, whereas I can see how raw damage and accuracy (and spotting openings, etc) could be improved.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 08, 2012, 06:47:22 am
Post by: Smashness on September 09, 2012, 08:42:36 pm
Post by: WraithLord24 on September 09, 2012, 08:56:33 pm
Hey, just wondering, do human civilizations and eras really even exist yet?Nope not yet at least yet.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 11, 2012, 07:16:06 am
Hey, just wondering, do human civilizations and eras really even exist yet?Nope not yet at least yet.
The downloads page lists everything in place; history and civilizations will start to appear in 1.0.x around the beginning of next year :).
Post by: Smashness on September 11, 2012, 12:20:55 pm
That is, if the world doesn't END.Hey, just wondering, do human civilizations and eras really even exist yet?Nope not yet at least yet.
The downloads page lists everything in place; history and civilizations will start to appear in 1.0.x around the beginning of next year :).
*dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnn*
Post by: Mephansteras on September 11, 2012, 12:29:10 pm
Post by: WraithLord24 on September 11, 2012, 03:43:37 pm
life is, in a word, death.I've always liked that quote but I cant remember for the life of me who said that.
Post by: Mephansteras on September 11, 2012, 03:57:23 pm
life is, in a word, death.I've always liked that quote but I cant remember for the life of me who said that.
Some random NPC in Dwarf Fortress, I think.
Post by: Techhead on September 11, 2012, 04:36:23 pm
Linkage (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=84594.0)life is, in a word, death.I've always liked that quote but I cant remember for the life of me who said that.
Some random NPC in Dwarf Fortress, I think.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 12, 2012, 05:14:32 pm
The world won't end in 2012, that's just when world gen stops and some hero is going to start adventuring around the world.
True story. OR IS IT?! Mini-update: enjoyed a day of adding awesome but pointless feature-bloat today. I think everyone will really like it, but I'm not going to say what it is pre-0.2.0. In the mean time, this coming Monday's blog will still be on all the skill trees. I've also finally separated world generation and character generation!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 17, 2012, 06:48:23 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/09/MSkills-I2.png)
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/18/medieval-skill-trees-13/
EDIT: updated skill tree graphics.
Post by: Smashness on September 17, 2012, 06:59:39 pm
Four skill trees! I've taken (I hope) the advice on-board, and there have been some changes to some of the trees - I think each of the four directions now offer interesting decisions in themselves, though I am still undecided about how special attack requirements work out. Feedback would be awesome:This looks really awesome. Aaaah, when's the next version coming out?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/09/Combat-Skills-Medieval1.png)
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/18/medieval-skill-trees-13/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 17, 2012, 07:00:41 pm
Four skill trees! I've taken (I hope) the advice on-board, and there have been some changes to some of the trees - I think each of the four directions now offer interesting decisions in themselves, though I am still undecided about how special attack requirements work out. Feedback would be awesome:This looks really awesome. Aaaah, when's the next version coming out?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/18/medieval-skill-trees-13/
If we're lucky, October; if we're realistic, November :).
Post by: Nighthawk on September 17, 2012, 08:22:32 pm
Also, I'm wondering how character stat progression is going to work. Will it be procedural and go up as you use the skills (like DF) or will you be raising whatever stats you deem fit once you gain enough points?
Post by: racnor on September 17, 2012, 10:25:21 pm
Errorlog is here
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 18, 2012, 07:58:14 am
Skill trees look balanced and make sense, what with the knockback bonus for heavy weapons and the dismounting bonus for long weapons. But I'm wondering - will all weapons basically start out the same and only differ where the tree differs, or will certain weapon types have higher/lower stats, like, maces have higher damage but lower accuracy.
Also, I'm wondering how character stat progression is going to work. Will it be procedural and go up as you use the skills (like DF) or will you be raising whatever stats you deem fit once you gain enough points?
Cool - no, each class of weapon has a different emphasis (or rather, will come 0.2.0) and each weapon in a class (e.g. swords/scimitars for slashing weapons) will be slightly different too. I know how slashing/heavy/long weapons will work, and I'm just working on balancing out short weapons atm. The progression was of that form previously, but now you will collect XP from various things and you can then invest them wherever you want.
NO! luck shall not play a part! you shall, I pay you to be utterly overworked and underslept!
I don't pay you money, but I do pay you respect!
:P
Haha; I am already overworked (though I try not to become underslept) but November is likely. I should have most of the skills stuff done by the end of this month, though... if we're lucky.
This seems interesting. I ran around, stabbed a cyclops to death, picked up a tempered steel stiletto, and crashed the game by attacking another cyclops.
Errorlog is hereSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Thanks - interesting, I'll check that one out!
Post by: Leatra on September 22, 2012, 01:55:55 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 22, 2012, 09:22:06 pm
Glad to see this is game is developing well. The first version has bags of potential!
Thanks Leatra! 0.2.0 is looking so much better than 0.1.0, but I'm still glad I released the first version when I did to get the feedback and help me see what directions I wanted to take. 0.2.0 should be just far more... complete, I think the word is... than 0.1.0 ever was. No random weapon spawning, no obtuse combat, logical world generation/character generation screens...
As of about 5 minutes ago (it is 3:21 am here) I have completed all the thesis work I have to hand in, thus after a few days' break, I'm going to start properly working on 0.2.0!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 24, 2012, 10:30:03 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/24/medieval-skill-trees-23/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/09/24/medieval-skill-trees-23/)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/09/MSkills-II.png)
Post by: Leatra on September 24, 2012, 11:14:41 am
So, what will be the last tree about?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 24, 2012, 05:41:37 pm
Grappling hooks? Nice.
So, what will be the last tree about?
Glad you approve :). The last tree is going to be a Linguistics one, though the specific mechanics are still being worked out now.
I just realised: that appears to be like some sort of ascii mario world!
Ha, yes! For my next project, an ASCII Mario remake...
Post by: Devling on September 25, 2012, 12:02:41 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 25, 2012, 12:42:02 pm
This is shaping up nicely...
Glad to hear it :). It's very nice on my end to have the time to really get stuck into programming all the new stuff now; the secret feature-bloat I've hinted at for 0.2.0 is looking amazing, I've got almost all the skills planned out, and the changes I'm going to make to combat, too. I'm thinking about 'reducing' limbs a little - so, for instance, an arm has upper arm, lower arm, hand, and each can be damaged to various extents, broken, or severed. It's still more complex than just hitpoints in most roguelikes, but it's also simpler than it was, and the previous complexity wasn't really adding anything to gameplay.
Post by: Devling on September 25, 2012, 06:44:38 pm
When I played it I found it pretty annoying scrolling down to the same area of attack over and over again.This is shaping up nicely...
Glad to hear it :). It's very nice on my end to have the time to really get stuck into programming all the new stuff now; the secret feature-bloat I've hinted at for 0.2.0 is looking amazing, I've got almost all the skills planned out, and the changes I'm going to make to combat, too. I'm thinking about 'reducing' limbs a little - so, for instance, an arm has upper arm, lower arm, hand, and each can be damaged to various extents, broken, or severed. It's still more complex than just hitpoints in most roguelikes, but it's also simpler than it was, and the previous complexity wasn't really adding anything to gameplay.
Maybe the selector when you hit someone could automatically start on the place you hit last.
If this is already in then I'm just stupid and disregard me.
Post by: Leatra on September 25, 2012, 06:52:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 25, 2012, 07:39:08 pm
When I played it I found it pretty annoying scrolling down to the same area of attack over and over again.
Maybe the selector when you hit someone could automatically start on the place you hit last.
If this is already in then I'm just stupid and disregard me.
It does indeed! register. I thought it had registered from the very first release, but maybe not. It definitely does now, though.
So, correct me if I'm wrong but I heard magic is out of the game plans now. Magic could work well for a game like this but I understand the setting of the game. I'm no expert but it sounds like magic would take a long time to implement which could be better spent creating the strategy part of the game. Are supernatural things like vampirism still in?
It is indeed long out; all supernatural elements are similarly out. I'm basically going for total realism in the world. However, I'm working on implementing things that would be in fantasy roguelikes in the first era. For instance, there will still be tombs, ruins, caves, whatever to explore, but their occupants will be natural/human, and their rewards will be... actually, I'll leave that for now. I have a neat idea on that one.
Post by: Nighthawk on September 25, 2012, 09:23:52 pm
Speaking of which, will we be able to do that (in the long run, I mean)? It's cool being commander of a huge army, but what if you just feel like playing the role of the hired blade? Will the politics include people who want each other dead and are willing to get it done in an underhanded way?
And off of that, how is a character's reputation going to work? Will rumors spread when people notice certain actions? Would it be possible to have no-one know a thing about you provided you left no witnesses alive? Because in DF, you kill someone, the entire race knows through some kind of psychic aether and they get pissy with you. I hope it doesn't end up like that.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 26, 2012, 07:42:24 am
New trees look good, I think I'll probably spend a crapton of points in stealth and become an assassin.
Speaking of which, will we be able to do that (in the long run, I mean)? It's cool being commander of a huge army, but what if you just feel like playing the role of the hired blade? Will the politics include people who want each other dead and are willing to get it done in an underhanded way?
And off of that, how is a character's reputation going to work? Will rumors spread when people notice certain actions? Would it be possible to have no-one know a thing about you provided you left no witnesses alive? Because in DF, you kill someone, the entire race knows through some kind of psychic aether and they get pissy with you. I hope it doesn't end up like that.
Yes, absolutely; nothing forces you to engage with the high-level strategy aspects. I want to make sure if you aren't involved in politics, there will be a lot of 'trickle-down' engagement; assassination contracts, recruitment into armies, desires to open up trade routes to new locations, etc. An inspiration for this technique are the "City State Quests" in Civ V, except much more complex; civilizations will make it clear they are recruiting forces for a crusade, or disseminate through hidden channels they want someone killed, or will put out policy that makes it clear they want a trade link with another civ, and if *you* are the one to do this, the rewards should be great. This will be split into three categories - "Missions" are things given explicitly to you; "Desires" are things a civilization, group, bandit camp, whatever, would like done, but they don't mind who does it; and "Rumours" are general things like "You have heard artifact X is somewhere around Y", or "You have heard the King of Z may be nearing death", or whatever.
I'm not yet sure. If you kill someone without anyone seeing, it will certainly remain unknown. If someone views, they will carry that information back to civilization unless they killed, I think.
Post by: fred1248 on September 26, 2012, 11:17:18 am
Post by: Dutchling on September 26, 2012, 12:06:59 pm
It is indeed long out; all supernatural elements are similarly out. I'm basically going for total realism in the world. However, I'm working on implementing things that would be in fantasy roguelikes in the first era. For instance, there will still be tombs, ruins, caves, whatever to explore, but their occupants will be natural/human, and their rewards will be... actually, I'll leave that for now. I have a neat idea on that one.
Awesome :D
Post by: Leatra on September 26, 2012, 05:15:17 pm
Post by: Devling on September 26, 2012, 07:01:41 pm
Will it be diffrent in this game? Can I kill someone and then murder the witnesses? Can I wear a mask so no one knows who the killer was, etc?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 26, 2012, 07:22:40 pm
Damn it, you are getting me hyped.
Awesome :D
Thank you both, I try :).
I'm going try to be an assassin too. I always wanted to do that in DF adventure mode but since everyone instantly knows what you did it's no fun.
I really hate how in most games it's like, oh, someone saw you kill someone? EVERY ONE KNOWS NOW!
Will it be diffrent in this game? Can I kill someone and then murder the witnesses? Can I wear a mask so no one knows who the killer was, etc?
I agree, it's rubbish when everyone magically knows. It will absolutely be different; if nobody sees, nobody knows. I love the idea of masking your face; balaclavas, helmets, whatever. I will 100% implement that!
Post by: Zyro on September 26, 2012, 08:18:02 pm
Post by: Smashness on September 26, 2012, 10:29:03 pm
I really hate how in most games it's like, oh, someone saw you kill someone? EVERY ONE KNOWS NOW!STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
Will it be diffrent in this game? Can I kill someone and then murder the witnesses? Can I wear a mask so no one knows who the killer was, etc?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 27, 2012, 04:52:50 am
When I played it, the only things I could do were walk around, collect equipment, and get killed by cyclopses.I never found any humans, wolves, etc,couldn't choose skills, and the version said .0.1.0 instead of .3. It MIGHT be my computer, but I tried clicking both .rar and .zip and it had the same problem.
That's correct; it wouldn't have said .3, I'm working on .2 now! .1 was the barest of bare alphas (though there were wolves, actually!) but 0.2 is going to be a big jump in terms of combat, skills, and general functionality. And no more cyclopes to murder you!
Post by: Nighthawk on September 27, 2012, 04:17:46 pm
Quote
STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
> Resist Arrest
THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD (For the blood god!)!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 27, 2012, 05:38:46 pm
QuoteSTOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
> Resist Arrest
THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD (For the blood god!)!
There are no blood gods here!
Post by: Korbac on September 27, 2012, 05:40:55 pm
QuoteSTOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
> Resist Arrest
THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD (For the blood god!)!
There are no blood gods here!
You cannot get YE FLASK.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 28, 2012, 06:49:17 am
QuoteSTOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!
> Resist Arrest
THEN PAY WITH YOUR BLOOD (For the blood god!)!
There are no blood gods here!
You cannot get YE FLASK.
'tis painful, but a price I am willing to pay.
Post by: Urist McPenguinhead on September 28, 2012, 06:55:56 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 28, 2012, 11:22:33 am
ooh, this looks very interesting. The kind of game that is right up my alley :) will definitely be watching this.
Thanks! I'm getting hyped myself about the 0.2 release; everything is cleaner, clearer, more complete, with a load of new features and a much clearer 'direction' to the same. And no random cyclopes butchering you every few seconds. Makes me realize that even among alpha versions, some versions are "more alpha" than others, so to speak...
Post by: Leatra on September 28, 2012, 03:33:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 28, 2012, 06:57:49 pm
For me, the first version was only for showing off the combat and it met my expectations. I even managed to kill a couple of cyclops :D
Well, that's good to hear - especially about the cyclopes, especially as they're now extinct! A tragedy :(.
Post by: Man of Paper on September 29, 2012, 07:18:35 pm
Post by: Leatra on September 29, 2012, 07:24:18 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 30, 2012, 06:06:58 am
Oh god, we killed all the cyclopes!
Genocide of cyclopes was ruthless but necessary!
May history forgive us!
(Serious game edit: Actually, even though mythical creatures are gone, I would like civilizations in the game to generate their own myths and legends about such creatures! I think that would be rather neat.)
Post by: Man of Paper on October 01, 2012, 11:23:54 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 01, 2012, 06:14:38 pm
That'd be neat for adding even more flavor. Kind of like how we have leprechaun, dragon, and chupathingy tales.
I hadn't even thought about including the chupathingy in the database!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 01, 2012, 07:35:02 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/02/character-creation-2/
Post by: Edmus on October 01, 2012, 08:13:16 pm
Many, many months after the original and now hugely out-of-date entry with a similar name, the new character creation:Looks good, but it got me wondering how you are going to handle languages, specifically learning them. I might have missed the post that mentioned it in the past.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/02/character-creation-2/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 02, 2012, 05:10:15 am
Many, many months after the original and now hugely out-of-date entry with a similar name, the new character creation:Looks good, but it got me wondering how you are going to handle languages, specifically learning them. I might have missed the post that mentioned it in the past.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/02/character-creation-2/
There are three models in my mind at the moment - one is the 'Fractional' model, one is the 'Output' model, and one is the 'Mystery' model. I'm not yet sure which I'll be using, or some other - a future blog entry will explain what each of those are! Basically, I'm not yet sure, it's a future game mechanic I need to figure out the mechanics for.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 04, 2012, 11:03:56 am
Post by: Leatra on October 05, 2012, 09:41:07 am
Would it be possible to have the General give something like a combat and/or morale boost to nearby soldiers? That is, if the PC won't already be buffing the men around him/her already.Well, that should be in the Leadership skill tree I think. Even assassins sometimes lead very small groups.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 05, 2012, 02:50:04 pm
Would it be possible to have the General give something like a combat and/or morale boost to nearby soldiers? That is, if the PC won't already be buffing the men around him/her already.Well, that should be in the Leadership skill tree I think. Even assassins sometimes lead very small groups.
I've actually made a radius morale-boost one of the things on the Leadership tree which you can upgrade. It's a good ability, and I think it's sensible to let you upgrade it - importantly, I think I've just hit on the General's unique ability. Will be in the blog entry either next week or the week after!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 08, 2012, 05:39:56 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/08/game-settings-and-reflexivity/
Post by: Mephansteras on October 09, 2012, 11:50:31 am
I do a lot of SCA recreation combat, and it's interesting how much of an effect morale has even when you aren't actually in danger of getting seriously hurt. I often find myself yelling at people not to back up, because a unit that is backing up (without being ordered to) is a unit that is dying. There ends up being a momentum effect where the retreating unit is off-balance, so the other group pushes harder and is more effective, making the survivors back up more, and it all goes downhill from there unless someone does something to change it.
It's one of the reasons having a reserve or flanking unit can be so powerful. Having another unit at your back or seeing an ally charge in from the side does wonders for your morale.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 09, 2012, 07:05:05 pm
Useful info on morale for groups: When a unit starts backing up without being ordered to, it's a sure sign that they are doing poorly and probably about to get trounced.
I do a lot of SCA recreation combat, and it's interesting how much of an effect morale has even when you aren't actually in danger of getting seriously hurt. I often find myself yelling at people not to back up, because a unit that is backing up (without being ordered to) is a unit that is dying. There ends up being a momentum effect where the retreating unit is off-balance, so the other group pushes harder and is more effective, making the survivors back up more, and it all goes downhill from there unless someone does something to change it.
It's one of the reasons having a reserve or flanking unit can be so powerful. Having another unit at your back or seeing an ally charge in from the side does wonders for your morale.
That is *really* interesting. So Group A sees Group B retreating, pushes forward more, so Group A feels they can back off more, so group B continues to push, and the line disintegrates? Fascinating - and I see what you mean about flanking. The exact morale system I'd like to be very complex, but also very transparent - if something like you described happens, I want the player to be alerted to the fact Group A is retreating for the reasons they are. I don't think that's something I want to keep under the hood - the player needs to know immediately where the problem stems from.
Post by: Devling on October 09, 2012, 11:34:23 pm
Will I be able to kill units that are on the verge of breaking? Commissar style?
Also, will you be able to talk to your units on the field, something like,
"Charge men! To glory!"
"That's suicidal, retreat!"
"Get back here you cowards!"
Will you be able to have specific messagers who carry messages(O RLY?) to your officers, and reports back to you about the situation on the field?
Post by: Leatra on October 10, 2012, 09:27:16 am
I don't know if you guys play Football Manager but I'm sure you heard of it. You can talk to your team in the dressing room and you have to be careful about what you are going to say. For example, you are going to play against a very strong team. You can tell players to relax and you can even win the match but if you say you expect a win they'll become stressed. Or let's say you are playing against a weaker team and winning. In the half time, if you warn them not to be complacent they'll keep their focus on but if you just tell them to relax and enjoy the rest of the match they might get too relaxed.
I always enjoy these kinds of stuff and I think things like giving a rallying speech before the big battle would be a badass feature. Even if it doesn't do anything it will add some RP value.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 10, 2012, 05:58:21 pm
Speaking of morale...
Will I be able to kill units that are on the verge of breaking? Commissar style?
Also, will you be able to talk to your units on the field, something like,
"Charge men! To glory!"
"That's suicidal, retreat!"
"Get back here you cowards!"
Will you be able to have specific messagers who carry messages(O RLY?) to your officers, and reports back to you about the situation on the field?
I think that will definitely be an option, but I'm not sure a) what effects it will have, and b) whether it will be 'regulated', as in only some civilizations have the option to do so formally. Or possibly not. I'm not sure how speeches and battlecries and things will work, but I do think it would be really neat if I could get something vaguely like the mass effect speeches, except obviously generated, and with different options giving different effects. Yes, messengers have been an idea for a while, actually, especially in the larger battles...
I really want to shout at my soldiers on the battlefield :D
I don't know if you guys play Football Manager but I'm sure you heard of it. You can talk to your team in the dressing room and you have to be careful about what you are going to say. For example, you are going to play against a very strong team. You can tell players to relax and you can even win the match but if you say you expect a win they'll become stressed. Or let's say you are playing against a weaker team and winning. In the half time, if you warn them not to be complacent they'll keep their focus on but if you just tell them to relax and enjoy the rest of the match they might get too relaxed.
I always enjoy these kinds of stuff and I think things like giving a rallying speech before the big battle would be a badass feature. Even if it doesn't do anything it will add some RP value.
My thoughts exactly - I'm not sure what gameplay effect it would have, but I'd definitely like to add it!
Post by: Mephansteras on October 10, 2012, 06:12:33 pm
Useful info on morale for groups: When a unit starts backing up without being ordered to, it's a sure sign that they are doing poorly and probably about to get trounced.
I do a lot of SCA recreation combat, and it's interesting how much of an effect morale has even when you aren't actually in danger of getting seriously hurt. I often find myself yelling at people not to back up, because a unit that is backing up (without being ordered to) is a unit that is dying. There ends up being a momentum effect where the retreating unit is off-balance, so the other group pushes harder and is more effective, making the survivors back up more, and it all goes downhill from there unless someone does something to change it.
It's one of the reasons having a reserve or flanking unit can be so powerful. Having another unit at your back or seeing an ally charge in from the side does wonders for your morale.
That is *really* interesting. So Group A sees Group B retreating, pushes forward more, so Group A feels they can back off more, so group B continues to push, and the line disintegrates? Fascinating - and I see what you mean about flanking. The exact morale system I'd like to be very complex, but also very transparent - if something like you described happens, I want the player to be alerted to the fact Group A is retreating for the reasons they are. I don't think that's something I want to keep under the hood - the player needs to know immediately where the problem stems from.
Sort of. It's not so much that Group A feels that they can back off more, it's that they will back up. Pretty much involuntarily.
A well disciplined group, of course, is much more resistant to this sort of thing. It's one of the defining differences between professional soldiers and militia/levees. The militia starts to back up and it all goes downhill. The professionals will hold the line until actually ordered to back up, which can them be done in an orderly fashion without hurting morale any.
Post by: Smashness on October 10, 2012, 06:12:53 pm
Anyway, what I was wondering was how you are going to handle stealth, like using guerrilla warfare and such.
Post by: Devling on October 10, 2012, 06:24:30 pm
I love how Rome: Total War did it, where having better command will cause a longer speech and certain traits will cause your general to sometimes say different things.
Post by: Rowanas on October 11, 2012, 08:56:08 am
Useful info on morale for groups: When a unit starts backing up without being ordered to, it's a sure sign that they are doing poorly and probably about to get trounced.
I do a lot of SCA recreation combat, and it's interesting how much of an effect morale has even when you aren't actually in danger of getting seriously hurt. I often find myself yelling at people not to back up, because a unit that is backing up (without being ordered to) is a unit that is dying. There ends up being a momentum effect where the retreating unit is off-balance, so the other group pushes harder and is more effective, making the survivors back up more, and it all goes downhill from there unless someone does something to change it.
It's one of the reasons having a reserve or flanking unit can be so powerful. Having another unit at your back or seeing an ally charge in from the side does wonders for your morale.
That is *really* interesting. So Group A sees Group B retreating, pushes forward more, so Group A feels they can back off more, so group B continues to push, and the line disintegrates? Fascinating - and I see what you mean about flanking. The exact morale system I'd like to be very complex, but also very transparent - if something like you described happens, I want the player to be alerted to the fact Group A is retreating for the reasons they are. I don't think that's something I want to keep under the hood - the player needs to know immediately where the problem stems from.
Sort of. It's not so much that Group A feels that they can back off more, it's that they will back up. Pretty much involuntarily.
A well disciplined group, of course, is much more resistant to this sort of thing. It's one of the defining differences between professional soldiers and militia/levees. The militia starts to back up and it all goes downhill. The professionals will hold the line until actually ordered to back up, which can them be done in an orderly fashion without hurting morale any.
Even though I can't currently play (my experiments have not yet come to fruition), I keep an eye on what's going on over here, and I thought I'd add my two pence, garnered from LARPing and study:
The hardest bit of keeping a shield wall intact is convincing the guys at the front to ignore whatever gets through and reform. If someone breaks the wall, there are ranks behind whose job it is to down whatever did it. When the front line gets panicky and tries to do the job themselves, they cease being a shieldwall and become a tightly packed mess with no front, and from there it's all pretty bad.
Unfortunately this next bit is based purely on texts and accounts, so I can't be quite so sure of it, but apparently witnessing a successful cavalry charge does wonders for infantry morale, but not very much for other cavalry. Perhaps it simply goes without saying that the other guys on hoseback feel pretty good, but there have been a fair few mentions of it that seem limited to infantry (including making a note on it in pretty much every book on war ever written).
As for speeches, I reckon procedurally generated would be pretty cool, as Devling said. The various skills could have a minor effect on the speech, even down to whether you exhort your troops to hack them down, or crush them.
Post by: Leatra on October 11, 2012, 09:57:57 am
Post by: Mephansteras on October 11, 2012, 11:33:54 am
Unfortunately this next bit is based purely on texts and accounts, so I can't be quite so sure of it, but apparently witnessing a successful cavalry charge does wonders for infantry morale, but not very much for other cavalry. Perhaps it simply goes without saying that the other guys on hoseback feel pretty good, but there have been a fair few mentions of it that seem limited to infantry (including making a note on it in pretty much every book on war ever written).
Makes sense. Most cavalry feels pretty safe. Either they're light cav and can ride away from most threats or they're heavy cav and used to bowling things over. Since they don't usually have poor morale, they don't react as much as the infantry does. Especially when you get to much of the middle ages where Cavalry were Knights, and therefore professional soldiers, and most Infantry were levees who had little training or skill.
Speaking of Knights, one thing that might be interesting to model is capturing opponents for ransom. We always think of Knights as using swords, which is very true, but most people forget that swords aren't that great at killing an armored foe. Even if it's just chainmail, a sword is going to be worse at actually killing the other guy than a mace or axe would.
However, swords are great for killing off those worthless peasants that make up the bulk of your opponent's forces while generally keeping the valuable armor wearing prisoners alive.
It's not until later period, when ransoming became less practiced, that all of the real anti-armor weapons got developed and used extensively.
Post by: Devling on October 12, 2012, 12:58:12 pm
So my sword is less effective against a guy wearing a breastplate(if I hit his chest) then if I smack him with a mace or something.
Ransoming is also a good idea, but I would like to see POWs and defeated soldiers become slaves and the like.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 12, 2012, 02:12:03 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 14, 2012, 06:46:58 am
Sort of. It's not so much that Group A feels that they can back off more, it's that they will back up. Pretty much involuntarily.
A well disciplined group, of course, is much more resistant to this sort of thing. It's one of the defining differences between professional soldiers and militia/levees. The militia starts to back up and it all goes downhill. The professionals will hold the line until actually ordered to back up, which can them be done in an orderly fashion without hurting morale any.
Got it. Interesting. I'll definitely implement that kind of difference (I do intend to have militias as an alternative option when in cities, and maybe they can also be recruited when on the march too?).
This sounds like it's going to end up like Dwarf Fortress, it's going to be a crapload better than most games now, but I'm going to have to wait hilarious amounts of time for new stuff.
Anyway, what I was wondering was how you are going to handle stealth, like using guerrilla warfare and such.
Haha, yes - combat/skills this November (0.2.0), then some time early next year for history generation (1.0.0) then I'm going to move onto generating ruins, temples, tombs, catacombs, and also bandits and similar (1.1.0). There won't actually be a lot of combat before then - the world generation is such an important part I feel I have to get all of that in place first, otherwise I'd make some AI, make world generation, then have to change it to reflect the world. Stealth - well, currently there is a 'stealth view' whereby you can see what direction every human in your sight range is facing, and whether they are unaware, suspicious, or totally aware of your presence. Stealth is going to take account of both sight and sound (there are things for both of these in the stealth tree); guerrilla warfare is an interesting one, and that falls into the category of revolutions/uprisings/rebellions ever, which I have a file full of ideas for and am working out mechanics for. Stay tuned on that one :)
So will we have randomly generated speeches?
I love how Rome: Total War did it, where having better command will cause a longer speech and certain traits will cause your general to sometimes say different things.
I vote "hell yeah!" for procedurally generated speeches.
Yes, I think so, but I'd like to make it more complex than "We are gathered here to defeat [Enemy X] because they threaten [City Y]" or whatever, because that gets dull fast, I think. I'm not sure HOW, but I'd like things to be more interesting. Possibly a mechanic whereby different speech options will result in slight buffs to some of your troops in certain ways. Maybe.
Even though I can't currently play (my experiments have not yet come to fruition), I keep an eye on what's going on over here, and I thought I'd add my two pence, garnered from LARPing and study:
The hardest bit of keeping a shield wall intact is convincing the guys at the front to ignore whatever gets through and reform. If someone breaks the wall, there are ranks behind whose job it is to down whatever did it. When the front line gets panicky and tries to do the job themselves, they cease being a shieldwall and become a tightly packed mess with no front, and from there it's all pretty bad.
Unfortunately this next bit is based purely on texts and accounts, so I can't be quite so sure of it, but apparently witnessing a successful cavalry charge does wonders for infantry morale, but not very much for other cavalry. Perhaps it simply goes without saying that the other guys on hoseback feel pretty good, but there have been a fair few mentions of it that seem limited to infantry (including making a note on it in pretty much every book on war ever written).
As for speeches, I reckon procedurally generated would be pretty cool, as Devling said. The various skills could have a minor effect on the speech, even down to whether you exhort your troops to hack them down, or crush them.
Damn, sorry it's still not working! I'm going to revisit Linux this time, so *hopefully* that version might be more workable. Interesting - I'm actually trying to figure out the special ability for the "Rider" class (see tomorrow's blog entry) and that's given me a few interesting ideas. Very interesting about shield walls etc, too - I really want battle tactics to be a big part of the game, both in terms of realism to an extent, but also trying to allow for as many possible interpretations and unique approaches as I can. Morale should be very flexible, various special units will buff specific squads in certain ways, certain terrain will be better for some forces than others, etc. I like the speech idea very much, too - have as much variable as possible down to the weapons, the terrain, the weather...
Makes sense. Most cavalry feels pretty safe. Either they're light cav and can ride away from most threats or they're heavy cav and used to bowling things over. Since they don't usually have poor morale, they don't react as much as the infantry does. Especially when you get to much of the middle ages where Cavalry were Knights, and therefore professional soldiers, and most Infantry were levees who had little training or skill.
Speaking of Knights, one thing that might be interesting to model is capturing opponents for ransom. We always think of Knights as using swords, which is very true, but most people forget that swords aren't that great at killing an armored foe. Even if it's just chainmail, a sword is going to be worse at actually killing the other guy than a mace or axe would.
However, swords are great for killing off those worthless peasants that make up the bulk of your opponent's forces while generally keeping the valuable armor wearing prisoners alive.
It's not until later period, when ransoming became less practiced, that all of the real anti-armor weapons got developed and used extensively.
I like the idea of some kind of rock-paper-scissors system.
So my sword is less effective against a guy wearing a breastplate(if I hit his chest) then if I smack him with a mace or something.
Ransoming is also a good idea, but I would like to see POWs and defeated soldiers become slaves and the like.
I want to turn prisoners into gladiators and give them the opportunity to fight for their freedom.
I've actually just split up "Cavalry" and "Knights" as unit types - the former are going to have swords/gunpowder, the latter are going to be more heavily armored and 'medieval'. Horse archers will feature too, but they will probably be down as 'a' for Archer (cavalry show as 'c', knights as 'k'). Very nice idea about anti-armor/anti-infantry weapons; I'm in the process of working out the balance between the four weapon types (slashing, short, heavy, long) for 0.2.0 at the moment, and I *really* like some being more effective against armor, and some being more effective against the unarmored. I might have that done by the blog entry after tomorrow's, actually.
Ransoming and captives - definitely, I like that a lot.
Post by: Dutchling on October 14, 2012, 06:53:25 am
Will you be able to rule if you do not start as a ruler? I bet there are plenty of people who actually want to form/conquer land and rule it afterwards. Will the AI have classes?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 14, 2012, 07:08:35 am
Classes ???
Will you be able to rule if you do not start as a ruler? I bet there are plenty of people who actually want to form/conquer land and rule it afterwards. Will the AI have classes?
Yes - what class you start as determines where you start in your civilization (if any) of choice, but you can certainly rise (and fall). The AI has units of various sorts, but not classes like the player does - so the AI has "knights" and "cavalry" and "horse archers", for instance, but all three have a unique set of stats and skills. EDIT: which is to say, AI players don't have skill trees and the like. Debated it, decided against it.
Post by: Rowanas on October 15, 2012, 03:55:51 am
I've actually just split up "Cavalry" and "Knights" as unit types - the former are going to have swords/gunpowder...
I will descend upon my foes with the thunder of horse and harquebus. I doubt any other unit will even see service in the armies of Rowan, for light skirmishing cavalry armed with pistols are quite clearly the supreme force on any battlefield :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 15, 2012, 08:24:02 am
I've actually just split up "Cavalry" and "Knights" as unit types - the former are going to have swords/gunpowder...
I will descend upon my foes with the thunder of horse and harquebus. I doubt any other unit will even see service in the armies of Rowan, for light skirmishing cavalry armed with pistols are quite clearly the supreme force on any battlefield :D
Awesome - and that is very, very possible. I need to decide what the dis/advantages of 1/2-handed gunpowder weapons are...
In the mean time, more skills, and - I think - a much needed "key" system to give you a bit of info about the skill you're looking at:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/15/medieval-skill-trees-3/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/10/L2.png)
Post by: Mephansteras on October 15, 2012, 11:40:21 am
Sort of. It's not so much that Group A feels that they can back off more, it's that they will back up. Pretty much involuntarily.
A well disciplined group, of course, is much more resistant to this sort of thing. It's one of the defining differences between professional soldiers and militia/levees. The militia starts to back up and it all goes downhill. The professionals will hold the line until actually ordered to back up, which can them be done in an orderly fashion without hurting morale any.
Got it. Interesting. I'll definitely implement that kind of difference (I do intend to have militias as an alternative option when in cities, and maybe they can also be recruited when on the march too?).
Well, you should certainly have different troop options depending on the culture. The distinction between a Roman style Army of professionals, a Greek style volunteer army, a Feudal system of Knights and peasant conscripts, a wandering Horde of warlike nomads, and a nation that has a small standing army and relies on Mercenaries is all very distinct.
They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and tend to develop based on the economic ability and needs of the nation.
A true standing army requires a lot of money and upkeep, so it can only be done by a very wealthy nation. Or one that simply places a high value on such a thing, like Sparta did. True Spartans didn't really work, that was all done by slaves and second-class citizens from other areas. The Spartans themselves were professional soldiers, which is why there were so effective in battle compared to their contemporaries. The Romans, likewise, had large standing armies of professional soldiers which allowed them to rule a vast empire.
Smaller nations tend to go for either a disorganized tribal/volunteer structure, where most men are warriors at least part time, or for an upper class of warriors who form the core of the army in combat and lead the mostly untrained armies of peasant levees into battle. Middle-ages Europe or Feudal Japan are good examples of those.
You also have small but wealthy nations, like Venice, who tended to use a lot of Mercenaries since their populations were too small to support a large army despite having the wealth to do so.
I'd probably set up a system like this:
| Nation Wealth | Nation Size | Army Type |
| High | Large | Professional |
| High | Small | Mercenary |
| Medium | Large | Feudal + Mercenary |
| Medium | Small | Feudal |
| Low | Large | Feudal |
| Low | Small | Volunteer/Tribal |
With some modifiers for Civilization traits like Nomadic or Militaristic bumping things in one direction or another.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 17, 2012, 06:21:48 pm
Well, you should certainly have different troop options depending on the culture. The distinction between a Roman style Army of professionals, a Greek style volunteer army, a Feudal system of Knights and peasant conscripts, a wandering Horde of warlike nomads, and a nation that has a small standing army and relies on Mercenaries is all very distinct.
They all have their advantages and disadvantages, and tend to develop based on the economic ability and needs of the nation.
A true standing army requires a lot of money and upkeep, so it can only be done by a very wealthy nation. Or one that simply places a high value on such a thing, like Sparta did. True Spartans didn't really work, that was all done by slaves and second-class citizens from other areas. The Spartans themselves were professional soldiers, which is why there were so effective in battle compared to their contemporaries. The Romans, likewise, had large standing armies of professional soldiers which allowed them to rule a vast empire.
Smaller nations tend to go for either a disorganized tribal/volunteer structure, where most men are warriors at least part time, or for an upper class of warriors who form the core of the army in combat and lead the mostly untrained armies of peasant levees into battle. Middle-ages Europe or Feudal Japan are good examples of those.
You also have small but wealthy nations, like Venice, who tended to use a lot of Mercenaries since their populations were too small to support a large army despite having the wealth to do so.
I'd probably set up a system like this:
Nation Wealth Nation Size Army Type High Large Professional High Small Mercenary Medium Large Feudal + Mercenary Medium Small Feudal Low Large Feudal Low Small Volunteer/Tribal
With some modifiers for Civilization traits like Nomadic or Militaristic bumping things in one direction or another.
Firstly, I agree - I'd very much like a number of ways to organize armies. I think those would both affect gameplay directly in terms of size/composition of units, etc, but also differences would have an abstracted effect as well (+X% to trait Y, kind of thing).
What you say about standing armies and upkeep is interesting. As part of working on the Rule tree (tricky, but I think nearly there) I've had to think about how armies and Generals will eventually work. I think upkeep is going to be dependent on both size of army and size of state, so natoins could have a large army *for their population*, but a small army per se. As you say, though, small nations regardless don't prioritize it - I think I'd be interested in a more mercenary-focused system, or militia, or small army, or the options you suggest.
Very interesting table. At first consideration, I like it a lot. However, I have done a lot of thought about policy options (currently in seven fields, of which military is one) and that kind of variation would only work within military policy choices that accept certain kinds of armed forces. It's hard to explain without blathering about the policy mechanics I have planned out, but those will appear in 1.0.0 when I set the world's history generating. Whilst it might take a slightly different form, size, wealth & culture will all affect the military decisions of a state (and, therefore, what military decisions are sensible for a ruling player!). I'd also really like to have some military formations preferred by some states - maybe a kind of unlocking of certain kinds of formation? Again, in the future, but that could be another element of strategy...
Post by: Leatra on October 17, 2012, 06:25:20 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on October 18, 2012, 11:42:55 am
Should be interesting to see what you settle on.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 18, 2012, 11:59:22 am
When traveling by sea, is there a chance of running up against rocks, rogue waves, and storms battering or otherwise destroying your ship/fleet? Because an island surrounded by cliffs and rough waters would be awesome if all that had effect. And in addition to that, if you get shipwrecked what will happen? Will you die, or is there a chance you'll wash up on a nearby shore without any of your equipment and possibly in a strange land. Because that'd make for some real interesting player stories.
And now I'm imagining leading a group of guys on a ship to scale a cliff face in the middle of the night to kill some peeps.
Will killing civilians affect how the world views you?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 21, 2012, 06:03:37 am
I have a question. In RPGs I try to do a little of everything. For example, I might start out as an assassin but after some time I could try being a general. Will this class system is going to have a big effect on the way the player plays? Once we we choose a class will that be the only thing we will do?
Hopefully the skills are such that whatever class you start as can be combined intelligently with other skill trees. Because each skill tree has its own EXP meter, rather than a global one, there is nothing stopping you from starting new trees at whatever point in the game you want. I'm hoping it'll strike a balance between specializing and generalizing, but only playtesting can say :)
I certainly think that culture and policies should effect military types. If you have a warlike neighbor, you're going to prioritize military a lot more than if you live on an island that's hard to get to by invaders.
Should be interesting to see what you settle on.
Agreed - 0.2.0 is well on-schedule for being released by the end of November, after which history and civilization generation can start!
Meph just shot something straight into my brain:
When traveling by sea, is there a chance of running up against rocks, rogue waves, and storms battering or otherwise destroying your ship/fleet? Because an island surrounded by cliffs and rough waters would be awesome if all that had effect. And in addition to that, if you get shipwrecked what will happen? Will you die, or is there a chance you'll wash up on a nearby shore without any of your equipment and possibly in a strange land. Because that'd make for some real interesting player stories.
And now I'm imagining leading a group of guys on a ship to scale a cliff face in the middle of the night to kill some peeps.
Will killing civilians affect how the world views you?
I had intended storms (there's a skill for the handling of ships in storms) but you've given me a load of interesting ideas about when a ship comes near coast! I love the idea of potential shipwrecks and the like. Yes, absolutely, that would be far too cool not to have.
Yes, if somebody sees you. And it will be CLEAR if they see you, unlike DF/Skyrim/every other game. I don't want people magically seeing you through walls.
Post by: Sharp on October 21, 2012, 10:40:34 am
Yes, if somebody sees you. And it will be CLEAR if they see you, unlike DF/Skyrim/every other game. I don't want people magically seeing you through walls.
I dunno don't make it too clear. I don't like it when it comes up with a big !!!DETECTED!!! when you have been detected. I would like NPC guard to be like, 'hmm let that cocky shit think he is hidden while we surround him'
That's just my preference anyway :P
Post by: Man of Paper on October 21, 2012, 01:29:45 pm
Post by: Edmus on October 21, 2012, 02:50:56 pm
Oh, and don't forget whirlpools! They are legitimately my only fear, and I have no reason why. Maybe they'd work like the swirling tiles force you x-tiles in the direction of the spin per tick (am I using the right terms?) while also moving you a tile or so inwards/downwards, and as you move closer to the center you begin to spin faster. Then treat the center like a singularity as punishment for annoying the ocean with your petty wooden craft.I have seen a whirlpool. Shit's scary.
Post by: Leatra on October 21, 2012, 02:52:48 pm
I have a question. In RPGs I try to do a little of everything. For example, I might start out as an assassin but after some time I could try being a general. Will this class system is going to have a big effect on the way the player plays? Once we we choose a class will that be the only thing we will do?
Hopefully the skills are such that whatever class you start as can be combined intelligently with other skill trees. Because each skill tree has its own EXP meter, rather than a global one, there is nothing stopping you from starting new trees at whatever point in the game you want. I'm hoping it'll strike a balance between specializing and generalizing, but only playtesting can say :)
As long as we can do anything we want, I'm game :D
Post by: Rowanas on October 21, 2012, 07:40:32 pm
Post by: Leatra on October 22, 2012, 06:22:06 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 22, 2012, 06:40:07 am
I dunno don't make it too clear. I don't like it when it comes up with a big !!!DETECTED!!! when you have been detected. I would like NPC guard to be like, 'hmm let that cocky shit think he is hidden while we surround him'
That's just my preference anyway :P
Hmm, interesting, and noted :). Not sure how it'll work yet, but I'll keep that in mind.
Oh, and don't forget whirlpools! They are legitimately my only fear, and I have no reason why. Maybe they'd work like the swirling tiles force you x-tiles in the direction of the spin per tick (am I using the right terms?) while also moving you a tile or so inwards/downwards, and as you move closer to the center you begin to spin faster. Then treat the center like a singularity as punishment for annoying the ocean with your petty wooden craft.I have seen a whirlpool. Shit's scary.
That would be amazingly cool. It's on the list! @ Edmus - really? How/where? I don't think I'd have them show up on the world map until you got within, say, a square of them on a vessel...
As long as we can do anything we want, I'm game :D
That's always my biggest fear with classes, and it's been partly fueled by the old-school interpretation of them, whereby each class is a package of things you can do, or will be able to do, and if what you want to do falls outside of your given class, you're a bit fucked. If they determine starting stats, give you a little boost and the like, I don't see it being a game-breaker for me.
Yeah, I mean look at Elona. Your class is basicly what you start out with. You can learn every skill and do everything if you want. Even races doesn't matter much, except for racial attributes. I really like the way how it is at Elona.
That's certainly the plan - each class should give you a specialty, but the exp system is such that you should be able to mix and match totally. It gives a boost to one tree, a special ability, and that's it. I've also just made the specialty tree highlighted in a different colour on the skills page now too, so it's very clear which one you get 50% off to. Which reminds me, I need to implement the exp modifiers for each class...
IN THE MEANTIME, two potential futures of the world map:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/22/map-colouring/
I'd like as much feedback as possible on this one - which one do you like more, and why? I'm very undecided...
Post by: Edmus on October 22, 2012, 03:30:29 pm
@Maps: I think I prefer the first one to the second in that it's colour scheme looks more real. The second maps clarity is very nice too.
Post by: Mephansteras on October 22, 2012, 03:40:29 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 23, 2012, 02:34:10 pm
In the mean time, after an AGONISING day, I've got saving/loading almost everything pretty much working! Trees and other "features" are still a bit buggy, but otherwise, you can save and load as much of the map as you want, and upon loading it'll stitch it back together. Now working on the load game screen giving you overviews of your saved characters...
Post by: Nighthawk on October 27, 2012, 03:13:37 pm
Are you going for the same thing, or are you going to just make each save a "parallel universe" of the same world?
It would be nice for characters to be able to claim relics of long-lost warlords (which you played AS, in the world's past), but it would also be nice to make multiple characters at the same time.
What are you planning?
Post by: Korbac on October 27, 2012, 04:29:59 pm
This way you could sort of do an AAR of the perfect evil empire - by setting it and it's subordinates up yourself, and then spawning a new character to take them down. :D
Post by: Rowanas on October 27, 2012, 05:11:27 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 29, 2012, 05:29:19 pm
If we're going to have multiple saved characters, are we going to have to generate multiple worlds, like in DF? Because you can only control one Fortress/Adventurer at a time, since time is constantly passing in said world.
Are you going for the same thing, or are you going to just make each save a "parallel universe" of the same world?
It would be nice for characters to be able to claim relics of long-lost warlords (which you played AS, in the world's past), but it would also be nice to make multiple characters at the same time.
What are you planning?
I would kind of like a system where you play multiple characters in the same universe. When you're not playing a character, they act as NPC's based on their skills, and possibly how the player played them (e.g. violently / diplomatically / sneakily.)
This way you could sort of do an AAR of the perfect evil empire - by setting it and it's subordinates up yourself, and then spawning a new character to take them down. :D
Yes, indeed, you can generate and save up to ten worlds, and worlds are simply stored as "World1", "World2" etc files, so you can exchange them easily with people. However, you can only have one character in each, because I can see SO many potential exploits from allowing multiple characters at once. You can of course copy a world before it has a character on it and play parallel universe versions, or when one character dies start another, but only one character, at once, per copy or each world. Of course, you COULD have one character set things up for a later character and then die, but a) I see no way to 'stop' that without being very annoying, and b) I actually see nothing wrong with that - I don't mind a set-up vaguely like Bones files in Nethack, for instance. You'll be able to hunt down your old corpses, but it might not have everything on it it had when it died...
Woo! Getting a new computer soon, and then I won't have to worry about URR not workngi any more! Shoopdawoop!
Awesome! I'm still going to give Linux a shot this time on my flatmate's laptop, so we'll see how that goes...
Meanwhile, a new devblog entry featuring the conclusion of the map debate; developments on the map; future map ideas; progress on 0.2.0; calendars; tombs; time systems; and lots of stuff I've already forgotten about as the entry's too damned long as it stands.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/10/29/map-progress-update-and-calendars/
Post by: Nighthawk on October 31, 2012, 02:56:34 pm
It's regrettable to have nobody to stab in the face, but it's to be expected in a game in such an early phase, so that's cool.
Calendars for different cultures would be a nice feature, but possibly annoying. As long as it's clear what season you're in though, I doubt it'll be much issue.
Speaking of which, I'm wondering how the seasons are going to be displayed. You've probably seen comics about how in DF, when it becomes winter, IT BECOMES WINTER. As in, everything freezes on the spot. I'm hoping you have a much more gradual proceedings, and hopefully some nice bright fall colors during the appropriate time.
But I digress. The last point... the turn system! You probably did it in the best possible way (which is, coincidentally, the way most smart roguelike developers choose to do it). Much better than Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, in which the player always moves first, and the only move speeds are 1x, 2x, and 3x. ::)
One more random question:
BLOOD. I'm not a huge gore fan, but I do like fancy blood effects to show that you're doing damage in battle. Even in roguelikes, it's satisfying to see little red (or green, or pink, or whatever other colors blood could be in a fantasy game) trails and splotches appear after your attacks connect. DF does this when limbs go flying, but other than that, there isn't much. How will you add it into your game, if at all?
Post by: Man of Paper on October 31, 2012, 03:23:24 pm
Speaking of defending, I don't know if you've discussed this (I seem to say that a lot in here), but what are you doing for defensive strategy? I figure people will gather intel and you'll get ideas about enemy troop movement, maybe some enemy kingdom's motives for future conquests. How will setting up troops prebattle work? I take it you won't randomly encounter a sizeable force (save for ambushes), so will there be time to order troops around when you see them? How about setting up your own ambushes?
Most importantly, will I be able to make a wall of corpses!?
Post by: Leatra on October 31, 2012, 04:49:57 pm
Post by: Devling on October 31, 2012, 11:54:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 01, 2012, 07:36:37 am
Map looks niiiiiice. I can easily understand everything, and the rivers are much less painful to behold. :P
It's regrettable to have nobody to stab in the face, but it's to be expected in a game in such an early phase, so that's cool.
Calendars for different cultures would be a nice feature, but possibly annoying. As long as it's clear what season you're in though, I doubt it'll be much issue.
Speaking of which, I'm wondering how the seasons are going to be displayed. You've probably seen comics about how in DF, when it becomes winter, IT BECOMES WINTER. As in, everything freezes on the spot. I'm hoping you have a much more gradual proceedings, and hopefully some nice bright fall colors during the appropriate time.
But I digress. The last point... the turn system! You probably did it in the best possible way (which is, coincidentally, the way most smart roguelike developers choose to do it). Much better than Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, in which the player always moves first, and the only move speeds are 1x, 2x, and 3x. ::)
One more random question:
BLOOD. I'm not a huge gore fan, but I do like fancy blood effects to show that you're doing damage in battle. Even in roguelikes, it's satisfying to see little red (or green, or pink, or whatever other colors blood could be in a fantasy game) trails and splotches appear after your attacks connect. DF does this when limbs go flying, but other than that, there isn't much. How will you add it into your game, if at all?
Thanks! Ha, yes, I too am sad about the lack of face-stabbing, but it's on its way. I know what you mean about calendars - it's not a definite, but just something I might think about (though as you say, also some 'external' method of time-telling?)
At the moment, I am sad to say seasons are indeed instant changes! However, I do intend to make them much more gradual over time. Agreed re: time system; I was going to have a 1x 2x etc system first, but that seems terrible now by comparison! Once I've posted this message the time system is the main thing I'm going to work on today, so let's see how it goes.
BLOOD: I definitely intend to have the ground blood-splattered, limbs will be lost (but won't go 'flying', and neither will foes). I might add little effects for doing damage each turn, but I'm not sure about that yet.
I want a red tide after fighting off an invasion force coming from the sea.
Speaking of defending, I don't know if you've discussed this (I seem to say that a lot in here), but what are you doing for defensive strategy? I figure people will gather intel and you'll get ideas about enemy troop movement, maybe some enemy kingdom's motives for future conquests. How will setting up troops prebattle work? I take it you won't randomly encounter a sizeable force (save for ambushes), so will there be time to order troops around when you see them? How about setting up your own ambushes?
Most importantly, will I be able to make a wall of corpses!?
I would also like to see bodies being something physical, instead of an item you can stack infinitely on a single tile.
That is a wonderful image. Re: defending, yes, I hope so - you should be able to receive and gather infromation from a lot of sources, and similarly if you have a spy in another court, I think it would be nice if you got reports of troop movements (though less clunky than Civ V: G&K). I want to make sure you have time to move your troops around, but at the same time SOME ambushes are needed. Similarly, the AI might be keeping track of your movements, but I'd hope to add ways to keep your movements secret until the last moment.
And... probably. I'm debating how I'm going to have squares 'filling' with items work. I don't want you to have an infinite pile, so tiles will probably have some 'volume' metric.
I really like the color palette of the map. It almost looks like a real map.
Awesome - I'm very happy with how it looks now. As I've said, at some point it'll gain a few tiny extras like marshes, or plateaus etc, but that's pretty much the final look of the terrain.
Post by: Rowanas on November 01, 2012, 08:53:10 am
This system allows fo much more reactive, flexible armies at small scale, and goes a fair way to representing the difficulty of managing a large force (you can't always get them all in position by the start of the battle). As Sun Tzu said: The same principles govern the many as the few. The difference is in organisation.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 01, 2012, 12:47:26 pm
Post by: Devling on November 02, 2012, 12:10:49 am
Like, gathering troops or doing a job for money at months at a time?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2012, 09:02:11 pm
I don't know what you have in mind for prebattle setup, but I've got Rome:TW on my mind. Generally, you always get to set up in your little arrangement, and fight like you're supposed to, but sometimes you get ambushed, and end up in a little marching column of fail, with ambushers on either side. I think it'd probably do to have a turn-counter until the fight, and in each pre-battle "turn" you can move one regiment around. Obviously, for the big battles, you'll have dozens, so that you'll pretty much always have enough time to get it perfect. In an ambush situation, the ambushers get lots of turns to set up, while the ambushees(?) might get only a single turn or two to make a couple of desperate adjustments. When two armies with no foreknowledge bump into each other, no-one gets any turns to shuffle, and the fight begins immediately.
This system allows fo much more reactive, flexible armies at small scale, and goes a fair way to representing the difficulty of managing a large force (you can't always get them all in position by the start of the battle). As Sun Tzu said: The same principles govern the many as the few. The difference is in organisation.
I really like that idea.
I'm not yet sure. I think it's very likely you'll be able to set up where exactly your various units enter (which the AI will obviously also do), but the more 'sudden' the appearance of the foe, the trickier. Maybe the further the distance from which you sight your foe, the more time you get? On the other hand, I don't think I want too long a setup period, but I'm not quite sure how to handle it. I feel like I'm rambling a bit here (it is 2am here!) so a short answer - yes, I think that's a good idea, on both counts. Sudden battles you have little time and your (and their, if both were unexpected) are disorganized; an organized one you gain "control" of the battlefield early and can start moving your units around before combat starts.
Can you go idle for a time?
Like, gathering troops or doing a job for money at months at a time?
THIS is a major question I'm pondering at the moment. I really don't know. If so, I'd need some kind of food system (say, take x gold/y turns to keep yourself fed in the background) and to think long and hard about it. But as you say, there are things I can foresee that you might "need" to idle for. I've been having a lot of discussions with my flatmates about this too, and I'm still very undecided about a) if you can, and b) how it would work. I know you would have to be in a city/town for the idling to work, but beyond that. What do you think? I think in the end you're going to have to, but I'm not sure how it would work in a game like this...
In the mean time, *very* much a work-in-progress (will finish them off tomorrow), but how does everyone like these MULTI-SQUARE TREES?! This screenshot is at night in taiga, but they even get shaded at different angles depending on the position of the sun in the day time! Additionally, on the left, you can see a glimpse of the date/time system (the time rotates, changes shade, and shows you the time of the day and the ambient light, approximately). So here, it's approaching 8pm.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/11/Trees1.png)
Post by: coolio678 on November 02, 2012, 09:21:26 pm
Post by: Leatra on November 02, 2012, 09:26:57 pm
I just thought of something. Can we climb on trees and take out the incoming enemy with out bow? :D Forests could make ambushes easier.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 02, 2012, 10:09:13 pm
Of course, there's the chance it'd burn towards you also if there was proper kindling. Maybe if wind is ever a factor that'd change smoke concealment and fire spread (as well as ranged accuracy, but that's a different topic).
And will there be the possibility for prolonged sieges, cutting off cities from supplies and the like, and allowing them to slowly decay from within? That would be one of the times where a waiting mechanic might be nice. Say you choose to specify how many weeks/hours/days to stay in one location, though enemy action would interrupt it.
Throwing out brain thoughts again.
Post by: Rowanas on November 03, 2012, 06:29:06 am
Post by: Dutchling on November 03, 2012, 07:42:10 am
Those trees... they're so beautiful!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 03, 2012, 03:35:40 pm
Those are some very fancy lookin' trees. I like it.
Whoa! I wasn't expecting anything bigger than a few trees having 2x2 squares with the same tile. It looks awesome.
I just thought of something. Can we climb on trees and take out the incoming enemy with out bow? :D Forests could make ambushes easier.
Those trees... they're so beautiful! Can you walk on all the tiles save the centre one, and if you can, how do you represent what you can see underneath the treecover?
Thanks all! @ Leatra, yes, I'll definitely let you climb trees. Maybe for this release, but if I don't have time, then certainly 1.0.0. @ Rowanas, indeed so, the centre is blocked. When you walk under, your character inverts and shows a background of the tree leaf colour, and foreground black. It's the only context (I think) where you will be walking under something, and it looks/works nicely.
Would there be a way to start a brush fire in order to halt/disrupt an enemy advancement through trees?
Of course, there's the chance it'd burn towards you also if there was proper kindling. Maybe if wind is ever a factor that'd change smoke concealment and fire spread (as well as ranged accuracy, but that's a different topic).
And will there be the possibility for prolonged sieges, cutting off cities from supplies and the like, and allowing them to slowly decay from within? That would be one of the times where a waiting mechanic might be nice. Say you choose to specify how many weeks/hours/days to stay in one location, though enemy action would interrupt it.
Throwing out brain thoughts again.
Funny, that's the exact same thing a flatmate asked me - FIRE?!?! Why yes. Fire could end up looking absolutely wonderful, I think. I'm debating whether I want wind to be a factor, in the end I think I will implement wind. Ranged accuracy is the reason I'm reluctant to at the moment - it could either be something interesting to take account of, or a massive pain in the backside for anyone using ranged weapons.
Good point on sieges - that's another reason to have a waiting mechanic. It increasingly seems that I will need something like that. I do intend to implement counters for resources cities get, so as they run out of water, food etc, then they will become less inclined to fight, or become weaker, or there might be a chance of a bunch of citizens trying to open the gates, let the attacker in and end the siege, etc! Excellent brain thoughts. Keep them coming. Once history generation exists, I'm going to create temples/tombs/ruins/caves and the like first before I move onto cities, because cities will connect to *so* many other things...
MEANWHILE, here's a more updated screenshot. Again, night, taiga, etc, but with more of the UI there too. Stm is stamina, Wpr is your willpower (which you dip into and get a big combat boost from when you run out of stamina) and Exh is your exhaustion bar (which you want to avoid - it kicks in if both Stm+Wpr are gone, and massively weakens you for its duration until you start to recover).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Currently.png)
Post by: Leatra on November 03, 2012, 04:10:50 pm
I assume lost stamina is easier to recover than exhaustion. Do all of these recover by time or, for example, do you have to sleep to recover exhaustion or something?
Post by: Neonivek on November 03, 2012, 04:14:35 pm
Brilliant idea to add three stages for stamina :)
I assume lost stamina is easier to recover than exhaustion. Do all of these recover by time or, for example, do you have to sleep to recover exhaustion or something?
Interesting. I've seen games split it two ways usually for slumber and fatigue.
But this is the first one that actually seperated tired versus fatigued versus broken. Actually the only one I seen that seperated tired and Fatigued (there is a difference)
Post by: EnigmaticHat on November 03, 2012, 04:17:20 pm
Stm is stamina, Wpr is your willpower (which you dip into and get a big combat boost from when you run out of stamina) and Exh is your exhaustion bar (which you want to avoid - it kicks in if both Stm+Wpr are gone, and massively weakens you for its duration until you start to recover).
So if I'm reading this right, combat effectiveness over time goes like this: normal (start of fight)> better (run out of Stm)> worse (run out of Wpr). If this is the case, I'm not sure I agree with that setup. Maybe its supposed to represent adrenaline or something, but it doesn't make sense from a game perspective to reward the player for running out of stamina. Maybe characters with high willpower could use it to gain combat bonuses even if they didn't run out of stamina? You could call it "focusing" or something.
Post by: Neonivek on November 03, 2012, 05:26:26 pm
You could run out of Exhaustion before Stamina if you are doing intensive light work (just like real life).
Stamina representing the difference between being fine and tired. Exhaustion representing the difference between being fine and fatigued
The difference between tired and fatigued?
Well tired is being out of energy, you simply don't have any extra energy to give. Fatigue is strain, you can have energy but you cannot make your muscles give out the same input.
Willpower of course represents your mental stress.
Of course I am prepared to be wrong.
Though honestly I'd think it would almost be better as a: Stamina/Exhaustion, Fatigue, and Stress bars.
Post by: Devling on November 03, 2012, 08:46:50 pm
How about there is different stages of sneaking?
Instead of, invisible, and "Everyone within the entire country now knows your name, face, criminal record, and favorite type of cat."
Maybe, invisible, sighted, discovered?
Something inbetween, where a guard might have seen you, but doesn't know you or your intentions?
So, if your sneaking through the streets trying to hid from guards, and a merchant sees you, he might find you suspicious and keep an eye on you, but won't attack you or anything.
But if a guard on night patrol spotted you sneaking about, he would call for back up or try to apprehend you or something.
Post by: Sharp on November 03, 2012, 09:00:37 pm
What would really be awesome is if you can use disguises and blend into crowds hitman/assassins creed style, like if one army has armour which is decorated with crests (house, army, civ, etc...) you can use it to pretend you are part of an army to then assassinate the leader before the battle and just walk away cool as a cucumber.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 03, 2012, 09:14:39 pm
Brilliant idea to add three stages for stamina :)
I assume lost stamina is easier to recover than exhaustion. Do all of these recover by time or, for example, do you have to sleep to recover exhaustion or something?
Interesting. I've seen games split it two ways usually for slumber and fatigue.
But this is the first one that actually seperated tired versus fatigued versus broken. Actually the only one I seen that seperated tired and Fatigued (there is a difference)
So if I'm reading this right, combat effectiveness over time goes like this: normal (start of fight)> better (run out of Stm)> worse (run out of Wpr). If this is the case, I'm not sure I agree with that setup. Maybe its supposed to represent adrenaline or something, but it doesn't make sense from a game perspective to reward the player for running out of stamina. Maybe characters with high willpower could use it to gain combat bonuses even if they didn't run out of stamina? You could call it "focusing" or something.
Well the way I see it...
You could run out of Exhaustion before Stamina if you are doing intensive light work (just like real life).
Stamina representing the difference between being fine and tired. Exhaustion representing the difference between being fine and fatigued
The difference between tired and fatigued?
Well tired is being out of energy, you simply don't have any extra energy to give. Fatigue is strain, you can have energy but you cannot make your muscles give out the same input.
Willpower of course represents your mental stress.
Of course I am prepared to be wrong.
Though honestly I'd think it would almost be better as a: Stamina/Exhaustion, Fatigue, and Stress bars.
Well, the way I currently have it thought out is this. I should add, given that combat won't fully feature for some time, this is entirely open to change! This was just my initial idea, and I'll explain my rationale a bit.
Assuming all bars are full, you first use your stamina for performing actions. If you stop performing stamina-using actions for a period, your stamina will then recharge. If you use up all your stamina, you dip into your willpower bar - the same actions that take up stamina take up 'willpower stamina', as it were. This gives you a big boost, but you churn through it quickly, and you run the risk of dipping into exhaustion. When you're into exhaustion, the exhaustion bar is different. You then take a massive hit to your skills, and the bar decreases each turn, and you lose the ability to do heavy stamina-using actions. It decreases at a set speed regardless of what you do; the exhaustion bar is basically a timer, and one that has to run down. Once it's at 0, you then gain back a % of your stamina and willpower instantly, and - if you stop doing stamina-using actions - they then climb back up.
The idea was that stamina would be very much the norm for most characters - if you have to keep fighting, then you get a bonus and a greater ability to maybe clear a path for yourself, or gain the extra speed to back off, or whatever, but if you keep moving too long, you'll take a big hit. Some players will obviously have high willpower and low endurance (which determines stamina and, to a lesser extent, exhaustion) and they'll have a more gambling style, because they'll be hitting willpower sooner, get more from it, but also spend longer being risky.
So, that's my logic. As I say, it's just an early idea, so I'm happy to hear alternatives. The exhaustion bar is basically a cool-down period after you use both. @ Enigmatic - you say it doesn't make sense to reward the player for running out of stamina, and I see your point, but my logic was that if you choose (or can't help) straying into it, then you're taking a risk - the stakes become upped at that point! It would allow you greater tactical possibilities, I think, if you knew how much you could fight before going into willpower, or if coming very close to willpower, then you have to make a decision - back off, or go into willpower, get the combat boost, and try and finish everybody off before you become exhausted?!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 03, 2012, 09:16:40 pm
Random thought of the day:
How about there is different stages of sneaking?
Instead of, invisible, and "Everyone within the entire country now knows your name, face, criminal record, and favorite type of cat."
Maybe, invisible, sighted, discovered?
Something inbetween, where a guard might have seen you, but doesn't know you or your intentions?
So, if your sneaking through the streets trying to hid from guards, and a merchant sees you, he might find you suspicious and keep an eye on you, but won't attack you or anything.
But if a guard on night patrol spotted you sneaking about, he would call for back up or try to apprehend you or something.
Currently creatures show up as being unaware of you, suspicious, or aware. Equally, I hope any information they gain about you should NOT spread unless they escape and get to tell people about it. I really like the merchant/guards idea - in some situations, guards might become auto-hostile, whilst in others they wouldn't.
Just as long as there isn't any silly "You have been detected message" im happy. What would really be fun is sneaking up on sneakers and then stabbing!
What would really be awesome is if you can use disguises and blend into crowds hitman/assassins creed style, like if one army has armour which is decorated with crests (house, army, civ, etc...) you can use it to pretend you are part of an army to then assassinate the leader before the battle and just walk away cool as a cucumber.
I don't know if there will be a message, but I'll have to think about it. Maybe there will be a visual alert instead...
I love that armour decoration idea! Consider it on the list.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 03, 2012, 09:20:51 pm
Kind of like Raging or Berserking in certain games, where you go nuts then suck for a little bit.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 03, 2012, 09:25:29 pm
I like thinking of the Willpower as more like a second wind or that little rush you get when you know things are getting heavy. I think that's a nice balance, having it blown through quicker and risking entering the exhausted zone. It makes me think of a scenario where I'm on top of a hill fighting off foes trying to take the position. When I burn through the first meter I get into an almost battle trance, but if the fighting continues afterwards, I'm totally spent.
Kind of like Raging or Berserking in certain games, where you go nuts then suck for a little bit.
Very much my thinking (esp. the bolded part). I didn't want it to be a one-off ability, so I decided it might be interesting to have it as something you can only reach in dire situations, but you can ALWAYS reach when in those situations. Actually... that's quite a good way to put it. It's 2am here so I must depart, but that last sentence sums up some of my thoughts quite well. You can always dip into it, and if things are getting bad you can likely dip into it, and it gives you that little bit of extra potential to get out of the situation, whilst also giving you the tactical possibilities to actively seek out the willpower boost and take the risk.
EDIT: *Maybe* add an option to SWITCH to Willpower instantly, but you can't switch BACK to stamina?! So you can gamble from the start, if you want to... maybe. Thoughts?
Second edit: Ah, but might this current system be exploitable? Find a foe, run around and have them chase you, use up stamina and then fight? I might have the solution. Stamina is default, Willpower you toggle on/off through-out a battle (like berserking, in a way), but when BOTH are done, you go into exhaustion, so you need to manage the two throughout a battle. I think that solves every problem! You'd have, say, an x turn delay each time you change, so you can't constantly flick back and forth.
Post by: Leatra on November 03, 2012, 10:10:14 pm
I agree with having something that works like an adrenaline rush or a berserker unleashing his rage or whatever. However, it needs to be carefully implemented so it won't be exploited but be very powerful and rare at the same time. The thing is, sometimes a person might launch into the "KILL EM ALL!" state of mind without exerting themselves, like being provoked or being passively threatened (seen some real life examples). It's not something that happens only when you are getting tired. Also, some people (like berserkers) should be able to have some kind of power over their willpower but the ability to switch to the willpower bar isn't realistic too. You don't choose to become iron-willed. Maybe we should let only berserkers do that. However, this might mean throwing in a new class. Maybe the player can be trained by a berserker or find a way to learn how to tap into their inner strength. Even if we become able to switch to the Willpower it should have some penalties. Like, we may accidently hit our allies if we go berzerk or something like that.
Maybe this Willpower stage could have a different standing in all this. Maybe it could just be chance-based situtation where your willpower bar will replace your stamina bar OR you'll just skip to the exhaustion bar. However, that would make all the berserkers pretty weak.
Soooo... I'm at a loss too.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 03, 2012, 10:21:46 pm
Or if you can switch back and forth, have fatigue freeze in place so you can't exploit time in RAEJ MODE to regenerate your fatigue.
Post by: Neonivek on November 03, 2012, 10:29:45 pm
So Stamina is your free energy and it is what you can easily and freely tap into or rather effortless energy, willpower is what you can will yourself to do past the pain and exhaustion this represents a second wind and the energy you can use with a strong concerted effort, and Exhaustion is basically wringing energy right out of your body and represents the sort of energy use that is actually outright harmful to oneself, using energy you simply do not have.
As for "Gambling Willpower". Honestly there are some things I'd picture Exhaustion being what is used for. Any sort of "All out action" or Spell that eats away at your own body would be what I'd see exhaustion doing.
So you could make them function as the three levels of effort: Free, Concerted, and All out... but that may be too complicated and I am over thinking it.
Post by: Leatra on November 03, 2012, 10:32:59 pm
You don't just become a big angry fella by thinking "ASSKICKER MODE ACTIVATED" unless you seek out a wise old man who teaches you the secrets of angry-ass-kicking. Even the least clichéd action movies know this.
Post by: Neonivek on November 03, 2012, 10:37:17 pm
I don't want to be the guy who shouts "BUT IT'S NOT REALISTIC!!!!!1!11" but I gotta side with realism with this realism vs. fun thing this time.
You don't just become a big angry fella by thinking "ASSKICKER MODE ACTIVATED" unless you seek out a wise old man who teaches you the secrets of angry-ass-kicking. Even the least clichéd action movies know this.
I pictured that the ability to activate "Asskicker mode" would be a skill in it of itself.... Either supernatural or as a biological function.
Afterall who here can force their body to go into Adrenal mode and max out their muscles? Certainly some creatures could do it (many fictional creatures could go into blind rages) inately.
With burning Willpower not so much being "Asskicker mode" so much as "Actually trying mode".
Post by: fred1248 on November 03, 2012, 10:38:03 pm
Tapping into willpower instantly does sound unrealistic, I know, but I see it as something like getting tired more quickly and getting better results, which does happen in real life.
Post by: Neonivek on November 03, 2012, 10:39:23 pm
It's not even ass-kicker mode to be honest... It's more like, 'oh boy, this is going to be rough, better put errything I got into dis' mode.
Tapping into willpower instantly does sound unrealistic, I know, but I see it as something like getting tired more quickly and getting better results, which does happen in real life.
It would be the difference between running away (Stamina) from a battle and sprinting (Willpower)... With tapping into Exhaustion being the equivilant to a Adrenal fueled death sprint.
Post by: fred1248 on November 03, 2012, 10:42:57 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on November 04, 2012, 03:02:10 am
Perhaps will could only influence combat actions, not movement actions, and any terrifying situation or especially effective insult/other blow to morale could damage will? So the idea would be that if the player's character became terrified or mentally exhausted, they would be less effective at fighting but still roughly as effective at running away. So a cowardly PC would encourage the player to run away more often, but never actually force them to.
Post by: Rowanas on November 04, 2012, 04:44:12 am
I'm not entirely sure about toggling willpower though. At the least, it should only be toggle-able on, and basically it would skip through stamina, letting you get at the juicy willpower, with all the benefits and hindrances that brings. Once you've toggled willpower on, you can't turn it off again until you're all used up and the exhaustion timer resets. In addition to it being toggleable, I think it should still kick in after stamina is gone, for the morale easons stated above.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 04, 2012, 08:09:26 am
I agree that if you can toggle straight to willpower, you cannot toggle back to stamina - you have to stick with the willpower bar.
However, another idea I've had is that actually they display different things, as a few people have hinted at/suggested. The stamina bar is indeed for all stamina actions, and when it is used up, you then go into exhaustion. The willpower bar is separate and does display your morale, and is basically a "modifier" for the effectiveness of all your stamina actions. So the more fearsome your foes, the longer the battle goes on for, etc etc, the lower your willpower bar might become, but it can also go upwards, and is separate to the stamina/exhaustion bar.
So, I see three options, I think:
A) Stamina -> Wpr -> Exhaustion. First standard, second stronger, third weaker. Exhaustion cannot be 'avoided' once you dip into exhaustion.
B) Stamina -> Exhaustion/Wpr -> Exhaustion; you can choose to enter the Willpower stage whenever you want. If you don't, you default to A, if you do, you skip the rest of your stamina until you next recharge your exhaustion.
C) Stamina -> Exhaustion, and the Willpower bar is totally different.
Additionally, if A/B, currently you can stop any point in your stamina bar and recharge; that's fine. But I could make it that once you're into the willpower bar, you *must* finish the bar, i.e. it goes down no matter what, and plunges you into exhaustion no matter what. I think I'm leaning towards B) at the moment, but as I say, it's going to be a while until these really get used! But yeah, I think B sounds good, combined with "once in willpower stamina you cannot escape exhaustion". Equally, to stop people just automatically flicking into willpower for really brief battles, maybe make something like each time you enter willpower stamina, your exhaustion timer is increased by 1 turn? That's tiny (player's average speed is one move per ten turns) but something LIKE that might add up and be a good idea.
So, if we stick with B, how about: Stamina leads normally to willpower, which is then guaranteed to lead to exhaustion. You can choose to enter Willpower for a big boost, but once in willpower, you again cannot escape later exhaustion. Every time you enter your willpower bar, your exhaustion timer is very slightly increased. This gives you a lot of control over the timing/pacing of the battle, allows both endurance-focused and willpower-focused characters to quickly make use of their abilities, and disinclines you from abusing the willpower bar (maybe higher willpower actually reduces the exhaustion increase each time you use it?).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 04, 2012, 09:11:10 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on November 04, 2012, 10:01:25 pm
Post by: WraithLord24 on November 05, 2012, 12:00:26 am
Just one request: Don't work yourself to death. If you do and this remains unfinished I will figure out a way to hunt you down for building up my hopes for a brilliant game.Lol I agree ill help you hunt him down. ;D
Post by: Leatra on November 05, 2012, 10:00:00 am
Post by: Man of Paper on November 05, 2012, 04:40:35 pm
How prominent will siege weaponry (ballistae, trebuchet, catapults, etc.) be in the game? Will we be able to use flaming ammunition? I think you've already answered yes and probably to these, but I don't totally recall.
More importantly, will limbs go flying and will they do damage to people they hit? I want to see a cadre of bandits flee in fear after the catapult I brought along for no reason scores a direct hit on their commander and his arm bitch slaps one of his fellow bandits from 30 feet away.
Will ladders and grappling hooks be implemented for scaling walls? Would a defender be able to dislodge them? And would someone playing an assassin be able to use said grappling hook to scale buildings and the like?
Grappling hooks made me think of alternative weapons such as bolas and the like. Are there any plans to include weaponry to trip up opponents/screw up their horses? How about nonlethal take-downs?
When battle lines crash, will there occasionally be pushing and shoving around prior to all out combat? For visual reference, when the Persians first engage the Spartans in 300.
Will your character gain titles and nicknames for his or her accolades/defining features? Like Leatra the One Eyed, or Mad King WraithLord?
Will character appearance change over time? Say, if your guy is always swinging that sword arm and charging through trees, will he become more muscular? If you got a king that does nothing but sit on his throne, will he eventually turn into fat lard man? (Fun fact, as a kid a few friends and I made a video by the title Fat Lard Man.) I highly doubt this one, as I figure it'd be nigh impossible to implement, at least without being too demanding, but I figured I'd ask anyway!
Is it apparent I spent a lot of time on public transportation today?
Post by: coolio678 on November 05, 2012, 05:49:38 pm
Oh, another brief series of questions!I so want to sig that
How prominent will siege weaponry (ballistae, trebuchet, catapults, etc.) be in the game? Will we be able to use flaming ammunition? I think you've already answered yes and probably to these, but I don't totally recall.
More importantly, will limbs go flying and will they do damage to people they hit? I want to see a cadre of bandits flee in fear after the catapult I brought along for no reason scores a direct hit on their commander and his arm bitch slaps one of his fellow bandits from 30 feet away.
Will ladders and grappling hooks be implemented for scaling walls? Would a defender be able to dislodge them? And would someone playing an assassin be able to use said grappling hook to scale buildings and the like?
Grappling hooks made me think of alternative weapons such as bolas and the like. Are there any plans to include weaponry to trip up opponents/screw up their horses? How about nonlethal take-downs?
When battle lines crash, will there occasionally be pushing and shoving around prior to all out combat? For visual reference, when the Persians first engage the Spartans in 300.
Will your character gain titles and nicknames for his or her accolades/defining features? Like Leatra the One Eyed, or Mad King WraithLord?
Will character appearance change over time? Say, if your guy is always swinging that sword arm and charging through trees, will he become more muscular? If you got a king that does nothing but sit on his throne, will he eventually turn into fat lard man? (Fun fact, as a kid a few friends and I made a video by the title Fat Lard Man.) I highly doubt this one, as I figure it'd be nigh impossible to implement, at least without being too demanding, but I figured I'd ask anyway!
Is it apparent I spent a lot of time on public transportation today?
edit: the deed is done
also, an extension to the grappling hooks, how about good, wholesome ladders? and by an extension of extensions, boiling tar/ a hearty push on the people climbing said ladder?
Post by: Dutchling on November 05, 2012, 05:51:39 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 05, 2012, 06:46:25 pm
Just one request: Don't work yourself to death. If you do and this remains unfinished I will figure out a way to hunt you down for building up my hopes for a brilliant game.Lol I agree ill help you hunt him down. ;D
He doesn't look like he is stopping any time soon :D
Worry ye not, I shall not be stopping (hear that, everyone? No need to come hunting!), though I actually have to take a couple of days off now as I'm heading home for a brief period, but everything will resume come Friday. Besides, way over 50% of 0.2.0 is now done, so November is still pretty definite. Maybe even before the 30th! :)
Oh, another brief series of questions!I so want to sig that
How prominent will siege weaponry (ballistae, trebuchet, catapults, etc.) be in the game? Will we be able to use flaming ammunition? I think you've already answered yes and probably to these, but I don't totally recall.
More importantly, will limbs go flying and will they do damage to people they hit? I want to see a cadre of bandits flee in fear after the catapult I brought along for no reason scores a direct hit on their commander and his arm bitch slaps one of his fellow bandits from 30 feet away.
Will ladders and grappling hooks be implemented for scaling walls? Would a defender be able to dislodge them? And would someone playing an assassin be able to use said grappling hook to scale buildings and the like?
Grappling hooks made me think of alternative weapons such as bolas and the like. Are there any plans to include weaponry to trip up opponents/screw up their horses? How about nonlethal take-downs?
When battle lines crash, will there occasionally be pushing and shoving around prior to all out combat? For visual reference, when the Persians first engage the Spartans in 300.
Will your character gain titles and nicknames for his or her accolades/defining features? Like Leatra the One Eyed, or Mad King WraithLord?
Will character appearance change over time? Say, if your guy is always swinging that sword arm and charging through trees, will he become more muscular? If you got a king that does nothing but sit on his throne, will he eventually turn into fat lard man? (Fun fact, as a kid a few friends and I made a video by the title Fat Lard Man.) I highly doubt this one, as I figure it'd be nigh impossible to implement, at least without being too demanding, but I figured I'd ask anyway!
Is it apparent I spent a lot of time on public transportation today?
edit: the deed is done
also, an extension to the grappling hooks, how about good, wholesome ladders? and by an extension of extensions, boiling tar/ a hearty push on the people climbing said ladder?
@Man of Paper, limbs will not go flying, as he said that a few posts ago.
Excellent! In order:
Yes to ballista/catapult/trebuchet, and also early cannons of some description. Maybe additionally some esoteric and rare ones, early flamethrowers, grenades, etc.
@ Dutchling, TRUE, but limbs will be severed. However, if someone is, say, hit full-on by a catapult... there may be some flying limbs. Which is to say, I think there will be. But not many. And it'll be rare.
Yes to both; I imagine grappling hooks are many for individual/stealth characters, whilst ladders will be present for armies trying to reach a castle. Of course, as The Two Towers teaches us, the defenders will be able to see the ladder, look down, attack, etc...
I like the bolas idea greatly. It's on the list. There will be a full selection of throwing weapons at some point, I can guarantee that.
Yes, definitely re: pushing etc - combat, being brief and bloody, will have a lot of scrabbling, falling, desperate hits, fighting over weapons, losing footing on the ground, using environmental advantages,etc. It'll take a while to program, but I think it'll be worth it!
Titles I was intending to have, but I hadn't thought of nicknames - that's a great idea, I'll add that!
As much as I love the phrase Fat Lard Man, for the most part, no - you raise skills and stats through the skill trees, not through using them (to avoid farming etc). There are of course bonuses to specific skill tree gains for specific classes, and there will likely be books (or maybe artefacts...?) that will raise a skill or a stat or similar. There will also be a detailed page you can call up to describe your character, and that will certainly change over time. I could certainly implement a slight appearance change based on other factors, though... and maybe I will...
As for tar/pushing - I'm actually working on falling mechanics and implementing them into the current time system at the moment. As you fall, for instance, you see each turn pass by, and so combat will go on, or arrows will fly past, as you fall. You can currently watch the terrain fly past as you drop, but I think it'll look amazing in combat! So pushing would utilize that code, and I will definitely include that; I love the boiling tar idea. Which connects to TRAPS... but that's a topic for another time :).
In the mean time, a rather long and detailed blog entry about ruling, the Rule skill tree, and how to keep cities in line:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/06/city-state-mechanics/
Post by: fred1248 on November 05, 2012, 07:23:01 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 05, 2012, 07:25:23 pm
Just out of curiosity, will there be any form of counterattacks? Like, instead of just parrying a blow, using the chance to do a special movement / lethal blow.
I am not sure. It would depend on Dexterity and maybe Intelligence if so, I think, but I'm inclined to say no as it's not a choice/power in the player's control, and if it WAS, the player would obviously just always go for the counter-attack. Though maybe some of the special attacks for some weapon skill trees could be counters...
Post by: Sharp on November 05, 2012, 07:46:34 pm
As for tar/pushing - I'm actually working on falling mechanics and implementing them into the current time system at the moment. As you fall, for instance, you see each turn pass by, and so combat will go on, or arrows will fly past, as you fall. You can currently watch the terrain fly past as you drop, but I think it'll look amazing in combat! So pushing would utilize that code, and I will definitely include that; I love the boiling tar idea. Which connects to TRAPS... but that's a topic for another time :).
I like the idea of combat going on as you drop but will this also be a feature while stationary? I don't like it in games like ADOM and Dwarf Fortress Adv Mode where all moves which aren't yours happen in a flash and all you get are messages if any, it would be nice to maybe have an option to go through combat at a set FPS till your turn so you can see how enemy units are moving, the arrows flying, the big rock fired from catapult heading your way. Obviously there are limitations but DF's Fortress mode seems to handle it so it is possible, but im guessing it would be a lot more processing required but it would look cool.
Post by: fred1248 on November 05, 2012, 08:12:55 pm
Though what I'd like to see is some sort of system that prevents one on one combat from lasting way more longer than it should be.
Look at dwarf fortress, when you have two equally equiped / trained warriors fighting, the combat log can go up to dozens of pages.
I think there should be a penalty for a failed attack, for instance, if your attack is parried / blocked, and depending on how badly you botched the attack / how good well trained the opponent is,
opponent sees an 'opening' in your guard in one of the pre-determined bodyparts depending on weapon / fighting style (and vice versa, of course.)
Post by: Leatra on November 05, 2012, 08:26:41 pm
In the mean time, a rather long and detailed blog entry about ruling, the Rule skill tree, and how to keep cities in line:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/06/city-state-mechanics/
This reminds me, I like the trait and personality system behind city states in Civ 5. It was a good idea but felt a little shallow. You talked about the cities like 50 pages ago in this thread and mentioned how cities can specialize and have unique features. If you are still sticking with the same idea (which I hope you do) I hope you can pull it off.
Leatra the One Eyed
I would rip one of my eyes out just to get that nickname.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 05, 2012, 08:31:06 pm
Will you eventually be able to incite rebellion within a city? Say you gather intelligence on a city with a food shortage. Would you be able to -
As a ruler, send caravans stocked with the supplies they need to the city and sway the people to fall under your rule?
or
As a secret agent man, use the intelligence as well as networking to locate people who are unsatisfied with the current rule and convince them to take up arms?
or
Have the ruler killed, either by your own hand or a hired one, and move to have a puppet/yourself declared their ruler?
Also, will we be able to poison water sources/food stores? How about sabotaging enemy siege weapons and defenses (gates, walls, etc)? Will you be able to work similar to the spy units in Rome: Total War, were you can open city gates to allow invading forces in? I just had the idea of how sweet it would be to be a spy/agent attached to an army and tasked with making their fights easier, so I'm wondering how well they would blend.
Post by: Graknorke on November 08, 2012, 01:06:18 pm
Starting up 0.1.3b now.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 08, 2012, 05:00:51 pm
I like the idea of combat going on as you drop but will this also be a feature while stationary? I don't like it in games like ADOM and Dwarf Fortress Adv Mode where all moves which aren't yours happen in a flash and all you get are messages if any, it would be nice to maybe have an option to go through combat at a set FPS till your turn so you can see how enemy units are moving, the arrows flying, the big rock fired from catapult heading your way. Obviously there are limitations but DF's Fortress mode seems to handle it so it is possible, but im guessing it would be a lot more processing required but it would look cool.
You've raised a really good point I hadn't thought of. I'll implement different options to allow you to simply go from turn to turn, or to toggle something which shows you every turn in the middle, maybe. Or maybe you can choose the FPS at which intervening turns are shown. No, I don't think it would be that hard to add, actually; I could very easily show down the displaying of intervening turns.
Hm, so combat is basically just parry dodge dodge block slash parry block slash, other words, dwarf fortress-like combat?
Though what I'd like to see is some sort of system that prevents one on one combat from lasting way more longer than it should be.
Look at dwarf fortress, when you have two equally equiped / trained warriors fighting, the combat log can go up to dozens of pages.
I think there should be a penalty for a failed attack, for instance, if your attack is parried / blocked, and depending on how badly you botched the attack / how good well trained the opponent is,
opponent sees an 'opening' in your guard in one of the pre-determined bodyparts depending on weapon / fighting style (and vice versa, of course.)
No, I totally agree! Combat will not last long in a 1v1 duel, most of the time, or if it does, it'll be closely matched and will likely move beyond just using weapons and shields and things. If you look at some of the weapon skill trees, the ability to spot openings is in there; there are going to be a lot of factors that influence those, but certain abilities/skills will allow you to spot openings, slow the time until your foe's next attack, etc. Equally, yes, definitely, your foes will see openings when fighting you; I think it should be interesting to code. Now that I have such a flexible time system I really want to use it heavily in combat, and to make sure that combat is as varied as possible; obviously weapon combat, but also hand to hand, wrestling, knocking foes over, and even using environmental objects as well I think could be a lot of fun, particularly in indoor environments!
Leatra the One Eyed
I would rip one of my eyes out just to get that nickname.
That is, indeed, how you unlock it.
The update on city-states sort of fits in with the question I was just about to ask:
Will you eventually be able to incite rebellion within a city? Say you gather intelligence on a city with a food shortage. Would you be able to -
As a ruler, send caravans stocked with the supplies they need to the city and sway the people to fall under your rule?
or
As a secret agent man, use the intelligence as well as networking to locate people who are unsatisfied with the current rule and convince them to take up arms?
or
Have the ruler killed, either by your own hand or a hired one, and move to have a puppet/yourself declared their ruler?
Also, will we be able to poison water sources/food stores? How about sabotaging enemy siege weapons and defenses (gates, walls, etc)? Will you be able to work similar to the spy units in Rome: Total War, were you can open city gates to allow invading forces in? I just had the idea of how sweet it would be to be a spy/agent attached to an army and tasked with making their fights easier, so I'm wondering how well they would blend.
Because it will be relevant to history generation in the near future, I've been planning out how different levels of city loyalty, revolutions, uprisings, coups etc will be handled, but yes, I'd definitely like to allow you to do that. The "Subversion" skill tree in large part will deal with that kind of thing! I'd like the player to be able to do all the things you've typed, but also to make sure that the AI can do the same. I'm still working on the skill tree, but it's going to include things like organizing resistance, using explosives, sabotage, recruiting people towards you, maybe some cryptographic skills too, and the like. Though the details of the last one must stay in the Secret Projects section for now...
I think I remember seeing this a good half-year ago. I never really checked into it properly though.
Starting up 0.1.3b now.
Glad to hear it; though do check out the most recent blog entries, the screenshots of the world map and the in-game view of the most recent two or three posts are far more representative :).
Post by: Graknorke on November 08, 2012, 05:45:11 pm
I've been wondering, when ruling and cities come around, will there also be the option of telling specific NPCs what to do, such as having someone who you keep around for political reasons, sending them out on certain tasks like going to settlements to communicate with its citizens; or going up so some schmuck in the street and offering a load of money if he can hunt down a nearby dragon den within a month; or some other example of having an NPC do something you ask of them, potentially with conditional rewards or gifts and things.
Also kind of depends on how much autonomy the AI has. Will individual characters have their own desires and motives, and be able to themselves ask things of other NPCs? I'm thinking that NPC motives are going to be a thing, because of rebellions etc.
Post by: Devling on November 09, 2012, 04:08:11 am
During most of ancient history, pretty much up until humans collectively realized that it is stupid to stand in a square formation in the open when people with guns are shooting at, warfare was two big groups of people stabbing each other until one gave up.
Calvary and archers were just gravy, but the footsloggers did most of the work. Often it wasn't the army that killed the most that won, rather the army that didn't break won(and killed more people). That's why soldiers which could either scare the shit out of their opponents, or didn't break were valuable.
On a personal level, weapons break and dull waaaay quicker then you would think. Using your sword as a defensive tool is a bad idea, because it will become dull and useless(speaking of which, is there going to be degradation? Stuff between it's broken and useless, and full repaired? Dull and less effective, but still able to kill things?). Fighting was mostly body checking and trying to get around your opponents shield(or trying to hit them in a vulnerable spot/hit them period if they are dodging).
And that's all I'm pretty sure. Things to keep in mind.
Post by: Leatra on November 09, 2012, 07:58:12 am
Since this is trying to be realistic I just want to do a quick rant on ancient warfare...
During most of ancient history, pretty much up until humans collectively realized that it is stupid to stand in a square formation in the open when people with guns are shooting at, warfare was two big groups of people stabbing each other until one gave up.
Calvary and archers were just gravy, but the footsloggers did most of the work.
I think you are oversimplifying a bit. That statement would make Sun Tzu very angry if he heard this. There is a lot more to it than crashing two big squares of angry men towards each other. There are things like flanking, ambushes, fake retreats, use of fire, using the darkness of the night (not just with ambushes), false flag, deception, decoys, exploiting the terrain and the weather, use of skirmishers, shock tactics, special movement tactics like pincer movement and testudo formation and a lot more I can't think of right now. There are even unique tactics that were only used by certain cultures.
Also, calvary and archers are crucial to army morale and everybody knows that army morale is the only thing that can win battles.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 09, 2012, 01:35:42 pm
Although even there it came down to a changing of tactics, as armies went back to large pike groups to fend off the cavalry that had been made obsolete by advanced Roman infantry tactics.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 09, 2012, 01:42:04 pm
Will I be able to capture Prisoners of War and personally torture information out of them? And how about public executions for criminals/enemies of the throne?
Post by: Graknorke on November 10, 2012, 03:46:36 pm
Most of the stuff you'd want other people to be doing, but some things would be more satisfying to do personally, like going to the chamber of the captured head of an opposing city, then beating the information out of them. And then beat them some more.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 11, 2012, 01:06:45 pm
Yes, I've been reading through the blog too. Not sure how far it's worth reading back. I guess I'll find out when I finish it.
I've been wondering, when ruling and cities come around, will there also be the option of telling specific NPCs what to do, such as having someone who you keep around for political reasons, sending them out on certain tasks like going to settlements to communicate with its citizens; or going up so some schmuck in the street and offering a load of money if he can hunt down a nearby dragon den within a month; or some other example of having an NPC do something you ask of them, potentially with conditional rewards or gifts and things.
Also kind of depends on how much autonomy the AI has. Will individual characters have their own desires and motives, and be able to themselves ask things of other NPCs? I'm thinking that NPC motives are going to be a thing, because of rebellions etc.
Some of the older entries refer to a very different game to the one currently there, which is in turn different to 0.2.0, so I'd maybe check back by a couple of months at the outside, and certainly not the entire time the blog's been there!
You'll certainly be able to delegate, and even if you're not a ruler - mercenaries will definitely exist, and also people who you can hire or reward in some way for various tasks. Just as NPCs will give you objectives, I think it could be a neat reversal if you can also give out generalized quests "I'd like someone to retrieve X from Y" and NPCs might try to do it for you! NPCs will, I hope, be able to do a lot of what the player can do, even up the point of trying to stage coups, etc.
Since this is trying to be realistic I just want to do a quick rant on ancient warfare...
During most of ancient history, pretty much up until humans collectively realized that it is stupid to stand in a square formation in the open when people with guns are shooting at, warfare was two big groups of people stabbing each other until one gave up.
Calvary and archers were just gravy, but the footsloggers did most of the work. Often it wasn't the army that killed the most that won, rather the army that didn't break won(and killed more people). That's why soldiers which could either scare the shit out of their opponents, or didn't break were valuable.
On a personal level, weapons break and dull waaaay quicker then you would think. Using your sword as a defensive tool is a bad idea, because it will become dull and useless(speaking of which, is there going to be degradation? Stuff between it's broken and useless, and full repaired? Dull and less effective, but still able to kill things?). Fighting was mostly body checking and trying to get around your opponents shield(or trying to hit them in a vulnerable spot/hit them period if they are dodging).
And that's all I'm pretty sure. Things to keep in mind.
All very interesting! Re: degradation/damage/decay etc... I'm not decided on that yet, though I am strongly leaning towards yes. Weapons and armour will become damaged with use, and obviously some forms will be better than others; a rusty shield can still shield, but a rusty sword is going to struggle do its job (a crude example, but I will have the effects of damage differ by item). I like that description of fighting you've described; shields are, I wager, going to become a very important part of combat for a lot of characters, and when you attack a foe, it'll tell you whether they have a shield, and also possibly have some limbs in/out of range according to where they are holding it at that point. I'm also going to split leg attacks into front/back ones (front more likely to hit bone, back more likely to hit muscle, etc) and same goes for torso attacks (back doing much more damage and having generally a lower defense, most likely to damage organs, front more likely to damage ribs, etc).
I think you are oversimplifying a bit. That statement would make Sun Tzu very angry if he heard this. There is a lot more to it than crashing two big squares of angry men towards each other. There are things like flanking, ambushes, fake retreats, use of fire, using the darkness of the night (not just with ambushes), false flag, deception, decoys, exploiting the terrain and the weather, use of skirmishers, shock tactics, special movement tactics like pincer movement and testudo formation and a lot more I can't think of right now. There are even unique tactics that were only used by certain cultures.
Also, calvary and archers are crucial to army morale and everybody knows that army morale is the only thing that can win battles.
Darkness at night is an interesting one (which reminds me to reduce look radius accordingly!) - everything you've listed would be great if I could make it matter. Even if some of those factors maybe didn't matter as much as others in the real world, I want to introduce a large number of variables that affect how both you and the AI go about battles, and that's exactly the kind of stuff I'd like. Unique tactics is an interesting idea... which ties into something else, but for now, I'll have to ponder that one. Ahh, the morale system - I've tried several systems already and didn't like any of them, so I'm back at the drawing board! It won't matter for a little while, but I'm still thinking about it.
Cavalry also brings up a really important point: Do you have stirrups or not? Stirrups allow for true Heavy Cavalry, with all of the battlefield dominance that went along with it. Prior to that Cavalry were more of a Skirmishing unit. You could hit pretty hard with them, but not nearly as hard as you can when you have stirrups and a set lance.
Although even there it came down to a changing of tactics, as armies went back to large pike groups to fend off the cavalry that had been made obsolete by advanced Roman infantry tactics.
Interesting. I see what you mean; therefore, the answer is now yes. Maybe lances should be added to the long weapons list?
What will you be doing to ensure battles don't become repetitive? How varied will NPC tactics be? Will they adapt to your battlefield decisions? Will a civilization you've beaten repeatedly adopt new strategies in order to combat you?
Will I be able to capture Prisoners of War and personally torture information out of them? And how about public executions for criminals/enemies of the throne?
Those are some mighty important and mighty fundamental questions. I guess on one level, the answer above - as many variables as possible both pre-battle (weather, formations, height, deployment, blah blah) and also on the 'micro' level within battles themselves, according to advancing, retreating, and what weapons or unit types you and your foes have laid out. I'd like on the micro level a rock-paper-scissors approach, though with vastly more than three variables; different units will all require different units or tactics to deal with most effectively. I might also try and get a system whereby a riskier tactic, if it works, provides a bigger morale boost than a safer tactic does. Definitely prisoners of war, and how could I resist executions?
Mmh, personal vs impersonal seems like it'll be an important divide.
Most of the stuff you'd want other people to be doing, but some things would be more satisfying to do personally, like going to the chamber of the captured head of an opposing city, then beating the information out of them. And then beat them some more.
Exactly my thoughts! Hopefully almost everything (if you rule, or are in some similar position of power, maybe if doing espionage) will have options between delegating and doing-it-yourself, with appropriate advantages/disadvantages for each, and making sure to have various ways to prevent regularity in the delegation approach.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 12, 2012, 07:50:34 pm
Post by: Intrinsic on November 13, 2012, 05:37:59 am
Post by: 0cu on November 13, 2012, 08:31:33 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2012, 08:54:56 am
Looking forward to 0.2.0, and waiting until then to play it ;p The maps you put up on your blog are stunningly georgeous, looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Thanks, and wise move re: waiting - I'm very glad you like them! Still got two more map views to add at some point, too :), and from 1.0.0 (the version after this one) onwards the territory map will start to display something beyond the thrilling dark grey wasteland it currently resembles.
Posting to follow the topic. The trees got me hooked.
Excellent - then they have done their job well...
In the mean time, I've finally got the next entry out, on two of the last remaining skill trees - Linguistics and Rule:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/13/two-more-skill-trees/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/13/two-more-skill-trees/)
Post by: Leatra on November 13, 2012, 09:03:28 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2012, 09:13:30 am
Nice! I'm looking forward to test the language part of the game. I'm interested in languages in real life too. I'll try to be a linguist once with a character. That's what I'm doing at college anyway.
Excellent! Yes, I think languages/linguistics are/is fascinating; once it's going, I think it'll be a really interesting (and as far as I know, totally unique) aspect of the game. There's a lot of factors on the language aspect I haven't revealed yet, either because I'm still working them out or because they are sufficiently cool that they merit secrecy for a little while :).
Post by: Man of Paper on November 13, 2012, 08:30:12 pm
If I was wrong about you discussing cryptography then ignore the above questions and instead pretend they're suggestions.
Post by: Nighthawk on November 13, 2012, 10:03:55 pm
Post by: varsovie on November 13, 2012, 10:16:00 pm
universal language, right?
The only "universal" signe is the "I'm choking". And even then I've seen an idiot choking and pointing his mouth instead of putting his hands on his throat.
Anyway, will that means that we could be a translator in URR (or even hire one)?
Post by: Leatra on November 13, 2012, 10:34:32 pm
Will characters be able to communicate at all if they don't understand each other's languages? They'll have to be able to at least show their intentions through some simple, universal language, right?
You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
Post by: Graknorke on November 14, 2012, 12:31:39 pm
Falling to the floor for example is a pretty good indicator of a submissive gesture, the opposite being true of standing upright with outstretched arms and generally making yourself look bigger.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 14, 2012, 03:34:27 pm
Will characters be able to communicate at all if they don't understand each other's languages? They'll have to be able to at least show their intentions through some simple, universal language, right?
You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
The whole 'white flag means surrender' is something that's come in and out of favor a few times. Mostly as a Western concept, but it crops up in China too.
Post by: Nighthawk on November 14, 2012, 03:38:45 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on November 14, 2012, 03:50:08 pm
Well, we don't need white flags. Dropping your weapon and throwing yourself to the ground pretty clearly means "I ain't gonna fight you".
Yeah, I imagine dropping your weapon is a pretty universal sign of surrender.
Post by: Neonivek on November 14, 2012, 04:29:19 pm
Well, we don't need white flags. Dropping your weapon and throwing yourself to the ground pretty clearly means "I ain't gonna fight you".
Yeah, I imagine dropping your weapon is a pretty universal sign of surrender.
It is why the Yo-yo was the greatest weapon ever created. You could drop your weapon and score the kill at the same time.
Post by: varsovie on November 14, 2012, 07:06:11 pm
You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 15, 2012, 05:32:21 pm
All the various types of trees look as if they're coming along very well. I think I remember you mentioning cryptography briefly earlier on. Will there be various means of encryption more than just the substitution ciphers like they have in the newspaper's cryptoquotes, or will we see more complex methods of friend and foe transferring messages? Is there a possibility of polylaphabetic ciphers, and will we see more complex (on the scale of programming, I'd assume) tactics such as scytale, which was a ribbon of letters that had to be wrapped around an object of a specific diameter for the message to be revealed?
If I was wrong about you discussing cryptography then ignore the above questions and instead pretend they're suggestions.
There are going to be number of types of cypher, and a number of ways in-game to get hints on them. I think currently the higher your crypto skill and intelligence the higher the chance of your character identifying the code - say, "This looks like a moderately difficult Caesar cypher" or whatever. For the tougher ones, there will also be sources in-game that would give you hints, or part of the key, or people who could be bribed/threatened etc, but I'd like to leave most of them actually solvable by the player, as none of them are going to be too tricky. I hadn't considered the scytale; interesting. Say, if one was a Vigenere cypher, then you would have various sources you could find the key from, or parts of the key, or maybe someone who knows at least the length of the key. I'm even debating having civilizations generate simple cryptography machines... Of course, it's an entirely optional element, but I think incorporating it could be very interesting :).
Will characters be able to communicate at all if they don't understand each other's languages? They'll have to be able to at least show their intentions through some simple, universal language, right?
I *really* like that idea! If you encounter a friend/foe, you can try and communicate non-verbally; drop a weapon to surrender, point somewhere to suggest you both go that way, etc. I love that notion - I'll definitely add that.
In the mean time, I think feature bloat #2 is going to be finished within the next hour, which is a huge step forward for the 0.2.0 release! It looks pretty damned good. I've also fixed about twenty or thirty things on my list of small fixes/additions today as well; over the weekend I'm going to try and get the majority of the remainder of the list done, then I'll probably just be left with a few bugs and difficulties. Will keep everything updated here!
Post by: Intrinsic on November 16, 2012, 05:18:56 am
You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
A very common misconception, France actually has one of the best military records of any country, and they've fought in more wars than any other country in the world. JYSK :)
Post by: Mephansteras on November 16, 2012, 12:03:51 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on November 16, 2012, 01:04:45 pm
You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
A very common misconception, France actually has one of the best military records of any country, and they've fought in more wars than any other country in the world. JYSK :)
Oh god, I know. Remember that time they took over all of Europe before 1700? That was scary.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Man of Paper on November 16, 2012, 01:31:17 pm
Have you discussed alternate mounts, such as bears, elephants, slaves, etc? And with elephants, if they're introduced as a mounted unit, will there be the chance to see them armed with ballistae? I think it was the Carthaginians that did that, not totally sure who was responsible for such a terror weapon.
Post by: Dutchling on November 16, 2012, 03:04:05 pm
And even then, the image of the Resistance has been ingrained as the Badass Underdog (not a tvtropes page? Well then). You don't mess with a dude who is both dressed sharp as well as armed to the teeth (though you wouldn't really mess with the second one anyway).Slaves have mounted since before Roman times!
Have you discussed alternate mounts, such as bears, elephants, slaves, etc? And with elephants, if they're introduced as a mounted unit, will there be the chance to see them armed with ballistae? I think it was the Carthaginians that did that, not totally sure who was responsible for such a terror weapon.
Post by: Neonivek on November 16, 2012, 03:04:55 pm
France gets a bad rap because of the World Wars. Mostly WWII, because they were considered a Major Power and got stomped on in a very short amount of time.
And for how badly Neopolitan lost.
Post by: Elfeater on November 16, 2012, 05:31:22 pm
Still the buggers lost a whole lot of those wars.You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
A very common misconception, France actually has one of the best military records of any country, and they've fought in more wars than any other country in the world. JYSK :)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 16, 2012, 05:41:14 pm
EDIT: Of course there is the Battle of Minden...
Post by: Mephansteras on November 16, 2012, 05:43:57 pm
Are you going to keep track of nation's Reputation? If so, in how many areas? For example, England was renowned for its Navy but Venice for its Merchants.
Post by: Intrinsic on November 17, 2012, 03:09:21 am
Still the buggers lost a whole lot of those wars.You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
A very common misconception, France actually has one of the best military records of any country, and they've fought in more wars than any other country in the world. JYSK :)
Well duh, if you've fought over 160 wars, you're gonna loose a bigger number than those who've fought only 10 ;p France still has won more than double what they've lost, ~65% of the total they've fought in.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 17, 2012, 07:07:43 am
And even then, the image of the Resistance has been ingrained as the Badass Underdog (not a tvtropes page? Well then). You don't mess with a dude who is both dressed sharp as well as armed to the teeth (though you wouldn't really mess with the second one anyway).
Have you discussed alternate mounts, such as bears, elephants, slaves, etc? And with elephants, if they're introduced as a mounted unit, will there be the chance to see them armed with ballistae? I think it was the Carthaginians that did that, not totally sure who was responsible for such a terror weapon.
Elephants, horses and camels are my intended mounts; that's an amazing idea re: Elephant-ballista! Did that actually happen? I mean, I reason an armoured elephant isn't that far away from a siege weapon anyway, but still...
To try to bring this derail back on track...
Are you going to keep track of nation's Reputation? If so, in how many areas? For example, England was renowned for its Navy but Venice for its Merchants.
Attempt appreciated! (I like a historical debate as much as the next man, but I don't think I have much to add to this one). Well, for starters, civilizations have a number of traits, relating to their history, what kind of government they like, production, what form of military unit they prefer, etc etc, which will be assigned partly at random and partly in relation to their starting location/situation. Similarly, though, I'll probably have a number of scales that civilizations are tracked on - like the ones you mention - and that'll reflect dealings with them, what other civilizations are willing to ally with them, etc. Equally, in the screens that list civilizations it might say what they are known for and what their specialties are, as well as data like army size, food output, production, government, etc etc.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 17, 2012, 11:22:36 am
Maybe we should equip them with nuclear ordinance. It seems to be the only thing they've yet to be trained with.
Post by: Devling on November 17, 2012, 11:30:57 pm
Post by: Trollheiming on November 18, 2012, 10:46:50 am
Still the buggers lost a whole lot of those wars.You mean things like flags? Like, a white flag means surrendering or wanting peace and stuff like that?
That's not universal, though. Heck, it's been used as the main flag for several civilizations. In fact, it was the Royal flag for France in the 17th century.
Maybe it became commonly used after all those French defeats... :P
A very common misconception, France actually has one of the best military records of any country, and they've fought in more wars than any other country in the world. JYSK :)
Well duh, if you've fought over 160 wars, you're gonna loose a bigger number than those who've fought only 10 ;p France still has won more than double what they've lost, ~65% of the total they've fought in.
in addition to the above mentioned, they also lost 1871 in a rather humiliating way. They lost the Napoleon misadventures as Neonivek said. They lost the Seven Years and gave up a lot of territory in Canada to Britain. Arguably they won the Hundred Years War so pyrrhically--due mostly to the death of several strong English kings and susequent civil wars--that it is worthy of being counted a net loss for their warrior reputations.
So, yeah, they did earn the reputation.
(Edit: The festivities of Cinco de Mayo also celebrate the attempted takeover of Mexico by France, which likewise ended in grief for them. The war of Spanish Succession was likewise a loss in which they gave up small territorial concessions and one huge ambition.)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 18, 2012, 11:10:03 am
Did a little looking up. It wasn't Carthage, but the Khmer that equipped their elephants with large crossbowbow platforms similar to the ballista. And it also seems to be that they were occasionally equipped with chains with large balls at the end tied to their trunks, and trained to flail them around.
Very interesting! I like the crossbow platform idea, particularly.
Maybe we should equip them with nuclear ordinance. It seems to be the only thing they've yet to be trained with.
Done.
Will elephants be multitile? Will I be able to jump on an elephant and goad it with my dagger?
Yes! And... probably. Elephants will probably be a 3x3 grid, horses probably either 1x3 or 1x2, I'm not sure yet. More likely 1x3, just for the sake of clarity (like h@h for a rider, rather than @h would be less clear, I think).
Post by: Devling on November 19, 2012, 01:38:09 am
Post by: varsovie on November 20, 2012, 08:50:04 am
Will elephants be multitile? Will I be able to jump on an elephant and goad it with my dagger?
Yes! And... probably. Elephants will probably be a 3x3 grid, horses probably either 1x3 or 1x2, I'm not sure yet. More likely 1x3, just for the sake of clarity (like h@h for a rider, rather than @h would be less clear, I think).
On the other hand
Code: [Select]
@h h@
h @
@ h
@ h
h @
H@H
HHH
HHH
Gives you immediately the direction the mount have. Same for the elephant facing north in the example.
@Devling, they are called "ripostes", and you can go further with "contre-...-ripostes"* (When you get parried, receive a counter attack, but parry or dodge then counter attack).
*Yeah I use French terminology for fencing, because it's the official language, used worldwide like the metric system. (i.e. except in USA)
Post by: Leatra on November 20, 2012, 09:26:05 am
On the other handCode: [Select]@h h@
h @
@ h
@ h
h @
H@H
HHH
HHH
Gives you immediately the direction the mount have. Same for the elephant facing north in the example.
Hey, that's a good idea. However, I think horses should be longer than two tiles.
Post by: Sharp on November 20, 2012, 01:00:51 pm
On the other handCode: [Select]@h h@
h @
@ h
@ h
h @
H@H
HHH
HHH
Code: [Select]
H@h h@H
H
h @
@ h
H
H
@ h
h @
H
E@E
EEE
EEE
also works
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 20, 2012, 01:36:51 pm
Will there be countering more advanced then, "Oh looks like I parried you, now I hit you because of skill"?
What kind of thing do you have in mind by "more advanced?" There are a bunch of things I can imagine that would fit the bill, but which do you mean? :)
As for the multi-square creatures, today's blog entry (the last one before 0.2!) answers that nicely (I decided to make elephants 3x4, though that is certainly subject to change in the future):
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/20/guidebook/
So, an elephant with rider facing -> would look like
EEEE
EE@E
EEEE
with the rider at the front, behind the head.
Post by: varsovie on November 20, 2012, 03:13:37 pm
For the elephant, that's all good that you have a rider, but where do you put your four archers/javelins (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Schlacht_bei_Zama_Gemälde_H_P_Motte.jpg)? :P
Post by: Man of Paper on November 20, 2012, 04:38:45 pm
Post by: Sharp on November 20, 2012, 05:28:09 pm
---
So if you are going to implement a system of being able to see each turn and have units move simultaneously (like DF Fortress mode as opposed to adventure mode) how are you going to handle projectiles? Will you/NPC's be able to lead on targets? How will it handle misses and especially interception (or interception of missed shot :P ) will be interesting to see how due to characters having different heights so a missed shot at the guy riding an elephant probably shouldn't hit the dwarf standing next to/in front of the elephant. Will there be calculations on the projectiles to determine height and velocity of the projectile so it can calculate where and how hard it will hit what it hits.
Will you be able to get volley fire on archers to barrage an area as opposed to targeting individuals? Same for siege weapons?
Will you ban me from this thread for asking too many questions? Will that affect my free speech? Why does no-one like me?
Post by: Man of Paper on November 20, 2012, 09:33:45 pm
Will someone of high enough skill be able to swat or, at a very high skill level, catch small projectiles midflight? Will you be able to camouflage units and pop out of your hidey holes to assault the unsuspecting? If you've seen, I think it's the remake of Dune, think how the Fremen leap out of the sand to assault, was it Harkonnen's dudes? Been a while since I've seen it. If you haven't seen it, you should. And also use the Japanese Spider Holes circa World War II for reference.
Also, will we be able to dig trenches to impede cavalry? If I remember correctly, during a Roman siege of a Gaulish city they dug two trenches separated just enough so that horses wouldn't be able to leap over both, and the middle strip was too thin to land on. If traps are indeed implemented, you know what scratch all that because if I recall you're keeping that under wraps anyways.
Post by: Devling on November 21, 2012, 09:36:37 pm
In DF and most other games it is a reactionary thing that you have no control over, like your character automatically swats the opponent if the have high enough skill(or they are lucky).
Post by: Leatra on November 22, 2012, 11:43:27 am
Post by: Man of Paper on November 22, 2012, 01:20:55 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 22, 2012, 07:42:07 pm
URR, why are you always releasing right after I go away from home+internet? Any hope for a Linux version?
For the elephant, that's all good that you have a rider, but where do you put your four archers/javelins (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Schlacht_bei_Zama_Gemälde_H_P_Motte.jpg)? :P
Clearly you must tie one to each leg.
Maybe you have bigger elephants for that?
---
So if you are going to implement a system of being able to see each turn and have units move simultaneously (like DF Fortress mode as opposed to adventure mode) how are you going to handle projectiles? Will you/NPC's be able to lead on targets? How will it handle misses and especially interception (or interception of missed shot :P ) will be interesting to see how due to characters having different heights so a missed shot at the guy riding an elephant probably shouldn't hit the dwarf standing next to/in front of the elephant. Will there be calculations on the projectiles to determine height and velocity of the projectile so it can calculate where and how hard it will hit what it hits.
Will you be able to get volley fire on archers to barrage an area as opposed to targeting individuals? Same for siege weapons?
Will you ban me from this thread for asking too many questions? Will that affect my free speech? Why does no-one like me?
@ varsovie - ah, my apologies! We might get a Linux version this time, but it might be a couple of weeks after the PC version. Have the suggestions for getting it to work on Linux proven at all successful? I'll be trying to get a Linux build on a flatmate's laptop, but he's so rarely around at the moment it's tricky to coordinate.
As for archers on elephants, good point: you could have something like
EaEE
Ea@E
EaEE
so you have a long carrier thing on the elephant with three archers in a line. I'm glad that was suggested - I think that sounds like a great idea.
The turn system is made up of a huge number of tiny turns - a normal human step might take 20 turns, while an arrow flying one square will take only one turn. Anything that happens on turns between your turns will be shown. Good question about target lead! I hadn't even considered that. I don't have an immediate solution, but I wager most people will be moving so much slower than arrows and projectiles that it'll rarely be a problem, at least for arrows and bullets. Re: misses, if someone misses you it'll note it with a message, and similarly for if you miss somebody else. Chances are, though, given that arrows will move one or two squares per turn, but as I say humans have maybe 10/15 between moves, I don't think leading to anticipate for motion will be that important. Maybe not 100% realistic, but gameplay-wise I think it would be better if that actually wasn't an issue and you didn't have to anticipate leading.
How will trampling work? If you kill a mount, will their speed and height affect what injuries the rider will incur? Caltrops and bolas for everybody!
Will someone of high enough skill be able to swat or, at a very high skill level, catch small projectiles midflight? Will you be able to camouflage units and pop out of your hidey holes to assault the unsuspecting? If you've seen, I think it's the remake of Dune, think how the Fremen leap out of the sand to assault, was it Harkonnen's dudes? Been a while since I've seen it. If you haven't seen it, you should. And also use the Japanese Spider Holes circa World War II for reference.
Also, will we be able to dig trenches to impede cavalry? If I remember correctly, during a Roman siege of a Gaulish city they dug two trenches separated just enough so that horses wouldn't be able to leap over both, and the middle strip was too thin to land on. If traps are indeed implemented, you know what scratch all that because if I recall you're keeping that under wraps anyways.
Definitely; at some point I need to program in fall damage as well. In this case, I think one could get some wonderfully violent animations of people and armour going flying from the top of an elephant that's been tripped up, for instance!
Deflect, possibly, catch, I don't think so. You can block arrows I think like anything else, but it'll be far harder than incoming hand-held weapons, I think. Camouflage is a very interesting one - I'll have to think about that, and how that could work with stealth as an alternative, or as an additional. Trenches are definitely on the list, along with various kinds of barricades, and other traps. Traps that the player/armies can lay are distinct from the traps that might be found in temples and tombs; I haven't yet come up with a list, but trenches are definitely one. Again, I'm not sure how much will be abstracted, and how much comes actually down to ordering specific troops to do it; I don't want to end up with duplicating intricate construction mechanics, naturally, but you'll probably just be able to order troops to do it as you would in, say, age of empires - direct some to a structure, and assuming you have the resources, they will just build it as a single block, not as components. Traps in dungeons I'm going to keep under wraps, but I'll be covering warfare/battle traps when we get there!
What I meant by more advanced was choosing how you parry, or block, or counter attack.
In DF and most other games it is a reactionary thing that you have no control over, like your character automatically swats the opponent if the have high enough skill(or they are lucky).
We could get a bonus turn maybe.
Got it. I like Leatra's idea - if you get a parry in, then you get a turn before your next turn, but one where you can only attempt a set of countermoves! Some would involve your weapon, some involve your shield, or some might be purely hand-to-hand/physical.
So I was playing Kingdom of Loathing and it hit me: Will there be a chance to fumble weaponry you're not skilled with? Like if you're proficient with a smaller blade such as a dagger or short sword, and in the thick of things pick up a halberd, will you be easier to disarm/accidentally drop the weapon/have it slip out of your hands?
That's a nice idea. I suppose it would be mostly governed by Dexterity, and perhaps for each skill you have unlocked in a tree for a particular kind of weapon reduces the chance of disarm? I'm also really interested in the idea of you getting used to specific weapons - i.e. one specific sword, or one specific axe - and gradually gaining bonuses with that exact weapon. This could similarly tie in here - the more you use a particular weapon, the harder it also becomes to disarm.
Today, maybe forty or fifty bugs were squashed, though a good five or six new ones popped up in the process. I think I reached the human limit for constant coding today - a solid 10 hours - and the list of things to fix is now very, very short. I'm busy tomorrow, but I'm confident about finishing things off on Saturday & Sunday.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 23, 2012, 12:38:45 pm
Post by: coolio678 on November 24, 2012, 11:10:43 am
That's a nice idea. I suppose it would be mostly governed by Dexterity, and perhaps for each skill you have unlocked in a tree for a particular kind of weapon reduces the chance of disarm? I'm also really interested in the idea of you getting used to specific weapons - i.e. one specific sword, or one specific axe - and gradually gaining bonuses with that exact weapon. This could similarly tie in here - the more you use a particular weapon, the harder it also becomes to disarm.and then give it a name? ;)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 10:23:48 am
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing the next version!
Glad to hear it! :)
That's a nice idea. I suppose it would be mostly governed by Dexterity, and perhaps for each skill you have unlocked in a tree for a particular kind of weapon reduces the chance of disarm? I'm also really interested in the idea of you getting used to specific weapons - i.e. one specific sword, or one specific axe - and gradually gaining bonuses with that exact weapon. This could similarly tie in here - the more you use a particular weapon, the harder it also becomes to disarm.and then give it a name? ;)
Oh yes! Or maybe a system that names it for you, like nicknames given to the player...
In the mean time, I'm doing the finishing touches on the 0.2 release now. Hoping to release in 2/3 hours!
Post by: mendonca on November 26, 2012, 10:42:17 am
Post by: maki32 on November 26, 2012, 10:58:07 am
Post by: Leatra on November 26, 2012, 12:54:24 pm
Jolly excited to see the new version, good luck getting it out. The guidebook looks fantastic, by the way. I especially like the 'teaser graphics' for the shark ... :D
Yeah, even the guidebook looks amazing. It's like a teaser list of features to be added :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 01:24:01 pm
Jolly excited to see the new version, good luck getting it out. The guidebook looks fantastic, by the way. I especially like the 'teaser graphics' for the shark ... :D
Haha, excellent! Yes, sharks will sometimes appear around ships, I wager...
Hey Ultima! In the new version, the world will generate cities and so on? I'm amazed with the "History" feature of all the objects, I hope this work correctly in a near future!
Afraid not, far from it. The version that has JUST BEEN RELEASED (zomg - see bottom of this message) doesn't, then the next version is history generation, then cities will be some way after that. It's a hefty process, but one I have to start from the ground up :).
Jolly excited to see the new version, good luck getting it out. The guidebook looks fantastic, by the way. I especially like the 'teaser graphics' for the shark ... :D
Yeah, even the guidebook looks amazing. It's like a teaser list of features to be added :D
And some of those features YOU CAN NOW PLAY, because 0.2.0 is out! I've also just updated the front page of this thread with new screenshots...
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/11/26/version-0-2-released/
Post by: fred1248 on November 26, 2012, 01:56:02 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 02:31:10 pm
I can't wait to see the naval combat.
Let me say without a moment's hesitation - nor can I! It'll be a while, though...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 04:21:53 pm
Post by: Intrinsic on November 26, 2012, 04:28:42 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 04:29:09 pm
Sweet i can stop pressing F5 now! I just installed Baldur's Gate again though lol.
Pffftt! You haven't seen the two features I've kept hidden yet :)
Post by: Leatra on November 26, 2012, 04:36:04 pm
Will the moons have different effects somehow? A cult that worships the moon and stuff like that? I wish we had lycanthropy. The moon would work in an awesome way with lycanthropy.
BTW, main menu is really neat, like everything else. Game doesn't even feel like alpha because of the neatness of UI :D
Post by: Man of Paper on November 26, 2012, 04:54:09 pm
"Mountains are difficult to pass through, but may therefore serve as a natural defense against hosSquare nations."
I think it's supposed to be "hostile" though nations that oppose me are indeed square.
Generating my world now. I hope to wander aimlessly for hours!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 05:30:12 pm
This different worlds with optional moons idea is AWESOME!
Will the moons have different effects somehow? A cult that worships the moon and stuff like that? I wish we had lycanthropy. The moon would work in an awesome way with lycanthropy.
BTW, main menu is really neat, like everything else. Game doesn't even feel like alpha because of the neatness of UI :D
Awesome! Glad you like it :) - yes, moons will affect cults and myths and religions, and the planetary system in general will actually have a big role to play in a lot of the tougher dungeon puzzles I have planned... but no more on that just yet. You'll see some moon/planet effects in religions come 1.0.0!
Under tectonic activity:
"Mountains are difficult to pass through, but may therefore serve as a natural defense against hosSquare nations."
I think it's supposed to be "hostile" though nations that oppose me are indeed square.
Generating my world now. I hope to wander aimlessly for hours!
Well spotted - I changed all "Tile" to "Square" but evidently didn't think about what else that might alter. Whoops. Anyway, enjoy!
Post by: Smashness on November 26, 2012, 06:04:35 pm
A question about the plants, will they, in future releases be able to help you hide from enemies, like climbing into trees or hiding in particularly thick bushes? Also, is there any wildlife in this release?
Post by: tootboot on November 26, 2012, 06:05:38 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 06:26:08 pm
I was wandering, and climbed a volcano (which was absolutely impossible to do in the last version), then noticed jumping 28 levels no longer grinds you into a fine mist. Thanks for changing that system.
A question about the plants, will they, in future releases be able to help you hide from enemies, like climbing into trees or hiding in particularly thick bushes? Also, is there any wildlife in this release?
Haha; fall damage will be returning, though in a rather more carefully done manner than before. Yes, I think so, re: hiding from foes; I am going to add plants and maybe bushes and things in some later release. There is no wildlife - you are the only creature on the planet at the moment!
What's the other secret besides having a solar system?
The generated art on the main menu!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 26, 2012, 07:30:59 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on November 26, 2012, 08:09:55 pm
Menu looks amazing. Already the best ASCII interface I've ever seen in a game. Shweet.
Since there are no enemies, I didn't mess around with the weapon tree just yet. Figure I'll test that later when there are things to stab.
Running and sprinting work great. I thought I was so cool that I'd totally sprint a mile on willpower - that didn't work at all. It's a good thing that willpower drains faster, though. If you're smart, I don't think you should ever TRY to rely upon willpower.
Traveled to a forest and saw some awesome looking trees (They. Look. So. Cool.). Also, climbed a bit, jumped off some 3 z-level cliffs. Didn't explode, so I was happy. It makes sense that my character can survive a fall about 3 of his own body lengths down, but I'm a bit worried - will the character be able to look and estimate the length of the fall before we decide to jump? I only ask because it's kind of difficult to tell how far down a cliff goes in a 2d top-down environment. Also, I will climbing trees be a feature as well? (Don't know if someone already asked that).
Transitions from high to low places and vice-versa look very nice too. Thought I should mention that.
All in all, pretty dang sweet. While I am definitely impatient to see the release the includes combat, I hope that you'll take as much time as you need to polish it and not rush the job. You've certainly done awesome work on what's there so far. Keep it up!
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on November 27, 2012, 04:51:53 am
Post by: mendonca on November 27, 2012, 05:02:43 am
The new version looks great, I am heartily impressed.
Some of the commands seem destined to follow the normal Roguelike design mantra of 'esoteric extended command lists are good' - Have you got any plans to have e.g. right-click context sensitive interfaces or other such things? A neat and compact interface would do wonders for the accessibility of the game in future, I feel, especially as it gets more and more complex.
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on November 27, 2012, 05:10:28 am
To not be entirely off topic
IMO, Planetary generation should give more moons to gas giants. Yes, I suspect that it will not affect gameplay in like several dozens of versions but still
Post by: Ikaruga on November 27, 2012, 06:41:46 am
I played a bit with it and I so can't wait to play the "full game" !
Post by: fred1248 on November 27, 2012, 11:03:24 am
You die, and your son, or even daughter inherits, and you get the option to continue playing.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 27, 2012, 12:07:59 pm
Writing this as I play the new release:
Menu looks amazing. Already the best ASCII interface I've ever seen in a game. Shweet.
Since there are no enemies, I didn't mess around with the weapon tree just yet. Figure I'll test that later when there are things to stab.
Running and sprinting work great. I thought I was so cool that I'd totally sprint a mile on willpower - that didn't work at all. It's a good thing that willpower drains faster, though. If you're smart, I don't think you should ever TRY to rely upon willpower.
Traveled to a forest and saw some awesome looking trees (They. Look. So. Cool.). Also, climbed a bit, jumped off some 3 z-level cliffs. Didn't explode, so I was happy. It makes sense that my character can survive a fall about 3 of his own body lengths down, but I'm a bit worried - will the character be able to look and estimate the length of the fall before we decide to jump? I only ask because it's kind of difficult to tell how far down a cliff goes in a 2d top-down environment. Also, I will climbing trees be a feature as well? (Don't know if someone already asked that).
Transitions from high to low places and vice-versa look very nice too. Thought I should mention that.
All in all, pretty dang sweet. While I am definitely impatient to see the release the includes combat, I hope that you'll take as much time as you need to polish it and not rush the job. You've certainly done awesome work on what's there so far. Keep it up!
Re: menu - thank you! May I quote you on the "best interface" bit at some point :)? That makes sense; similarly, the trees are naturally up for alteration as/when combat mechanics get added. Glad you like the running/sprinting mechanics; whilst obviously the exact values for stamina and time will need tweaking and playtesting (and the extent to which things like armour/weight/strength/endurance affect them), I'm happy with the outline of the system I've got going at the moment. That's great to hear about the trees! Hopefully I can make buildings/ruins/caves as interesting!
Tree-climbing: yes, definitely, but I don't know when. Far from essential at the moment though, obviously, so probably not for a while. The messages about the strength of tree branches if you examine them is the first small component of that, though. Glad you like the transitions. As for viewing height, the only current way is to 'l'ook at the terrain below you, and it will tell you how far down it is. Combat is still a way off, though I might actually end up needing to implement it for some of the dungeon areas, or at least more abilities like jumping etc, but we'll see. Otherwise, it's going to have to come after history gen and dungeon gen.
Anyway, my thanks for the very detailed feedback - it's great to know what's working and what could be improved.
This game have a potential to become my favorite... PTF
Glad to hear it!
The new version looks great, I am heartily impressed.
Some of the commands seem destined to follow the normal Roguelike design mantra of 'esoteric extended command lists are good' - Have you got any plans to have e.g. right-click context sensitive interfaces or other such things? A neat and compact interface would do wonders for the accessibility of the game in future, I feel, especially as it gets more and more complex.
Thank you :). Sadly, yes, though that is not on purpose just to stick to the norm - simply because there are so damned many commands I'm going to need! I have no plans for mouse support, BUT I might add it for things like the look function at some later date. Uncertain.
To not be entirely off topic
IMO, Planetary generation should give more moons to gas giants. Yes, I suspect that it will not affect gameplay in like several dozens of versions but still
I think it does? Maybe it doesn't. I'll check. Indeed so - it will affect gameplay in 1.0.0 from religion/cult/myth generation, and as I say, it will have a big role in some of the dungeon "bosses" (which are mainly not physical combat), but I'm not saying more on that just yet.
This game has a huge potential !
I played a bit with it and I so can't wait to play the "full game" !
Thanks! The game will be rather more full come 1.0.0, but come 2.0.0, there will actually be places to explore, believe it or not, at which point the "gameplay" will finally start appearing :)
Will you be able to get married? The reason why I am asking this is I want to see something along the line of 'dynasty' or 'lineage' from crusader kings 2.
You die, and your son, or even daughter inherits, and you get the option to continue playing.
Absolutely - a similar idea I think I mentioned on my blog aaaaages ago, about dynastic and legacies and things. Families (with a capital F) are going to be a part of history generation, with coats of arms and everything, so that'll definitely be included.
Post by: Neonivek on November 27, 2012, 12:26:09 pm
Zombies that get unlimited 1 bar, unlimited 2 bars, or unlimited 3 bars.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 27, 2012, 05:11:53 pm
Post by: Nighthawk on November 27, 2012, 06:13:23 pm
Real quick with Stamina and Falling: It's my opinion that you shouldn't regain Stamina during "flight". I figure Stam is usually regained when relaxing or not participating in much action. Hurtling towards the earth is far from relaxing, in my opinion. Maybe have Stam regen reduced while falling, or have stamina regenerate but have landing reduce stamina depending on the strength of the impact.On the contrary, falling through the air provides (or should we say forces) more oxygen to your system. Definitely helpful for stamina regeneration!
Ah... no, but really. That was half a joke, and half serious. Falling, while not exactly relaxing, creates no stress upon your body (even less than standing since you don't have to hold yourself up) except the stress created by worry and fear.
Also, yes, Mark (Guy-who-made-URR :P ), you can quote that bit I said about the menu. I would be honored.
EDIT - Kind of searching for secrets right now, but I don't know what qualifies. I found some funny text, though: "You suspect there will likely be far, far more information on this screen in later versions." I liked that.
Post by: Neonivek on November 27, 2012, 06:50:12 pm
Post by: fred1248 on November 27, 2012, 07:32:42 pm
Post by: coolio678 on November 27, 2012, 08:08:05 pm
Real quick with Stamina and Falling: It's my opinion that you shouldn't regain Stamina during "flight". I figure Stam is usually regained when relaxing or not participating in much action. Hurtling towards the earth is far from relaxing, in my opinion. Maybe have Stam regen reduced while falling, or have stamina regenerate but have landing reduce stamina depending on the strength of the impact.kind of as a knocking the wind out of you sort of thing?
Post by: varsovie on November 28, 2012, 11:49:34 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 29, 2012, 07:01:50 am
So URR it seems like you inadvertingly with your three stamina bars... created the three qualities of zombies.
Zombies that get unlimited 1 bar, unlimited 2 bars, or unlimited 3 bars.
Zombies as in... zombie zombies? No zombies in a non-fantasy game!
Real quick with Stamina and Falling: It's my opinion that you shouldn't regain Stamina during "flight". I figure Stam is usually regained when relaxing or not participating in much action. Hurtling towards the earth is far from relaxing, in my opinion. Maybe have Stam regen reduced while falling, or have stamina regenerate but have landing reduce stamina depending on the strength of the impact.
Whoops - you've just actually highlighted a glitch. Stamina was recharging according to each turn passed, not the length of that turn. Fixed it :), though when fall damage is added, I will also add a loss of stamina when you land too.
On the contrary, falling through the air provides (or should we say forces) more oxygen to your system. Definitely helpful for stamina regeneration!
Ah... no, but really. That was half a joke, and half serious. Falling, while not exactly relaxing, creates no stress upon your body (even less than standing since you don't have to hold yourself up) except the stress created by worry and fear.
Also, yes, Mark (Guy-who-made-URR :P ), you can quote that bit I said about the menu. I would be honored.
EDIT - Kind of searching for secrets right now, but I don't know what qualifies. I found some funny text, though: "You suspect there will likely be far, far more information on this screen in later versions." I liked that.
All good points - I think I'll just disable it whilst you fall, and leave it at that. I'll need to test that later along with a bunch of other stuff for 0.2.1.
Awesome - I'm not sure what context yet, but there are a few tremendously kind quotes I've had about this release I'd like to use somewhere.
Ah, the two secrets in question were actually the main menu picture generation, and the solar systems. HOWEVER, in the future, there will be other, much more well-hidden features I won't announce, which will have to be found out. There won't be any in 0.3 (history/myth gen etc) but there WILL in 1.0.0...
Some birds can relax in the air while flying. It depends on their mode of flight.
Will we be able to play as birds? :P
Bird Mode is one of the 1.0.0 secrets, actually.
I think you removed the link to your blog (and download...) in your first post.
Whoops, thanks - added it back.
In the mean time, I've updated the development plan page! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 03, 2012, 07:46:59 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Post by: Leatra on December 08, 2012, 09:01:56 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 08, 2012, 10:37:31 am
So, how's the development going?
Very well! With 0.2.1 out, I'm now doing a lot of brainstorming and design work for the generation I want for 0.3.x. This week's (i.e. Monday's) blog entry is an in-depth list of all the changes I want for 0.3.x, but it's basically language, myth, history, civilizations, coats of arms and flags, all need to be generated! I'm also doing some advance work on dungeon/temple/tomb/ruin/etc generation for the first gameplay release coming straight after.
In the mean time, as 0.2.1 is stable (amazingly!), what does everyone think of the Exporting function? Made any particularly nice-looking worlds?
EDIT: once Monday's blog entry with the detailed goals go up, I'd love to know if people have ideas in any of the six areas, too!
Post by: Leatra on December 08, 2012, 12:33:53 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What are we going to face inside dungeons/temples/tombs/ruins? Also is there a short and general name for all these? :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 08, 2012, 01:19:38 pm
I got this:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What are we going to face inside dungeons/temples/tombs/ruins? Also is there a short and general name for all these? :P
That is a fantastic-looking world! You're right, I see what you mean re: Morrowind, too.
Let's just call them all "dungeons" for the sake of ease. Well, there won't be any monsters, and other humans will be very, very rare, so finding ways to make them interesting is a major challenge I'm currently pondering. There will be a large variety of traps (not just one-square nethack/crawl things, but covering many squares, and of many different sorts), a lot of historical information in the dungeons, lots of murals and generated artwork, lots of treasure/loot of various types that can be accessed in different ways, bosses (though generally not "enemies", as such), and - maybe most centrally - I'm hoping to make the visuals of dungeons sufficiently interesting and sufficiently varied that they are simply interesting to explore in their own right. You will sometimes nevertheless bump into other adventurers, I think, or find a black market, a cult, or a couple of other ideas I've had too. But the graphics for dungeons I think will really matter, and I have some ideas of a kind of dungeon generator generator (as it were) that can create a vast amount of variety based on both visual and gameplay themes that different areas are going to have. Obviously I'll start producing screenshots and things nearer the time, but it's very much in the concepts phase at the moment.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 08, 2012, 05:02:04 pm
EDIT/update:
Not half bad. Got a lot of nicely distinct languages, and logical orders of letters/consonants/vowels. Some have connectors in, like ', -, or !, (click consonants), which add a nice bit of variety. I don't think I'm happy with them yet, but that's a surprising amount of progress for one evening. Also I've already implemented the way languages generate entire dictionaries bit-by-bit on the fly, so it will always produce a word for an english word without fail, and there will never be duplicates in the foreign language!
Post by: varsovie on December 08, 2012, 10:10:45 pm
. Also I've already implemented the way languages generate entire dictionaries bit-by-bit on the fly, so it will always produce a word for an english word without fail, and there will never be duplicates in the foreign language!
I'm concerned because: Lot of languages don't have the sames (number of) words. In Arabic you have lot of different words for different kind of sand, in English you must use adjectives, Inuits have more than ten word for Snow. In English you have a distinction between something you earn and something you win, will in French we use the same word for both. German have their "meta-f*ck*ing-huge-words that are in fact a butch of names/adjectives glued together. So how can you "create" languages while limiting yourself to the sames "words" than in one of them?
And I'm not even talking about some features languages haves that are different than in English, a third gender (neutral) or no gender at all, the agreement by gender, number or person. In German possessives determiners are gender and number sensitive by the possessor AND the possessed while in English it's by the possessor only, and finish actually sometime have them has an affix to the possessed.
And I'm not even talking about the alphabets (Chinese?), origin of the words, cultural links with the language, or the order of the words in a sentence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_typology)).
So how "real" will you try to generate the languages and how will you deal with my concerns, the main one being I would rather have one language than a bunch of new word-by-word English.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 09, 2012, 06:28:39 am
Firstly, to make realistic languages, they would have to differ in this way. I could make them differ in word length (easy) but varying word order, whilst still preserving the meaning of the sentence, would be immensely hard without a way for the game to detect verbs/nouns etc, and then reorder them. Equally, you'd also have to have the generator detect possessives, cases, etc, and that would be damned difficult as well. However, I recognize you are right, and that this would be more realistic.
Secondly, to make languages the player could actually translate. According to your skills, who you talk to, what books you read, etc, your language knowledge will go up and you will be able to translate more words. However, I also want you to be able to make informed guesses at words, and test them out by checking it against a book, or talking to someone and using the word you think you've figured out. If you get it right, then that new word the player has actively worked out is added to your dictionary. If words are a 1:1 equivalent to English, that becomes doable - if they aren't, and orders differ, then unless one knows a lot about translation, it borders on the impossible.
*Crucially*, I don't think the difference between the two types of language will be noticeable to the player just looking at them, even someone who knows their linguistics. But, the second provides for far superior gameplay, I think, in that the player can actively figure out potential words. Obviously it's not 100% true to life, but not all alphabets in URR are Latin... but I'm not going to say anything else about that just yet :). That adds a lot of variation, too, and some languages include 'connectors' like ', -, or !, which adds variety. I do intend to give different languages as well different preferences for the kind of English equivalents they'll use (basic words, obscure words?), whether they say long sentences or short sentences, which again will add distinctions between the languages. How does this sound? As I say, you are right, but I think gameplay/design need to be balanced carefully here, and I can't think of any other game that's ever tried something like this, and I do want it to be a workable part of gameplay, not just some... flair?
Post by: Minstrel on December 09, 2012, 10:45:46 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 09, 2012, 09:04:20 pm
Man, this game looks so awesome and plays so nice... but there is so little to do currently. Can't wait until we can gather a motley crew of bandits to raid a village.
Thanks :) - true, true, but hang on for the dungeon release! That's going to be a big one, but it can't appear until we have histories set up for the dungeons to use.
Meanwhile, flag generation about 75% done. Some of the nicest ones generated so far:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Flagsv1.png)
Post by: Neonivek on December 09, 2012, 09:09:42 pm
What countries will be thematically included? I am guessing Central Europe.
Post by: Korbac on December 09, 2012, 09:11:37 pm
Really looking forward to the next release, which I'll pick up! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 09, 2012, 09:22:30 pm
Ok so I see this takes place in an alternate earth. So no supernatural elements.
What countries will be thematically included? I am guessing Central Europe.
Indeed so, though that is not to say that later versions may not contain... anomalies.
The game is from the perspective of central/western Europe in the 1600s/1700s, but the "undiscovered" (from your perspective) parts of the world will be varied and included as well, and will differ significantly in terms of society, technology level, and pretty much everything else.
The third flag... *drool*...
Really looking forward to the next release, which I'll pick up! :)
Glad you like it! Will post some more tomorrow, once I've put in a little further variation.
Post by: Neonivek on December 09, 2012, 09:32:05 pm
Quote
but the "undiscovered" (from your perspective) parts of the world will be varied and included as well
Ohhh no the Mongols!
And possibly the Romans.
Post by: Rowanas on December 09, 2012, 09:36:56 pm
Post by: Neonivek on December 09, 2012, 09:54:34 pm
Persia would be another civilisation that I think got to Europe.
Post by: PanH on December 09, 2012, 10:12:45 pm
Quotebut the "undiscovered" (from your perspective) parts of the world will be varied and included as well
Ohhh no the Mongols!
And possibly the Romans.
Explorator Christobal Colombus discovered a new country in Europe : Italy, home of Rome and the Romans (and the Vatican) !
Post by: Devling on December 09, 2012, 10:19:00 pm
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on December 10, 2012, 06:32:46 am
Post by: Sharp on December 10, 2012, 06:53:43 am
Meanwhile, flag generation about 75% done. Some of the nicest ones generated so far:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That's all well and good but where are the horrible ugly generated ones? :P
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on December 10, 2012, 07:07:27 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 10, 2012, 08:39:48 am
Can't wait for my shiny new computer to get back to me, so I can play again. I only had it for about a week before I realised that something was wrong. Woe is me!
Woe! :(
Would there be far away lands like Asia and the New World?
Yes - basically, history generation will pick an area of the globe to "start" from, and will consider that geographical area the centre of the game. By the end of history generation, any areas undiscovered by civs that start in the "starting" area will be classed as undiscovered, and will be retrospectively altered to make them less like the civs that are known about. The closer to the "start" a civ spawns, the more European-esque it'll be. I've chosen this system both because I think Europe in that era is fascinating, but also because I want to ensure a variety of civilizations exist, and that "exploration" aspect really, really appeals to me in gameplay terms.
That's all well and good but where are the horrible ugly generated ones? :P
We don't like to speak of them! A more serious answer: I'm going to be working this evening on making them all up to that standard. I'd say a good 70-80% of them are that good, but I'm going to add in some if/not statements to prevent or force certain combinations in a few situations, to ensure they all look sensible, coherent, and don't throw up weird shapes that you'd just never get on a flag.
I shall post so that I might easier experience updates to this particular thread via the link which presents to me a list of all topics I have posted in which have since been updated.
A wise move, sir.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 10, 2012, 10:29:01 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/12/10/onwards-to-0-3-x/
Post by: Edmus on December 10, 2012, 04:02:18 pm
Post by: Graknorke on December 10, 2012, 04:37:14 pm
The main thing is traveling bard.
Post by: Rowanas on December 10, 2012, 05:16:13 pm
Post by: Neonivek on December 10, 2012, 05:48:38 pm
I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
So a Troublador?
Post by: Graknorke on December 10, 2012, 06:06:16 pm
I can't find that word on the internet. Apart from names of restaurants/bars/nightclubs.I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
So a Troublador?
What's it mean?
Post by: Mephansteras on December 10, 2012, 06:11:13 pm
I can't find that word on the internet. Apart from names of restaurants/bars/nightclubs.I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
So a Troublador?
What's it mean?
Troubador (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubador), courtesy of Wikipedia.
Post by: Graknorke on December 10, 2012, 06:15:51 pm
He put troublador, not troubador.I can't find that word on the internet. Apart from names of restaurants/bars/nightclubs.I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
So a Troublador?
What's it mean?
Troubador (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubador), courtesy of Wikipedia.
Unless it was a typo. In which case, pretty much. But not poetry. More like musical violence and sparking off political things. Under the guise of your friendly traveling music man (who comes from far away).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 10, 2012, 07:40:36 pm
Sorry if this has been asked but will it be one language to a civ or one to a couple civs?
I don't think it has. Each civ, ancient or modern, will have its own unique language.
I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
That is a wonderful idea. Musical instruments... hmm...
How are you working the "distance from Europe" thing? Is the world divided into sectors, and the closest sector border to Europe determines the distance, or is it determined by the average sector distance? Do intervening, discovered civs still count as space for determining how distant another civ is, or do discovered civs help to "Europe up" civs they're touching? If civs are separated by seas or other major obstacles, does that increase the relative distance for Europeanisation? Will we ever be able to adjust what kind of civilisation inhabits the starting zone, for instance, setting an Middle Eastern start zone, or an Oriental start instead of European?
Good questions. To the first one, about distance, I'm afraid the answer is "I'm not yet sure"! It might start off with an area, say 25x25 which counts as the perspective of the game, then any civ that approaches that zone (or a civ that approaches a civ that has approached that zone) will be gradually included in the perspective. It's hard to describe. As for the "starting zone", that zone should border on what we would recognize as Middle Eastern/Oriental, which is to say some of those civs might be known about, but not in detail. Again, in the era I'm thinking, people may have vaguely known that Japan 'existed', and the odd person might, by some strange sequence of events, have visited it, but there was no regular trade. That's the kind of middle-ground I'd like; non-European but still quite advanced areas will either be fully normalized in terms of foreign relations, and you'll know of them, or they'll be on the borders of the "known" world and some data, though not a lot, will exist on them.
Basically, I'd like world generation to conclude with maybe 50% of the world known; of that which is known, most will be 'European', some will not; of that which is semi-known, most will be non-European, but still quite technologically advanced; outside that, they will be basically entirely unknown, and could range widely in terms of technological sophistication.
More like musical violence and sparking off political things.
This is a phrase I really like.
Post by: Rowanas on December 10, 2012, 08:24:44 pm
He put troublador, not troubador.I can't find that word on the internet. Apart from names of restaurants/bars/nightclubs.I just want this game to get to a point where I can be a traveling bard, playing whimsical tricks on the townsfolk and sparking wars with my jesterly jibes. Or something.
The main thing is traveling bard.
So a Troublador?
What's it mean?
Troubador (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubador), courtesy of Wikipedia.
Unless it was a typo. In which case, pretty much. But not poetry. More like musical violence and sparking off political things. Under the guise of your friendly traveling music man (who comes from far away).
I thought it was a witty pun based on the words trouble and troubador. You described wrecking shit and rocking out, so you're a troublador.
URR, thanks for the answers. I understand that until -you- know, you can't let -me- know, but the overview is much appreciated.
Post by: varsovie on December 10, 2012, 10:40:03 pm
I'm glad you've raised this question. I thought about this for a long time, and whilst you are obviously right - synonyms do not transfer perfectly, verb/noun/adjective/etc order differs, etc - I had to weigh two logics against each other.
Firstly, to make realistic languages, they would have to differ in this way. I could make them differ in word length (easy) but varying word order, whilst still preserving the meaning of the sentence, would be immensely hard without a way for the game to detect verbs/nouns etc, and then reorder them. Equally, you'd also have to have the generator detect possessives, cases, etc, and that would be damned difficult as well. However, I recognize you are right, and that this would be more realistic.
Thank for the clarifications, although varying word order could be easy if you flag your words.
As for the flags, loog good so far, will military formation/towns have flag possibly including the one of their civilization/nation? (like the many Brit colonies having the union jack in a corner)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 11, 2012, 06:04:31 am
URR, thanks for the answers. I understand that until -you- know, you can't let -me- know, but the overview is much appreciated.
You're welcome - as I say, I'm not sure about this just yet, which is why I'm working on other bits of the history generation (in the broadest sense) first. Would like to finish flags off today, then I can start giving some thought to myths, legends, heroes, monsters, etc...
Thank for the clarifications, although varying word order could be easy if you flag your words.
As for the flags, loog good so far, will military formation/towns have flag possibly including the one of their civilization/nation? (like the many Brit colonies having the union jack in a corner)
True, but again, it's the gameplay concern that gets me. I'm sure there is some Python library with a full English dictionary and specifications of what each word is, though...
Excellent - hmm, that's an interesting question. I think I would be able to compress flags down to maybe 1/4 size to stick in a corner - I'll ponder it. Probably yes, is your answer, and I like the idea. Would give a lot of thematic regularity to city flags, etc. Also, maybe settlements of a civ can only use the same colours in their flags, or at least similar colours? Hmm.
Post by: Leatra on December 11, 2012, 11:58:08 am
How are you working the "distance from Europe" thing? Is the world divided into sectors, and the closest sector border to Europe determines the distance, or is it determined by the average sector distance? Do intervening, discovered civs still count as space for determining how distant another civ is, or do discovered civs help to "Europe up" civs they're touching? If civs are separated by seas or other major obstacles, does that increase the relative distance for Europeanisation? Will we ever be able to adjust what kind of civilisation inhabits the starting zone, for instance, setting an Middle Eastern start zone, or an Oriental start instead of European?
Good questions. To the first one, about distance, I'm afraid the answer is "I'm not yet sure"! It might start off with an area, say 25x25 which counts as the perspective of the game, then any civ that approaches that zone (or a civ that approaches a civ that has approached that zone) will be gradually included in the perspective. It's hard to describe. As for the "starting zone", that zone should border on what we would recognize as Middle Eastern/Oriental, which is to say some of those civs might be known about, but not in detail. Again, in the era I'm thinking, people may have vaguely known that Japan 'existed', and the odd person might, by some strange sequence of events, have visited it, but there was no regular trade. That's the kind of middle-ground I'd like; non-European but still quite advanced areas will either be fully normalized in terms of foreign relations, and you'll know of them, or they'll be on the borders of the "known" world and some data, though not a lot, will exist on them.
Basically, I'd like world generation to conclude with maybe 50% of the world known; of that which is known, most will be 'European', some will not; of that which is semi-known, most will be non-European, but still quite technologically advanced; outside that, they will be basically entirely unknown, and could range widely in terms of technological sophistication.
Does it have to be THAT realistic? I thought the cultures in the game won't be that similar to real life cultures.
I mean, the place where the world starts genning is going to be Europa, the east of that there will be Arabians and further east will have Japans, etc. Is that how it's going to work? That seems like a bit too much identical to our world. I agree that cultures should be similar to the ones in real life that seems a little too predictable. When you start the game, you will know that the northern civs will be aggressive raiding civs and southern civs will have no techolongy. Moreover, if a civ is labeled as "okay, this civ is like... arabians" that will ruin the potential of exploring. We will know that they live on deserts, that they are religious, etc. If you make the civs more randomized, it will make exploring more fun. Maybe you'll start in a peaceful and technologically advanced civ which resembles the Arabians (mounted archery is king!), built on a place where winter seems to be the only season. As you explore the west, you'll come across an extremely religious civ with a powerful navy which resembles the Aztecs, built on a cluster of islands, threatening to attack your civ if you don't embrace their religion (Aztecs had polytheism).
You talked about how civs will have different modifiers long time ago and if you build on that (like, industrial civ, trade civ, military civ, a combination of some traits like aggressive religious civs, industrial science civs, etc), that would create some awesome cultures without going too far away from the ones we have in real life.
I think, when we first start the game, we should have an option to choose between the civilizations to decide where our nationality is and where will we start the game. You should have an easier time if you are trying to join the army of your own culture. "Europa is the center and more bizarre civs are genned around it" thing seems like a big hit to the potential of the game with this kind of history generation. I mean, if I'm not going to be a Caribbean pirate in a land of ninjas, or fight against a samurai as a knight (both of them never happened IRL) why should I play a video game? :P
Post by: PokemonRocks85 on December 11, 2012, 01:00:42 pm
Will there be a map for you to use (minimap, Worldmap, Etc.) or no? im thinking you would try making it realistic and have a map in your inventory that you bought somewhere or created if you know your surroundings and have mapmaking skills. Also will this be like a mixture of Mount & Blade, Crusader kings 2, and EU3 but in a roguelike style? I may have suggestions for you later on or more questions but for now im done.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 11, 2012, 09:08:22 pm
Does it have to be THAT realistic? I thought the cultures in the game won't be that similar to real life cultures.
I mean, the place where the world starts genning is going to be Europa, the east of that there will be Arabians and further east will have Japans, etc. Is that how it's going to work? That seems like a bit too much identical to our world. I agree that cultures should be similar to the ones in real life that seems a little too predictable. When you start the game, you will know that the northern civs will be aggressive raiding civs and southern civs will have no techolongy. Moreover, if a civ is labeled as "okay, this civ is like... arabians" that will ruin the potential of exploring. We will know that they live on deserts, that they are religious, etc. If you make the civs more randomized, it will make exploring more fun. Maybe you'll start in a peaceful and technologically advanced civ which resembles the Arabians (mounted archery is king!), built on a place where winter seems to be the only season. As you explore the west, you'll come across an extremely religious civ with a powerful navy which resembles the Aztecs, built on a cluster of islands, threatening to attack your civ if you don't embrace their religion (Aztecs had polytheism).
You talked about how civs will have different modifiers long time ago and if you build on that (like, industrial civ, trade civ, military civ, a combination of some traits like aggressive religious civs, industrial science civs, etc), that would create some awesome cultures without going too far away from the ones we have in real life.
I think, when we first start the game, we should have an option to choose between the civilizations to decide where our nationality is and where will we start the game. You should have an easier time if you are trying to join the army of your own culture. "Europa is the center and more bizarre civs are genned around it" thing seems like a big hit to the potential of the game with this kind of history generation. I mean, if I'm not going to be a Caribbean pirate in a land of ninjas, or fight against a samurai as a knight (both of them never happened IRL) why should I play a video game? :P
Don't worry, the civs are going to be totally randomized, but what I wrote before wasn't very clear. There will be no presets, and I want to have as many strange combinations as possible, but there are just a few particular features I want the "known" civs to have, but these are few and far between. There will be nothing that ties cultural, or architecture, or anything else, to climate or environment. In general I'd like all the known civs to be of a comparable, roughly, level of technology, and the only things in common will be things like sharing concepts of coats of arms (though I may one day add in variations on even that idea). I'd like arab-esque or japan-esque or europe-esque civs to all generate, and all varieties of those, and I definitely will *not* be forcing specific kinds of civs to appear :). I really like the kind of example you gave, and that's the kind of thing I want - but I do just want to make sure civs outside the "known" area - while they may sometimes of the same tech level - will sometimes not be. It's a tricky balance.
Ultimately, I'd like the known areas to be of a generally similar tech level (unless specific external civs are known), but hugely differ within that. I am going to make certain regions of the map more likely to generate certain civilization traits, but these are *random*, not climate based - so the 'west' might be more likely to generate militaristic civs, the east more likely to generate religious, a particular island more likely to generate particularly cultured civs, etc. In my previous post, I didn't really mean "European" in that sense, but rather technologically advanced, and "knowable", and sharing a few concepts between them, even if everything else is wholly different. That's not very clear, and I shall try and elaborate on it again tomorrow/once I start civ generation/in a later blog entry. Does what I've written make sense? Tell me if not, and I shall explain further. In one sentence... the known world should be advanced, but hugely varied. That's the best way to put it. I was using the word "European" to conflate a lot of things, rather foolishly.
In the semi-near future, I'm going to be starting to generate this kind of stuff, and the first stage is to fill the world with areas that have a preference to certain kinds of civ. It'll be a mild one, and you'll still see variation, but I think it could be a solid way to get a degree of similarity present across region, but those similarities will be randomized.
I have some questions.
Will there be a map for you to use (minimap, Worldmap, Etc.) or no? im thinking you would try making it realistic and have a map in your inventory that you bought somewhere or created if you know your surroundings and have mapmaking skills. Also will this be like a mixture of Mount & Blade, Crusader kings 2, and EU3 but in a roguelike style? I may have suggestions for you later on or more questions but for now im done.
There already is - press Space in-game, or T to travel. There will also one day be actual maps that you can purchase, or create, which I have a few ideas for. Do shout with any more ideas/questions :)
Post by: Leatra on December 12, 2012, 10:16:12 am
-snip-Oh, I see. "European" as in the technology and the culture that the most civs in the "known area" somewhat share. Still, I'd want the traits of civs to be more randomized but I guess that kind of extreme procedural generation could create some crazy things with no realism at all. I mean, it's a known fact that real-life civs which started on an island are much more unique (look at ancient Japan) since it didn't have much contact with foreign lands. You gotta generate the world according to that. Civs which are in close contact with each other are likely to share similar traits and culture. Close foreign relations usually equals similar traits. If some zones will have a tendency to have similar traits (like east being more likely to generate religious civs) will it be randomized? As in, a continent in the east will have religious civs on one genned world and in another world, in the east you'll see aggressive small civs and city-states always warring with each other (which you can conquer through by acting like a careful manipulation, diplomacy, and intrigue. God I love creating scenarios like that!)
That got me thinking, we should be able to keep our deals secret with other civs. Let's say my civ is a protector of the weak and the symbol of peace. There is one particular civ I want it to disappear (for greater good!). I should be able to sell a nearby civ which has a reputation for being ruthless and very aggressive (but not to me, the protector of peace who wants to help them!) some weapons and supplies or even give it to them for free (for bringing peace, of course!) but keep it as a secret with a chance of it becoming discovered. Maybe WE can be the ones who are out to expose secret deals like that (for the right price). Reveal the true manipulative nature of a so-called peaceful civ! Man, my brain is like imploding with all these possibilities.
By the way,
A particular island more likely to generate particularly cultured civs,This reminded me of Atlantis. :P It would be awesome to find an alien culture that's highly advanced like that, even if it's a little unrealistic, right? (*wink* *wink*)
Post by: Mongol13524 on December 12, 2012, 11:39:49 am
Post by: Leatra on December 12, 2012, 12:43:16 pm
PTF.I read that as "Posting To Fuck" every time someone says that. What happened to good ol' PTW?
Post by: Mongol13524 on December 12, 2012, 12:50:48 pm
Post by: Ludorum Rex on December 12, 2012, 12:58:34 pm
Post by: Techhead on December 12, 2012, 01:22:01 pm
Don't worry, the civs are going to be totally randomized, but what I wrote before wasn't very clear. There will be no presets, and I want to have as many strange combinations as possible, but there are just a few particular features I want the "known" civs to have, but these are few and far between. There will be nothing that ties cultural, or architecture, or anything else, to climate or environment. In general I'd like all the known civs to be of a comparable, roughly, level of technology, and the only things in common will be things like sharing concepts of coats of arms (though I may one day add in variations on even that idea). I'd like arab-esque or japan-esque or europe-esque civs to all generate, and all varieties of those, and I definitely will *not* be forcing specific kinds of civs to appear :). I really like the kind of example you gave, and that's the kind of thing I want - but I do just want to make sure civs outside the "known" area - while they may sometimes of the same tech level - will sometimes not be. It's a tricky balance.I definitely think that the climate and enviroment should have some effect on culture and architecture. Cooler areas will have warmer clothes, like fur and wool. Coastal lands will have more seafood in their diet. Cuisine in general will be affected mainly by what grows there.
In snowy lands buildings will have steeper roofs to shed the snow. Warmer zones will have shallow slopes and gutters to shed rain, while desert buildings can have flat roofs for ease of construction. Woodlands will have more wood buildings, while others have stone or brick or clay. Different building materials necessitate different building styles, as well. Swamps and rain forests will see buildings on stilts. Places with softer dirt will have more basements and root cellars. The hottest and coldest climates will both have small windows and chimneys, but for opposite reasons.* Some relations are more complex. Mediterranean buildings often had courtyards with fountains or ponds, as air cooled by evaporation would flow through the house.
*Small windows are keeping the heat either in or out, depending. Chimneys are for fireplaces in cold climes, and for primitive AC in hot ones.
Post by: Mephansteras on December 12, 2012, 03:53:46 pm
On a somewhat random food related note: Cheese is primarily a European invention. While making yogurts out of milk is common, the practice of actually putting it in a cold cave and letting it age to get real cheese is pretty regional for Europe.
I don't know that 'cheese making' as a technology needs to be in your game, but since it does make a fairly high-value portable food that is very resistant to rot while it's still in the cheese wheel it might actually be a notable food for feeding armies.
Hmm...makes me wonder if anyone has ever studied the effect of cheese on military rations in history before.
Post by: Graknorke on December 12, 2012, 03:58:49 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on December 12, 2012, 09:03:56 pm
Will there be the ability for an infantry charge, I forget the name of it, where a foot soldier would loop his arm in an open stirrup of a cavalry dude and get carried in on the charge then dismount and fight like a badass who just rode a horse the wrong, and best, way into battle (I actually think it was called the 'stirrup charge')?
Back in somesuch BC Alexander had a land bridge built to connect somesuch island to the mainland to allow his forces to siege dat city. Would manipulating the very earth itself be an option in the (far) future?
Hannibal of Carthage was awesome, and I want to do all the things he did (march an army through mountains, using natural selection to kill off the weaker soldiers and animals, leaving only the toughest soldiers and like one emaciated elephant, tying torches to the tails of cattle to create the appearance of an army on the move, and flanking the unsuspecting enemy forces as they're scattered and trampled by a stampede, etc). You will note that there is no question here. I just want this to happen.
Would there be a possibility of something like the Holy Roman Empire, where a bunch of countries have a sort of agreement where they are not quite ruled, but overseen, by the leader of an elected country?
Will colonization be a thing you can participate in? I'd really like to have a character who becomes a governor of a small island and have to fight off brigands and pirates and crap.
Cortez (or was it Pizarro?), did some really awesome shit, even moreso than Hannibal in my opinion. Let me be him too. I want to take a small force out of their element, purchase the loyalties of some tribal groups, and meet with the leader of a tribal empire only to take him prisoner and eventually have him executed.
Also can I construct a pit to kick dudes into?
I've been reading "To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, from Achilles to Al Qaeda" by Derek Leebaert instead of just sitting on the bus and train and staring out the window while thinking about URR. If you don't mind the fact that it feels mildly textbookish you'd probably enjoy it. And it will probably give you some inspiration for stuff as well (most of my questions and my two demands come from my recent intake of knowledge from this beautiful book).
Post by: Leatra on December 14, 2012, 05:59:23 pm
Man, imagine the possibilities...
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on December 14, 2012, 06:19:03 pm
Post by: Graknorke on December 14, 2012, 06:23:24 pm
So is there any combat in the current version? I find myself with a desire to kill mans.Combat but no mans, from what I've seen.
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on December 14, 2012, 06:47:37 pm
I am perplexed.
Post by: Graknorke on December 14, 2012, 07:10:17 pm
How can there be combat without mans?There is youmans.
I am perplexed.
Other replacements for mans are monsters.
Post by: Devling on December 18, 2012, 06:15:04 pm
Post by: Eктωρ on December 18, 2012, 08:35:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 18, 2012, 08:53:53 pm
Oh, I see. "European" as in the technology and the culture that the most civs in the "known area" somewhat share. Still, I'd want the traits of civs to be more randomized but I guess that kind of extreme procedural generation could create some crazy things with no realism at all. I mean, it's a known fact that real-life civs which started on an island are much more unique (look at ancient Japan) since it didn't have much contact with foreign lands. You gotta generate the world according to that. Civs which are in close contact with each other are likely to share similar traits and culture. Close foreign relations usually equals similar traits. If some zones will have a tendency to have similar traits (like east being more likely to generate religious civs) will it be randomized? As in, a continent in the east will have religious civs on one genned world and in another world, in the east you'll see aggressive small civs and city-states always warring with each other (which you can conquer through by acting like a careful manipulation, diplomacy, and intrigue. God I love creating scenarios like that!)
That got me thinking, we should be able to keep our deals secret with other civs. Let's say my civ is a protector of the weak and the symbol of peace. There is one particular civ I want it to disappear (for greater good!). I should be able to sell a nearby civ which has a reputation for being ruthless and very aggressive (but not to me, the protector of peace who wants to help them!) some weapons and supplies or even give it to them for free (for bringing peace, of course!) but keep it as a secret with a chance of it becoming discovered. Maybe WE can be the ones who are out to expose secret deals like that (for the right price). Reveal the true manipulative nature of a so-called peaceful civ! Man, my brain is like imploding with all these possibilities.
By the way,A particular island more likely to generate particularly cultured civs,This reminded me of Atlantis. :P It would be awesome to find an alien culture that's highly advanced like that, even if it's a little unrealistic, right? (*wink* *wink*)
That's my kind of thinking - as much variation as possible, within the constraints of sanity! Exactly re: close civs; close civs will be more likely to be similar to other close civs, so there will - I hope - be a 'bleeding' of traits as you move around the world. Warlike civs might be close, civs with similar/same religions will be close, civs that prefer monarchies, or theocracies, or focus on scientific advancement, or whatever else, will - approximately - be close. Which is not to say disparate civs will not be similar sometimes, because they will, but certain regions will generate meta-cultures, I guess, that pervade regions.
I love your suggestions for secrets and less-obvious diplomacy; in part, that's what the subversion tree is where for (and I guess parts of the rule tree) and I guess I want three strings to the 'strategy' bow - Diplomacy, War, and Espionage (in the broadest sense of that word, maybe 'covert operations' is more appropriate?). Haha; no Atlantis, alas, but as I say, that is not to exclude the odd anomaly.
PTF.
Wise!
Have you given any thoughts to religion? The 16th and 17th centuries saw a lot of religious turmoil and warfare in Europe - the reformation, the shia/sunni divide, ottomans and orthodox, etc. The papacy was instrumental in how the colonization of the New World happened, with the Treaty of Tordesillas, etc.
I have, but not in as much detail as I one day intend. History generation for the coming version will 100% include religions and cults, but I don't yet know the depth to which they will be generated at this stage.
I definitely think that the climate and enviroment should have some effect on culture and architecture. Cooler areas will have warmer clothes, like fur and wool. Coastal lands will have more seafood in their diet. Cuisine in general will be affected mainly by what grows there.
In snowy lands buildings will have steeper roofs to shed the snow. Warmer zones will have shallow slopes and gutters to shed rain, while desert buildings can have flat roofs for ease of construction. Woodlands will have more wood buildings, while others have stone or brick or clay. Different building materials necessitate different building styles, as well. Swamps and rain forests will see buildings on stilts. Places with softer dirt will have more basements and root cellars. The hottest and coldest climates will both have small windows and chimneys, but for opposite reasons.* Some relations are more complex. Mediterranean buildings often had courtyards with fountains or ponds, as air cooled by evaporation would flow through the house.
*Small windows are keeping the heat either in or out, depending. Chimneys are for fireplaces in cold climes, and for primitive AC in hot ones.
Agreed on all in your first paragraph. I agree different conditions necessitate different building... parameters, but I want to keep building styles hugely varied according to culture. I'm basically planning a kind of modular architecture generator, where civs have certain values for average buildings - like size of building large/medium/small, style of roof, number of floors, windows, preferred materials, decorations, furnishings, locations, identifiers for important buildings, designs, towers, etc etc, and then generating a building for a given civ will take those parameters and create appropriate buildings!
Not sure if food will be much of an issue in this game, but cultures that live in hotter climates tend to have spicier food. Spicy food retards the decay of food, which is usually a bigger problem in warmer areas than ones in higher latitudes.
On a somewhat random food related note: Cheese is primarily a European invention. While making yogurts out of milk is common, the practice of actually putting it in a cold cave and letting it age to get real cheese is pretty regional for Europe.
I don't know that 'cheese making' as a technology needs to be in your game, but since it does make a fairly high-value portable food that is very resistant to rot while it's still in the cheese wheel it might actually be a notable food for feeding armies.
Hmm...makes me wonder if anyone has ever studied the effect of cheese on military rations in history before.
Re: spicy, interesting! Hadn't even considered that. Will consider it, therefore.
I love that you have produced several paragraphs for my perusal on the topic of cheese. If they have not (which seems likely) then I shall be the first, and URR shall be an in-depth study of that very sort! Which is to say... different food cultures would be a nice idea to generate, according to climate, and then obviously random variation for different cultures, who they trade with, etc....
So, will we get instruments? And other more cultural than combat tools. That's the sort of thing I'm following this for.
Very interesting suggestion. What do you think they could do/what kind of gameplay they could allow? But you're right, a lot of what I'm interested in is creating interesting, non-combat possibilities, and things to do.
Will more advanced civilizations have better roads, and will that affect deployment/movement speed of armies?
Will there be the ability for an infantry charge, I forget the name of it, where a foot soldier would loop his arm in an open stirrup of a cavalry dude and get carried in on the charge then dismount and fight like a badass who just rode a horse the wrong, and best, way into battle (I actually think it was called the 'stirrup charge')?
Back in somesuch BC Alexander had a land bridge built to connect somesuch island to the mainland to allow his forces to siege dat city. Would manipulating the very earth itself be an option in the (far) future?
Hannibal of Carthage was awesome, and I want to do all the things he did (march an army through mountains, using natural selection to kill off the weaker soldiers and animals, leaving only the toughest soldiers and like one emaciated elephant, tying torches to the tails of cattle to create the appearance of an army on the move, and flanking the unsuspecting enemy forces as they're scattered and trampled by a stampede, etc). You will note that there is no question here. I just want this to happen.
Would there be a possibility of something like the Holy Roman Empire, where a bunch of countries have a sort of agreement where they are not quite ruled, but overseen, by the leader of an elected country?
Will colonization be a thing you can participate in? I'd really like to have a character who becomes a governor of a small island and have to fight off brigands and pirates and crap.
Cortez (or was it Pizarro?), did some really awesome shit, even moreso than Hannibal in my opinion. Let me be him too. I want to take a small force out of their element, purchase the loyalties of some tribal groups, and meet with the leader of a tribal empire only to take him prisoner and eventually have him executed.
Also can I construct a pit to kick dudes into?
I've been reading "To Dare and to Conquer: Special Operations and the Destiny of Nations, from Achilles to Al Qaeda" by Derek Leebaert instead of just sitting on the bus and train and staring out the window while thinking about URR. If you don't mind the fact that it feels mildly textbookish you'd probably enjoy it. And it will probably give you some inspiration for stuff as well (most of my questions and my two demands come from my recent intake of knowledge from this beautiful book).
Roads: yes, definitely, and speed. Not sure how I'll display differences visually on map; you might have to cursor-over to find out quality.
I'd never heard of that charge, but I like that a lot.
I've very, very briefly considered landscape changes; I see no reason it wouldn't be workable in the future, but you are right to say far :)
Wonderful Hannibal description - I'm working on it!
I do intend to allow federations and alliances and similar structures to appear, or states which are mostly unitary, or ones which have a lot of power in the provinces, or various combinations of the above.
Colonization, absolutely - alternatively, you'll be able to fight off colonization, I should hope. I'm really looking forward to working on the exploration/colonization/discovery aspects of the game in the future! They might in fact, in part, come earlier than expected, as I might need to get a way for you to travel between land masses going...
There will be pits.
A quick Amazon later, and it's in my basket! Though, being the winter hols, I don't expect delivery any time this year (literally!)...
Even reading questions like this (even if it's a little crazy) are hyping me up for the 1.0 version.
Man, imagine the possibilities...
Ha, likewise! It's all moving along, anyway - the "Encyclopedia" function, for viewing everything from artefacts to religions and from ships to famous figures is up and running, and now just needs populating...
So is there any combat in the current version? I find myself with a desire to kill mans.
YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL MANS
I'M WORKING ON IT
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 18, 2012, 09:03:27 pm
This is quite cool. I downloaded it but there isn't much to do, looking forwared to the next version.
Thanks! The next version doesn't have much more traditional "gameplay", but it should have some stories and histories that are *actually* interesting to read, and that's - genuinely - part of the "gameplay" I'm after...
Post by: Devling on December 18, 2012, 11:32:31 pm
So is there any combat in the current version? I find myself with a desire to kill mans.YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL MANS
I'M WORKING ON IT
Good. Man slaughter will be had.
In all seriousness, you are promising a lot and I hope you deliver. You've made good progress, and there are many active people ready to bully you into finishing this game, so I hope you will.
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on December 19, 2012, 04:12:35 am
WORK FASTER! FASTER!!!!!!!! *Whipcrack*So is there any combat in the current version? I find myself with a desire to kill mans.YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL MANS
I'M WORKING ON IT
/me conceals the tents he's still not got around to implementing.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on December 19, 2012, 05:41:13 am
Glad to see this project going forward, still following with interest.
Post by: Dutchling on December 19, 2012, 05:51:40 am
Post by: Eктωρ on December 19, 2012, 10:38:46 am
This is quite cool. I downloaded it but there isn't much to do, looking forwared to the next version.
Thanks! The next version doesn't have much more traditional "gameplay", but it should have some stories and histories that are *actually* interesting to read, and that's - genuinely - part of the "gameplay" I'm after...
I'd be sincerely happy with it as long as you can talk to be people and they'll talk about their civ, culture and things like that. I'd consider it playable in an alpha level.
Also, yeah, for a a suggestion, you should have weather not only dictate things like "spicyness" of the food, but also what kind of food a civilization bases itself of. Tropical areas should have either Sweet Potato, Manioc, Corn, Black Beans, areas that are far from Europe but are temperate should have Rice, large plains should have well developed ranching and knowledge in meat preservation.
Also, thinking of that, if you could make a trase system based on a realistic supply and demand system it would be grand, think like, a city has 1000 people, those people need X amounts of food to survive, and they consume X units everyday, if weather conditions alter crop development and all of that, you could even have famines or so.
Post by: Devling on December 19, 2012, 02:43:39 pm
But somewhere like Egypt, they just threw seeds around and let their oxen trample them. The only irrigation they particapated in was building large square pits that filled with water.
The Chinese had to work harder, and develop better ways of making food, because they live in a mountainous land. While the Egyptians didn't have to do that because they lived next to a river which flooded regularly, and was really good for agriculture.
Will land affect that kind of stuff? Will isolated people develop less weapons/be less warlike?(More likely the former)
Post by: Rowanas on December 19, 2012, 04:34:30 pm
What about land usage? In ancient china(and china now) there's not much land to farm, so they developed advanced techniques to fully utilize the land they had available to them.
But somewhere like Egypt, they just threw seeds around and let their oxen trample them. The only irrigation they particapated in was building large square pits that filled with water.
The Chinese had to work harder, and develop better ways of making food, because they live in a mountainous land. While the Egyptians didn't have to do that because they lived next to a river which flooded regularly, and was really good for agriculture.
Will land affect that kind of stuff? Will isolated people develop less weapons/be less warlike?(More likely the former)
First, that sounds awesome, becuase it provides a solid foundation for siege tactics. Some nations will be naturally harder to starve out, and burning crops will be mostly useless, while others will have firmly defended patches of fine land, worthy of assault all on their own. Some nations will be fine trading partners, while others have nothing to teach, and no desire to learn.
Second, are you kidding? If humans don't learn to fight, they learn to hunt, and it turns out that hunting is pretty good practice for fighting. While the real world yields a few examples of peaceful peoples, a game about going over to other countries and taking their things probably doesn't need any, except, perhaps, as a fun little roflstomp..
Post by: Devling on December 19, 2012, 04:36:35 pm
Post by: Waterplouf on December 19, 2012, 05:28:09 pm
Anyway, good luck with your project !
Post by: varsovie on December 20, 2012, 04:44:20 am
Well, if you take examples of isolated tribes, they are usually not LESS hostile but their weapons are certainly more primitive.
Let's take the Boers as example then.
Post by: Eктωρ on December 20, 2012, 06:53:49 am
What about land usage? In ancient china(and china now) there's not much land to farm, so they developed advanced techniques to fully utilize the land they had available to them.
But somewhere like Egypt, they just threw seeds around and let their oxen trample them. The only irrigation they particapated in was building large square pits that filled with water.
The Chinese had to work harder, and develop better ways of making food, because they live in a mountainous land. While the Egyptians didn't have to do that because they lived next to a river which flooded regularly, and was really good for agriculture.
Will land affect that kind of stuff? Will isolated people develop less weapons/be less warlike?(More likely the former)
Hm, sorry to burst your bubble, but you're thinking about Japan and not China in the example you gave. Japan is mostly mountainous terrain with poor fertility, and most of the country's forests annot be chopped down because it would anger the Shinto Kamis. So Japanese people had to develop things like terrace farming and be an overall efficient and well contained people, their whole culture revolves around that; it's also a reason why the world's biggest fish market's on Japan, figures an island by the sea might be a poor cropland, but it's really good place for fishing.
China, though, was the world's biggest country for ages, most of it is plains (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/04/China_agricultural_1986.jpg/724px-China_agricultural_1986.jpg), several of those plains have rivers flowing through them that make irrigation possible. That's why China always had such a stupidly huge populace. They actually have so many people that they need a lot of food to feed them all, and thus their large population is both caused by their huge farmlands, and causes it. They developed several ways to increase the productivity of the soil just so they could feed that massive amount of people. You can say that much of China's territorry is not usable for farming, but China's territory is huge. I'm not saying that they didn't terrace lands or things like that, by the way.
By the way, I'm talking about de facto China here, not Tibet, Uyghuristan and the parts of Mongolia they conquered.
Post by: Ivefan on December 20, 2012, 09:22:04 am
Post by: BigD145 on December 20, 2012, 11:36:06 am
Post by: Devling on December 21, 2012, 02:31:47 am
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Terrace_field_yunnan_china_denoised.jpg)
Post by: Trollheiming on December 21, 2012, 07:16:47 am
Post by: Eктωρ on December 21, 2012, 03:31:49 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 21, 2012, 05:07:14 pm
In all seriousness, you are promising a lot and I hope you deliver. You've made good progress, and there are many active people ready to bully you into finishing this game, so I hope you will.
I am promising a lot. There's no doubt about that. And it's weird, because no matter how much I say "I will deliver!", it cannot actually GUARANTEE to anyone else that I will deliver. All I can say is that I have no intention of stopping any time in the next decade, so make of that what you will :)
Do you know about a podcast called roguelike radio? A while ago they made an episode about designing for the visually impaired. Here's the episode with some worthwhile links included. (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2012/10/episode-48-designing-for-visually.html) It's not a personal problem for me but I figured that it would be easier for you to include this in your design decisions while still in alpha. That is, if you choose to design for people with less than five full senses.
Glad to see this project going forward, still following with interest.
I do, and it's an interesting question. I've added Dvorak support, but I could definitely try to adjust colour options. I hadn't really thought about it, but now I am. In some later version (it won't be that hard to add in retrospectively, I don't... think?) I may just give it a shot.
I'd be sincerely happy with it as long as you can talk to be people and they'll talk about their civ, culture and things like that. I'd consider it playable in an alpha level.
NPCS IN THE NEXT VERSION?! Steady on :)
Also, yeah, for a a suggestion, you should have weather not only dictate things like "spicyness" of the food, but also what kind of food a civilization bases itself of. Tropical areas should have either Sweet Potato, Manioc, Corn, Black Beans, areas that are far from Europe but are temperate should have Rice, large plains should have well developed ranching and knowledge in meat preservation.
Also, thinking of that, if you could make a trase system based on a realistic supply and demand system it would be grand, think like, a city has 1000 people, those people need X amounts of food to survive, and they consume X units everyday, if weather conditions alter crop development and all of that, you could even have famines or so.
That's a great idea re: food types. In terms of cities and things requiring food, I fully intend to have a system like that. Not enough food means starvation, food stockpiles can be created, weather conditions affect crops, etc etc. Some of these mechanics will be abstracted out for history generation (which is to say, there will be famines, but the mechanics behind them will be far less intricate), but once you reach the gameplay era, the mechanics will be fully present.
Will land affect that kind of stuff? Will isolated people develop less weapons/be less warlike?(More likely the former)
Yeeeeees... within limits. Isolated groups will, I think, be less likely to pursue weapons technology. I'm still considering the tech tree (though it's looking good at the moment - will post a photo at some point) and some parts of it are strongly influenced by your surroundings.
This game looks really promising, I can't wait to see the final version of it ! I really hope you'll "finish" it ( if a game of this scale can ever be finished ) :P. URR, I wonder, do you know any other language than Python ? If so, why did you pick Python and how much time did you take to learn it ? I am actually quite interested in programming and I tried learning C++, but well yeah it's kind of hard and I wonder if it would be a better idea to learn something a little bit simpler to begin with.
Anyway, good luck with your project !
Thanks - as I said, I have at least a decade of work in me yet! I do not; I knew no programming language before Python, and URR is the first programming project I've ever undertaken. I picked Python because it had a nice roguelike tutorial, basically. It took me a month or so to get to grips with the basics, then four/six months of improving, and now I am still improving, but slowly. That four/six months had a lot of re-writing old, terrible code, as I learnt better ways to get the same results. I think Python is really good because it's very clear, very explicit in how its functions work, and - let's not forget - has a roguelike tutorial ;)
I love the look of those trees. I'm waiting for this to get a bit further along before taking the plunge.
Thanks :) - and not a bad move. Next version has myth/history/language generation, then the version after that has ruins and dungeons and the earliest "gameplay" aspects. Although... whisper it... I might end up combining those two coming versions...
I stand corrected, then.
I always learn something new in this thread...
Meanwhile, here's a work-in-progress screenshot of territories at "Year 0", ie. the start of history generation:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Smallval.png)
Full size : http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid3.png
Post by: varsovie on December 21, 2012, 05:20:26 pm
In all seriousness, you are promising a lot and I hope you deliver. You've made good progress, and there are many active people ready to bully you into finishing this game, so I hope you will.
I am promising a lot. There's no doubt about that. And it's weird, because no matter how much I say "I will deliver!", it cannot actually GUARANTEE to anyone else that I will deliver. All I can say is that I have no intention of stopping any time in the next decade, so make of that what you will :)
Now you're screw for a decade! :-X
Funny how Santa have a country in north-east : http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid1.png (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid1.png)
P.S. We should stop a bit with those giant images, my poor 3G is crying.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 21, 2012, 07:06:51 pm
Now you're screw for a decade! :-X
Funny how Santa have a country in north-east : http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid1.png (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid1.png)
P.S. We should stop a bit with those giant images, my poor 3G is crying.
Haha; 1/2 were earlier versions I uploaded... maybe I should learn to delete the old files? I think I'll just leave them if you want to go hunting them down :). I promise no more giant images on at least this page of the thread. Besides, the next blog entry will probably be myth-focused...
Post by: Ivefan on December 21, 2012, 07:30:44 pm
Meanwhile, here's a work-in-progress screenshot of territories at "Year 0", ie. the start of history generation:I can't help it, But it looks like Capcha "CT.IT" :P
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on December 21, 2012, 08:30:02 pm
I think you might be a bot Ivefan.
Post by: tootboot on December 21, 2012, 10:07:05 pm
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on December 21, 2012, 11:13:14 pm
Quote
What if you spend all this time making amazing procedurally generated worlds
I prefer that to any game :)
Post by: Rowanas on December 22, 2012, 10:02:02 am
Post by: Leatra on December 22, 2012, 10:09:49 am
QuoteWhat if you spend all this time making amazing procedurally generated worlds
I prefer that to any game :)
Heh, me too. I mean, just look at how much fun Legends mode in DF is.
Still, I would want to create my own Legends too.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 22, 2012, 10:59:16 am
I can't help it, But it looks like Capcha "CT.IT" :P
Ah, the secret's out!
I'm also concerned about whether URR will deliver in the end since we haven't seen a good demonstration of actual gameplay yet. What if you spend all this time making amazing procedurally generated worlds but can't actually make it a fun game?
If he makes the most astounding procedurally generated worlds, I'll use them for tabletop roleplaying campaigns. I'm determined to behold the glory of URR, no matter what!
QuoteWhat if you spend all this time making amazing procedurally generated worlds
I prefer that to any game :)
Heh, me too. I mean, just look at how much Legends mode in DF is.
Still, I would want to create my own Legends too.
@ Tootboot: I fully see the concern. However, I genuinely consider an aspect of gameplay to be learning about the world. I think the idea of Legends in DF is a great one, but it's not very user-friendly, and detail is lacking; I want to get to the point where genuine narratives and stories are generated, or you can read about an entire military campaign and the ups/downs/defeats, or read a meaningful *narrative* history of a king's reign. Equally, every historical entry will have a quick "See also" function with it that basically hyperlinks you around the history database so you can quickly follow whatever interesting story you spot. However, as for more "traditional" gameplay, all this background is genuinely essential - I can't create dungeons until I know the history of that dungeon, and I can't create NPCs until I know what civilization they belong to!
@ Rowanas/Leatra/Ukrainian: glad you like it! As for creating your own legends, I think it's essential that what the player does is not just added to the historical database, but is added to the *narrative* histories like any others. You should be able to not just find factual statements of your deeds, but those deeds should be connected to stories. If there is a story generated about a particular battle you played a decisive role in, then your name should be mentioned within that story as the one who opened the gate/blew up the mine/killed the king/etc.
Meanwhile on history generation, here's an example of a completed territorial world:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/IDB2.png)
Full size: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2012/12/Valid1695.png
I need to limit the extent to which a civ cares about expanding into polar regions, and obviously I need to introduce war, uprisings, blah blah blah, as currently civs just expand on the land they start on until they can't any longer, but it's a start! The next thing to do is to plan out the technology tree, and get civilizations moving along it. I'm drafting this on many sheets of large paper, but once I have something meaningful to show on it, I'll update...
Post by: Neonivek on December 22, 2012, 11:21:24 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 22, 2012, 12:32:57 pm
.. do we get some sort of special christmas release? Im pretty sure that would prove santa existed. (and that you are santa)
Post by: varsovie on December 22, 2012, 05:12:49 pm
@ Tootboot: I fully see the concern. However, I genuinely consider an aspect of gameplay to be learning about the world. I think the idea of Legends in DF is a great one, but it's not very user-friendly, and detail is lacking; I want to get to the point where genuine narratives and stories are generated, or you can read about an entire military campaign and the ups/downs/defeats, or read a meaningful *narrative* history of a king's reign. Equally, every historical entry will have a quick "See also" function with it that basically hyperlinks you around the history database so you can quickly follow whatever interesting story you spot. However, as for more "traditional" gameplay, all this background is genuinely essential - I can't create dungeons until I know the history of that dungeon, and I can't create NPCs until I know what civilization they belong to!
Kinda like the history in Europa Universalis with the same details that Bastion achieve?
For those interested in procedural world creation, you should follow this blog (http://procworld.blogspot.ca/). ;)
Post by: Devling on December 22, 2012, 06:04:51 pm
Post by: Leatra on December 22, 2012, 06:59:40 pm
I especially like that Atlantian kingdom you included in that screenshot ;DEXACTLY!
Post by: Edmus on December 23, 2012, 03:22:50 am
I should start taking notes as to not forget everything.:P
Post by: Leatra on December 23, 2012, 08:59:13 am
I think you mentioned (long ago back with the cyclops of old) allowing us to switch the time back to generation mode and come back as an heir or something is this still planned? I think watching you bring a fledgling nation to a prosperous empire then come back a hundred years later as the nation is falling and try to restabalise the joint.Switching back to generation mode? I remember URR talking about heir system but I don't remember something like this. However, If it got implemented it would be FUCKING AWESOME!
I should start taking notes as to not forget everything.:P
By the way, where will we start the game? Do we get to choose our nationality?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 24, 2012, 01:29:18 pm
Dear God, its... like.. EUIII... BUT PROCEDURALLY GENERATED, this is revolutionary! My dreams are literally coming true!
.. do we get some sort of special christmas release? Im pretty sure that would prove santa existed. (and that you are santa)
In the interests of keeping my secret identity a secret, I'm afraid there is no special christmas release :(. The build I have on my computer at the moment is very much a between-two-versions build, and is full of weird things, menus, admin controls, blah blah...
Kinda like the history in Europa Universalis with the same details that Bastion achieve?
For those interested in procedural world creation, you should follow this blog (http://procworld.blogspot.ca/). ;)
I like that comparison. And that's an excellent blog.
So, will countries be run with Civ style gameplay? With total war armies? Like nations choosing what to research, what to build in a city, doing diplomacy etc? And then when armies clash it functions like Total War(Unless your not in the battle, then they just fight for anywhere to a couple hours to several days and resolve automatically)? AND THEN YOU COULD BECOME KING AND MAKE THESE DECISION, or the equivalent leader in a different type of government. Or a smaller lord and make these decisions on a smaller scale, possible with orders from your superiors. Will any of that be a thing(s)?
In part - no research goals, as the time-frame of the game is human scale, but in terms of construction, diplomacy, yes, certainly. All of that/those will be a/thing/s apart from research priorities, really. I'm working now on getting the AI to do all these things in the history generation. I'm going to try and get kings/queens/rulers/presidents/whatever generating by the end of the day, and living out a full lifespan (unless they are killed in the interim!).
I especially like that Atlantian kingdom you included in that screenshot ;DEXACTLY!
EXACTLY!
I think you mentioned (long ago back with the cyclops of old) allowing us to switch the time back to generation mode and come back as an heir or something is this still planned? I think watching you bring a fledgling nation to a prosperous empire then come back a hundred years later as the nation is falling and try to restabalise the joint.
I should start taking notes as to not forget everything.:P
It is not; you will be able to pass a little time in-game, though I'm not sure what the scale of it will be, but the game will not go many years beyond where it starts. Generation ends between 1600-1700, which is when your game starts, and then in-game time passes.
Switching back to generation mode? I remember URR talking about heir system but I don't remember something like this. However, If it got implemented it would be FUCKING AWESOME!
By the way, where will we start the game? Do we get to choose our nationality?
The heir system is still planned, though, *but* I am not 100% clear on the mechanics yet. If you choose an heir who is an adult, then that'll be easy. I'm not sure how children and things will work. We'll see.
You get a list of existing civilizations at the start of the game, and you choose from those! That'll be in the next release :).
Meanwhile, the final development blog entry of 2012: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2012/12/24/holiday-musings-and-1700-years-of-history/
Post by: Leatra on December 24, 2012, 02:01:24 pm
Note: I don't want to risk an assassination on my life funded by the government or something. So, everything in this post is sarcastic and should not be taken seriously, including this sentence. (This paradox ought to keep 'em confused for a while)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 25, 2012, 06:35:34 am
I wonder, what is the exact date which you started working on this game? It's just, I intend to kidnap the president of every country in the world and torture them until they all agree to accept that day as a national holiday. If somehow I can't kidnap some of the presidents, I will start a revolution in that country. VIVA LE ULTIMA RATIO REGUM!
Note: I don't want to risk an assassination on my life funded by the government or something. So, everything in this post is sarcastic and should not be taken seriously, including this sentence. (This paradox ought to keep 'em confused for a while)
Haha - and a very wise plan it is. Don't let me stop you.
I'm not sure about an exact date, but my facebook profile shows it as "May 2011 to present", and I trust the past version of me to be accurate on that count, so I know I started it then. I'm not sure how one would class an exact date though, as a lot of my early work was learning Python, using the Python roguelike tutorial, etc. I'd say the final product in creation now has probably been around a year, but I'd have to check back through my past blog entries to get a better idea...
Post by: Freshmaniscoolman on December 25, 2012, 11:16:07 am
Post by: Dutchling on December 25, 2012, 01:50:03 pm
Quote
some civs want men on the throne, some civs want women, some civs are happy with either; some civs want monogamy, some polygyny/polyandry; some civs have other preferences for how their royals conduct themselves
Quote
whilst historical accuracy would certainly demand 99.9% of civilizations to be male-focused, I'm actually quite explicitly trying to go against that; female players/NPCs can be recruited into the armed forces just like men can, and there is no position only one gender can take. It's not QUITE the Earth, after all. Well, sort of.
Are there other 'obvious medieval things' which you avoid? What about homosexuality? If the Roman Empire never converted to an Abrahamic religion, we would probably have had some very queer middle ages ;).
Post by: Heron TSG on December 26, 2012, 12:25:16 am
Post by: WraithLord24 on December 26, 2012, 12:46:15 am
Post by: Heron TSG on December 26, 2012, 12:52:31 am
Post by: Edmus on December 26, 2012, 05:36:42 am
For those who do not follow UUR on Facebook:And as regent would we be able to set laws on such issues? RPing an insecure excuse for a king who bans certain religions and practices like drinking?Quotesome civs want men on the throne, some civs want women, some civs are happy with either; some civs want monogamy, some polygyny/polyandry; some civs have other preferences for how their royals conduct themselvesQuotewhilst historical accuracy would certainly demand 99.9% of civilizations to be male-focused, I'm actually quite explicitly trying to go against that; female players/NPCs can be recruited into the armed forces just like men can, and there is no position only one gender can take. It's not QUITE the Earth, after all. Well, sort of.
Are there other 'obvious medieval things' which you avoid? What about homosexuality? If the Roman Empire never converted to an Abrahamic religion, we would probably have had some very queer middle ages ;).
While we are on it what of law making in general? Surely it would appease the priests to ban the whore houses but the people would be up in arms.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2012, 06:19:00 am
The game will be good ofcourse, but currently, there's nothing to do.
I respectfully beg to differ - I consider basking in the ANSI graphics something to do :)
For those who do not follow UUR on Facebook:Quotesome civs want men on the throne, some civs want women, some civs are happy with either; some civs want monogamy, some polygyny/polyandry; some civs have other preferences for how their royals conduct themselvesQuotewhilst historical accuracy would certainly demand 99.9% of civilizations to be male-focused, I'm actually quite explicitly trying to go against that; female players/NPCs can be recruited into the armed forces just like men can, and there is no position only one gender can take. It's not QUITE the Earth, after all. Well, sort of.
Are there other 'obvious medieval things' which you avoid? What about homosexuality? If the Roman Empire never converted to an Abrahamic religion, we would probably have had some very queer middle ages ;).
Civs can allow, or prefer, any form of platonic/sexual relationships (great final sentence on your message) - some civs will have heterosexual marriage as the norm, some will have homosexual couples as the norm and heterosexual just for procreation, some will have some combination, some have polyandry/polygyny, and various other combinations. I think it's much more interesting to try and subvert a little bit of our history's medieval normativity :). So yes, it is possible to have some VERY queer middle ages.
I'm confused. I've generated a couple worlds and wandered around a ways, but the maps show no civilizations, and I haven't encountered any living things besides plants in about half an hour of walking. Am I doing something wrong, or do I just keep starting in the middle of fuck-all nowhere?
There's nothing wrong its just there is no Civilizations or living animals to find at this time. Sorry to tell you.
Oh. I saw a civilization descriptor via color in the map key, so I just assumed. So uh... what is there to do in the game so far?
The "Select a Civ" page says there are no civilizations for a reason! But do remember to hit O to view options and then scroll to see the controls list; you can use T to move around the world and look at the different biomes, volcanoes, etc. And it *is* an early alpha - having cities and towns would be a HUGE aspect of the game to have implemented at this stage.
And as regent would we be able to set laws on such issues? RPing an insecure excuse for a king who bans certain religions and practices like drinking?
While we are on it what of law making in general? Surely it would appease the priests to ban the whore houses but the people would be up in arms.
Ah, if the player became regent? Now there's an option I hadn't considered. But anyway, I should think so. I'm not sure what level of control over the civ policies will give. Some deal with "big" things, like the speed of border growth, or international relations, whilst some policies give weapon/armour bonuses to everyone in the civ (for instance, the "Cultism" policy gives a bonus to short weapon use). I'm not sure if I'm going to have policies that affect the middle-ground too much, as whilst I'm programming in the framework for civ policies at the moment, I'm still very much working on their effects...
Post by: Leatra on December 26, 2012, 10:02:56 am
You can let the player regent choose what kind of a civ he wants. Do you want a religious civ? Okay, here you go. Do you want a civ of liberties? Done. Or you can let the player to decide on laws without labeling the laws as "This is a +Religious -Freedom law" or "This is a +Autocracy -Democracy law". For example, you can ban alcohol because you genuinely believe that it's bad for your people. You can increase the power of the police because you believe crime is rampant across your civ. And you can increase the privileges and the salary of your spies because you believe a claimant is currently raising an army to overthrow you and you need information. However, all these little things will add up and will greatly lower the liberties in your country, regardless of how good your intentions may seem to you.
Also, even though we don't have anything to do in the game right now, I have to say that this is the most visually beautiful ASCII game I have ever seen. I say this as someone who can't play DF with ASCII and has to use custom tilesets.
Post by: Heron TSG on December 26, 2012, 11:08:02 am
Also, even though we don't have anything to do in the game right now, I have to say that this is the most visually beautiful ASCII game I have ever seen.Though I'm a little disappointed, I have to agree. This is a downright pretty game. I'll be lurking in this thread for a while.
Post by: WraithLord24 on December 26, 2012, 11:30:54 pm
Welcome fellow lurker! ;DAlso, even though we don't have anything to do in the game right now, I have to say that this is the most visually beautiful ASCII game I have ever seen.Though I'm a little disappointed, I have to agree. This is a downright pretty game. I'll be lurking in this thread for a while.
Post by: coolio678 on December 27, 2012, 11:06:50 am
Post by: varsovie on December 27, 2012, 11:45:43 am
Have you considered splitting the text and graphic tiles into different tilesets? I feel like this would be an awesome game to have a good tileset on, but I don't want all the text to get messed up because I tried to make the H's into horses.
Good luck with multi-tiles monsters...
Post by: Clownmite on December 27, 2012, 05:53:40 pm
Meanwhile on history generation, here's an example of a completed territorial world:
...
Just curious, how do you check which tiles are on a territory's border? And how do you select which tiles to make a contiguous border (or rivers, for that matter)?
Post by: coolio678 on December 28, 2012, 12:08:57 pm
yep, that one hit me soon after I posted.Have you considered splitting the text and graphic tiles into different tilesets? I feel like this would be an awesome game to have a good tileset on, but I don't want all the text to get messed up because I tried to make the H's into horses.
Good luck with multi-tiles monsters...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 30, 2012, 08:28:43 am
I think we should have control over even (seemingly) little things like ban on alcohol and tobacco products, death penalty, education system, ban on weird religious sects, etc. Because all these little things add up to create greater things. While I definitely don't except a regent to be able to decide on everything in the 1.0 version, I hope we will have more control over things as the game evolves.
You can let the player regent choose what kind of a civ he wants. Do you want a religious civ? Okay, here you go. Do you want a civ of liberties? Done. Or you can let the player to decide on laws without labeling the laws as "This is a +Religious -Freedom law" or "This is a +Autocracy -Democracy law". For example, you can ban alcohol because you genuinely believe that it's bad for your people. You can increase the power of the police because you believe crime is rampant across your civ. And you can increase the privileges and the salary of your spies because you believe a claimant is currently raising an army to overthrow you and you need information. However, all these little things will add up and will greatly lower the liberties in your country, regardless of how good your intentions may seem to you.
Also, even though we don't have anything to do in the game right now, I have to say that this is the most visually beautiful ASCII game I have ever seen. I say this as someone who can't play DF with ASCII and has to use custom tilesets.
Interesting. I hadn't considered that kind of "sub-policy", but it would certainly be an interesting direction to take things. All those little things are the things I want reflected in the existing policies, to an extent - they aren't defined as "more authority" or "less freedom". I'm specifically having it so that the policies do indeed say what the policy does, but abstracts like "authority" or "freedom" are hidden and under the hood. Maybe things that you can ban/allow should form a different category, slightly like mandates etc in DF?
Have you considered splitting the text and graphic tiles into different tilesets? I feel like this would be an awesome game to have a good tileset on, but I don't want all the text to get messed up because I tried to make the H's into horses.
Good luck with multi-tiles monsters...
I had, but for now, I'm not going to. Which is not to say I might not change my mind later. Once I start introducing multi-square creatures, and siege weapons, and that kind of thing, I'll just have to see how they look in-game.
Meanwhile on history generation, here's an example of a completed territorial world:
...
Just curious, how do you check which tiles are on a territory's border? And how do you select which tiles to make a contiguous border (or rivers, for that matter)?
Whenever it needs to draw a border (which isn't a very common operation) it looks across the entire map. For each tile, it notes down who owns that tile, then it takes note of who owns the surrounding tiles. If there are any tiles not owned by that owner, then it must be a border. It then figures out the correct image to use based on how many borders are/aren't present, and which positions the borders are in. Very soon in history generation I'll be letting civs colonize and declare war, so borders will no longer be entirely contiguous for all civs. As for the last part, do you mean how do I generate rivers?
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 30, 2012, 11:39:28 am
how will policies apply and can we attack foreigners freely in contested areas? (assuming you are a member of one of the civs concerned?)
and how will it look on teh mapz?
Post by: Clownmite on December 31, 2012, 02:15:11 pm
Whenever it needs to draw a border (which isn't a very common operation) it looks across the entire map. For each tile, it notes down who owns that tile, then it takes note of who owns the surrounding tiles. If there are any tiles not owned by that owner, then it must be a border. It then figures out the correct image to use based on how many borders are/aren't present, and which positions the borders are in. Very soon in history generation I'll be letting civs colonize and declare war, so borders will no longer be entirely contiguous for all civs. As for the last part, do you mean how do I generate rivers?
Sorry, I meant how do you pick the tiles out? Just a long line of If statements?
Post by: Chronomancer on December 31, 2012, 08:36:43 pm
Post by: coolio678 on December 31, 2012, 10:22:37 pm
edit: messed up the link :P
editedit: would you have preferred this to be on the related post from facebook, or on this thread?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 01, 2013, 08:40:13 pm
How will you handle contested areas?
how will policies apply and can we attack foreigners freely in contested areas? (assuming you are a member of one of the civs concerned?)
and how will it look on teh mapz?
In what way do you mean handling? How they're resolved in history generation? I haven't got to that step yet, but it'll have a lot of factors - military strength, tactics, military traditions, generals, assorted other quasi-random events, etc. Policies affect lots of things, like the speed of border expansion, or the damage done by a particular kind of military unit, or food produced by that empire, or the number of generals that empire can have, etc etc. Conflict on the map, I'm not sure yet! I'll probably have to choose a different symbol that isn't the double-lines to display contested borders. Or, any square that is having control taken from its owner might get a different symbol/colour (like yellow/orange/red 'x's to display the severity of the attack?).
Sorry, I meant how do you pick the tiles out? Just a long line of If statements?
Yeah, pretty much! Check each tile, see if it's a border, then a set of Ifs to calculate what exactly that border is.
Any plans for kickstarter?
None at the moment, though if people think it would be a worthwhile/valid move, then maybe. I also don't really know the rewards I'd offer, and that kind of thing, but I'd certainly be interested to hear what people think.
Regarding your facebook post about religous symbols (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/01/Religion-WIP.png). will they always be black and white, or will the religious groups color it depending on how/where it's being displayed? and they look awesome so far!
edit: messed up the link :P
editedit: would you have preferred this to be on the related post from facebook, or on this thread?
I'm not sure. By default they will be white on black, but I might add in a possibility for a theocracy to change its flag to a religious symbol, and pick some colours for it. I was intending to post that image here (I normally cross-post, but I do forget sometimes), but since symbol generation has improved further, here's a new version:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/01/Relig-II.png
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 01, 2013, 09:01:30 pm
I.E. Frontier areas, or areas where the population is mixed from 2+ empires.
and by handle I mean what are we going to be able to do with these proverbially land toss-ups? Like, will they be easier to attack, need less of a reason to conquer, etc. etc. ?
Post by: Edmus on January 01, 2013, 11:43:27 pm
What role will religion play? Support buffs? War initiation? morale boosts?
Post by: fred1248 on January 02, 2013, 05:49:09 am
I can't wait to crucify people in the name of flying spaghetti monster.
Post by: Willfor on January 02, 2013, 11:04:34 am
Post by: Graknorke on January 02, 2013, 08:00:06 pm
Can I just make the point that crucifixion was an entirely secular practice? I feel this point has been lost somewhere along the way. That wasn't religion, that was the outcome of professional torture workers in the justice system and military.What.
Nobody ever said that crucifixion came about religiously. Just that they want to crucify people as part of a religion.
Post by: Leatra on January 02, 2013, 08:49:57 pm
I think we should have control over even (seemingly) little things like ban on alcohol and tobacco products, death penalty, education system, ban on weird religious sects, etc. Because all these little things add up to create greater things. While I definitely don't except a regent to be able to decide on everything in the 1.0 version, I hope we will have more control over things as the game evolves.
You can let the player regent choose what kind of a civ he wants. Do you want a religious civ? Okay, here you go. Do you want a civ of liberties? Done. Or you can let the player to decide on laws without labeling the laws as "This is a +Religious -Freedom law" or "This is a +Autocracy -Democracy law". For example, you can ban alcohol because you genuinely believe that it's bad for your people. You can increase the power of the police because you believe crime is rampant across your civ. And you can increase the privileges and the salary of your spies because you believe a claimant is currently raising an army to overthrow you and you need information. However, all these little things will add up and will greatly lower the liberties in your country, regardless of how good your intentions may seem to you.
Also, even though we don't have anything to do in the game right now, I have to say that this is the most visually beautiful ASCII game I have ever seen. I say this as someone who can't play DF with ASCII and has to use custom tilesets.
Interesting. I hadn't considered that kind of "sub-policy", but it would certainly be an interesting direction to take things. All those little things are the things I want reflected in the existing policies, to an extent - they aren't defined as "more authority" or "less freedom". I'm specifically having it so that the policies do indeed say what the policy does, but abstracts like "authority" or "freedom" are hidden and under the hood. Maybe things that you can ban/allow should form a different category, slightly like mandates etc in DF?
There are innumerable possible policies and sub-policies a regent could enforce but it could be interesting to have something like policy categories. For example, in the Religion policy category, we could have policies about religious sects, inquisition, punishment/tolerance for heretics, mandatory religious activities, converting efforts, etc. They don't have to have much effect since they will add up anyway.
But it may create clutter and increase micro-managing. Maybe sub-policies should only be created if they are going to have an effect. Like, mandatory religious activities may not be important and the player shouldn't have to deal with it but if we have a sub-policy option for dealing with religious sects and minorities, it may allow more different religions to grow in your civ. Imagine a civ where almost all major religions have pretty much similar number of worshipers.
So... I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas out there, hoping I'll contribute in some way and you'll manage to create an idea out of my rambling :P
Ban/allow as a different category sounds good. Considering how there is a crazy amount of stuff a regent could ban.
Post by: Graknorke on January 02, 2013, 08:58:34 pm
Post by: Leatra on January 02, 2013, 09:09:59 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 02, 2013, 09:45:01 pm
I gotta say, it's a really interesting story.I have to respect the TES writers who write all of the books. Because they're to a pretty high standard of quality; considering how many books there are.
Post by: Devling on January 06, 2013, 09:18:03 pm
Will these exist instead of the whole world being covered in giant, monoculture, empires?
Post by: Neonivek on January 06, 2013, 09:24:58 pm
Small states, and city states, were and are much more prevalent then depicted in most games.
There is a lot that most games do not depict.
When I heard that the idea of a nation is relatively recent I never really got the idea of what that REALLY meant (afterall the idea of a Kingdom existed) until I saw a letsplay of Crusader Kings and it actually started to make sense.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 06, 2013, 09:47:19 pm
Well I guess im asking is how will you handle areas that both civilizations have boths claims to and citizens/colonists there?
I.E. Frontier areas, or areas where the population is mixed from 2+ empires.
and by handle I mean what are we going to be able to do with these proverbially land toss-ups? Like, will they be easier to attack, need less of a reason to conquer, etc. etc. ?
Hmmmm. I hadn't considered functions of either claims or colonists so far; one civ would send colonists to land x, and then that land would start expanding like their mainland territory. Maybe colonists can check for other colonists in their immediate area, and that has a diplomatic/military effect? "Claiming" land is a *really* interesting idea, and one I hadn't considered before now. Maybe colonists land, actually control maybe only a 3x3 grid around their landing, but can claim a large amount of land, and if that clashes with other claims, then there might be trouble.
I would like to have areas "peacefully" contested as well as militarily contested, but I guess this actually goes back to the idea of claiming land, even if you don't directly control it. Similarly, I could have treaties give/acquire land as part of peace deals. I think they'd definitely need less of a reason to conquer. I'm not sure about mixed populations yet - population dynamics are still on the drawing-board stages!
Can I found a religion, oh god the possibilities...
What role will religion play? Support buffs? War initiation? morale boosts?
Now that's an interesting question. A cult more likely than a religion; I imagine (though there will be a longer blog entry on this soon) religions as being more on the grand-strategy level of the game, whilst cults are much more on the micro, tactical level. So I wager I will let you found a cult, potentially, but probably not a religion. As for the role of religion, it has a part in diplomacy, a hefty part to morale I wager, but I'm not yet sure what else (apart from just general flavour). Well, religions will have different forms of buildings for worship (proc gen, naturally), various holy books, various artefacts, etc etc, so they should by extension generate a number of different relations between different group, items to seek out, ruins (old temples, shrines?), and the like. Either way, now I've finished Monarchy generation in the history gen, I might take a break from "leadership" generation (as Monarchy is only one of the five!) and work on something else, and maybe that'll be religion next. We'll see.
Can I just make the point that crucifixion was an entirely secular practice? I feel this point has been lost somewhere along the way. That wasn't religion, that was the outcome of professional torture workers in the justice system and military.What.
Nobody ever said that crucifixion came about religiously. Just that they want to crucify people as part of a religion.
I am pleased to announce each civilization - that has capital punishment - selects any one from about 15 different possibilities, ranging from beheading to breaking on the wheel, from crucifixion to impalement, and from hanging to boiling. These'll be reflected in executions in the world history!
There are innumerable possible policies and sub-policies a regent could enforce but it could be interesting to have something like policy categories. For example, in the Religion policy category, we could have policies about religious sects, inquisition, punishment/tolerance for heretics, mandatory religious activities, converting efforts, etc. They don't have to have much effect since they will add up anyway.
But it may create clutter and increase micro-managing. Maybe sub-policies should only be created if they are going to have an effect. Like, mandatory religious activities may not be important and the player shouldn't have to deal with it but if we have a sub-policy option for dealing with religious sects and minorities, it may allow more different religions to grow in your civ. Imagine a civ where almost all major religions have pretty much similar number of worshipers.
So... I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas out there, hoping I'll contribute in some way and you'll manage to create an idea out of my rambling :P
Ban/allow as a different category sounds good. Considering how there is a crazy amount of stuff a regent could ban.
I do like that selection of possibilities for religions, particularly heretics etc. Hmmm. I think I will create a section field - there will be policies, all of which get detailed ANSI icons (about a dozen of which I have so far created), and a ban/allow list for a huge number of other things. That would mean if you're a smuggler or a trader, you would need to check where various goods are legal, and similarly, maybe some civs have mercenaries legal/illegal? I'd include things like tobacco, alcohol, etc in that - I think that could be a good mechanic if different civs have different prohibitions on different things. AND, some could maybe have particularly high/low tax on different products? I'll have to think about this some more...
I gotta say, it's a really interesting story.I have to respect the TES writers who write all of the books. Because they're to a pretty high standard of quality; considering how many books there are.
Never read any of the books, but I agree the in-game content is generally actually pretty sharp.
Small states, and city states, were and are much more prevalent then depicted in most games.
Will these exist instead of the whole world being covered in giant, monoculture, empires?
Currently empire-esque civs, hunter-gatherer civs, and nomadic civs can be generated, which have very different sizes, requirements, etc. I 100% intend to add city-states before 0.3 is released, but I haven't done so yet.
In the mean time, the old menu banner text looked terrible, so I redid it. Tomorrow's blog entry is going to be all about religious icon generation, as a couple of people asked me for that, and probably some discussion of religion/cult gameplay as well (which is to say, more than I wrote in this reply). I've also done a huge amount of work on monarchies in history (which are now basically finished, but more details in tomorrow's devblog), terrain, the encyclopedia, families (royal, noble, whatever), flags, religious icons, and some smaller under-the-hood stuff...
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/01/03Title.png)
Post by: Eктωρ on January 07, 2013, 09:34:06 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2013, 12:14:56 pm
Can't wait for the next version. Will alternate between DF and KoDP in between. The virtual history lesson of a world that never existed thing is just so cool.
Thanks! That's exactly what I'm hoping for - that the world history will be interesting enough to actually sit down and read some sections of. Though with that said, I don't intend for it to be entirely backdrop; even events centuries ago are going to have gameplay effects, but more on that another time...
Meanwhile, another devblog entry, at last, with religious icons, policies, history, territory, and lots more goodness:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/01/07/history-generation-i/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/01/07/history-generation-i/)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/01/Final-Rel-Small.png)
Post by: Morrigi on January 07, 2013, 12:19:27 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on January 07, 2013, 01:01:16 pm
I know historically there have been a good few people who had their hands lopped off in the thick of combat. A select number of these individuals had "hands" made for replacement. They couldn't do much other than stay in their posed positions, but they did allow one to secure a shield in place. Will we have the opportunity to have an iron fist, and also peg legs? Mostly the peg leg thing though.
Oh, and you get dat book yet? I'd like to know what you think of it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2013, 03:30:01 pm
What effect does the planet you choose have on worldgen?
You don't really pick a planet; you can only take 'the Earth', though you then obviously specify what the Earth looks like after you've generated the solar system. The solar system is partly for display, and partly for gameplay I haven't yet revealed.
Question on prosthetic limbs:
I know historically there have been a good few people who had their hands lopped off in the thick of combat. A select number of these individuals had "hands" made for replacement. They couldn't do much other than stay in their posed positions, but they did allow one to secure a shield in place. Will we have the opportunity to have an iron fist, and also peg legs? Mostly the peg leg thing though.
Oh, and you get dat book yet? I'd like to know what you think of it.
Now, there's an interesting question. There will be prosthetic limbs, and I intend to move from historical accuracy a little and make them much more usable than we had in that era. My guiding light is generally that if something is physically possible, then it's fine to include - sure, we didn't have very advanced prosthetics in that era, but I'm going to change that just a little bit in the interests of better gameplay. Iron fist, definitely, peg leg... I guess that depends on the "quality" of prosthetics I decide to include. Quick answer is yes, but there may be much more advanced leg prosthetics as well.
Achilles etc? I haven't yet; it's somewhere stuck in the post, I assume, with around 30 other books I ordered from Amazon a few days ago in a big order. At the moment, I'm reading a Murakami (1Q84), but I try to alternate fiction/non-fiction, so that might be the next...
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 07, 2013, 04:22:45 pm
Post by: Neonivek on January 07, 2013, 05:24:50 pm
Or can an island that has, lets say, Garlic be discovered?
Post by: lordcooper on January 07, 2013, 05:35:21 pm
Could someone give me a brief summary of the current state of the game, what features are present, and how playable it is at the moment?
Post by: Graknorke on January 07, 2013, 05:39:04 pm
Basically everything is potential and in progress at the moment.
Post by: Neonivek on January 07, 2013, 06:01:41 pm
At current it has basically nothing. You can look at the pretty graphics and sometimes wander into a cyclops who will undoubtedly destroy you.
Basically everything is potential and in progress at the moment.
Hey! someone advertised the game to me incorrectly. They said "No supernatural elements" Cyclops is totally supernatural!
Post by: Graknorke on January 07, 2013, 06:14:59 pm
How so? They're supernatural in the same way any made up animal is supernatural. Not.At current it has basically nothing. You can look at the pretty graphics and sometimes wander into a cyclops who will undoubtedly destroy you.
Basically everything is potential and in progress at the moment.
Hey! someone advertised the game to me incorrectly. They said "No supernatural elements" Cyclops is totally supernatural!
Post by: Neonivek on January 07, 2013, 06:16:25 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 07, 2013, 06:43:48 pm
So basically this is low fantasy. Fantasy without magic.Well yeah, otherwise it would be a history game.
Post by: Dutchling on January 07, 2013, 06:50:14 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2013, 06:50:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2013, 06:52:52 pm
Well as far as medieval prosthetic limbs go, Gotz Von Berlichingen had a prosthetic hand/forearm that could grasp both a sword and a feather pen among other such items.
A quick google later - interesting. Things along those lines are tempting.
Now are all resources and locations (except Atlantis of course) known from the get go?
Or can an island that has, lets say, Garlic be discovered?
Nope. Only some civilizations will be known, and that will depend on the civ you choose. BAsically, at the start, there will be a bunch of "known" civilizations - generally temperate, agricultural, empire-builders - and much of the world outside them, and some of them, will be unknown.
I'm amazed I've never opened this thread before, this looks crazy promising.
Could someone give me a brief summary of the current state of the game, what features are present, and how playable it is at the moment?
Thank you! See below for a brief summary :)
At current it has basically nothing. You can look at the pretty graphics and sometimes wander into a cyclops who will undoubtedly destroy you.
Basically everything is potential and in progress at the moment.
I dispute that. It has landscape generation, planets, worlds, world generation, terrain, saving and loading, character creation, skills, a huge amount of under-the-hood work, climbing, running, height, time of day, trees, various terrain types, and a lot else. Just because there isn't anyone to fight doesn't mean there's "nothing". Besides, combat is going to be a very rare part of the final game anyway, unless you actively seek it out. There are a ton of *features*, though admittedly little gameplay. I did previously have combat, but I increasingly realized that with the scope of the project, I have to start from the ground up - NPCs and enemies cannot appear until I know where they should spawn, what civ they belong to, etc etc...
So basically this is low fantasy. Fantasy without magic.Well yeah, otherwise it would be a history game.
It is a history game! Sort of. A generated history. With the odd, possible, anomalous occurrence.
Wait what. I thought fantasy was (and for now, other creatures) removed a while ago?
Affirmative - the most recent release has *no monsters in it*. The release from half a year ago did, true, but that's not quite the latest version...
Post by: Neonivek on January 07, 2013, 07:12:43 pm
Quote
With the odd, possible, anomalous occurrence
I see like the Locheness monster in Simcity 2000.
Yeah you may see a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow but it is more of a bonus then set dressing.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2013, 07:14:06 pm
QuoteWith the odd, possible, anomalous occurrence
I see like the Locheness monster in Simcity 2000.
Yeah you may see a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow but it is more of a bonus then set dressing.
No comment. My lips are sealed on the anomaly topic for now. But it's not really going to be low fantasy stuff!
Post by: Dutchling on January 07, 2013, 07:16:14 pm
Now just make it so that you can use reallife historical worlds (every year between [beginning of Indus civilization] and ~1500 having correct nations and characters) and you made my dream game :p
Still, non fantasy makes me a happy Dutchling :)
Fakeedit: ninjad! This is a response to the UUR's earlier two posts...
Post by: Man of Paper on January 09, 2013, 11:24:41 am
Little suggestion for this as well: Have a chance for an external prison break dependent on the PC's fame/prestige and standing within his/her nation. Maybe give an option to jump time to the end of your sentence/execution, and give an option to attempt a breakout.
As with PC torture, that one is admittedly tougher to work with. You don't quite want the interrogation to be completely stat dependent (the exception in my opinion is if it is tied to willpower). However, giving the player full control of their response to the torture would make it a bit gamey and remove the feeling of being forced to give away vital information. Perhaps combining them, allowing the player certain options depending on the current level of a certain stat, would be optimal. For example, a character receiving basic torture (possible starvation, dehydration, beatings) and having a high willpower would be able to "hold out", "give in", or "misinform", while someone receiving heavy torture (dismemberment, severe dehydration/starvation, being made fun of) or with low willpower would only be allowed to "give in".
That also brings in the idea of suicide. As we all probably know, many cultures deemed surrender a nonoption, their warriors opting to kill themselves before falling into enemy hands. Perhaps that could be an option during surrender as well.
Post by: Edmus on January 09, 2013, 06:52:18 pm
Post by: Devling on January 09, 2013, 09:54:05 pm
MENTAL TRAUMA!
not sanity meters, sanity meters are stupid. like morality meters.
Post by: Man of Paper on January 09, 2013, 10:43:14 pm
Post by: dei on January 09, 2013, 10:55:26 pm
Post by: Devling on January 10, 2013, 01:24:06 am
What are the system requirements for this game? Please don't just tell me that any old system could run it.Any old system could run it. I mean, if you can play DF you can play this game.
Post by: dei on January 10, 2013, 02:47:34 am
I have difficulties with Dwarf Fortress if I don't edit the settings to make it so that I have at most ten dwarves to a fortress and no invaders ever. Does that mean I should steer clear of this game?What are the system requirements for this game? Please don't just tell me that any old system could run it.Any old system could run it. I mean, if you can play DF you can play this game.
Post by: Absolute Niro on January 10, 2013, 02:55:02 am
Post by: Ukrainian Ranger on January 10, 2013, 03:06:15 am
Post by: Absolute Niro on January 10, 2013, 03:09:11 am
Well, there are one downside - It's not ready, yet :)That's a big one! :P Well, I'll definitely be following it, looks awesome.
Post by: Leatra on January 10, 2013, 06:58:46 am
We've briefly discussed our treatment of prisoners, but what about the PC being captured? Say if you're a commander and your combat group is overwhelmed, would you be allowed to surrender and be taken captive? Will there be torture and imprisonment? If so, will treatment of a military PC be different than, say, a spy PC?
Little suggestion for this as well: Have a chance for an external prison break dependent on the PC's fame/prestige and standing within his/her nation. Maybe give an option to jump time to the end of your sentence/execution, and give an option to attempt a breakout.
As with PC torture, that one is admittedly tougher to work with. You don't quite want the interrogation to be completely stat dependent (the exception in my opinion is if it is tied to willpower). However, giving the player full control of their response to the torture would make it a bit gamey and remove the feeling of being forced to give away vital information. Perhaps combining them, allowing the player certain options depending on the current level of a certain stat, would be optimal. For example, a character receiving basic torture (possible starvation, dehydration, beatings) and having a high willpower would be able to "hold out", "give in", or "misinform", while someone receiving heavy torture (dismemberment, severe dehydration/starvation, being made fun of) or with low willpower would only be allowed to "give in".
That also brings in the idea of suicide. As we all probably know, many cultures deemed surrender a nonoption, their warriors opting to kill themselves before falling into enemy hands. Perhaps that could be an option during surrender as well.
Oh man, this idea is damn awesome! Being able to get captured, tortured and maybe even committing suicide or being rescued. Then maybe your rescuer sacrifices himself so you can escape or something. If you commit suicide, you would play as your heir who makes an oath of revenge and do anything that damages that civilization. I could write a novel by just playing this game. I have to wait for a few years until the game reaches that kind of complexity though.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 10, 2013, 10:02:31 am
Excellent!
Now just make it so that you can use reallife historical worlds (every year between [beginning of Indus civilization] and ~1500 having correct nations and characters) and you made my dream game :p
Still, non fantasy makes me a happy Dutchling :)
Fakeedit: ninjad! This is a response to the UUR's earlier two posts...
An interesting idea, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen! I'm also glad to have lost the fantasy elements, I think it's stronger without. And it lets me focus on the things that really interest me for the game.
We've briefly discussed our treatment of prisoners, but what about the PC being captured? Say if you're a commander and your combat group is overwhelmed, would you be allowed to surrender and be taken captive? Will there be torture and imprisonment? If so, will treatment of a military PC be different than, say, a spy PC?
Little suggestion for this as well: Have a chance for an external prison break dependent on the PC's fame/prestige and standing within his/her nation. Maybe give an option to jump time to the end of your sentence/execution, and give an option to attempt a breakout.
As with PC torture, that one is admittedly tougher to work with. You don't quite want the interrogation to be completely stat dependent (the exception in my opinion is if it is tied to willpower). However, giving the player full control of their response to the torture would make it a bit gamey and remove the feeling of being forced to give away vital information. Perhaps combining them, allowing the player certain options depending on the current level of a certain stat, would be optimal. For example, a character receiving basic torture (possible starvation, dehydration, beatings) and having a high willpower would be able to "hold out", "give in", or "misinform", while someone receiving heavy torture (dismemberment, severe dehydration/starvation, being made fun of) or with low willpower would only be allowed to "give in".
That also brings in the idea of suicide. As we all probably know, many cultures deemed surrender a nonoption, their warriors opting to kill themselves before falling into enemy hands. Perhaps that could be an option during surrender as well.
What an interesting message! I really like a lot of those ideas. Particularly letting people be captured, tortured, etc. It would be very interesting if this was different based on the specifics of the PC/NPC, like as you say spy, military, etc. Prison breaks are in the history gen, but I hadn't yet thought them through much in gameplay terms. I would really like it if there are a lot of ways for this to happen. The jump time option makes sense, along with a lot of ways to escape. I do *not* want to make it as pointless and annoying as jail in Elder Scrolls games, for instance - I mean, given you have one life, permadeath, blah blah, you cannot reload and avoid jail (like I do in Skyrim/Oblivion), so I need to make sure a) there are a lot of outcomes, and b) not all outcomes are bad - maybe you can recruit a jailer to your side by persuading him of your cause, or escape and then you're free in the enemy castle, or that kind of thing? NPCs will definitely have a suicide option; not sure how that could work for the player character, though it would certainly give you a way out of the game rather than dying a slow and painful death...
Maybe torture could start to lower stats, otherwise there isn't a great reason to give in.
I like that idea. It would be interesting to try and balance stat loss vs information loss, as it were...
Unless we add......
MENTAL TRAUMA!
not sanity meters, sanity meters are stupid. like morality meters.
MENTAL TRAUMA!!. Hmm, maybe. No sanity/morality meters, though.
Well with heavier torture there comes the obligatory dismemberment. But yeah, I figure stat drops would also factor in depending on the type of torture. As in different stats get borked by different tortures.
I like the different stats/tortures idea; you'd also of course have potential to (maybe if you have a high unarmed combat skill?) to attempt to fight back, or escape, and maybe a possibility to try and get a message out, or find a way out of jail, etc. I think it could be a really interesting mechanic, but I'd need to make sure there were a lot of ways to escape, or try to escape, depending on the character's skills.
I have difficulties with Dwarf Fortress if I don't edit the settings to make it so that I have at most ten dwarves to a fortress and no invaders ever. Does that mean I should steer clear of this game?What are the system requirements for this game? Please don't just tell me that any old system could run it.Any old system could run it. I mean, if you can play DF you can play this game.
Hmm. In the future, the game will have a "slower" pace in the sense that you won't be leaving it in real-time to iterate dwarves and things; it is always turn-based, and a lot of turns will have a lot of detail, or decisions, that aren't CPU-heavy. At the moment, sprinting across open land can be a bit CPU heavy if you go particularly quickly, but I'm working on it. Either way, a modern computer won't struggle at all, but if ten dwarves is a problem, then... I really don't know, actually. If you could give it a shot, and tell me how it runs, that would actual be useful for giving me some idea of the technical requirements :)
Well, there are one downside - It's not ready, yet :)That's a big one! :P Well, I'll definitely be following it, looks awesome.
Haha, that is one. Certainly. But thanks a lot :)
Oh man, this idea is damn awesome! Being able to get captured, tortured and maybe even committing suicide or being rescued. Then maybe your rescuer sacrifices himself so you can escape or something. If you commit suicide, you would play as your heir who makes an oath of revenge and do anything that damages that civilization. I could write a novel by just playing this game. I have to wait for a few years until the game reaches that kind of complexity though.
Agreed, I really like these ideas. I will 100% make sure to write jail breaks and torture and things into history generation (I hadn't been going to, but I sure as hell am now!). But yeah, years is accurate. By this summer, we should have all history generation, civilization generation, and temple/tomb/ruin/dungeon generation going, after which the next objective will likely be cities, settlements, etc. But torture, interrogation and capture are definitely now on the list!
Post by: dei on January 10, 2013, 02:20:57 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: werty892 on January 10, 2013, 02:35:53 pm
I will give it a shot, and I will let you know if my ancient machine is capable of running Ultima Ratio Regum after I do some testing of said game. Just as a heads up however, these are my computer's specifications.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I felt my mind slow down just by reading that computer description... HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH THAT?!
Post by: dei on January 10, 2013, 03:56:44 pm
I just do. Most of the games I play don't require even a mid-range system to enjoy and I still have fun. I wanted to try Ultima Ratio Regum because it too sounded fun.I will give it a shot, and I will let you know if my ancient machine is capable of running Ultima Ratio Regum after I do some testing of said game. Just as a heads up however, these are my computer's specifications.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I felt my mind slow down just by reading that computer description... HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH THAT?!
I have managed to generate an average-sized Earth-like world in about five minutes with my setup. That is about as far as I have gotten though. I am going to test out said world later once I pick a class I like.
-edit- I picked a female Quester and took her on a hike along the snowy plains and up some mountains. Each step took about half a second to a second at most, and about three to five minutes into this venture my computer started to have some difficulties processing all of the data in this game.
Furthermore when areas are loaded it takes about five seconds minimum to finish loading and saving the game takes close to three minutes or so. I would say that my computer's system specifications do not support Ultima Ratio Regum. It strains my computer about as much as Dwarf Fortress does on the settings I put it on for Fortress Mode when the fortress gets to about ten dwarves.
Post by: Absolute Niro on January 11, 2013, 04:45:31 am
I just do. Most of the games I play don't require even a mid-range system to enjoy and I still have fun. I wanted to try Ultima Ratio Regum because it too sounded fun.That honestly doesn't sound that bad considering your PC is from 1980.
I have managed to generate an average-sized Earth-like world in about five minutes with my setup. That is about as far as I have gotten though. I am going to test out said world later once I pick a class I like.
-edit- I picked a female Quester and took her on a hike along the snowy plains and up some mountains. Each step took about half a second to a second at most, and about three to five minutes into this venture my computer started to have some difficulties processing all of the data in this game.
Furthermore when areas are loaded it takes about five seconds minimum to finish loading and saving the game takes close to three minutes or so. I would say that my computer's system specifications do not support Ultima Ratio Regum. It strains my computer about as much as Dwarf Fortress does on the settings I put it on for Fortress Mode when the fortress gets to about ten dwarves.
Post by: Rowanas on January 11, 2013, 05:01:24 am
Post by: Leatra on January 11, 2013, 05:58:36 am
I will give it a shot, and I will let you know if my ancient machine is capable of running Ultima Ratio Regum after I do some testing of said game. Just as a heads up however, these are my computer's specifications.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I felt my mind slow down just by reading that computer description... HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH THAT?!
Man, no kidding. The specifications kinda took me back to my childhood years though. Damn nostalgia.
Post by: Leatra on January 12, 2013, 07:28:42 am
How will the player character be effected by the laws in a civ he/she is in?
For example, in Mount&Blade, it's more difficult to become a female ruler than a male ruler. Can we expect to see gender becoming an advantage or disadvantage, rather than just a word in your character sheet? I don't think most feudal armies won't accept women and Amazon-like civs won't accept men... maybe.
If the PC commits a crime and is thrown into the dungeon, considering the PC doesn't escape, will the punishment go according to the laws? Maybe, according to the punishment laws, we can get different punishments with different side effects. For example, some real-life civlizations used mutilation as a pushiment. I think the side effect is pretty self explanatory here.
And what about PC's religion? Can we convert to other religions? What kind of an effect will it have, especially when we are in an extremely religious civ?
Post by: Dutchling on January 12, 2013, 08:41:27 am
I haz question!
How will the player character be effected by the laws in a civ he/she is in?
For example, in Mount&Blade, it's more difficult to become a female ruler than a male ruler. Can we expect to see gender becoming an advantage or disadvantage, rather than just a word in your character sheet? I don't think most feudal armies won't accept women and Amazon-like civs won't accept men... maybe.
Quote from: URR on Fcebook
whilst historical accuracy would certainly demand 99.9% of civilizations to be male-focused, I'm actually quite explicitly trying to go against that; female players/NPCs can be recruited into the armed forces just like men can, and there is no position only one gender can take. It's not QUITE the Earth, after all. Well, sort of.
Post by: Rowanas on January 12, 2013, 09:05:56 am
Post by: coolio678 on January 12, 2013, 10:29:40 am
I haz question!so something like getting your hand chopped off for stealing? I like that
How will the player character be effected by the laws in a civ he/she is in?
For example, in Mount&Blade, it's more difficult to become a female ruler than a male ruler. Can we expect to see gender becoming an advantage or disadvantage, rather than just a word in your character sheet? I don't think most feudal armies won't accept women and Amazon-like civs won't accept men... maybe.
If the PC commits a crime and is thrown into the dungeon, considering the PC doesn't escape, will the punishment go according to the laws? Maybe, according to the punishment laws, we can get different punishments with different side effects. For example, some real-life civlizations used mutilation as a pushiment. I think the side effect is pretty self explanatory here.
And what about PC's religion? Can we convert to other religions? What kind of an effect will it have, especially when we are in an extremely religious civ?
Post by: tootboot on January 12, 2013, 05:31:11 pm
1.5 Gigs. I.. I what?
512x3, perhaps.
Post by: tootboot on January 12, 2013, 05:32:48 pm
Technically even having functional astrology is sorta fantasy.
Post by: Edmus on January 12, 2013, 05:38:55 pm
If a ruler passes a new law in the country you are part of will there be an alert or similar notification? Something like a kingdom summary(If you pay attention or are an official) on law changes, the royal family and the state of the war(s) at the end of the month, or will it be what you over hear?
I ask because suddenly getting arrested for killing/drinking/public indecency sounds
Post by: Leatra on January 12, 2013, 07:05:24 pm
Going to the court before being punished.
And jury tampering.
Post by: Sharp on January 12, 2013, 08:27:51 pm
I had this idea and I didn't want to forget it so I'm just gonna summarize it briefly before I pass out because of sleep deprivation.
Going to the court before being punished.
And jury tampering.
Doubt there will be juries. Will be judges and kings/warlords. Juries are only for deciding who is a witch! "She turned me into a newt!
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 12, 2013, 09:00:30 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on January 12, 2013, 09:14:54 pm
Post by: varsovie on January 13, 2013, 03:18:15 am
Post by: Devling on January 13, 2013, 03:58:05 am
F-word the court, all you need is Judge Dredd!I AM THE LAW!
Post by: Rowanas on January 13, 2013, 04:15:39 am
Pretty cool, huh? That's kinda how I picture laws and imprisonment to work, with some... alterations.
Post by: Sharp on January 13, 2013, 04:30:25 am
Post by: Rowanas on January 13, 2013, 06:30:42 am
Post by: Leatra on January 13, 2013, 03:16:45 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 13, 2013, 03:38:02 pm
I like the planting spies idea like Sleepers (spies) in Liberal Crime Squad. We also should be able to use them for things like sabatoges and assassinations but that's probably the task of "active" spies. Maybe there could be two different types of spies. Active spies and unactive spies. Unactive spies generally are only about information and counterintelligence. Active spies should be able to carry out specific tasks you give to them, like enticing a rebellion.But spies don't kill people. Spies find information. There's a different word for the other thing.
Post by: Sharp on January 13, 2013, 04:13:55 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on January 13, 2013, 04:16:01 pm
Post by: Leatra on January 13, 2013, 04:34:18 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 13, 2013, 05:08:53 pm
Yeah, spies are only about information, not sabotaging. Sorry about that. Agent sounds okay (even though "spy" sounds more awesome)
Spoiler: You were saying? (click to show/hide)
EDIT: That image is a lot larger than I remember it being.
Post by: Neonivek on January 13, 2013, 05:14:15 pm
Post by: Leatra on January 13, 2013, 05:24:43 pm
Yeah, spies are only about information, not sabotaging. Sorry about that. Agent sounds okay (even though "spy" sounds more awesome)Spoiler: You were saying? (click to show/hide)
EDIT: That image is a lot larger than I remember it being.
Meh.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: lordcooper on January 13, 2013, 05:59:58 pm
I will give it a shot, and I will let you know if my ancient machine is capable of running Ultima Ratio Regum after I do some testing of said game. Just as a heads up however, these are my computer's specifications.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
...why?
Post by: Man of Paper on January 13, 2013, 06:07:56 pm
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on January 14, 2013, 04:54:06 am
Yeah, spies are only about information, not sabotaging. Sorry about that. Agent sounds okay (even though "spy" sounds more awesome)But agents are just like, informers and people who shelter secret operatives.
Post by: fred1248 on January 14, 2013, 06:13:22 am
Post by: Mongol13524 on January 14, 2013, 02:54:06 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 14, 2013, 03:43:18 pm
I think "spy" would be the best term. Assassins could be a different thing entirely.Was the word assassin even there?
Anyway, operative sounds good.
Post by: Eктωρ on January 14, 2013, 06:08:46 pm
Yup, it's Hippie Earth, where all races, sexes and religions are equal and rainbows fly over prancing unicorns with gumdrop hooves!
That sounds pretty great. :D
Post by: Mongol13524 on January 14, 2013, 10:11:39 pm
Assassin was never mentioned, I thought it would be logical to split agents that assassinate into their own catagory like Rome: Total War does. Operative sounds like something in or after the cold war, not medieval in the slightest.I think "spy" would be the best term. Assassins could be a different thing entirely.Was the word assassin even there?
Anyway, operative sounds good.
Post by: Leatra on January 15, 2013, 08:49:31 am
Yeah but so-called "agents" also cover things like sabotages and assassinations because you can't just call them saboteurs and assassins. That... makes the intentions of that person and his employers a little too obvious.Yeah, spies are only about information, not sabotaging. Sorry about that. Agent sounds okay (even though "spy" sounds more awesome)But agents are just like, informers and people who shelter secret operatives.
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on January 15, 2013, 08:53:18 am
Post by: Leatra on January 15, 2013, 11:56:16 am
Wait, that sounds wrong... Maybe we can... Um...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I stand by my previous assessment before I lose more brain cells!
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on January 15, 2013, 06:38:27 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 19, 2013, 05:26:32 pm
I have managed to generate an average-sized Earth-like world in about five minutes with my setup. That is about as far as I have gotten though. I am going to test out said world later once I pick a class I like.
-edit- I picked a female Quester and took her on a hike along the snowy plains and up some mountains. Each step took about half a second to a second at most, and about three to five minutes into this venture my computer started to have some difficulties processing all of the data in this game.
Furthermore when areas are loaded it takes about five seconds minimum to finish loading and saving the game takes close to three minutes or so. I would say that my computer's system specifications do not support Ultima Ratio Regum. It strains my computer about as much as Dwarf Fortress does on the settings I put it on for Fortress Mode when the fortress gets to about ten dwarves.
Damn, sorry about that :(. I feared that is what would happen. I'm constantly working to reduce the CPU load, but saving/loading is the real killer. I don't think I can really get it any faster - on a modern PC, each "chunk" - one square on the Travel/minimap, 200x200 human-size squares - should take maybe 10 seconds to generate the first time, and maybe 5-10 seconds to load/save subsequently. Again, I'd still like to get that down. But still. Damn.
I haz question!
How will the player character be effected by the laws in a civ he/she is in?
For example, in Mount&Blade, it's more difficult to become a female ruler than a male ruler. Can we expect to see gender becoming an advantage or disadvantage, rather than just a word in your character sheet? I don't think most feudal armies won't accept women and Amazon-like civs won't accept men... maybe.
If the PC commits a crime and is thrown into the dungeon, considering the PC doesn't escape, will the punishment go according to the laws? Maybe, according to the punishment laws, we can get different punishments with different side effects. For example, some real-life civlizations used mutilation as a pushiment. I think the side effect is pretty self explanatory here.
And what about PC's religion? Can we convert to other religions? What kind of an effect will it have, especially when we are in an extremely religious civ?
I want to allow both genders of player characters equal changes, but I'm not sure if I might make some more/less able to do certain things. I haven't pondered much about it yet.
Crime/punishment wise, I think so. As I think I mentioned, I've put in about 20 different kinds of execution, which is randomized when each civ is spawned, but I'll probably add in lesser punishments - tortures, fines, whatever. I want to obviously give you a lot of ways to avoid/escape jail, but I don't want jail to just be tedious punishment - it should have potential for benefits too (say, contacting someone you had to get in touch with, but was in jail, so getting yourself arrested was the only way in?).
Yes, you will be able to convert, join sects, join cults, and you will get the traits of the religion (randomly selected % bonuses to various things, mostly) or the cult you're in. It will also, I think, let you do certain things, access certain areas, or restrict others. However, cults will have far more human-scale gameplay effect than cults - in fact, see tomorrow's blog entry for more on this!
Yup, it's Hippie Earth, where all races, sexes and religions are equal and rainbows fly over prancing unicorns with gumdrop hooves!
Not QUITE, but you've certainly got the idea. Just because most of the real world's civilizations were male-focused and certain religions or ideologies came to dominate does not, in my mind, mean that was anything like set in stone (here we stray into my academic work); but I want to allow much more "variation" than the real world displays.
So what does removing fantasy elements mean? No magic? No monsters? No undead?
Technically even having functional astrology is sorta fantasy.
No magic, no monsters, no undead. Not really any astrology. But as I say, not everything will be 100% realistic - if you've read the Baroque Cycle, by Neal Stephenson, that gives you a pretty good idea. But as I say, there will be a few curious things here and there.
Lets not think about the punishment for adultery...
If a ruler passes a new law in the country you are part of will there be an alert or similar notification? Something like a kingdom summary(If you pay attention or are an official) on law changes, the royal family and the state of the war(s) at the end of the month, or will it be what you over hear?
I ask because suddenly getting arrested for killing/drinking/public indecency soundsfunannoying, if it was legal before hand and we were not informed of the change.
Nice idea about alerts - I guess I'll either have the player auto-alerted if they're in a city, or maybe they actively have to check up on the laws, and the "list of laws" the player has in memory is just what the laws were the last time they heard. On the other hand, in gameplay terms, a regular kingdom summary might just be by far the better option. Ha, yes, definitely - I don't want that to happen. Or do I? Hmm. Maybe some middle ground, like you can update yourself regularly by actively keeping up to date, but you will also passively gain knowledge of new laws over time?
I had this idea and I didn't want to forget it so I'm just gonna summarize it briefly before I pass out because of sleep deprivation.
Going to the court before being punished.
And jury tampering.
Both excellent, esp. jury tampering. One of the "Justice" policy options does, indeed, include proper courts, but even in the others, there are ways you could tamper. If justice is gladiatorial, a thousand obvious ways to fix it spring to mind.
Doubt there will be juries. Will be judges and kings/warlords. Juries are only for deciding who is a witch! "She turned me into a newt!
There will be witches! Maybe fewer newts.
Well, kinda both. I reckon that eventually you should be able to plant spies throughout a civilisaton (although primarily in the major cities, rather than the tiny villages) for information and security. Some of your spies might be leaking info, while others are just there to keep you out of trouble and whisper lies in the ears of the king.
Definitely; I've been thinking about this a bit, and I think one good way to add more "gameplay" into spies is to, sometimes, have a spy working for you tell you they have to meet you in person to give some information. This might be on foreign soil, friendly, or neutral. They might genuinely have vital data, or it might be a trap and they're a double agent, and have various ways to try and judge this, or swing the odds in your favour either way!
did i ptw this yet? i don't think so. so, there, i did it.
Excellent choice.
Post by: Graknorke on January 19, 2013, 06:13:38 pm
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Post by: Neonivek on January 19, 2013, 06:16:15 pm
I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Post by: Dutchling on January 19, 2013, 06:18:43 pm
Quote
However, cults will have far more human-scale gameplay effect than cults - in fact, see tomorrow's blog entry for more on this!
Hmmm?
Post by: Graknorke on January 19, 2013, 06:23:03 pm
So doesn't that make the game fantasy by virtue of it being set somewhere that doesn't exist?I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Sorry, I don't know much about genre naming standards, so most of this discussion about "low fantasy" and such is going way over my head.
Post by: Leatra on January 19, 2013, 06:25:44 pm
I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
So, every fiction book ever written counts as "fantasy" books? And in this game, we will have a lot of fictional stuff and it still won't be fantasy. I think fantasy comes into play when things that we deem impossible happens... or something. I think it's a subjective matter.
BTW, ninja'd
About genders, I think there should be some differences when it comes to genders. When my character dies and my heir is a woman, I should face some problems if the civ is male-oriented and vice versa. I'm not sure about it myself though.
Post by: Dutchling on January 19, 2013, 06:31:23 pm
So doesn't that make the game fantasy by virtue of it being set somewhere that doesn't exist?I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Sorry, I don't know much about genre naming standards, so most of this discussion about "low fantasy" and such is going way over my head.
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
Post by: Leatra on January 19, 2013, 07:07:50 pm
So doesn't that make the game fantasy by virtue of it being set somewhere that doesn't exist?I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Sorry, I don't know much about genre naming standards, so most of this discussion about "low fantasy" and such is going way over my head.
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
It's a deal. Than werewolves and all the other shape-shifters in URR it is!
Post by: Dutchling on January 19, 2013, 07:16:25 pm
So doesn't that make the game fantasy by virtue of it being set somewhere that doesn't exist?I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Sorry, I don't know much about genre naming standards, so most of this discussion about "low fantasy" and such is going way over my head.
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
It's a deal. Than caterpillars and all the other shape-shifters in URR it is!
ftfy :P
Post by: Sharp on January 20, 2013, 05:46:10 am
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
Arguable, but on other threads im sure :P
Post by: Neonivek on January 20, 2013, 05:56:21 am
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
Arguable, but on other threads im sure :P
The usual polite way of saying it is Active Dieties.
Post by: Leatra on January 20, 2013, 08:49:07 am
So doesn't that make the game fantasy by virtue of it being set somewhere that doesn't exist?I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
Sorry, I don't know much about genre naming standards, so most of this discussion about "low fantasy" and such is going way over my head.
No fantasy, in this case, means no elves, dwarves, magic, dragons, non-fictional gods, etc.
It's a deal. Than caterpillars and all the other shape-shifters in URR it is!
ftfy :P
Ruin all the fun :P
I think we are having trouble with finding a non-subjective definition for "fantasy"
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 20, 2013, 08:50:14 am
Post by: Leatra on January 20, 2013, 09:51:24 am
I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Fantasy involves stuff that doesn't exist. Whether it be a fictional land or fictional creatures.
Magic and monsters do not actually need to be involved.
So, every fiction book ever written counts as "fantasy" books? And in this game, we will have a lot of fictional stuff and it still won't be fantasy. I think fantasy comes into play when things that we deem impossible happens... or something. I think it's a subjective matter.
Btw, I think aliens are real and thus they don't make a book, a "fantasy" book when they get included in the story.
Second btw, I don't think aliens are real. Maybe... I don't know. That was just for giving an example.
Post by: Rowanas on January 20, 2013, 07:18:39 pm
Post by: varsovie on January 20, 2013, 07:40:26 pm
(yes, poisonous. The whole "saliva bacteria" theory has been completely debunked, they have venom sacs)
You shall read more carefully, the poison have a mild effect (local swelling, blood coagulation disruption), so not that bad. The main problem in a komodo bite is still the powerful jaw and the infection (At least for humans).
On animals the effect of the poison isn't documented at all (aka we don't know wtf happen).
But yeah, URR should have a Dwarven civilisation mounting Komodos.
Post by: Nighthawk on January 20, 2013, 09:12:40 pm
Post by: DoomOnion on January 22, 2013, 01:16:07 am
Also, I've noticed that people were basically saying, 'hey, this may or may not be considered 'fantastic', so can we have it in game?' with things that are clearly fantasy element.
I am baffled at how immature people can be at times.
Post by: Graknorke on January 22, 2013, 02:13:27 am
I went through the entire thread, and the author of this game made it very clear several times that there will be NO fantasy elements, i.e., no imaginary creatures or innate abilities.We've just been discussing for a firm definition of what constitutes fantasy. That is pretty much the least immature way of going about it.
Also, I've noticed that people were basically saying, 'hey, this may or may not be considered 'fantastic', so can we have it in game?' with things that are clearly fantasy element.
I am baffled at how immature people can be at times.
Post by: DoomOnion on January 22, 2013, 02:59:00 am
I think the word choice 'fantasy' isn't exactly accurate when URR said 'There isn't any FANTASY element in the game', though I generally agree that its the best word to describe it.
We all have this firm idea in the back of our heads what is right and what is not right, and trying to ramshackle the definition of Fantasy for the game is going to be very, very hard, to say the least.
I guess we are trying to almost re-invent the term fantasy here, or rather, trying to re-define it.
Post by: Leatra on January 22, 2013, 03:11:24 am
I went through the entire thread, and the author of this game made it very clear several times that there will be NO fantasy elements, i.e., no imaginary creatures or innate abilities.
Also, I've noticed that people were basically saying, 'hey, this may or may not be considered 'fantastic', so can we have it in game?' with things that are clearly fantasy element.
I am baffled at how immature people can be at times.
Hey, don't look at me like that. If you were talking about me, it's not my problem if you can't tell sarcasm. Do you think I want aliens and shape-shifters in this game? [sarcasm] Well, yeah. It would be cool. Maybe a little Cthulhu stuff would go well too. [/sarcasm] But I know stuff like that won't be in this game and I'm okay with it. [sarcasm] What do you think I am? Immature? Pfft. [/sarcasm] I gave those examples to show how subjective the word "fantasy" is. People tend to count having fictional civs as being a "fantasy" thing. We are going to have fictional civs but it still won't be fantasy.
I think we can say "THERE IS NO SPELLS AND DRAGONS AND ALIENS AND SHIT" as a short version. That covers most of the fantasy stuff.
Ah, why we are talking about this issue this much? Let's just call it "there won't be unrealistic stuff in this game" and be done with it.
Post by: DoomOnion on January 22, 2013, 03:21:26 am
Post by: Leatra on January 22, 2013, 03:28:48 am
I have a question about fantasy stuff though. What should we expect from dungeons, crypts and alike? I know there won't be anything supernatural but what will make them interesting then? I remember URR mentioned puzzles (correct me if I'm wrong) but I'm... puzzled by that answer. Solving a puzzle in a roguelike sounds like a Call of Duty point-and-click game. Just seems weird and out of genre. There are probably RL puzzles too but I have never encountered them.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 22, 2013, 07:33:43 am
I think that the definition of "fantasy" is kind of blurred.
Just stuff that doesn't exist? Stuff that can't exist? I'm not really understanding where the line lies here.
Basically, no monsters, magic, dragons, astrology, or anything else. However, there will, one day, be a few strange happenings, but I intend to keep their nature very unclear within the game.
Thanks for the responses! Always interesting to read.QuoteHowever, cults will have far more human-scale gameplay effect than cults - in fact, see tomorrow's blog entry for more on this!
Hmmm?
Whoops. Cults have more human-scale effect than RELIGIONS.
About genders, I think there should be some differences when it comes to genders. When my character dies and my heir is a woman, I should face some problems if the civ is male-oriented and vice versa. I'm not sure about it myself though.
That makes sense. Civs vary according to whether they prefer men/women/either on the throne, so I guess that could reasonably carry over into all walks of life for that civ, actually.
Oh yeah, I'm just saying that we all know what's fitting for a relatively historically accurate strategy game and what isn't by heart, it's just that the definition of 'fantasy' is a little... blurry.
I think the word choice 'fantasy' isn't exactly accurate when URR said 'There isn't any FANTASY element in the game', though I generally agree that its the best word to describe it.
We all have this firm idea in the back of our heads what is right and what is not right, and trying to ramshackle the definition of Fantasy for the game is going to be very, very hard, to say the least.
I guess we are trying to almost re-invent the term fantasy here, or rather, trying to re-define it.
Yeah, I'm using fantasy to mean both "high" and "low" fantasy, but there's another category I consider to be different, and that's the kind of thing I'm mentioning, in a roundabout way. But I don't want to say too much about that until I have some it implemented, and it is still a way off...
I think we can say "THERE IS NO SPELLS AND DRAGONS AND ALIENS AND SHIT" as a short version. That covers most of the fantasy stuff.
Ah, why we are talking about this issue this much? Let's just call it "there won't be unrealistic stuff in this game" and be done with it.
Agreed. And yes! There might one day be a bit of "weird" stuff, though.
Ba-dum-tish! No hard feelings. ;D
I have a question about fantasy stuff though. What should we expect from dungeons, crypts and alike? I know there won't be anything supernatural but what will make them interesting then? I remember URR mentioned puzzles (correct me if I'm wrong) but I'm... puzzled by that answer. Solving a puzzle in a roguelike sounds like a Call of Duty point-and-click game. Just seems weird and out of genre. There are probably RL puzzles too but I have never encountered them.
Ah, you've hit upon the fundamental question. I spent a long time considering this, and it basically boils down to - in the absence of monsters, foes, magic, etc, how does one make dungeons (in the broadest sense of the word) interesting? I've given this a lot of thought, but basically, they boil down to several aspects:
1) Appearance - I'm working on a very detailed generator at the moment, which works in 3 dimensions (some rooms can be particularly tall, have ramps, bridges, whatever), but there are also a number of "themes" that overlay the entire dungeon - sandy, overgrown, flooded, frozen, etc, and that will affect where/what you can/can't access within the dungeon. I want them to be enjoyable to explore purely from the perspective of being unusual, interesting and visually appealing (and unique!) every time you enter one.
2) Puzzles - yeeees, this is still being worked on, but I'm increasingly planning to include dungeons in the next release, so I'm sure I'll say more about this in the future, but basically I'm working on a generator which can produce procedural puzzles, though not all of them are explicitly "puzzles". Hmm. That's not very clear. Basically, there will be a lot of interactions within dungeons, which could broadly be classed as "puzzles", and will have various methods for getting through them, or solving them, or unlocking the next door, or things like that. Not just Skyrim's little spinning things with snakes on.
3) NPCs - of course, they will be few and far between, but you will bump into other NPCs in dungeons. Maybe a black market? Maybe another explorer? Maybe someone who got lost, or a crusader seeking the same artefact as you, or a ruined army taking refuge, or a cultist, or someone else.
4) Bosses - I'm not saying a thing on this until a lot later, but I have six major ideas for "bosses" that can appear in dungeons. Naturally, not all of them are combat-based.
5) Mutual interactions - dungeons of the same civilizations will interact with each other. Some might give you hints to other dungeons from that civ, or things like that. Additionally, languages will be a vital component of dungeons:
6) Murals, sculptures, etc - dungeons are going to be full of procedural sculptures, murals etc (which will actually be illustrated, like the generated main menu picture) which both give you hints about the dungeon, information about the civilization, information about languages, etc. This ties into point 1, really, that dungeons should be pleasing and interesting to explore on their own merits.
Hope that answers that a bit!
In the mean time, this week's blog entry on history generation, religions and cults, which should answer in more detail some of the earlier questions: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/01/22/history-generation-ii-religions-cults/
Post by: Man of Paper on January 22, 2013, 10:38:06 am
If you massacre a number of cults, would it be possible for other cults to recognize your hostility to the "lesser" beliefs and immediately have a negative or hostile opinion of the PC?
Will religions evolve over time as our "modern" religions have to incorporate various different tenets/beliefs?
I've gently caressed the topic of torture previously, but forgot to ask something: with a wide variety of options for careers available to the PC after character creation, will there be the option to become a Captain of the Guard, Royal Torturer, or Executioner?
How about the other positions based around a leader's court or advisers? Being on a secondary or tertiary tier of the political system, maybe even lower on the ladder, would be interesting to play as you use your mind to outmaneuver your "allies" to grab at the next step up.
With dungeons, especially more ancient ones, will we see nifty traps? While many people think trapped ruins are something of Indiana Jones-esque fantasy, I know of at least one tomb in China that still isn't fully explored due to the danger of delving further into it. Maybe have some text pop up (You hear a gentle *click* or You feel something tug on your ankle.) before the trap activates depending on the trigger, giving the PC a moment to react before they get arrow'd/boulder'd/pitted/buried alive.
What about the use of "alchemy"? Something that some civs may perceive as magic but what we know is science?
Also, on a totally different tangent (as you may have noticed is my M.O. by now), will you be able to set up suppliers as a merchant or craftsman? If I'm a metalsmith I'd rather spend all my time beating the hell out of some hot metal than punching rocks. Will royal commissions also be possible? For example, if a civ is going to war but is short on equipment, would it be possible to see them request that local smiths mass produce arms and armor at a base price?
Will the medical "profession" (since it was practically guesswork in many cases back then) be open to the PC as well? If so, how will the more complex procedures be handled?
Keep up the great work.
EDIT: Changed out the yellow color. Holy balls, my eyes.
Post by: Rowanas on January 23, 2013, 11:20:01 am
I don't see that any of these need specialised interfaces, honestly. It seems to me that the basic structure of Give/Promise A in return for Give/Promise B would work neatly for everything, and provide a vast scope for trading, wheeling and dealing. Even better if you can namedrop other people to bolster your petition ("The clans of Anglia, Gallaway and Fife have already pledged their swords and pastures to our victory", or "I have received a commission and early payment from The Regent for one thousand swords, although I understand if his gold isn't good enough). The red words denote names and agreements (I think "contract" is probably the best catch-all term) that you've already made. Such a system would also mke it easy to keep track of contracts via an information screen, perhaps with tabs for military, economic and other types of contract, and also, of course, the person or group with whom the contract was made.
Post by: Neonivek on January 23, 2013, 11:40:26 am
Quote
no magic, astrology,
Not even fake Magic and fake astrology?
I somehow suspected witches and warlocks would be in there somewhere.
Post by: peskyninja on January 23, 2013, 02:43:56 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 23, 2013, 03:15:38 pm
I've played the first versions, and stoped until today. When fisrt creating a world, something amused me, there are actually planets. Not only restricted to th eone where you play but a whole solar system. But can someone clarify what will be possible to do with them inthe future versions?As far as I can tell it's for flavour later, and maybe may come up in religious business.
Then again, I've been wrong so far. A lot.
Post by: Edmus on January 23, 2013, 06:24:24 pm
He said there will there be witches.Quoteno magic, astrology,
Not even fake Magic and fake astrology?
I somehow suspected witches and warlocks would be in there somewhere.
Post by: Graknorke on January 23, 2013, 06:25:51 pm
Witches as in poor people who are better at something than rich people. The rich people then declare the poor person a "witch", and get them killed.He said there will there be witches.Quoteno magic, astrology,
Not even fake Magic and fake astrology?
I somehow suspected witches and warlocks would be in there somewhere.
Like how witches have always worked.
Post by: Lightningfalcon on January 23, 2013, 08:21:51 pm
Post by: Neonivek on January 23, 2013, 08:52:31 pm
Quote
Witches as in poor people who are better at something than rich people. The rich people then declare the poor person a "witch", and get them killed.
Like how witches have always worked
Actually it is quite complex though you have caught onto one of the major uses of Witch hunts. They are there to be used against your enemies.
I heard that the witch hunts in france was actually a anti-women measure to keep them pacified so to speak.
Though everyone always looks at the Witch Hunts in terms of "Religion is evil" when it is actually a lot more complex then that and for once, actually a bit more removed from religion (I believe the Catholic church's stance in this time period was that not only do witches not exist, as it goes against their teachings, but that believing they do is a form of heresy).
Though what exactly is "religions fault" and what is people "using religion as a weapon" is a hard line to really pull.
Post by: Edmus on January 23, 2013, 09:33:34 pm
Yeah, fake magic made up by the rich. :)Witches as in poor people who are better at something than rich people. The rich people then declare the poor person a "witch", and get them killed.He said there will there be witches.Quoteno magic, astrology,
Not even fake Magic and fake astrology?
I somehow suspected witches and warlocks would be in there somewhere.
Like how witches have always worked.
Post by: Graknorke on January 24, 2013, 12:25:51 pm
Well, witches are in the Bible.QuoteWitches as in poor people who are better at something than rich people. The rich people then declare the poor person a "witch", and get them killed.
Like how witches have always worked
Actually it is quite complex though you have caught onto one of the major uses of Witch hunts. They are there to be used against your enemies.
I heard that the witch hunts in france was actually a anti-women measure to keep them pacified so to speak.
Though everyone always looks at the Witch Hunts in terms of "Religion is evil" when it is actually a lot more complex then that and for once, actually a bit more removed from religion (I believe the Catholic church's stance in this time period was that not only do witches not exist, as it goes against their teachings, but that believing they do is a form of heresy).
Though what exactly is "religions fault" and what is people "using religion as a weapon" is a hard line to really pull.
http://bible.cc/exodus/22-18.htm (http://bible.cc/exodus/22-18.htm)
So... I don't know. Different interpretations or something. People are weird.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 24, 2013, 01:15:09 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 24, 2013, 01:17:59 pm
I assumed it was more of a 'poor people are evil and we want what you rightfully have because you can't protect yourself' kinda thingYeah, pretty much. Except it was less what the person had and more what the person did. Like if there was an old couple living on the edge of town who did medicine for people then a rich family might decide to have them tried as witches in order to sell their medical abilities to people who would have otherwise gone to the "witches".
Post by: Leatra on January 24, 2013, 08:38:29 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on January 24, 2013, 09:14:57 pm
Instead it was cultists dressed in their weird cultist robes and the locals let fear get the best of them.
Well, that started off as a response to your statement, but it turned into a scenario I fully want to see happen when I play a fuller version of URR. Thank you booze!
Post by: Neonivek on January 25, 2013, 03:26:06 am
I assumed it was more of a 'poor people are evil and we want what you rightfully have because you can't protect yourself' kinda thingYeah, pretty much. Except it was less what the person had and more what the person did. Like if there was an old couple living on the edge of town who did medicine for people then a rich family might decide to have them tried as witches in order to sell their medical abilities to people who would have otherwise gone to the "witches".
It is specifically because the rich feared the poor and the poor feared the rich and thus they were constantly having a class battle.
Post by: Xantalos on January 25, 2013, 03:32:38 am
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on January 25, 2013, 04:19:17 am
Post by: Neonivek on January 25, 2013, 04:22:10 am
This is added to my ever-growing list of good rougelikes.
I am waiting on a few features before it enters my very exclusive list.
Mostly I am waiting for significance, plot, and intrigue
Post by: Nighthawk on January 25, 2013, 04:37:56 pm
You're probably gonna be waiting a long time.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 25, 2013, 04:45:36 pm
Mostly I am waiting for significance, plot, and intrigue
This is significant because its the DEFINING ROGUELIKE OF THE CENTURY other than df.
Plots are for beardless dwarves.
Im pretty sure politics involves intrigue.
Post by: Leatra on January 25, 2013, 07:10:48 pm
It's turning out well I think.
By the way, will there be something like the Legends mode we have in DF? If you don't know, it allows you to have a look at everything in the world you created (and affected). From big things like wars to simple individuals who didn't really affect the history anyway.
Post by: Xantalos on January 25, 2013, 08:53:56 pm
That's one thing games don't seem to do well: Feeling like you're changing history. I really hope this game delivers that.The primary reason I don't play MMO's.
Post by: varsovie on January 26, 2013, 04:10:38 pm
That's one thing games don't seem to do well: Feeling like you're changing history. I really hope this game delivers that.
You should play more grand strategy games then. And I've seen some games that let you choose your path. Anyway being part of the history is the first step, let hope URR get that right.
Post by: miauw62 on January 26, 2013, 04:20:17 pm
On the other hand, I have tonnes of games to play right now. I guess this goes on my "will play later" list.
Post by: Dutchling on January 26, 2013, 05:22:23 pm
Hmm, looks like I'm missing soemthing by not paying attention to this.
On the other hand, I have tonnes of games to play right now. I guess this goes on my "will play later" list.
It should. There really isn't much to play right now.
Post by: Neonivek on January 26, 2013, 06:03:08 pm
Mostly I am waiting for significance, plot, and intrigue
This is significant because its the DEFINING ROGUELIKE OF THE CENTURY other than df.
Plots are for beardless dwarves.
Im pretty sure politics involves intrigue.
Nope, you cannot weasle out of the three step requirement. It is ingame measurements.
As well Plot is not what you may think it is.
Post by: Leatra on January 26, 2013, 06:27:25 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on January 26, 2013, 06:30:50 pm
This game is all plots! Gah!
Post by: Neonivek on January 26, 2013, 06:38:43 pm
Plots should be created by the players. This isn't a game where you follow a plot, it's a game where you create a plot.
Plots are created by the players and carried by the game. If the game doesn't hold plot then it just doesn't.
Quote
While every NPC has their own plots they're formulating to attain their goals.
This game is all plots! Gah!
and that would be the intrigue requirement. Ignoring that you are joking.
Post by: Devling on January 26, 2013, 09:30:38 pm
(Lame puns woo)
Post by: Leatra on January 26, 2013, 09:41:28 pm
Plots should be created by the players. This isn't a game where you follow a plot, it's a game where you create a plot.
Plots are created by the players and carried by the game. If the game doesn't hold plot then it just doesn't.
I'm guessing you don't like sandbox games like DF and Minecraft. Games like these are not supposed to have plots.
Post by: Neonivek on January 26, 2013, 09:49:52 pm
Quote
I'm guessing you don't like sandbox games like DF and Minecraft. Games like these are not supposed to have plots
That is just thinking small.
Especially since Dwarf Fortress is trying to put the plot into the game.
Post by: Devling on January 26, 2013, 09:52:56 pm
Perhaps in retrospect, but at the time your just doing the best thing you can manage(usually).
It should be like that in this game.
Post by: Leatra on January 26, 2013, 10:06:01 pm
A game like this can't have a plot. I wouldn't really like it if the game had a plot anyway.
Post by: Neonivek on January 26, 2013, 10:13:07 pm
In URR, if you uttarly harass someone of equal power what do they do?
Plot is really the game to recognise people's actions and reactions and have the game restructure itself to the player. In otherwords it needs to construct a narrative.
Quote
A game like this can't have a plot. I wouldn't really like it if the game had a plot anyway
It can have plot.
Though as you know the three requirements: Plot, Intrigue, and significance... are just the requirements for it to be on my list of "great games". Though not the only way.
-Plot: It needs to act and react to the player and construct a narrative based around that.
-Intrigue: The game needs depth and for history and characters to act in a way that isn't nessisarily about dirrect confrontational conflict. An ability to pry further so to speak.
-Significance: The game needs to have the player's actions to feel significant at least within his/her sphere of influence.
All these are linked to eachother and you either have all three or none of the three.
To put it simple, not having plot just means the game doesn't care about you. You are a completely insignificant nobody in a world where no one cares or does anything of significance. You may be power but no one really cares about power, they may oppose you but only because that is the rule of the world.
THAT is what having no plot is. Dwarf Fortress is definately trying to have a plot.
Post by: Devling on January 26, 2013, 11:20:54 pm
That is the story, it is set in stone for everyone.
In this game I just want to be released on the world and make my own story.
Is that what people getting at?
Post by: Nelia Hawk on January 26, 2013, 11:58:14 pm
i think of it more like the npc actions and not a premade linear-ish story for the player.
i.e.:
player can do whatever he wants... like joining a army and getting a order by the general to spy on a enemy army north of the castle. (the "plot part" would be the general wanting to know info about the enemy army. if you wouldnt have been there he might have send a npc scout/spy skilled guy out for that)
now your up to whatever you want to do as player again...
going to the enemy army... spying for informations on whatever way you seem fit... or failing to do so. (getting injured too much or captured).
or ignoring the order and running off in a random direction instead... leaving your general without information... so plot wise he might send another guy some days later or the enemy army has a advantage in a upcoming battle then.
where i.e. in skyrim terms you meet your army leader and get a quest to spy on the enemy... and the "plot" doesnt advance atall till you finish your next quest objective.
i am pretty sure skyrim doesnt realy let any stuff happen without you involved. (or the game randomness spawning stuff)
i.e. you running off elsewhere instead for a week and when you come back the general still sits there waiting for your information.... where the general could have send another guy in 2 days later because you didnt come back... or the army might be dead already when you come back after a week because the enemy generals "plot" saw an advantage in a surprise attack.
so its more what the npcs are doing/going after themself... if the player is nearby he can get involved... but if he is not nearby or doesnt want to be involved the npcs are still doing what they want to do to try to get their "plot goals" done.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 27, 2013, 12:09:09 am
What DF is going for is a little more complicated. You can do what you want but you're only kind of making your own story because the results of your actions are unpredictable. In Skyrim if you set out to kill a necromancer you're gonna kill a necromancer and get your quest reward, even if you have to reload a few times to do it. In DF you might kill the necromancer or you might die trying, or suffer some lesser failure like capture, retreat, or loss of limb, and the story will continue either way. People and factions will reevaluate what they think about you based on killing the necromancer, and the fact that the necromancer is dead will influence the fate of the world or at least the local region. You're strongly influencing the story, but the world as a whole exists and reacts independently of the player.
Personally I think this sort of thing is awesome. Steal your neighbor's silverwear and become the subject of bad gossip, kill the dragon and be showered in gifts. Assassinate the tyrant and watch as your civilization descends into infighting and everyone is enslaved by goblins. It all sounds like good fun.
Fakeedit: I spent a bunch of time typing this up and I'm posting it even if it overlaps with what Nelia said
Post by: Leatra on January 27, 2013, 12:33:20 am
I'm optimistic about URR though.
Post by: Devling on January 27, 2013, 05:29:42 pm
Post by: Graknorke on January 27, 2013, 05:34:02 pm
But no matter what level of influence you have, your actions will have 100% impact on your personal sphere of influence.
Post by: Putnam on January 27, 2013, 09:11:24 pm
Or you kill a lot of unimportant people.
Or a lot of important people, for that matter.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 28, 2013, 11:33:24 am
After reading the blog entry, I imagined the scenario of a King's most trusted adviser secretly pulling strings to increase the influence of the cult he secretly follows. Corrupting the king (in a non-fantasy aspect), possibly poisoning him to keep him pliable. Similar to Wormtongue (Lord of the Rings).
If you massacre a number of cults, would it be possible for other cults to recognize your hostility to the "lesser" beliefs and immediately have a negative or hostile opinion of the PC?
Will religions evolve over time as our "modern" religions have to incorporate various different tenets/beliefs?
I've gently caressed the topic of torture previously, but forgot to ask something: with a wide variety of options for careers available to the PC after character creation, will there be the option to become a Captain of the Guard, Royal Torturer, or Executioner?
How about the other positions based around a leader's court or advisers? Being on a secondary or tertiary tier of the political system, maybe even lower on the ladder, would be interesting to play as you use your mind to outmaneuver your "allies" to grab at the next step up.
With dungeons, especially more ancient ones, will we see nifty traps? While many people think trapped ruins are something of Indiana Jones-esque fantasy, I know of at least one tomb in China that still isn't fully explored due to the danger of delving further into it. Maybe have some text pop up (You hear a gentle *click* or You feel something tug on your ankle.) before the trap activates depending on the trigger, giving the PC a moment to react before they get arrow'd/boulder'd/pitted/buried alive.
What about the use of "alchemy"? Something that some civs may perceive as magic but what we know is science?
Also, on a totally different tangent (as you may have noticed is my M.O. by now), will you be able to set up suppliers as a merchant or craftsman? If I'm a metalsmith I'd rather spend all my time beating the hell out of some hot metal than punching rocks. Will royal commissions also be possible? For example, if a civ is going to war but is short on equipment, would it be possible to see them request that local smiths mass produce arms and armor at a base price?
Will the medical "profession" (since it was practically guesswork in many cases back then) be open to the PC as well? If so, how will the more complex procedures be handled?
Keep up the great work.
EDIT: Changed out the yellow color. Holy balls, my eyes.
I really like the cults-being-careful idea; on the other hand, wiping out one cult could also make another like you all the more. Religions will evolve over time, and that will be a component of sometimes splitting into sects, if they just cannot agree on a key theological dispute. I think that kind of climbing the ladder - through non-combat means - is something you don't often see in games, and something I'm really keen to include. It's basically "intrigue", I guess! Dungeons are going to be absolutely full to the brim with traps, and various generated puzzles (tomb of Qin Shi Huang?). As for the puzzles, don't worry, it's not that stupid sliding block puzzle, or anything like that. I'll be saying a lot more about this in later blog entries, but I really enjoy the kinds of puzzle you get on IQ tests and the like, spatial puzzles, logical ones, and I'm in the (very) early stages of working on a way to get the game to generate those puzzles, and have them (in SOME dungeons, I stress, not all) appear in relevant areas, and have them get harder and harder as you go further in a dungeon. Some might have punishments for wrong answers - pick the wrong shape, and the room starts to flood, etc. I'm not yet sure how traps are going to work , but I *love* your suggestion for a click, or something similar, when you're moving in the wrong direction, or maybe some one-frame visual cue. Great idea! I shall definitely include that. I'm not yet sure how to fully include traps - I don't want a "traps skill" at that seems absurd, I think the player needs to be able to spot them, but I don't know how to do that in an ANSI game. Working on it. Alchemy... as in, "proper" alchemy, metals, immortality, Great Work, transmutation, etc, might actually become a significant element. Not sure yet. Yes to suppliers, I think, and I like the royal commission idea a lot. Could add to the history generation particular families of blacksmiths etc that are favoured by particular rulers? I think I want a reasonable, though not immense, amount of detail to medicine etc - but I have no clue whatsoever yet what form that will take! And thanks :)
Man of paper, a couple of things you and URR have mentioned have brought up something I want to ask. If commissions and requests exist, it would make sense to include it in the same vein as trades. For personal scale, legal trades, a local market would be a place to deal in both items and promises (Commission a local blacksmith to construct armour for you and half a dozen good men in return for partial prepayment), personal scale, illegal trades could be carried out at either a location in-city or at a local black market or dive bar located in a dungeon or ruin (organised murders to improve your position, following someone to an illegal sanctuary to hold over them as blackmail, illegal drugs and other shady deals). Larger scale deals would generally require meeting someone much higher up the chain, or making a variety of smaller deals, like visiting a local lord for a militay commission, gathering an alliance of merchants to peddle your war loot, or meeting a tribal chieftain to gather promised support for an upcoming campaign.
I don't see that any of these need specialised interfaces, honestly. It seems to me that the basic structure of Give/Promise A in return for Give/Promise B would work neatly for everything, and provide a vast scope for trading, wheeling and dealing. Even better if you can namedrop other people to bolster your petition ("The clans of Anglia, Gallaway and Fife have already pledged their swords and pastures to our victory", or "I have received a commission and early payment from The Regent for one thousand swords, although I understand if his gold isn't good enough). The red words denote names and agreements (I think "contract" is probably the best catch-all term) that you've already made. Such a system would also mke it easy to keep track of contracts via an information screen, perhaps with tabs for military, economic and other types of contract, and also, of course, the person or group with whom the contract was made.
I love the sound of basically everything in that first paragraph. I see your point about interfaces, though as I'm "hand-making" much of the game, they might end up with different interfaces. On the other end, I very much see the strength of your suggestion. But some kind of screen for keeping track of contracts, deals, agreements, promises, etc, seems like a must. As for namedropping, once I get the speech system going, I love the idea of being able to namedrop in that context!
Quoteno magic, astrology,
Not even fake Magic and fake astrology?
I somehow suspected witches and warlocks would be in there somewhere.
Ah, fake magic, well... very likely, actually.
I've played the first versions, and stoped until today. When fisrt creating a world, something amused me, there are actually planets. Not only restricted to th eone where you play but a whole solar system. But can someone clarify what will be possible to do with them inthe future versions?
You can only play on "the Earth", but planets will be important to religions, cults, puzzles... and they just look nice. For now, the second half is the focus :).
I'm more interested in the quality of procedural generation for history, world, civs, religions, and pretty much everything. These kind of things are important if you want to have the feel of changing the history, which is what I want to do in this game. I really want to create chaos in a civ by assassinations and sabotages then see what happens.
It's turning out well I think.
By the way, will there be something like the Legends mode we have in DF? If you don't know, it allows you to have a look at everything in the world you created (and affected). From big things like wars to simple individuals who didn't really affect the history anyway.
That's one thing games don't seem to do well: Feeling like you're changing history. I really hope this game delivers that.
I agree, I think the ability to "change history" is absolutely vital. Even games that allow you choices, like Mass Effect, are just "good"/"evil" ones, and outcomes are rarely too different. I'm hoping - thinking about the long-term here - that choices will actually totally change the world. Yes - there is an in-game encyclopedia (which I am currently working on) which has a VAST amount of information on everything ranging from noble families, civ histories, poisons, famous ships, famous battles, historical figures, known settlements, and everything else. It's a big part of 0.3, and at the moment my focus is largely on getting the required code/data structures for it working nicely, and more importantly, quickly. "Normal" citizens will not be in the encyclopedia, simply because I want populations of realistic nation-size, and those are large numbers.
Think of it this way.
In URR, if you uttarly harass someone of equal power what do they do?
Plot is really the game to recognise people's actions and reactions and have the game restructure itself to the player. In otherwords it needs to construct a narrative.QuoteA game like this can't have a plot. I wouldn't really like it if the game had a plot anyway
It can have plot.
Though as you know the three requirements: Plot, Intrigue, and significance... are just the requirements for it to be on my list of "great games". Though not the only way.
-Plot: It needs to act and react to the player and construct a narrative based around that.
-Intrigue: The game needs depth and for history and characters to act in a way that isn't nessisarily about dirrect confrontational conflict. An ability to pry further so to speak.
-Significance: The game needs to have the player's actions to feel significant at least within his/her sphere of influence.
All these are linked to eachother and you either have all three or none of the three.
To put it simple, not having plot just means the game doesn't care about you. You are a completely insignificant nobody in a world where no one cares or does anything of significance. You may be power but no one really cares about power, they may oppose you but only because that is the rule of the world.
THAT is what having no plot is. Dwarf Fortress is definately trying to have a plot.
Narratives are important. Just as the game can construct narratives for myths, legends and deities and all that (see, hopefully, the next blog entry) I also intend to get it to generate written, encyclopedia-like narratives for civilizations, people and families, and the like. I've got the early stages of this going already. I like your definition of the three - I'm definitely after that. The player's actions, if noteworthy enough, will get them an entry in the encyclopedia as a mass-murderer, great diplomat, warrior, general, explorer, or whatever. That entry will then update as you go along. YES, clearly, in the real world in the 1600s there was no such function, but I think it's sufficiently cool to omit realism just here. However, only entries you "know" about will be in the encyclopedia; undiscovered civs won't appear until you find them.
I think what Neonivek is saying is that the game needs cause and effect. In a "make your own story" kind of game, you act on the world and it doesn't act back. For example in Skyrim you can advance in two factions that don't like each other (like the thief's guild and near anyone else) and neither faction's members will dislike you no matter how obvious it is that you're playing both sides. This is because cause and effect in Skyrim is very scripted; if you steal from someone, for instance, that person will dislike you and the guards will attempt to arrest you, but after that the way people react to you doesn't change at all. Law-abiding citizens that really shouldn't want to associate with a thief (or a murderer!) will still cheerfully greet you as long as they weren't directly wronged.
What DF is going for is a little more complicated. You can do what you want but you're only kind of making your own story because the results of your actions are unpredictable. In Skyrim if you set out to kill a necromancer you're gonna kill a necromancer and get your quest reward, even if you have to reload a few times to do it. In DF you might kill the necromancer or you might die trying, or suffer some lesser failure like capture, retreat, or loss of limb, and the story will continue either way. People and factions will reevaluate what they think about you based on killing the necromancer, and the fact that the necromancer is dead will influence the fate of the world or at least the local region. You're strongly influencing the story, but the world as a whole exists and reacts independently of the player.
Personally I think this sort of thing is awesome. Steal your neighbor's silverwear and become the subject of bad gossip, kill the dragon and be showered in gifts. Assassinate the tyrant and watch as your civilization descends into infighting and everyone is enslaved by goblins. It all sounds like good fun.
Fakeedit: I spent a bunch of time typing this up and I'm posting it even if it overlaps with what Nelia said
I think "the story will continue either way" is the key point. The entire world should react to one's actions (and the actions fo NPCs) - sure, yes, clearly, someone in a city half-way around the world won't give a damn if you stole a chicken from someone, but that person certainly will (yes, painfully mundane example, but still). I do want to set up a situation where not all locations, civs, cities etc are safe for the player because of their actions. One thing I don't like in games with "choice" is that you still have access to basically everything, regardless of choice, in a lot of these games. I'd prefer that actions that make one civ like you mean another civ puts out a bounty on your head; I want to really encourage the player to make their alliances carefully, I suppose, and that those will have negative, as well as positive, consequences.
Oh, I get it now. I agree completely. When I think of "plot" I think of something that's enforced by the game. Like how it's done in Skyrim like others mentioned. In Skyrim, whenever you enter a new city which you have never entered, you see all kinds of things. An execution, people running up to you and asking for help, people talking about something which you overhear and start a quest, etc. NOTHING happens when you are not around. When you complete a big quest (like completing the Imperial or Stormcloak storyline) there isn't a big change in the game like you should have expected too. Most games which allows the player to make big decisions lack this.
I'm optimistic about URR though.
Yeah, the lack of big change is a shame. I hope to reach the stage that if a civ is sacked, it stays sacked, and that's it. No more city!
I imagine unless your a big important person (or you kill a big important person) you won't have a huge effect on the world.
I hope to have other methods. For instance, if you're an explorer and you find a non-combat artefact, returning that to someone relevant might get you noticed, get you more quests for similar, gain influence with some people, have offers for payments for similar, etc etc...
Post by: Man of Paper on January 28, 2013, 12:12:00 pm
It'd be neat to be something of an artifact (artefact I assume is the non-American English spelling? I try to use those, didn't know that one though!) hunter though. And if storing them somewhere opened up the opportunity for thieves. Hell, carrying them may get you targeted. Especially if they have faction alignment involved. For example, an artifact associated with a polytheist religion might get you targeted by vatican assassins from Mars who want to destabilize their religious enemies.
Post by: miauw62 on January 28, 2013, 01:36:56 pm
QuoteI'm guessing you don't like sandbox games like DF and Minecraft. Games like these are not supposed to have plots
That is just thinking small.
Especially since Dwarf Fortress is trying to put the plot into the game.
Sources please? Toady is trying to make the world more immersive, but by no means is he trying to add a plot.
Post by: DoomOnion on January 28, 2013, 02:19:43 pm
Post by: Willfor on January 28, 2013, 02:29:06 pm
I am starting to think that Neonivek's definition of [ANYTHING] is not even close to the popular definition of [ANYTHING].A bit of a fix there.
It makes conversing with him a bit difficult, because there is an added layer of trying to figure out what he's trying to say instead of what he's apparently saying.
Post by: Sergius on January 28, 2013, 03:42:57 pm
I am starting to think that Neonivek's definition of [ANYTHING] is not even close to the popular definition of [ANYTHING].A bit of a fix there.
It makes conversing with him a bit difficult, because there is an added layer of trying to figure out what he's trying to say instead of what he's apparently saying.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. "They've a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they're the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"
Post by: Sharp on January 29, 2013, 05:36:46 am
This belongs in a museum!
It'd be neat to be something of an artifact (artefact I assume is the non-American English spelling? I try to use those, didn't know that one though!) hunter though. And if storing them somewhere opened up the opportunity for thieves. Hell, carrying them may get you targeted. Especially if they have faction alignment involved. For example, an artifact associated with a polytheist religion might get you targeted by vatican assassins from Mars who want to destabilize their religious enemies.
Water? No Thank You, Fish make love in it.
Would be interesting to be an Indiana Jones style character, museums and collectors would pay lots of money for old works of arts. I wonder though are artifacts going to be in a dwarf fortress style where they can be randomly created (and randomly be anything?), perhaps it's better to make an item an artifact depending on who has used it or the rarity of it so perhaps you can hunt for stolen/long-lost crowns of kings of old.
Collections of items would also be interesting, like collecting all pieces of a ceremonial armour set or works of an artist.
Post by: Rowanas on January 29, 2013, 09:47:38 pm
Post by: Devling on January 29, 2013, 10:19:45 pm
Post by: Hugehead on January 29, 2013, 11:08:28 pm
Post by: Valid_Dark on January 29, 2013, 11:15:27 pm
Post by: Trollheiming on January 30, 2013, 04:05:30 am
Incidentally, yes, artefact in the British English way of saying it (colloquially known as the "right way").
Writing it, you mean. There's no correct "British" way to say anything, because you Brits have a hundred zany dialects throughout Britain, from Posh to Scouse to Yorkshire and everything in between.
Post by: varsovie on January 30, 2013, 06:10:21 am
Post by: Edmus on January 30, 2013, 06:29:41 am
Post by: Man of Paper on January 30, 2013, 10:00:50 am
Post by: Leatra on January 30, 2013, 10:34:29 am
Post by: Man of Paper on January 30, 2013, 10:48:43 am
Post by: Leatra on January 30, 2013, 12:37:17 pm
Post by: Rowanas on January 30, 2013, 05:14:50 pm
Post by: Glloyd on February 01, 2013, 12:36:57 pm
Complexity for the overly complex, occasionally unnecessary and generally over-verbose complexity god!
All hail the complexity god!
Post by: Neonivek on February 01, 2013, 12:47:00 pm
Complexity for the overly complex, occasionally unnecessary and generally over-verbose complexity god!
I am willing to take Overly complex so long as it has a good UI.
If I can ever find out why scanning planets doesn't work for me in Aurora Id be fine with it too :P
Post by: Graknorke on February 01, 2013, 01:36:26 pm
While this isn't the Aurora thread; I think it is fair to speculate that the reason scanning planets isn't working is because either the ship doesn't have a survey module, or you're doing to orders wrong.Complexity for the overly complex, occasionally unnecessary and generally over-verbose complexity god!
I am willing to take Overly complex so long as it has a good UI.
If I can ever find out why scanning planets doesn't work for me in Aurora Id be fine with it too :P
Post by: Neonivek on February 01, 2013, 01:42:27 pm
Post by: Dutchling on February 01, 2013, 01:45:04 pm
That said, I do not think we need to worry about this regarding URR.
Post by: Leatra on February 02, 2013, 01:52:06 am
'would be really awesome if only it was playable.'
Yeah, that was the feeling I got with Aurora too. Before I played the game, it had endless possibilities in my mind. After trying the game, that potential became zero. A game's UI has to be able to handle the game's complexity first.
I think URR's excellent UI can handle any complexity. Just look at the screenshots on the first page of this thread to see what Mark is capable of when it comes to working with ASCII and ANSI. Generated art? That wins more than a few points.
Post by: Edmus on February 02, 2013, 04:10:22 am
A little off topic:
Will weapons be regional? I wanna travel to the far east and grab a katana. :P If this is the case will environment influence these weapon types, or will it be technology (hammers being developed against armour).
Post by: Graknorke on February 02, 2013, 05:19:16 am
Post by: Edmus on February 02, 2013, 06:23:47 am
That was just an example, could be travelling to find halberds or those obsidian saw swords from central america (name eludes me).
Post by: Neonivek on February 02, 2013, 06:57:33 am
You know the old Samurai versus a Knight? The Knight would likely win that because the Katana wasn't made to fight someone with the Knights armor.
MIND YOU! I can take that for the sake of variety.
Post by: Korbac on February 02, 2013, 07:00:37 am
Ask me for example. I've been practicing with a teeny - meeny knife for 21 years, and it can cut through blocks of sheer butter.
Post by: Rowanas on February 02, 2013, 10:59:36 am
To be said chump
That was just an example, could be travelling to find halberds or those obsidian saw swords from central america (name eludes me).
Macuahuitl.
You know what? That's it. I've had it with this *masterwork katana* bullshit. Dinky pinky kitchen knives get shafted too often in the D20 system, and it's time they got the respect they deserved.Fresh from the fridge, or so you have to warm it up lightly? I once cut through 2 layers of bread, 1 of bacon, cheese and lettuce with a kitchen knife, like a baus.
Ask me for example. I've been practicing with a teeny - meeny knife for 21 years, and it can cut through blocks of sheer butter.
Post by: Mesa on February 02, 2013, 11:46:14 am
Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.
Post by: hops on February 02, 2013, 11:57:16 am
Post by: Leatra on February 02, 2013, 12:11:31 pm
Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.
You know the old Samurai versus a Knight? The Knight would likely win that because the Katana wasn't made to fight someone with the Knights armor.There is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable.
Post by: Rowanas on February 02, 2013, 06:55:25 pm
Incidentally, MACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMAC.
EDIT: What I meant was: Would you mind posting something we can compile ourselves, as this might provide mac and linux users with the beginnings of a means by which to play. While I doubt it would be easy, it's much easier than trying to get an exe to work, especially if we're using OSX 10.5, which wine and playonmac won't support.
Post by: coolio678 on February 02, 2013, 07:18:16 pm
I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to do. You might just need URR's permission to make it, first.Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.
Post by: Neonivek on February 02, 2013, 07:25:41 pm
Quote
There is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable
While realistic there is also the sense of gameplay.
SHOULD we make, for example, the Katana (if it was in the game... which it isn't but lets say this was the world expansion and every country's equivilant was in the game) weak to heavy metal armor?
Ultimate Rate of Registry what are your viewpoints on this?
Post by: Graknorke on February 02, 2013, 07:55:37 pm
Because it sucks.
Post by: Neonivek on February 02, 2013, 08:59:44 pm
The katana should be weak to everything.
Because it sucks.
The concept behind it is that it is a slashing weapon. Scimitars and Calvalry Sabres also use that concept.
Post by: coolio678 on February 02, 2013, 09:13:03 pm
I like the idea of weapons having advantages and disadvantages, so then your adventurer (if that's your life choice) doesn't carry around a certain weapon because it has complete dominance over the others. Things likeQuoteThere is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable
While realistic there is also the sense of gameplay.
SHOULD we make, for example, the Katana (if it was in the game... which it isn't but lets say this was the world expansion and every country's equivilant was in the game) weak to heavy metal armor?
Ultimate Rate of Registry what are your viewpoints on this?
Also, another idea that sprang to mind, is maybe "special abilities" for them, like halberds having a sweep attack, that swings an arc in front of you, or daggers allowing you to aim for the joints of thick armor (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what they were used for back in the day, right?) I'm not too sure about this, actually.
Post by: Graknorke on February 03, 2013, 04:45:35 am
But scimitars and sabres tend to be made from actual high-quality metals. And are light enough to be held in one hand with a suitable grip. As opposed to katanas which were made of poor quality iron and were unwieldy and generally not much use at fighting things.The katana should be weak to everything.
Because it sucks.
The concept behind it is that it is a slashing weapon. Scimitars and Calvalry Sabres also use that concept.
Though I can still get behind curved weapons in general being deflected by armour easily.
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 12:51:57 pm
They even let the samurais get one practice swing. It later became the inspiration for golf, after Lord Gorufu, who was famous for chopping their necks with an upward, instead of a downward, swing.
Post by: Frank2368 on February 03, 2013, 12:55:17 pm
High quality plate armour usually has chain mail and linen padding protecting the joints so even with a well placed dagger hit, it's almost impossible to penetrate. Up against a man in plate armour, I guess the man with the dagger could try to stab his enemy's face or slash his throat... which probably wouldn't work out very well given the dagger's lack of reachI like the idea of weapons having advantages and disadvantages, so then your adventurer (if that's your life choice) doesn't carry around a certain weapon because it has complete dominance over the others. Things likeQuoteThere is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable
While realistic there is also the sense of gameplay.
SHOULD we make, for example, the Katana (if it was in the game... which it isn't but lets say this was the world expansion and every country's equivilant was in the game) weak to heavy metal armor?
Ultimate Rate of Registry what are your viewpoints on this?riflesmuskets (?) should be able to penetrate heavy armor, but have long reload times, halberds or the like should be slow to attack, and pierce metal. katana's (and other slashy cutty things) should be quick attacks, but not so effective against heavy, metal armor.
Also, another idea that sprang to mind, is maybe "special abilities" for them, like halberds having a sweep attack, that swings an arc in front of you, or daggers allowing you to aim for the joints of thick armor (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what they were used for back in the day, right?) I'm not too sure about this, actually.
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 01:00:26 pm
That and crossbows. There's a reason the actual knights came crying to the Pope so that he would ban those unfair nasty crossbows.
Post by: Frank2368 on February 03, 2013, 01:01:41 pm
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 01:07:36 pm
Post by: Frank2368 on February 03, 2013, 01:17:13 pm
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 01:46:20 pm
Couldn't they use heavy maces? Or other blunt weapons
Well they were usually armed with lances and atop horses, and had their longswords as their backup weapons or something. They probably had macemen as infantry, and they occasionally were armed with maces themselves, but it was probably not very common, or they didn't plan to dismount and fight another knight so far ahead. It's not like you can have an inventory of 20 or so weapons/armours in your backpack at all times like in Baldur's Gate 8)
Post by: Sharp on February 03, 2013, 01:48:45 pm
I used to think katana's were just showy but they work just as well vs metal as longswords even better overall, though hammers would beat both unless your aiming for joints in armour to poke.
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 02:03:50 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDkoj932YFo&feature=player_detailpage#t=368s
I used to think katana's were just showy but they work just as well vs metal as longswords even better overall, though hammers would beat both unless your aiming for joints in armour to poke.
I think nearly every sword nut (?) in the internet agrees that episode is pure crap. (I am not one of them, I just use Google, but even when *I* saw it I thought it was fishy)
Also, that's a modern katana made with modern materials and probably was through hardened. Japanese had to fold theirs because their iron was rubbish and used some other hardening method, in the end a japanese sword hitting armor would end up bent out of shape and chipped.
For some reason, in that video, medieval sword looks a bit... thin and wobbly. Probably some decorative sword he got from eBay.
Here's some links:
Re: Gunny's video: http://forum.sword-buyers-guide.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2655
Katana myths in general:
http://www.thefantasyforum.com/showthread.php?8040-Myths-of-the-Katana
http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=839748
A quote:
"Ah yes, *that* video. There was a much longer thread on this a while back, if memory serves the consensus was they were using a stout, well-made katana from somebody like Hanwei against a big floppy Windlass longsword. CBA to rewatch the video but if I'm not mistaken the katana won for cutting (no surprise there) and neither was particularly impressive for thrusting. If Gunny had half-sworded and/or used a stiffer blade it probably would have been a different outcome..."
Post by: Sharp on February 03, 2013, 03:04:52 pm
Now there is some fascination crap about katanas but they were still pretty good swords overall, just not mythical legendary ones as they are made out to be.
Post by: Sergius on February 03, 2013, 03:19:16 pm
Well the conclusion I was coming to was that both are pretty rubbish against metal unless you are poking holes in weak spots. I used to think katanas were pretty useless against longswords directly (as in katana would break) but I have been proven wrong on that.
Now there is some fascination crap about katanas but they were still pretty good swords overall, just not mythical legendary ones as they are made out to be.
However, longswords are designed to use a special method called "halfsword" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-sword) where you grab it like a spear (one hand in the handle, one in the middle of the blade) for extra thrust, to poke the hole. You don't grab it from the hilt like you were trying to do a pole jump. Note that Lee Ermey swings both weapons like baseball bats.
And the katana made from authentic samurai era materials would probably break/chip when hitting another solid metal object.
(also, I don't know what the armor in that video is made from. looks softer than a dinner tray)
Post by: Neonivek on February 03, 2013, 03:29:45 pm
Where they used a Modern Bow, used target arrows, and stood about 15 feet from the target.
It sort of loses effect when you don't do things properly.
Post by: Edmus on February 03, 2013, 04:00:09 pm
I hope armour is realistically tough enough to withstand peasant uprisings, because weapon wise I'd be set.
Post by: kerlc on February 03, 2013, 05:11:43 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 03, 2013, 09:19:43 pm
Post by: Graknorke on February 03, 2013, 09:27:56 pm
You can run around and I think climb things in the current release version. It is pretty though.
Post by: Devling on February 03, 2013, 09:38:14 pm
Also, for some reason thinking of two knights wacking eachother with useless swords until they just fall over of exaustion just makes me giggle.
Post by: Man of Paper on February 03, 2013, 10:16:44 pm
Also, for some reason thinking of two knights wacking eachother with useless swords until they just fall over of exaustion just makes me giggle.
I'd be worried if it didn't.
Post by: Graknorke on February 03, 2013, 10:23:49 pm
Will be able to see actual ascii generated art? (As in, not just text saying "This is a painting of a human blah blah blah" but a image)Yes.
There's some examples of the flag generator floating around at the moment. And art in general, like the mountains picture.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 03, 2013, 10:33:34 pm
Just a quick warning; most of the features regarding interaction with things are not yet implemented.
You can run around and I think climb things in the current release version. It is pretty though.
If I can get it downloaded without it cutting out (thus far for the 7th time I think?) due to database errors or my internet connection screwing up, I'll be happy.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 04, 2013, 06:57:01 am
This belongs in a museum!
It'd be neat to be something of an artifact (artefact I assume is the non-American English spelling? I try to use those, didn't know that one though!) hunter though. And if storing them somewhere opened up the opportunity for thieves. Hell, carrying them may get you targeted. Especially if they have faction alignment involved. For example, an artifact associated with a polytheist religion might get you targeted by vatican assassins from Mars who want to destabilize their religious enemies.
I think the two are pretty interchangeable, but my flatmate is an archaeologist, and she insisted on artefact :). Anyway, I think artefacts will be well-sought-after. Even if they have very little combat prowess, they will be good for boosting morale, or the reign of an ailing king, etc etc. How did you know the URR vatican was on Mars, though?!
I can't believe I didn't do this earlier, but posting to watch!
Also posting to watch
PTW
Thanks all!
That sounds unnecessarily complex. There could be multiple languages spoken in a city though.
There will be - people will speak their native languages, though they will be able to learn others, and will presumably try to learn the language of the city they move to. One of the nice things I envision for languages is situations like coming across two people fighting in the forest. One of them you can speak the language of, one you can't. They both stop, and keep a safe distance from the other, and both shout at you - A tells you B stole something and you should help him, but B shouts something you can't understand, so you have to decide which to aid (if either)! In this kind of situation, I'd hope for other visual clues, or external information would help you make an informed guess (like if you've heard a news story about a particular thief, etc), or otherwise, you just have to take a gamble.
I think URR's excellent UI can handle any complexity. Just look at the screenshots on the first page of this thread to see what Mark is capable of when it comes to working with ASCII and ANSI. Generated art? That wins more than a few points.
Thanks Leatra :). I'll probably be posting some of the encyclopedia UI before too long.
In regard to complexity, I agree with leatra, UI looks awesome and decidedly un-spreadsheet.
A little off topic:
Will weapons be regional? I wanna travel to the far east and grab a katana. :P If this is the case will environment influence these weapon types, or will it be technology (hammers being developed against armour).
Cheers - er, yes, probably, though I haven't fully thought it through. Civs might also tend slightly towards preferring lighter weapons or heavier weapons, in all classes, or long/short weapons, etc. Some weapons I think I will make civ-specific, though,
That seems like a good rival for DF to keep up with!
Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.
I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to do. You might just need URR's permission to make it, first.Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.
Is there maybe a tileset (or how I call them due to other games, texture pack) that changes the graphics to those of URR?Heh, agreed. Probably the best ASCII graphics I have ever seen. Map's color palette is so awesome, you could mistake it for a real map.
Because BOY, this one has much more clear, yet still ASCII, graphics.You know the old Samurai versus a Knight? The Knight would likely win that because the Katana wasn't made to fight someone with the Knights armor.There is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable.
Thanks guys - I'm very happy for you to use the characters I've created, as long as you just stick a little reference back to my site. As for cultures/weapons/armours etc, I do intend to have full pictures of armour generated according to civ preferences, with appropriate materials, colours, and variation in terms of exact shapes, plates, riveting, etc etc. Again, future generated graphics!
Pretty much the first e-cronym I really had any exposure to was WTF, so when I saw FTW, I thought of it as Fuck The What. Now every time I see PTW, I think of Post To Win.
Incidentally, MACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMACMAC.
EDIT: What I meant was: Would you mind posting something we can compile ourselves, as this might provide mac and linux users with the beginnings of a means by which to play. While I doubt it would be easy, it's much easier than trying to get an exe to work, especially if we're using OSX 10.5, which wine and playonmac won't support.
MACMACMACMAC, you say? I'm probably going to try and get a .pyc out soon, once I confirm they cannot be easily read in a text-editor like a .py file can. In terms of other-OSs, my primary focus is Linux which I genuinely DO intend to get around to, but (excuse my ignorance of these things) I think compiling for Linux would produce a .pyc (I think), so that would be fine for Mac too. Maybe. I just need to give myself a day free at some point to turn a spare laptop into a Linux laptop, and then spend the rest of that day trying to compile. Even for those who have got it working on other systems, the load times bloat incredibly (5 seconds to 5 minutes), so I really do need to get another version out.
QuoteThere is an idea there. Cultures should have different weapons and these weapons should be efficient for different kinds of armors. For example, Elves in DF favor wooden equipment, even if they are ineffective. But Elves can still kick ass with their ranged weapons and mounts. Still, superiority of the favored race of Armok to every other race is, of course, unquestionable
While realistic there is also the sense of gameplay.
SHOULD we make, for example, the Katana (if it was in the game... which it isn't but lets say this was the world expansion and every country's equivilant was in the game) weak to heavy metal armor?
Ultimate Rate of Registry what are your viewpoints on this?
I do intend to have various weapons within the classes (so scimitars, shortswords, longswords, katanas, etc, within 'slashing weapons') strong/weak/average against various things, but I have not yet decided on the specifics. I'm very happy to take ideas from this thread!
I like the idea of weapons having advantages and disadvantages, so then your adventurer (if that's your life choice) doesn't carry around a certain weapon because it has complete dominance over the others. Things likeriflesmuskets (?) should be able to penetrate heavy armor, but have long reload times, halberds or the like should be slow to attack, and pierce metal. katana's (and other slashy cutty things) should be quick attacks, but not so effective against heavy, metal armor.
Also, another idea that sprang to mind, is maybe "special abilities" for them, like halberds having a sweep attack, that swings an arc in front of you, or daggers allowing you to aim for the joints of thick armor (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what they were used for back in the day, right?) I'm not too sure about this, actually.
That's very much my thinking for gunpowder weapons at the moment - interesting ideas re: the others. In terms of special abilities, I currently have some planned for each weapon class (the '!'s in the skill trees), but I'm not yet sure how much I like them. I'll have to see how I feel when I implement weapons...
Fun fact: knight vs knight usually was fought to the point of exhaustion, as both were mostly invulnerable to each other. At that point, it was either a surrender or a coup de grace on the first one to fall :P
Ha! Very interesting. I might try and emulate that...
Will be able to see actual ascii generated art? (As in, not just text saying "This is a painting of a human blah blah blah" but a image)
Also, for some reason thinking of two knights wacking eachother with useless swords until they just fall over of exaustion just makes me giggle.
We'll see generated weapons, armour, and mythological murals (e.g. of a person fighting a minotaur, etc), and sculptures, and possibly (presumably) paintings. The next release will have generated heraldry, flags and religious icons, then after that it might be a little break before I work on the next generated art, but it'll be one of the above. It is a *big* focus of the game, but it's mighty time-consuming (though really enjoyable to work on).
In the mean time, I did an interview with a new blog 'The Game Bastion', about URR, my goals, plans, development, the next version, etc etc. Hope you enjoy!
https://thegamebastion.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/interview-with-mark-johnson-of-ultima-ratio-regum/
Today's blog entry coming later...
Post by: Rowanas on February 04, 2013, 10:12:05 am
Pre-post edit: I realised that the drive to find superior arms for your troops could well be one of the driving forces behind conquest and trade, and so I remove my objection. It took me a while to type this all out, so i'm still going to post it.
As for weapons, while of course the style of weapon makes a difference, I'm not so sure it'd work mechanically to represent them accurately. The simple truth is that there are better weapons and worse ones. A slightly curved blade provides a significantly greater slice than a straight one. A sword with an offset handle (damnit, I can't remember the proper term for a handle that's set at an angle to the blade to facilitate stabbing without requiring you to switch to a weaker epeé-style grip) is better still, despite never really catching on in Europe. In theory, a heavily made, lightly curved shamshir has both the weight to injure lightly armoured combatants, and the stabbing tip required to deal with heavy plate armours. The same is true of a spike-tipped khopesh. While both were created for use in hot areas where heavy armour was uncommon, with relatively small tweaks, both would be eminently suitable for penetrating heavy armours (the khopesh especially, as it has an un-sharpened straight length of blade before the cutting area, which you could hold the blade by for the half-hand stab).
Certain other weapons which would likely make it into such a game, are ineffective compared to their close counterparts, like the halberd (replaced by the pike for length and swords, axes or other smaller weapons close-up) or club (a mace is, without exception, the better weapon). Either, the list of weapons will end up quite sparse, or filled with inferior weapons, which no player will ever actually -want- to use. Most games deal with this by just having them and sod it :P (Glaive-guisarme, anyone?)
Post by: DoomOnion on February 04, 2013, 10:31:16 am
Post by: Leatra on February 04, 2013, 11:23:22 am
There will be - people will speak their native languages, though they will be able to learn others, and will presumably try to learn the language of the city they move to. One of the nice things I envision for languages is situations like coming across two people fighting in the forest. One of them you can speak the language of, one you can't. They both stop, and keep a safe distance from the other, and both shout at you - A tells you B stole something and you should help him, but B shouts something you can't understand, so you have to decide which to aid (if either)! In this kind of situation, I'd hope for other visual clues, or external information would help you make an informed guess (like if you've heard a news story about a particular thief, etc), or otherwise, you just have to take a gamble.
If I knew both languages, I don't think I could resist the temptation to tell A that B wants to kill him and tell B that A wants to kill him then watch the fight, while eating popcorn.
By the way, nice interview. Not many facts I didn't know earlier but it seems enough to leave an experienced player in awe after reading it :P
Post by: hops on February 04, 2013, 12:01:14 pm
The katana should be weak to everything.
Because it sucks.
Wait what katanas are stronger than normal swords.
Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?
Post by: Man of Paper on February 04, 2013, 12:08:32 pm
Post by: PanH on February 04, 2013, 12:31:09 pm
Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?
Crappy iron, and they're made for fighting unarmored enemies.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 04, 2013, 12:38:16 pm
Why the hell would they take years to make if they're basically crappy breakable swords?
Crappy iron, and they're made for fighting unarmored enemies.
I think the Japanese actually developed steel for the creation of the katanas. I'm not entirely certain of that, however.
Post by: Graknorke on February 04, 2013, 12:41:50 pm
IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.
Post by: PanH on February 04, 2013, 12:45:04 pm
I think the Japanese actually developed steel for the creation of the katanas. I'm not entirely certain of that, however.
You still need iron for it, and as Japanese iron was crappy, it took extra work, and methods to get around the quality of the metal to get a weapon that wouldn't break at first hit, be it iron or steel.
There was a link to katana's myths a page earlier.
Actually I don't think the Japanese ever independantly developed steel.Started in India, the Arabic countries then spread it to Europe. The road that much technologies took.
IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.
Post by: kerlc on February 04, 2013, 01:04:36 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 04, 2013, 01:06:02 pm
Actually I don't think the Japanese ever independantly developed steel.Started in India, the Arabic countries then spread it to Europe. The road that much technologies took.
IIRC it started off around the Arabic countries and spread out from there via trade and such.
Here's the link, it was actually HugoLuman, not Wierd: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=109636.msg3429410;topicseen#msg3429410
Post by: DoomOnion on February 04, 2013, 01:07:29 pm
One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?
I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.
Post by: kerlc on February 04, 2013, 01:12:23 pm
to my knowledge, they used iron extensively for weapons and armor. That much is known to me (ancient romans are particularily interesting to me)One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?
I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.
But i heard somewhere that the gladius was steel encased with iron, so only the cutting edge would be steel.
Post by: Deimos56 on February 04, 2013, 01:44:06 pm
Post by: Sergius on February 04, 2013, 02:11:55 pm
to my knowledge, they used iron extensively for weapons and armor. That much is known to me (ancient romans are particularily interesting to me)One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?
I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.
But i heard somewhere that the gladius was steel encased with iron, so only the cutting edge would be steel.
Roman weapons were iron, but something about the process of beating the shit out of it made the edge have just the right amount of carbon and stuff. So, a kind of accidental steel. They had no idea how to smelt actual steel.
Post by: DoomOnion on February 04, 2013, 02:23:12 pm
Huh, I didn't know that. So was bronze and brass used only for ceremonial stuff during the classical period?to my knowledge, they used iron extensively for weapons and armor. That much is known to me (ancient romans are particularily interesting to me)One question for all of you sword-knowing people: is it really true that the roman Gladius used steel?
I thought romans liked to use bronze and brass for their weapons and armor.
But i heard somewhere that the gladius was steel encased with iron, so only the cutting edge would be steel.
Roman weapons were iron, but something about the process of beating the shit out of it made the edge have just the right amount of carbon and stuff. So, a kind of accidental steel. They had no idea how to smelt actual steel.
Post by: Glloyd on February 04, 2013, 02:28:31 pm
Post by: Techhead on February 04, 2013, 02:34:41 pm
Huh, I didn't know that. So was bronze and brass used only for ceremonial stuff during the classical period?Use of bronze declined in the classical period because of shortages of copper and tin. Iron, on the other hand was commonplace. Iron weapons did not have quality equal to bronze, so Roman officers did have swords of bronze (or rarer, steel).
Post by: Sergius on February 04, 2013, 02:40:42 pm
EDIT: Yeah like Techhead said, bronze is somewhat better than iron on average, but it was the fancy stuff.
Usually, bronze required lots of trade because tin and copper weren't often close to each other.
Post by: Graknorke on February 04, 2013, 02:44:33 pm
EDIT: And I meant to segue that into a question about resource acquisition. Then I forgot.
Post by: DoomOnion on February 04, 2013, 02:59:39 pm
Post by: Sergius on February 04, 2013, 03:31:04 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on February 04, 2013, 03:37:32 pm
I did a ton of research on this when I was making my Ironworks mod for Dwarf Fortress. So I know a decent amount about all of this.
Generally speaking, cultures used whatever was most effective for fighting the other cultures they came up against that was still cost effective.
The Japanese, for instance, had fairly light katanas that were designed for fighting lightly armored opponents. When they had to fight the Chinese/Mongols, they ran up against more heavily armored opponents and had to create a heavier sword with an iron core to help them penetrate the armor. In general, though, they were an iron-poor island that mostly just fought itself, and much of their fighting style was centered around that. Katanas have a legendary reputation because they were, in fact, made to very exacting standards. They had to be, because a poorly made katana would break easily and a broken sword is pretty useless. So they're really sharp and well made, for the most part, but not actually 'better' than a well made western sword. And certainly not 'better' at fighting an armored opponent, since that wasn't really what they were designed to do. Katanas are slashing weapons, and trying to cut a guy in plate mail is pretty useless, especially if he's got mail underneath.
Swords in mainland asia and the west were made much easier since decent quality iron was more abundant. Most 'iron' weapons are actually a very low grade steel, since pure iron is pretty worthless for weapons and some carbon almost always ends up in weapons during the forging process anyway.
India did, in fact, have the first steel alloys, due to some fortuitous iron deposits that contained impurities of Vanadium and Magnesium. This is why Damascus or Wootz steel was so valued, it was something that no other region at the time could replicate. During the later roman empire and the middle ages actual pattern-welded steel forging techniques became pretty common, but even those weren't as good as the steel alloys the Indians had. Before that, Bronze was going to be better than the vast majority of iron weapons but was both expensive to make and difficult to work with compared to iron.
Eventually those deposits dried up and India was back around the same tech level as everyone else.
From a game perspective, noting how easy it is to get various resources should help determine what tech level people are at. If you have ample deposits of Copper and Tin, bronze should be the favored metal for a very long time. Otherwise, Iron is more abundant in the world and will generally supersede bronze because it's cheaper and 1000 guys with iron weapons will probably beat 100 guys in bronze no matter what quality you're using.
As far as tech goes, people use what they need to and rarely beyond that. If all of your neighbors are using stone spears, you probably don't need much better than simple metal weapons and leather armor to beat them. If they've got chain mail and decent quality metal weapons, you're going to need some decent equipment of your own to beat them. If building an army strong enough to beat someone takes more men or equipment than you can afford, you probably won't do a whole lot of invading.
Post by: kerlc on February 04, 2013, 04:06:19 pm
I feel cleverererer!
Post by: Man of Paper on February 04, 2013, 06:02:06 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 04, 2013, 06:28:52 pm
If you can compile it on Linux, oh wise and generous provider, then a mac-compilable version would shortly follow. Little differences crop up here and there, nothing serious, in my experience.
Ah, interesting. That's good to know! So a Linux version is more Mac-friendly than a Windows, by default? That might be blindingly obvious to many, but I've never used a non-Windows OS...
I am willing to kill and do all evil for this game.
This pleases me.
If I knew both languages, I don't think I could resist the temptation to tell A that B wants to kill him and tell B that A wants to kill him then watch the fight, while eating popcorn.
By the way, nice interview. Not many facts I didn't know earlier but it seems enough to leave an experienced player in awe after reading it :P
Ha - I love that idea. I 100% want you to be able to do that. Thanks! Glad you enjoyed.
Found a link to this yesterday. It looks like a fascinating project, and I greatly look forward to the point where there's some actual gameplay. I look forward even more to the point where it's finished, looking at all the things that are planned.
Downloaded it and wow. This is by far the most attractive looking ASCII game I've seen. Some damn fine visuals there friend. I really want to see this game come to fruition.
Thank you both - see the bottom of this reply for the first hints of real gameplay...
The resource options are a good point, along with the conversation on who fought with what.
I did a ton of research on this when I was making my Ironworks mod for Dwarf Fortress. So I know a decent amount about all of this.
Generally speaking, cultures used whatever was most effective for fighting the other cultures they came up against that was still cost effective.
The Japanese, for instance, had fairly light katanas that were designed for fighting lightly armored opponents. When they had to fight the Chinese/Mongols, they ran up against more heavily armored opponents and had to create a heavier sword with an iron core to help them penetrate the armor. In general, though, they were an iron-poor island that mostly just fought itself, and much of their fighting style was centered around that. Katanas have a legendary reputation because they were, in fact, made to very exacting standards. They had to be, because a poorly made katana would break easily and a broken sword is pretty useless. So they're really sharp and well made, for the most part, but not actually 'better' than a well made western sword. And certainly not 'better' at fighting an armored opponent, since that wasn't really what they were designed to do. Katanas are slashing weapons, and trying to cut a guy in plate mail is pretty useless, especially if he's got mail underneath.
Swords in mainland asia and the west were made much easier since decent quality iron was more abundant. Most 'iron' weapons are actually a very low grade steel, since pure iron is pretty worthless for weapons and some carbon almost always ends up in weapons during the forging process anyway.
India did, in fact, have the first steel alloys, due to some fortuitous iron deposits that contained impurities of Vanadium and Magnesium. This is why Damascus or Wootz steel was so valued, it was something that no other region at the time could replicate. During the later roman empire and the middle ages actual pattern-welded steel forging techniques became pretty common, but even those weren't as good as the steel alloys the Indians had. Before that, Bronze was going to be better than the vast majority of iron weapons but was both expensive to make and difficult to work with compared to iron.
Eventually those deposits dried up and India was back around the same tech level as everyone else.
From a game perspective, noting how easy it is to get various resources should help determine what tech level people are at. If you have ample deposits of Copper and Tin, bronze should be the favored metal for a very long time. Otherwise, Iron is more abundant in the world and will generally supersede bronze because it's cheaper and 1000 guys with iron weapons will probably beat 100 guys in bronze no matter what quality you're using.
As far as tech goes, people use what they need to and rarely beyond that. If all of your neighbors are using stone spears, you probably don't need much better than simple metal weapons and leather armor to beat them. If they've got chain mail and decent quality metal weapons, you're going to need some decent equipment of your own to beat them. If building an army strong enough to beat someone takes more men or equipment than you can afford, you probably won't do a whole lot of invading.
All fascinating. Resources do currently factor in to a civ's ability to advance, though if a civ lacks iron within its own borders but has heard of iron, then in the history gen I've made it much more inclined to trade around in order to acquire said iron. Damascus steel I've always thought is a fascinating thing (esp. as the exact method is lost) - I'd love to add in a few, very rare, examples of that, where the weaponry of a particular civ, or even just a particular smith, or a city, is known as being particularly special, and gains a bit of a bonus because of it...
Ziggurats!
YES! Blog entry! Gameplay!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/02/04/ziggurats/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ZMin.png)
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 04, 2013, 07:20:50 pm
India did, in fact, have the first steel alloys...
That steel appears to have been produced after 300 A.D. The Haya people of Tanzania seem to have been producing steel from around 2000 years ago. While this is told through oral tradition, some of their elders reconstructed the forge utilized and produced the steel. Similar forges within the area were carbon dated to around the time that the Haya have said in their traditions.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: varsovie on February 04, 2013, 07:25:28 pm
Just a general comment - this weapon discussion is fascinating. I'd like all weapons to be valid choices - not have some (though we won't name names...) that nobody uses, but I realize some will probably have rather more specialized use than others. I've made a mental note of the pages of the thread we're currently on so I can return in the future :)
Even if a weapon (or alloy) is worse in all regard comparing to another, it might become a good option regarding to price and availability. It's normal that no every soldier have the latest full plate diamond armor (more so in levies armies). If you remove price and availability (aka, resources, manpower and time needed to make) sure everybody will use nukes.
And why not weapons that are definitively better/good but prohibited by the civ (like knight that tried to ban the crossbow so they can continue pillaging/raping peasants.
Post by: Mephansteras on February 04, 2013, 07:32:12 pm
India did, in fact, have the first steel alloys...
That steel appears to have been produced after 300 A.D. The Haya people of Tanzania seem to have been producing steel from around 2000 years ago. While this is told through oral tradition, some of their elders reconstructed the forge utilized and produced the steel. Similar forges within the area were carbon dated to around the time that the Haya have said in their traditions.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oh, yeah, those guys. As far as I know they were the first/one of the first to have steel. But to my knowledge they didn't have steel alloys the way the Indians did. They might have, but I don't think we know one way or another since the only way to be sure would be to test samples of the steel. Damascus Steel was equivalent to some modern steel alloys in composition.
Post by: Graknorke on February 04, 2013, 07:36:28 pm
That's not a good thing, by the way.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 04, 2013, 08:38:10 pm
Post by: Frank2368 on February 04, 2013, 09:33:35 pm
Keep up the good work URR!
Post by: Rowanas on February 05, 2013, 04:18:00 am
Fun fact: The Roman empire went out of their way to invade the British Isles because of the tin deposits there; to make bronze with.
Super fun fact: Most of it was in Cornwall, which has been famous for it's tin mines for... basically ever. We don't need you, we've never needed you, Cornish Independence! :P
Post by: Sharp on February 05, 2013, 05:42:01 am
Can someone please tell me why the download is losing the website every 8-12 minutes when I try to download it?
Working fine for me
Your ISP perhaps, your connection could be unstable. Try tracert www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk
Post by: Man of Paper on February 05, 2013, 09:31:35 am
Anyways, will we eventually see thick growth that will need to be hacked through, and weapons that are effective and a-whackin' through plants like the machete?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 14, 2013, 08:14:23 am
Creating armour from diamonds would be both a massive time-sink and a waste of time. No matter how you did it it would offer no protection, because of how any concussive blow would shatter it. For cloth studded with diamonds this would result in having just cloth, and, if by some majyyk you did manage to create plate armour from diamonds, it would be even worse because when it shattered you would then have massively sharp shards of crystallised carbon all over you.
That's not a good thing, by the way.
That is why there will be *no* diamond armour - it's just... stupid. Diamonds exist, though, along with a bunch of other precious stones.
Can someone please tell me why the download is losing the website every 8-12 minutes when I try to download it?
I cannot :-\. Did you get it to work in the end?
This is probably one of my most anticipated Roguelike games right now, if not the most anticipated
Keep up the good work URR!
Thank you! I've been working quite a bit on dungeons this past week, and whilst there are only going to be ziggurats in the next version (and only a small % of what I want in them) I hope it'll give an idea of the direction they'll be going.
For some reason I read the link as "ultimarati ore gum". For a second I was like "What the hell is ultimarati ore? And why would you chew it?"
Anyways, will we eventually see thick growth that will need to be hacked through, and weapons that are effective and a-whackin' through plants like the machete?
Ultimarati ore is the most valuable of all the minerals in the game, and the rarest. If you find some you, win. Fact. (I'm half tempted to add that the ore as an easter egg, now...)
Post by: Man of Paper on February 14, 2013, 08:28:45 am
Post by: varsovie on February 15, 2013, 04:03:17 pm
Creating armour from diamonds would be both a massive time-sink and a waste of time. No matter how you did it it would offer no protection, because of how any concussive blow would shatter it.
Well, it was more a reference to Minecraft than a real suggestion...
P.S. It's not any concussive blow, only those on the cleavage plane.
Post by: Leatra on February 15, 2013, 06:31:48 pm
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 15, 2013, 06:45:15 pm
But at least it would look cool. We are talking about an armor made of diamonds! Imagine going to King's party wearing one of those. You'd totally nail the Princess!
So, it would be decorative armor.
Post by: hops on February 15, 2013, 08:01:43 pm
Well, I guess you could make it plated, but who the hell have that much diamonds?
Post by: coolio678 on February 15, 2013, 08:10:42 pm
diamonds can cut glass, and that's the reason why there are diamond-tipped saws used in quarrying and the like.Creating armour from diamonds would be both a massive time-sink and a waste of time. No matter how you did it it would offer no protection, because of how any concussive blow would shatter it. For cloth studded with diamonds this would result in having just cloth, and, if by some majyyk you did manage to create plate armour from diamonds, it would be even worse because when it shattered you would then have massively sharp shards of crystallised carbon all over you.I was under the impression that, were you somehow able to make diamonds into armour, due to it being INCREDIBLY hard, it'd take a long, long time to break, and would probably be slowly chipped away, and fairly light?
That's not a good thing, by the way.
Diamonds have been known to shatter jeweler's chisels when they've been used on them. I'm not sure whether or not these jewelers had shoddy metal or what, though.
EDIT:I don't think it's even possible to create a diamond armor.MAGIC!
Well, I guess you could make it plated, but who the hell have that much diamonds?
Post by: hops on February 15, 2013, 08:19:58 pm
diamonds can cut glass, and that's the reason why there are diamond-tipped saws used in quarrying and the like.
I don't see your point. Just because diamond is sharp doesn't mean it's good for armour.
I don't see jedis in lightarmours.
Post by: Edmus on February 15, 2013, 10:13:01 pm
Post by: DoomOnion on February 15, 2013, 11:28:50 pm
Post by: Edmus on February 16, 2013, 12:48:12 am
Fair point though.
Post by: hops on February 16, 2013, 03:26:06 am
By 'lightarmours' I am talking about plasma armor. Which obviously would turn the wearer into a handful of ashes.Probably because a clear substance is useless against:diamonds can cut glass, and that's the reason why there are diamond-tipped saws used in quarrying and the like.
I don't see your point. Just because diamond is sharp doesn't mean it's good for armour.
I don't see jedis in lightarmours.
A) something made up of what appears to be mostly E.M radiation, which happily transmits through transparent objects.
B) something incredibly hot, which would cause the diamond to combust.
Also diamond armors are not impossible to make, just that it'll take ages, and you'll probably piss off the peasants if you try something stupid like that.
Post by: ollobrains on February 16, 2013, 03:27:26 am
Post by: Graknorke on February 16, 2013, 04:23:35 am
walking around with all thet bling armour careful of the nativesOr falling over.
Post by: Koliup on February 16, 2013, 05:37:16 pm
So you could have your diamond armor, but a swift hit could cleave it in twain.
Post by: coolio678 on February 16, 2013, 06:40:19 pm
the reason diamond can cut glass is because it's super damn hard. I may have made that unclear in my post. sorry 'bout that.diamonds can cut glass, and that's the reason why there are diamond-tipped saws used in quarrying and the like.
I don't see your point. Just because diamond is sharp doesn't mean it's good for armour.
I don't see jedis in lightarmours.
Post by: Putnam on February 16, 2013, 06:44:37 pm
Post by: Graknorke on February 16, 2013, 06:53:09 pm
Hard != tough.the reason diamond can cut glass is because it's super damn hard. I may have made that unclear in my post. sorry 'bout that.diamonds can cut glass, and that's the reason why there are diamond-tipped saws used in quarrying and the like.
I don't see your point. Just because diamond is sharp doesn't mean it's good for armour.
I don't see jedis in lightarmours.
They're very different things, and diamond misses out on toughness, big time. Not to mention that because of its crystalline stricture, it fractures really easily in certain directions.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 16, 2013, 07:08:13 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on February 16, 2013, 07:20:51 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 16, 2013, 07:23:09 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on February 16, 2013, 07:28:42 pm
Post by: Putnam on February 16, 2013, 07:35:11 pm
now, a diamond-headed axe, that would be useful.
Nope. Diamond is hard, not sharp.
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 16, 2013, 07:38:36 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 16, 2013, 07:50:45 pm
Post by: Korbac on February 16, 2013, 08:55:21 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on February 16, 2013, 09:27:13 pm
Post by: hops on February 16, 2013, 09:27:43 pm
now, a diamond-headed axe, that would be useful.Only if your executionees are made out of stone.
Post by: Edmus on February 16, 2013, 10:57:29 pm
But diamonds are metal :DCarbon is a non metal actually.
Post by: The13thRonin on February 17, 2013, 02:05:17 am
Post by: Putnam on February 17, 2013, 04:22:21 am
Is this playable yet? What is implemented?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Post by: The13thRonin on February 17, 2013, 04:45:21 am
Is this playable yet? What is implemented?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
There's a difference between is it downloadable yet and is it playable yet.
Post by: Graknorke on February 17, 2013, 05:08:39 am
The exe runs fine.Is this playable yet? What is implemented?
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
There's a difference between is it downloadable yet and is it playable yet.
Post by: The13thRonin on February 17, 2013, 05:10:29 am
Post by: Graknorke on February 17, 2013, 05:13:06 am
How much of the game is there though?Solar system generation, world generation sans civs, some of the visual effects, and you can walk around and look at the game (which does look beautiful).
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 17, 2013, 05:25:29 am
Post by: Sharp on February 17, 2013, 05:53:49 am
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on February 17, 2013, 09:42:59 am
you'd have to cut plates out of a gigantic diamond
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 17, 2013, 10:14:23 am
It would take a very long time.
Post by: hops on February 17, 2013, 01:46:48 pm
The problem I have with diamond armour is that how do you get it together? You can't just glue it together, and it's incredibly hard to melt diamonds today let alone in the middle ages.Like I said earlier, plates. You could fuse them with some metal.
Post by: Zanzetkuken The Great on February 17, 2013, 02:15:26 pm
Post by: Devling on February 17, 2013, 03:06:16 pm
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
Post by: Edmus on February 17, 2013, 03:37:16 pm
Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.'Kay
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
Can we pick up the mummies in tombs, I wanna throw them about and stuff. You could create a mummy collection and get angry
(That was worryingly the first thing that came to mind.)
Post by: Man of Paper on February 17, 2013, 03:43:31 pm
Post by: Leatra on February 17, 2013, 03:54:40 pm
Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.Yeah, power of (bad) humor.
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.That reminds me of how art is created in DF. An engraver's child gets killed, he draws it on the wall. I don't know about creating art but having art that's based on the game world? That sound cool.
Post by: coolio678 on February 17, 2013, 05:37:27 pm
I remember reading a story about a dwarf that got shot in the leg, and was taken by a mood soon after. He made bronze plate legs with a picture of him being shot in the leg on them.Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.Yeah, power of (bad) humor.
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.That reminds me of how art is created in DF. An engraver's child gets killed, he draws it on the wall. I don't know about creating art but having art that's based on the game world? That sound cool.
Post by: Leatra on February 17, 2013, 05:42:38 pm
Post by: Sharp on February 17, 2013, 05:57:51 pm
Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
Not when someone is wrong on the internet!
Like I said earlier, plates. You could fuse them with some metal.
How do you fuse diamonds to metal? You can melt some metal into a pool and pour some diamonds in them but the metal won't bond with the surface of the diamond, any diamonds on the surface of this plate armour will just fall off unless it is embedded by surrounding metal (much like a ring), but a blow will still loosen it and the diamond is doing nothing to defending the armour or user.
Post by: Graknorke on February 17, 2013, 06:25:03 pm
I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
Post by: Hugehead on February 17, 2013, 06:41:57 pm
Why would there be a tomb if they didn't care about the bodies?I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
Post by: Graknorke on February 17, 2013, 06:45:57 pm
Nobody ever specified how elaborate the tomb would be.Why would there be a tomb if they didn't care about the bodies?I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
It could just be a place to put bodies without them uglying up the scenery.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on February 17, 2013, 06:58:54 pm
Wikipedia link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial)
With that in mind, if a civ bothers to preserve its dead, then it probably gets miffed if someone defiles the said remains. The dead might not care, but their relatives and moral guardians will.
Post by: varsovie on February 18, 2013, 02:02:59 am
Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
Not when someone is wrong on the internet!
+1 :P
Sorry guy for starting this nonsense. I'll redeem myself with this video (http://thepunkeffect.com/?p=9364) on the subject.
Post by: Devling on February 18, 2013, 02:08:15 am
Name one culture that places no value what so ever on corpses.I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
As Civilization taught us, Cerminoal burial is important.
Post by: hops on February 18, 2013, 03:25:53 am
You would still want to dump corpses in a mound or something unless you like Black Deaths.I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
Post by: Dutchling on February 18, 2013, 03:26:41 am
Post by: Devling on February 18, 2013, 05:17:04 am
Post by: Edmus on February 18, 2013, 06:37:48 am
Can we agree it's "Dedicated place to store dead people"?Yeah lets go with that.
Post by: coolio678 on February 18, 2013, 01:10:46 pm
I forgive you. That was quite fun to watch.Random joke leads to page long discussion on the viability of diamond armor.
Goddamit guys can we talk about something related to the game?
Not when someone is wrong on the internet!
+1 :P
Sorry guy for starting this nonsense. I'll redeem myself with this video (http://thepunkeffect.com/?p=9364) on the subject.
Post by: Vrky on February 18, 2013, 04:41:35 pm
Kinnda sounds like crusader kings II actually, but with cool factor that you can actually visit any location and person in the world, and also play as adventurer/possibly merchant?
Question for developer: Will there be a trade system, and how will it be handled? Will there be production of resources (supply), i.e. mines, farms, plantations, pastures etc., that can be both visited (and owned!!), and demand for those resources by city populations? Will there be import/export of resources from other civs - trade system that influences both economy and diplomacy?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 18, 2013, 06:56:01 pm
How much of the game is there though?Solar system generation, world generation sans civs, some of the visual effects, and you can walk around and look at the game (which does look beautiful).
That's pretty fair (and thank you!).
It's the first ASCII game I've ever thought genuinely looked good. I especially like how the shading is done, especially where there are lotsa trees around.
Thanks! This week's update (bottom of this post) has some more graphics I've been working on.
'Kay
Can we pick up the mummies in tombs, I wanna throw them about and stuff. You could create a mummy collection and get angryprotesterspeasants without enough work calling you a grave defiler.
(That was worryingly the first thing that came to mind.)
Yes! I hope so. You won't be able to 'wield' anything effectively like in DF, but I'd like to in the future have a lot of context-specific attacks involving different terrain, objects, etc.
I assume that there'd be huge ramifications for defiling any sort of tomb connected to a still-existing civilization or religion, and definitely get BadBoy points with any family related to the corpse. I'd like to see the PC eventually able to create works of art. Using Character experiences, historical references, and a random generator dealy to create what the works are specifically.
Definitely, but only if they know about you, of course. I really like the family idea - that would be a good reason for feuds, bounties etc, if a family discovers you've been messing about in their tomb. As for CREATING works of art... that's interesting. Again, see this week's blog entry for a bit of early "art" in ziggurats. But the player creating art... I'll have to think about that. Existing art works will be generated from myth, history, blah blah, but I'll have to think about how the player could go about it...
Nobody ever specified how elaborate the tomb would be.Why would there be a tomb if they didn't care about the bodies?
Unless their cultural values place no value in corpses.
I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't particularly care about any morality attached to dead people; so it's not unimaginable that there could be civilisations where corpses are not treated with any sort of respect. And it's not as though the dead people care.
It could just be a place to put bodies without them uglying up the scenery.
I suppose I could vary how civilizations choose to bury their dead. Or at least dispose of them. I have different methods of execution, so I see no reason why I couldn't do the same for burial. At sea, burning, tomb, graveyard, etc etc...
This game sounds like a great idea, I especially like the idea of ruling a kingdom/republic from 'first person', ordering invasions and construction projects, and then being able to visit conquered/built up areas. Also ordering arrests, threatening/bribing senate members etc., all in person. 8)
Kinnda sounds like crusader kings II actually, but with cool factor that you can actually visit any location and person in the world, and also play as adventurer/possibly merchant?
Question for developer: Will there be a trade system, and how will it be handled? Will there be production of resources (supply), i.e. mines, farms, plantations, pastures etc., that can be both visited (and owned!!), and demand for those resources by city populations? Will there be import/export of resources from other civs - trade system that influences both economy and diplomacy?
Thank you! Yes, that's the eventual goal. I'm working on the "exploration" aspects first, in gameplay terms, before I then start working on cities, NPCs, etc. Trade I intend to split into barter, and trade - bartering being just exchanging items, trade being money for items, or money for money (I'd like to implement some kind of system for exchange rates between currencies, etc). I don't know if resource areas can be owned yet, as I want to abstract out some of the "construction" aspects (as DF does that kind of thing) but resources will contribute to how many people an empire can support, what armies it can field, etc. Importing and exporting is something I need to work on in history generation relatively soon, so I might do a blog entry about that when I've got it implemented. Pretty much everything will go into history generation first, and then into the 'real' game :).
MEANWHILE, this fortnight's blog entry, with some more art, and a first generated creation myth:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/02/19/inside-ziggurats/
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/02/Sun.png)
Post by: Graknorke on February 18, 2013, 07:02:12 pm
I did like that generated creation story though. It feels like the flow is a little odd, but it's a really big achievement to make something that can generate a story that coherent.
Post by: Glloyd on February 18, 2013, 07:15:42 pm
Post by: PanH on February 18, 2013, 07:19:15 pm
I suppose I could vary how civilizations choose to bury their dead. Or at least dispose of them. I have different methods of execution, so I see no reason why I couldn't do the same for burial. At sea, burning, tomb, graveyard, etc etc...But that would also influence their reaction to defiling. I'm sure people that throw their relatives' corpses to dog dont mind if I borrow it.
Post by: Vrky on February 18, 2013, 07:20:33 pm
This game sounds like a great idea, I especially like the idea of ruling a kingdom/republic from 'first person', ordering invasions and construction projects, and then being able to visit conquered/built up areas. Also ordering arrests, threatening/bribing senate members etc., all in person. 8)
Kinnda sounds like crusader kings II actually, but with cool factor that you can actually visit any location and person in the world, and also play as adventurer/possibly merchant?
Question for developer: Will there be a trade system, and how will it be handled? Will there be production of resources (supply), i.e. mines, farms, plantations, pastures etc., that can be both visited (and owned!!), and demand for those resources by city populations? Will there be import/export of resources from other civs - trade system that influences both economy and diplomacy?
Thank you! Yes, that's the eventual goal. I'm working on the "exploration" aspects first, in gameplay terms, before I then start working on cities, NPCs, etc. Trade I intend to split into barter, and trade - bartering being just exchanging items, trade being money for items, or money for money (I'd like to implement some kind of system for exchange rates between currencies, etc). I don't know if resource areas can be owned yet, as I want to abstract out some of the "construction" aspects (as DF does that kind of thing) but resources will contribute to how many people an empire can support, what armies it can field, etc. Importing and exporting is something I need to work on in history generation relatively soon, so I might do a blog entry about that when I've got it implemented. Pretty much everything will go into history generation first, and then into the 'real' game :).
Thanks for reply :)
What I meant by owning resource areas was simply owning them as a source of income/materials to sell, while still leaving actual construction of such sites abstracted out. I think it would be interesting to play as a wealthy merchant and owner of many mines/plantations through kingdom, eventually being so rich that you can field own armies of mercenaries and influencing policies of the kingdom from the shadows.
Post by: Man of Paper on February 18, 2013, 07:29:13 pm
On player-created art: I know you've been dipping into the fast-forwarding time concept, and think this'd be another great thing to implement it with should you decide to. Say, for example, I have a skilled sculptor. Once I get all the materials and somesuch, I decide on the amount of time I want to dedicate to working on it, as well as the general subject (I'll also expand on this idea in a second). The overall quality would depend on the character's skill, the content on their choice, and the size and/or detail on the time dedicated.
To elaborate on the choosing of a general subject, I don't know if it'd be easy, since events would have to be neatly sorted, but have multiple categories with subcategories to choose from. For example:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Of course that'd need to be heavily worked on. In the example list Personal: Battles would just be a more specific area of History: Battles. Unless of course "History" would include only the time before the character was splatted out into the world.
Post by: Devling on February 18, 2013, 09:46:45 pm
Not just "You can use this weapon 45 times before it shatters", but weapons chipping, losing their edge, and straight up breaking. I would also probably solve one of DFs silleier "problems" (If you don't like Fun), where a corpse is more effective then a sword.
Side note: Actually fighting involves very little parrying, because weapons lose their edge and break much easier then you would expect. The only weapon I can think of that is meant to be consistently used to block a blow is the rapier, and that works because it has no edge and is very flexible.
Post by: Flare on February 19, 2013, 06:16:11 am
Name one culture that places no value what so ever on corpses.
As Civilization taught us, Cerminoal burial is important.
I think they may have a negative value for them, corpses being magnets of disease and putrid elements what with the rotting and the gases and such. Getting rid of them for purely practical reasons for instance. I do not think that it is too far fetched to say that there are some groups of people out there that place no value on dead bodies. The person you're addressing, as well as I, are two examples of individuals that do not put much worth into corpses.
A better argument against his position though, is that people like he and I tend to just cremate the bodies for practical reasons and disperse the ash somewhere or general dispose of the body instead of building elaborate temples and dungeons for them. A nice tomb filled with valuables is generally indicative of a group of people who really, really care about the corpses of their members.
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on February 19, 2013, 10:42:49 am
Post by: varsovie on February 19, 2013, 03:43:54 pm
Side note: Actually fighting involves very little parrying, because weapons lose their edge and break much easier then you would expect. The only weapon I can think of that is meant to be consistently used to block a blow is the rapier, and that works because it has no edge and is very flexible.
Well, between blocking and parrying there is a lot of difference, I woulnd't "block" with a rapier or a foil, too fragile.
Has for the so claiment "edge", on very big swords it doens't matter anyway, the blow it mainly concussive anyway, relying more of speed/mass to chop people. Kinda like woodaxes, they aren't "sharp", but still cut because they have a lot of force.
Post by: Ivefan on February 19, 2013, 04:48:55 pm
Side note: Actually fighting involves very little parrying, because weapons lose their edge and break much easier then you would expect. The only weapon I can think of that is meant to be consistently used to block a blow is the rapier, and that works because it has no edge and is very flexible.When the wielder only has a sword theres much parrying. Any 'blocking' would be deflective rather than trying to stop the attack unless one has a heavier kind of sword and it is never edge to edge.
Take the twohander(zweihander). In a german sword style it has a basic defensive posture where you hold the sword upside down at your side with the cross guard at shoulder height that basically covers your whole body. This pose lets you make a quick leg strike, sideway swing and a powerful strike from above.
Many swords, from longswords(varies) and larger have a part of the blade by the hilt that is not edged and thus slightly thicker. I assume we're not talking about crappy swords, but this zone is rather sturdy.
Most blocking occurs by stepping in and stopping the opponents strike before it's in full swing so there's not that much force to damage the blade. At other times you either dodge or deflect the strike with the side of the sword.
There's both dual edged rapiers and the rounded piercing one and this is a very light weapon so it would only be used to block another rapier, but it can probably deflect a strike.
Has for the so claiment "edge", on very big swords it doens't matter anyway, the blow it mainly concussive anyway, relying more of speed/mass to chop people. Kinda like woodaxes, they aren't "sharp", but still cut because they have a lot of force.
True, but one would still keep a sharp edge to be able to slice when needed. except for that scottish or irish one that was just simply huge, forgot the name.
Post by: hops on February 19, 2013, 10:05:35 pm
True, but one would still keep a sharp edge to be able to slice when needed. except for that scottish or irish one that was just simply huge, forgot the name.
Claymore?
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 03:49:03 am
Claymore?Nope, there's an even larger one.
Post by: Man of Paper on February 20, 2013, 07:06:16 am
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 07:10:13 am
Zweihander?That and the claymore is basically the same size :P
I just recall reading about an almost impractically large sword used quite far back, but because it's so unwieldy it didn't get to be used for long.
Post by: Man of Paper on February 20, 2013, 07:13:52 am
Was it the bastard sword!?
Or the crazy bastard sword!!?!!
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 07:17:15 am
I don't know what the crazy bastard sword is, but a normal one is one and a half hander, thus a bastard of the two hander & the one handed.
Post by: Absolute Niro on February 20, 2013, 09:20:21 am
Post by: Dutchling on February 20, 2013, 09:22:42 am
I was always curious why it was called a bastard sword. I didn't expect it to actually make sense, for some reason.It's called a bastard sword because Jon Snow uses one, and he is a bastard.
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on February 20, 2013, 11:11:10 am
bastard sword is a neologism and also refers to regular ol' longswords in contexts where the term longsword describes other weapons
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 11:52:18 am
bastard sword is a neologism and also refers to regular ol' longswords in contexts where the term longsword describes other weaponsRight. nowadays the name longsword seems mostly used for one handed swords or swords where one could use the second hand to give some extra force
Post by: coolio678 on February 20, 2013, 01:59:53 pm
I was always curious why it was called a bastard sword. I didn't expect it to actually make sense, for some reason.I'm with you on that one. This has got to be one of the most educational threads in this forum. :P
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on February 20, 2013, 02:47:50 pm
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 03:02:35 pm
The sword you are thinking of is a Flamberge.Nope. Thats also german and of a much later time...
Post by: Leatra on February 20, 2013, 05:14:22 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Looking at this (and some other stuff I have seen in game), it's fair to say that this roguelike is going to be the most graphically beautiful roguelike ever.
Post by: Ivefan on February 20, 2013, 05:46:02 pm
Looking at this (and some other stuff I have seen in game), it's fair to say that this roguelike is going to be the most graphically beautiful roguelike ever.I've mostly only tried the more famous ones, but i would say that this is the only 'pretty' one :P
Post by: Dutchling on February 20, 2013, 05:47:07 pm
Man, we sure love derailing threads.FTFYSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Looking at this (and some other stuff I have seen in game), it's fair to say that this roguelike is going to be the sexiest roguelike ever.
Post by: Leatra on February 20, 2013, 07:27:21 pm
Post by: varsovie on February 21, 2013, 12:17:22 am
Zweihander?That and the claymore is basically the same size :P
I just recall reading about an almost impractically large sword used quite far back, but because it's so unwieldy it didn't get to be used for long.
The "crystal" :P slaughter sword?.
Post by: Valid_Dark on February 21, 2013, 12:23:04 am
Zweihander?That and the claymore is basically the same size :P
I just recall reading about an almost impractically large sword used quite far back, but because it's so unwieldy it didn't get to be used for long.
The Biggoron Sword?
also, doesn't this thread belong in the "Creative Projects" board?
Post by: Graknorke on February 21, 2013, 05:19:59 am
It's nowhere near finished, but it is still URR.
Post by: Valid_Dark on February 21, 2013, 06:32:26 am
Well, there is a game that exists.it's a beta version of a game made by a B12 member,
It's nowhere near finished, but it is still URR.
Post by: Graknorke on February 21, 2013, 06:37:49 am
That doesn't mean that it can't go here.Well, there is a game that exists.it's a beta version of a game made by a B12 member,
It's nowhere near finished, but it is still URR.
Post by: Sergius on February 21, 2013, 09:33:28 am
Now you're going down in size :P
I don't know what the crazy bastard sword is, but a normal one is one and a half hander, thus a bastard of the two hander & the one handed.
I always wondered why they made swords for people with one and a half hands.
Post by: The Darkling Wolf on February 21, 2013, 09:48:20 am
Post by: Leatra on February 21, 2013, 10:25:07 am
This section is filled with beta and WIP games.That doesn't mean that it can't go here.Well, there is a game that exists.it's a beta version of a game made by a B12 member,
It's nowhere near finished, but it is still URR.
Post by: Valid_Dark on February 21, 2013, 05:01:58 pm
Post by: Dutchling on February 21, 2013, 05:03:33 pm
This section is fine for beta or wip games, unless they're being made by a B12 member, there is a board reserved for that.Have you seen the name of the OP ::)
Post by: Valid_Dark on February 21, 2013, 05:21:49 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on February 22, 2013, 04:35:14 pm
Post by: FuzzWaddle on February 22, 2013, 09:06:12 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 23, 2013, 09:40:04 am
I'm not sure if it's just me, but there looks to be something up with your website's formatting. There's a big but empty banner on the top of the page.
I did like that generated creation story though. It feels like the flow is a little odd, but it's a really big achievement to make something that can generate a story that coherent.
Weird. So you can't see the banner which says "Ultima Ratio Regum: The Roguelike?". Hmm. What are you viewing it on?
This game is so consistently beautiful. Hurrah!
Thank you!
Thanks for reply :)
What I meant by owning resource areas was simply owning them as a source of income/materials to sell, while still leaving actual construction of such sites abstracted out. I think it would be interesting to play as a wealthy merchant and owner of many mines/plantations through kingdom, eventually being so rich that you can field own armies of mercenaries and influencing policies of the kingdom from the shadows.
Ah! In that case, yes, definitely, but it's going to be a while :)
On this forkknife's blog entry: That sun looks beautiful. This is proof that a roguelike can look stunning.
On player-created art: I know you've been dipping into the fast-forwarding time concept, and think this'd be another great thing to implement it with should you decide to. Say, for example, I have a skilled sculptor. Once I get all the materials and somesuch, I decide on the amount of time I want to dedicate to working on it, as well as the general subject (I'll also expand on this idea in a second). The overall quality would depend on the character's skill, the content on their choice, and the size and/or detail on the time dedicated.
To elaborate on the choosing of a general subject, I don't know if it'd be easy, since events would have to be neatly sorted, but have multiple categories with subcategories to choose from. For example:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Of course that'd need to be heavily worked on. In the example list Personal: Battles would just be a more specific area of History: Battles. Unless of course "History" would include only the time before the character was splatted out into the world.
Thanks re: the blog entry! Glad you like. That's a very cool idea re: the sculptor; interesting. Hmm. It would be something very new if you could actually generate a sculpture, or mural, or similar, displaying the thing in question... hmm. I suppose I could just offer the same variety of options I intend to include for generating non-player art etc, but I'm not sure how I could/would make the time thing work. I'll ponder.
I also very much like the term "splatted out into the world". I shall use it.
Looking at this (and some other stuff I have seen in game), it's fair to say that this roguelike is going to be the most graphically beautiful roguelike ever.I've mostly only tried the more famous ones, but i would say that this is the only 'pretty' one :P
Then my mission is succeeding!
That's a way of putting it. The symbol has some nice, sexy curves.
I rather thought so.
I'm having trouble launching the game. After I extract the files to a folder and launch either of the two applications that came with the download it gives me an error about configuration.
Hmmm. What OS are you on? You want to launch the one that isn't w9popup or whatever it's called (as you can see, I know the technical side of my game well). Can you copy or print-screen the error?
Post by: FuzzWaddle on February 23, 2013, 07:55:59 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I took that picture quickly. Anytime I hit the application it gives me that error. It may be because I have the game installed on a new drive. Anyways thanks for the help!
Post by: Mongol13524 on February 25, 2013, 02:28:37 pm
Post by: FuzzWaddle on February 25, 2013, 03:15:21 pm
Post by: rausm on February 25, 2013, 03:25:22 pm
I think the problem is that your colour scheme is orange-red Areo. Try something close to beige and get back to us.
That actually worked! I'm really surprised. I thought you were being sarcastic but I changed it back to default and it worked.
ROFL !!!!
Windows - the only imitation of OS in which you can make programs crash just by changing color schemes.
Thanks, that made my day.
Post by: FuzzWaddle on February 25, 2013, 04:59:36 pm
Post by: Mongol13524 on February 25, 2013, 05:03:32 pm
Post by: Leatra on February 27, 2013, 12:47:29 pm
God, I miss Windows XP.
Post by: Graknorke on February 27, 2013, 02:36:13 pm
That exact thing happened to me in another application. It took hours of frustration to figure out that the problem was custom colors. Figuring that out was frustrating too, since I was trying every insanely complex solution I could think of long before it.From what I've heard, 8 is so much worse with compatibility issues.
God, I miss Windows XP.
Oh so much worse.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 05, 2013, 07:50:37 am
That actually worked! I'm really surprised. I thought you were being sarcastic but I changed it back to default and it worked.
Dear me... I'm glad it worked, though!
This fortnight's blog entry is now up, with another generated block image, and a lot of info about ziggurats, puzzles, and what you can/can't expect from 0.3:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/03/05/ziggurats-and-skulls/
Post by: Iosyn on March 05, 2013, 09:19:53 am
Post by: Minstrel on March 06, 2013, 06:27:57 pm
First time a convention of personal interest appears in Poland and I had already emigrated.
Post by: Leatra on March 06, 2013, 06:38:45 pm
Man, I hope somebody records your lecture at the IRDC
Yeah, me too. Even the title strikes curiosity: "Procedural Art"
Post by: Iosyn on March 08, 2013, 03:58:47 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 15, 2013, 01:21:47 pm
Man, I hope somebody records your lecture at the IRDC, because I am tied with work down here in Spain.
First time a convention of personal interest appears in Poland and I had already emigrated.
Unlucky :(. I intend to record at least mine, but I'm sure someone with a better camera will likely record them all.
Yeah, me too. Even the title strikes curiosity: "Procedural Art"
It will basically be about how I created/create the graphics for the landscapes on the screen, the planets, the block designs, and how I intend to (later) create generated graphics for weapons, armour, etc...
URR looks very nice so far, I can't wait for civilizations so I can recruit people.
Thanks :). Ziggurats (early gameplay) and history generation are the two focuses for 0.3, but it won't be too many more releases until I start thinking about cities.
Meanwhile, general update: I have all but finished implementing scaling puzzle difficulty, remaining puzzle clues, remaining block graphics, and "boss"-level unique puzzle rooms (currently drawing from a database of 50+). I don't have the time to code these next few weeks, though blog entries will remain on the fortnightly schedule for now. When I next resume URR work, I'll be finishing off history gen...
Post by: Man of Paper on March 15, 2013, 01:27:46 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: varsovie on March 15, 2013, 05:34:39 pm
Post by: Glloyd on March 21, 2013, 11:27:38 pm
http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/ (http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/)
Post by: Devling on March 22, 2013, 12:09:50 am
Post by: Putnam on March 22, 2013, 12:11:32 am
Post by: Devling on March 22, 2013, 12:26:47 am
You may notice that the most recent post by the OP is less than a week ago :PThings happen in a week.
Like... Okay really I just have no sense of time. :-[
Post by: varsovie on March 22, 2013, 10:01:58 am
@Glloyd, very interesting and well written, thank.
Post by: Xantalos on March 22, 2013, 11:18:01 pm
Ohmygoditgenerateswholesolarsystems
I must ask, though, am I just unlucky or does the game have any functioning civilizations yet?
Post by: Dutchling on March 23, 2013, 11:49:26 am
I must ask, though, am I just unlucky or does the game have any functioning civilizations yet?No civs yet.
Post by: Xantalos on March 23, 2013, 11:50:35 am
That would explain it.I must ask, though, am I just unlucky or does the game have any functioning civilizations yet?No civs yet.
Are there any other units?
Post by: Aerval on March 23, 2013, 04:17:42 pm
That would explain it.I must ask, though, am I just unlucky or does the game have any functioning civilizations yet?No civs yet.
Are there any other units?
Not in 0.2 but in 0.1 were some, if i remember correctly
Post by: Mookzen on March 23, 2013, 04:51:39 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 24, 2013, 08:09:46 am
Procedural hand drawing? :P
Let's not rule it out...
Hey there. Found this, thought I might post the link. It's a collection of essays which address different metallurgical processes in different time periods, and how different metals were used for different weapons in different cultures. Along with other historical concepts. It's worth checking out for sure.
http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/ (http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/)
Very interesting stuff! I'm still considering how exactly I want weapons and armour to both a) function and b) be generated, and that's all far from certain at the moment. I've gone through around a dozen ideas/iterations in my head, though I've not settled on one yet. Either way, all this materials stuff is mighty useful.
You may notice that the most recent post by the OP is less than a week ago :PThings happen in a week.
Like... Okay really I just have no sense of time. :-[
Haha, don't worry, it is 100% not dead. I've had to take breaks of a month or two in the past to heavily focus on my academic work; this isn't the first time, and alas it won't be the last, but the game is 100% still in development, and will be for the foreseeable future!
URR, if you don't post every 24h, I'll rape, eat and kill (in that order) one kitten every hour!
@Glloyd, very interesting and well written, thank.
Such emotional blackmail!
Downloading now. Awww yeah.
Ohmygoditgenerateswholesolarsystems
I must ask, though, am I just unlucky or does the game have any functioning civilizations yet?
Nope; not yet. Civilizations WILL exist for the next version in the history and the encyclopedia, but cities and things are still a way off. Which is to say, to clarify - you will be able to read about civilizations, but their actual structures will not exist. For the most part.
Not in 0.2 but in 0.1 were some, if i remember correctly
There were indeed, but that was back when URR was high fantasy, so they're all ancient history...
Dropping in for the first time, the project sounds very interesting. Is there a list of features already in the game ? In short, what can be done in the current version, how far along in development is the game ? (some description of the current state of the game would probably compliment the OP well)
Thank you! You can generate solar systems, explore the map, check the graphics/options, climb, run, and use the 'L'ook function to have a look at pretty much everything around you. As for how "far" along the game is... that's a tough question to answer. But real gameplay is going to begin with the next version, which I'm working on at the moment. Good idea re: the OP, I'll change it soon.
Post by: coolio678 on March 24, 2013, 01:44:22 pm
Nope; not yet. Civilizations WILL exist for the next version in the history and the encyclopedia, but cities and things are still a way off. Which is to say, to clarify - you will be able to read about civilizations, but their actual structures will not exist. For the most part.heh, so it's going to be like you're the lone survivor of some horrible, cataclysmic event, who can only read about the past?
Post by: Xantalos on March 24, 2013, 04:04:34 pm
Like Minecraft with backstory!Nope; not yet. Civilizations WILL exist for the next version in the history and the encyclopedia, but cities and things are still a way off. Which is to say, to clarify - you will be able to read about civilizations, but their actual structures will not exist. For the most part.heh, so it's going to be like you're the lone survivor of some horrible, cataclysmic event, who can only read about the past?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 02, 2013, 09:24:40 am
Nope; not yet. Civilizations WILL exist for the next version in the history and the encyclopedia, but cities and things are still a way off. Which is to say, to clarify - you will be able to read about civilizations, but their actual structures will not exist. For the most part.heh, so it's going to be like you're the lone survivor of some horrible, cataclysmic event, who can only read about the past?
Ha, I guess it is! Maybe there's potential in that idea...
Anyway, here's this fortnight's devblog, about URR's inspirations, the concept of "inspiration" per se, and a general update. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/04/02/inspiration/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 28, 2013, 06:50:50 pm
With a blog update!
It is one in which I insult the game of chess, and more importantly, announce the imminent return of active development!
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/04/29/short-term-luck-and-long-term-skill/
Post by: Dutchling on April 28, 2013, 07:10:25 pm
Post by: Devling on April 28, 2013, 10:03:07 pm
Glad this is being actively developed again.
Post by: varsovie on April 28, 2013, 10:14:21 pm
@Dutchling
SC2 is lot more like chess, very few openings and counter opening. Then mid-game where anything can happen and you must transition your built to beat your opponent, manage economic, researches, army composition and positioning. Then if it goes late game, it's a matter of who's gonna get the most efficient so to not run dry of resources.
Their is lot of short term "luck", but SC2 players don't like luck (or sometime, I love the widow mines), and in an even battle the best "micro" always win.
Post by: coolio678 on April 29, 2013, 03:37:46 pm
:owell, in a month or so, but that's not too far into the future.
Glad this is being actively developed again.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 04, 2013, 09:49:28 am
Nice blog update! Can't say I wholly agree with you though ;). StarCraft 2 would probably fail your 'short term luck' test.
There is definitely luck in SC2, despite what they say to the contrary - once both players have committed to certain build orders without knowledge of their opponent, sometimes purely by chance one person will have committed to a better order than the other. It's minor, but it is there, and I'm sure more experienced players could give other/better examples...
:o
Glad this is being actively developed again.
Thanks! I'm glad I'll soon have the time to actually do so :)
SC2 is lot more like chess, very few openings and counter opening. Then mid-game where anything can happen and you must transition your built to beat your opponent, manage economic, researches, army composition and positioning. Then if it goes late game, it's a matter of who's gonna get the most efficient so to not run dry of resources.
Their is lot of short term "luck", but SC2 players don't like luck (or sometime, I love the widow mines), and in an even battle the best "micro" always win.
Yeah - I used to absolutely adore RTS games (particularly the old C&Cs, C&C '95 remains a game design masterclass imo) but Starcraft is precisely the same as chess to my mind. The mid-game is fun, but I just don't enjoy doing the same opening over and over, and learning build orders? That's just anathema to fun, to me! HOWEVER, I realize that one could say "is learning build orders that different to learning boss attack patterns, or floor layouts, or how certain items work, or whatever?". And I guess the answer is that the learning is no different, but it's the constant repetition. Or maybe it just feels different. Hmm.
:owell, in a month or so, but that's not too far into the future.
Glad this is being actively developed again.
Even less now! HYPE HYPE HYPE.
Post by: Devling on May 04, 2013, 05:43:22 pm
Did you know that I now use Hype regularly because of Two Best Friends?
Post by: Leatra on May 05, 2013, 02:31:35 pm
Anyway, just happy you're back working on the game :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 09, 2013, 07:00:08 am
That was a little stupid of me, didn't read the whole thing. I must of been blinded by the hype.
Did you know that I now use Hype regularly because of Two Best Friends?
Heh - I've only just discovered TBF myself, and I'm rather enjoying it.
I know that feeling you get when you are playing chess. The openings and counter openings stuff is boring but the late-mid game is where it gets interesting so I play along anyway. I did some crazy awesome stalemates in my time.
Anyway, just happy you're back working on the game :D
Haha, yeah, that's my feeling too. I greatly prefer something where that doesn't arise though... or maybe someone could just invent a system where we automatically get the boring early game out of the way. Because that would work...
Anyway, thanks :)! The next blog entry will be another general games writing one, then after that I'll switch back to weekly updates. I basically need to finish all the ziggurat graphics, the puzzle generation, then a bunch of bugs and things, then we're done for 0.3.
Post by: pilgrimboy on May 09, 2013, 10:15:38 am
Post by: PTTG?? on May 09, 2013, 04:45:11 pm
Maybe chess just needs a new starting setup.
Or different rules. I think it would be interesting to just add one: on a capture, both pieces are removed from the board.
Post by: PTTG?? on May 09, 2013, 04:56:04 pm
This is the best thing I've ever seen and I have seen a supermodel win the kitten lottery.
EDIT: Though a quick-start guide would be great, because I have no idea how to start building my army/spaceship. I wanna fly up to one of my earth's three moons! Or maybe make a world where it's a parched, dry earth with an ocean moon sitting there!
Post by: Rowanas on May 09, 2013, 05:39:15 pm
Post by: PTTG?? on May 09, 2013, 06:08:01 pm
Post by: Graknorke on May 09, 2013, 07:21:04 pm
So, how do I start shooting at things with guns/swords? Do I need to find food?I'm afraid we have some bad news for you.
Post by: Leatra on May 09, 2013, 08:11:44 pm
Oooh, I wanna break the bad news!So, how do I start shooting at things with guns/swords? Do I need to find food?I'm afraid we have some bad news for you.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Devling on May 09, 2013, 08:26:10 pm
Can you feel the storm? It's coming!That was a little stupid of me, didn't read the whole thing. I must of been blinded by the hype.
Did you know that I now use Hype regularly because of Two Best Friends?
Heh - I've only just discovered TBF myself, and I'm rather enjoying it.
Anyway, wait is it seriously a dating sim now. Or are you jerking my chain. I assume you are jerking my chain, but stranger things have happened.
Post by: RanDomino on May 09, 2013, 08:43:52 pm
Maybe chess just needs a new starting setup.Point-buy: Do you go with a balanced start, or stick to a few elites (such as two Queens and four Bishops), or load up on like 31 pawns and crush with sheer mass?
Post by: varsovie on May 10, 2013, 06:46:17 am
Maybe chess just needs a new starting setup.Point-buy: Do you go with a balanced start, or stick to a few elites (such as two Queens and four Bishops), or load up on like 31 pawns and crush with sheer mass?
Terran, Protoss or Zerg?
Post by: PTTG?? on May 10, 2013, 11:47:42 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 15, 2013, 10:28:47 am
Maybe chess just needs a new starting setup.
Or different rules. I think it would be interesting to just add one: on a capture, both pieces are removed from the board.
I do like some of the chess variants you can buy on wikipedia; precisely because they aren't analyzed to the extent of the "original" game, I find them a lot more enjoyable to play...
HOLY CRAP this thing generates solar systems!
This is the best thing I've ever seen and I have seen a supermodel win the kitten lottery.
EDIT: Though a quick-start guide would be great, because I have no idea how to start building my army/spaceship. I wanna fly up to one of my earth's three moons! Or maybe make a world where it's a parched, dry earth with an ocean moon sitting there!
Haha, thank you. Yeah, for the next version I'm going to have a message at the explaining it's still an alpha, what's in place, what isn't in place, etc.
I have been absent for a little while. I found my last post, read all the blogs, and have now returned to shower you all with my wisdomseed! No. I have nothing to say, except hooray! I look forward to defeating ziggurats and being granted the greatest gift of all... a way to leave the ziggurat. :D
Thank you! I keep having all these neat new ideas for ziggurats, but I'm just going to stick to the puzzle elements for 0.3...
Oooh, I wanna break the bad news!Spoiler (click to show/hide)
FACT.
Can you feel the storm? It's coming!
Anyway, wait is it seriously a dating sim now. Or are you jerking my chain. I assume you are jerking my chain, but stranger things have happened.
Stranger things have happened. But no, sadly, no dating. I'm focusing on the exploration/puzzle aspect for now, then the next releases will focus on civ/history generation and further deepening the exploration/puzzle aspects. I have some really neat stuff planned, but I want to get out the ziggurat basics asap and get some feedback!
Post by: Dutchling on May 15, 2013, 10:31:07 am
Post by: PTTG?? on May 15, 2013, 10:54:41 am
Is courtly love and tapping ass something you would considering adding to the game?
It's an essential part of this balanced feudal monarchy!
Post by: Graknorke on May 15, 2013, 12:38:44 pm
Is courtly love and tapping ass something you would considering adding to the game?New endgame goal: Marry everyone in your empire. As in, all of them. At once.
Post by: Ivefan on May 15, 2013, 01:07:16 pm
New endgame goal: Marry everyone in your empire. As in, all of them. At once.Obligatory objective: Establish heritage empire, breed as many possible heirs as possible and then switch player character to one of them and try to be the victor of the vicious backstabbing infighting for the regency.
Post by: Devling on May 15, 2013, 09:07:05 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 23, 2013, 09:04:16 am
Is courtly love and tapping ass something you would considering adding to the game?
Is courtly love and tapping ass something you would considering adding to the game?
It's an essential part of this balanced feudal monarchy!
Is courtly love and tapping ass something you would considering adding to the game?New endgame goal: Marry everyone in your empire. As in, all of them. At once.
New endgame goal: Marry everyone in your empire. As in, all of them. At once.Obligatory objective: Establish heritage empire, breed as many possible heirs as possible and then switch player character to one of them and try to be the victor of the vicious backstabbing infighting for the regency.
We shall exact our pound of dating sim.
Well, I'm sold on this idea...
...but the answer is currently, maybe. Depends on how much I intend to let time pass and that kind of thing. Can't give an answer yet! Though, alas, ass-tapping is not currently on the dev plan. Which is not to say it won't ever be...
MEANWHILE, I've now updated the development plan (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/) with the path ahead, and active development will be resuming in under two weeks! I have some very cool stuff to show off when it does. Here's a copy of the dev plan (brackets indicate progress):
0.3.0, Summer 2013:
- Language generation (50%)
- Flag/religious symbol generation (100%)
- Present-day civilization territories (75%)
- New map key and information
- Memory use/loading time improvement (50%)
- First gameplay – Ziggurats (80%)
- Ziggurat puzzle generation (60%)
- Language-specific name generation (80%)
- About 50 small improvements/bug-fixes (10%)
0.4.0, Winter 2013:
- Myth & legend generation (30%)
- History generation (20%)
- Civilization generation (50%)
- More messages when moving around the world
- Seasonal soil/tree ‘look’ changes
- All ruins etc tied to history
Post by: joey4track on May 26, 2013, 02:22:50 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 26, 2013, 02:57:38 pm
Ok, just started to (try to) play this one. It looks amazing and I love the style of the art(?) but I have *no* idea what to do in it. I have just been walking around and I have found nothing. What do I do to start out in this one?
Glad you like it :). Afraid there really isn't much to do yet, aside from look at the visuals, explore the world/UI, etc. A lot of people have pointed out this isn't really clear, so in the next version I intend to make it very, very clear what gameplay currently exists and what doesn't! Atm, very little, but in the next version, a hefty amount of exploration, procedural puzzle generation, some ruins, and some secrets.
Post by: joey4track on May 26, 2013, 04:29:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 27, 2013, 10:35:33 am
What I am removing:
- Skill trees. They just clutter things up at the moment. They will return, bit by bit, when you can actually use them.
- Civ selection screen and civilizations/histories. I’ve done a *lot* of work on generating myths, histories, civs, flags, religions etc, which will see the light of day, but that will be the focus for 0.4. As above, don’t want to show off anything half-finished.
What I am adding:
- Language generation. Languages will be tied to civilizations and reflected in their ziggurats. In 0.3, you will be able to translate them from the start, but this will not always be the case.
- Civilization territories. Although they cannot yet war and battle in history, territories will nevertheless be generated and appear on the world map to demonstrate how this appears, and how languages tie to geographical areas.
- Technical improvements. Almost everything will be sped up, and should use less CPU.
- Ziggurats! With procedurally generated three-dimensional levels, puzzles, and some secrets up top. If you piece the secrets together, you’ll get a clue towards the future of the game…
What I am changing:
- Speed mechanics, probably. Next week’s blog entry will be (yet another!) in-depth look at this eternal problem.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 03, 2013, 10:00:56 am
Post by: Man of Paper on June 03, 2013, 10:54:40 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 07, 2013, 03:57:06 pm
I very much like using terrain as a major modifier for movement speed. Were the mechanics of increasing movement speed discussed yet? Do you only speed up if you're traveling in a straight line, or will it be a toggled option? If it's toggled, would being in a confined space restrict the use of faster options such as sprinting? Will trying to sprint through underbrush, up a dune, or other equally difficult terrain have a chance of tripping up the PC?
Glad you like the idea. Yes, basically you (and NPCs) can toggle running, then when you've been running for a bit, move into sprinting. Sharp turns slow you down. I love the tripping up idea... maybe! Would depend on whether you can accurately assess the chance, or whether it just turns into an annoying RNG aspect that can determine life/death. Maybe sprinting on difficult terrain slows you down, or gives you a warning before you trip, or similar...
Post by: Mephansteras on June 07, 2013, 04:09:11 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 07, 2013, 05:45:16 pm
Maybe have it give you a warning when going over rough terrain that moving too fast could cause you to trip? Or you could have a Safe Run and a Full Run toggle that either throttles your speed but prevents tripping over difficult terrain or lets you go full speed but risk tripping.
The warning option could work; or running doesn't risk tripping, but sprinting will always risk tripping, maybe. That would be a decent trade-off for trying to sprint out of bad terrain. Modifiers (weight holding? Or maybe just Dex?) could affect chance of tripping...
Post by: Mephansteras on June 07, 2013, 05:51:46 pm
If you're heavily burdened, it's much easier to trip. Having run in armor, I can attest that it takes a bit more effort to get over obstacles.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2013, 08:07:47 am
I'd probably go a combination of weight (compared to str) and dex.
If you're heavily burdened, it's much easier to trip. Having run in armor, I can attest that it takes a bit more effort to get over obstacles.
That makes sense to me. I'm still thinking over some of the exact specifics of the speed system (after a lengthy debate on the last devlog (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/06/03/snow-sand-shallow-water-and-speed)), but I like that as being a disadvantage to wearing heavier armour.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2013, 06:59:11 pm
Short update-focused blog entry today. I’ve been working on a bunch of things, some which are bug fixes and small features, some of which are further development of the procedural graphics in the ziggurats, and some of which are secret for now. Here’s a list of what’s been done over the last week, and what the goals for next week are. Next week’s blog entry will be something a little different, hence why this week’s is both a retrospective for the past week’s work, and a… prospective?… on next week’s.
This week:
Seven new procedural graphics have been finished off for ziggurats, leaving all the block graphics finished. These include various creatures and locations, each of which has a wide variety of different poses, positions or permutations. As ever, generated art is a central part of the game, and I’m pretty damned happy with how these are looking.
Ocean travel is now temporarily enabled for the next few releases. In the future, you’ll need ships or similar to travel, but for the time being, you can travel across ocean squares when you’re in the fast travel screen (‘T’). This ensures you can get to all the imporant ziggurats in this release.
Ziggurat rewards have been largely programmed in. Right now, these are either a) secrets, or b) hints towards which ziggurats you can find secrets in. Naturally in the future there will be a far greater variety, but for the time being, 0.3 is focused on locating these items.
Various bugs have been fixed, and various small features added, generally in the direction of clarity and ease of use. A few small things have also been removed as they aren’t fully implemented yet (for instance, the skills menu), to focus on the exploration in this release.
This coming week, I’m going to be focusing on finishing off all the possible puzzle generation. There’s a very large number of components coming together so that the blocks, clues, codewords, puzzles, pressure pads and gates all combine correctly, and ensuring the game places puzzles of the correct difficulty on appropriate floors. Expect easy puzzles at the bases of ziggurats, and ones that pretty much require a pen and pad at the top. I’m also going to be trying to deal with a few more little bugs and features, and generally continue cleaning up 0.3 for release in a month or so. Next week’s blog entry will likely be a tribute to one of my favourite authors, Iain Banks, who died this week, but after that normal service will resume. By the time of the next URR update all aspects of ziggurats should (fingers crossed) be completed, at which point I’ll give a little postmortem on that process, and keep you all updated on finishing things for this release off. See you then, and remember – clues might be hidden anywhere.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/06/Moon.png)
Post by: Man of Paper on June 11, 2013, 08:01:46 pm
Post by: varsovie on June 12, 2013, 01:11:35 am
Post by: Mephansteras on June 12, 2013, 11:40:30 am
For the record, I like reading things here. I often forget to go looking in other places for information on stuff, but anything posted in a thread I'm following here will get read.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 15, 2013, 05:45:27 am
All that's missing from the last image is a Nic Cage face.
Only a matter of time...
Forget the game, just sell your procedural art to a museum and drive sport cars the rest of your life!
Ah - if only! I think I've only shown about 3 of the block artworks so far, and there's nearly twenty or so, so I'm looking forward to hearing what people think of the rest of them.
Nifty!
For the record, I like reading things here. I often forget to go looking in other places for information on stuff, but anything posted in a thread I'm following here will get read.
Thanks - in that case, I'll post them full here from now on, rather than just the link.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 26, 2013, 07:45:09 pm
Puzzles are 100% finished. There are five “levels”, finishing off with “boss” level puzzles. Even when I know how to solve the puzzles, they still take me some thought. Playtesting it with people who don’t know how they are generated under the hood have found them so far genuinely challenging and really interesting to solve, so I have high hopes. They include a vast quantity of procedural art (something like 200+ images?) and over 300 possible puzzle permutations, and that’s not even counting the clues. You’ll have to play A Lot if you want to see even a small percentage of these things.
Ziggurats are 99% finished. They generate the entire buildings, all puzzles generate (as above), the structures inside and outside match up, dungeons are three-dimensional, which is to say staircases lead directly up and down, not to random points on the floor above, and some areas can only be accessed from floors above or below. It makes for a really interesting structure to explore, and it’ll be all the better in the future once a greater variety of rooms exist. Special ziggurats also have secrets atop them, whilst by the end of tomorrow other ziggurats will have clues pointing you towards the special ziggurats if you’ve taken the wrong one. In the future these will be treasure rooms etc. Lastly, as well as “Look-up” graphics for blocks, I’m adding ones for doors, iron gates, and a few other things. They look pretty cool.
A basic inventory system is now in place. This is not what it will look like in the future, but suffices for the time being to deal with the few items now in the game. It won’t be redone for the release after this (probably), but certainly will once a decent number of items actually enter the game.
Next update will be next Monday, and since I now have internet at my new place, they should be regular until release (I know I keep saying this, and failing to keep to it, but I’ll try). By this time next week, ziggurats should be totally finished and I should be onto bug fixing and optimizations. I’ve had a very crazy idea for hugely reducing save/load times I need to try out, amongst other things.
I cannot WAIT to show it off, but just a little bit of final tweaking is needed...
Post by: Mongol13524 on June 26, 2013, 10:14:33 pm
#hype #hashtagsoutsideoftwitter
Post by: Edmus on June 27, 2013, 01:23:51 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 29, 2013, 06:15:35 am
!
#hype #hashtagsoutsideoftwitter
Pumped.
Hype! Trying to get everything into a version I can start seriously playtesting by the end of this weekend. Definitely on track...
Post by: etgfrog on June 29, 2013, 07:24:04 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 29, 2013, 07:31:22 am
so...i decided to try this...generated a world...known issue when doing random setting?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Interesting - never had this one. That was with the random setting, you say? Thanks for the heads-up, I'll check it out.
Post by: hops on June 29, 2013, 07:38:28 pm
Post by: Graknorke on June 29, 2013, 07:40:07 pm
I understand that the game is to be low-fantasy, but will there be any presence of magic, like rituals a la UnRealWorld?I know that there'll definitely be religions and so probably sacrifices. What's up for debate is whether or not they do anything.
Post by: hops on June 29, 2013, 07:42:36 pm
Post by: Graknorke on June 29, 2013, 07:45:38 pm
At least rituals and religions should have some kind of psychological effects. I would love to be some kind of Witch King that nobody wants to mess with.Well obviously they would have effects in the context of followers of that religion. I thought you meant in terms of them having magical effects.
Also I keep making typos now. I'll try to cut down on any large paragraphs.
Post by: hops on June 29, 2013, 07:49:01 pm
Real life voodoo is the ancient equivalent of PsyOp, after all.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 01, 2013, 06:46:48 pm
I understand that the game is to be low-fantasy, but will there be any presence of magic, like rituals a la UnRealWorld?
It's 95% realistic, with a slight "magic realism" aspect, more than low fantasy, as much.
Well obviously they would have effects in the context of followers of that religion. I thought you meant in terms of them having magical effects.
Also I keep making typos now. I'll try to cut down on any large paragraphs.
I'm 99% certain they will only have effects within the context of the religion or cult; there will be a few 'weird' effects, but less so magical. I mean, no fireball spells or whatever. It's still a little in flux, but most of the weird artefacts you'll find won't be weapons or things like that, but stuff that (hopefully!) produces interesting non-combat gameplay. As you can tell, I'm still planning some of this out...
Post by: Man of Paper on July 01, 2013, 07:42:31 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on July 01, 2013, 09:26:42 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 02, 2013, 05:12:05 am
Like something that makes people more honest when near it or something to that effect? That'd be neat whether it's right or not.
Now that's an interesting idea. Something that prevents someone it is used on from lying? Or that lets you detect lies? Or something similar? For the NPC aspects of the game, something like that (with limited usages or whatever) could be really good...
maybe stuff that affects your luck, with hidden stats so you never know if it's working as intended
Also a definite possibility. However, I think I want things which the player has much more of a choice over where/when/how to use, not so much background stuff. If there are passive effects, I do want it to be a visible one. I think. Maybe. However, if there just a few very specific RNG aspects an item altered (like only a few contexts), then I think something like that might be viable. I've had a few ideas already, but they're all very much in the pondering stage...
Now this week's update, which you can also read at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/07/02/permadeath-and-world-generation/
First, 0.3 update, second, general URR discussion. This week I’ve been focusing on finishing off everything except bugs and small features, and that’s going well. All the secrets and the basic inventory are fully implemented, ziggurats work perfectly, and I’ve done a lot of work on generating some rather nice door graphics. For example:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/07/What-lurks.png)
(I am aware there should be vines trailing inwards – working on it). This coming fortnight I’m rushing around the country like a mad person gathering data for my PhD thesis and giving a talk about roguelikes at an academic conference (which I will try and either record of convert to some form viewable here), but by the end of this fortnight I’d like all graphics finished off, one slight movement issue with blocks, walls and the player character fixed, then I can move onto bug fixing. The requirements for the next release are really coalescing in my mind now as well, so I’ll probably post about those in the near future. Whilst this is all going on, the body of today’s entry is about longer-term plans, specifically about permadeath.
Permadeath provides many of the things I love in roguelikes and roguelike-likes (I’ll just call them all “RLs” for this discussion, so that’s everything from Nethack to FTL). A high level of challenge; a huge amount of tension at risky moments that few non-permadeath games can emulate; and a genuine feeling of progress and accomplishment when you reach new areas you’ve never reached before (particularly when they actually look aesthetically different – I am looking at you disapprovingly, Nethack, and you approvingly, Crawl). An additional factor I think shouldn’t be overlooked is game balance. Which is to say, game balance in something like Dungeon Crawl is very carefully designed around permadeath. If you remove permadeath from Crawl the game becomes almost trivial. If you could reload and thereby reroll every floor, you’d never have to deal with any nasty unique; you could reload before consuming mutagenic corpses to farm every positive mutation in the game; you could reload floors with treasure rooms or shops until they sell what you want; and so on and so on. Game balance in any good roguelike is not just broken but utterly destroyed if you don’t have a single life you can’t reload, because it hinges on the game distributing good items, bad items, easy foes and nasty foes towards you according to whatever algorithms govern them, not according to someone endlessly rerolling until they get a great outcome.
However. I got to thinking about permadeath in URR, and realized an issue. Generating a world currently takes around a minute – once history generation is implemented, probably in the next version, it’ll take maybe 2-3 minutes to generate a world. That isn’t much by DF standards, and there will be a lot of gameplay in that world, but it’s still a decent block of time. I originally thought the solution to this was to simply let you have new characters in the same world, as many as you want, but that won’t work. A lot more will be said on this later, but here’s the big reveal: URR is developing a plot (lots more on this in the future, but it’s going to be very interesting, and nothing like normal medieval-story fare). A weird and obtuse one, but still a plot (which the secret items in 0.3 are a part of). Having infinite characters in one world means you, like save-scumming in Crawl, cannot fail to complete the game, if only by just trying character after character until one them gets through each challenge.
That does not appeal.
However, nor does having to generate a brand new world every time you die. Admittedly combat and death are going to be comparatively rare in URR compared to most RLs, but combat is going to be brutal and bloody, so you will lose characters, or to traps or starvation on long excursions if not to direct combat. I don’t want to discourge new players by forcing them to sit through a new world-gen every time they die rather than being able to jump back into the action, but I don’t want the game to be made too easy by having infinite characters all contributing to succeeding in a single “campaign”. I’ve been trying to think of a solution, and I think I’ve developed one which is original, sensible, and could produce some interesting emergent risk/reward strategies.
The current idea is this. You have three “lives” in each world – when you die you can create another character twice. When your third character dies, that world is finished. Each life starts with 25% of the XP of the previous character which you can assign into any skill tree from the start, but none of the items – they are left upon the original corpse, vaguely likes a Bones file in another RL. This means when you die the first time, you don’t have to reroll a world, and can learn from your mistakes whilst keeping whatever progress you made. Also, and possibly more importantly, it could lead to interesting tactics. Once you know the game you could make one character to do one particular area, then kill them off and start a new one for the rest of the game – you might have got a specialist to solve one region, but you’ve used up a full character, and you don’t have many to spare, so that’s a risk/reward decision. Equally, losing a character not by choice could let you reassess what killed you and either create a new build to deal with the same, or explore another region with another build.
So that’s the current plan. There is no way to die in 0.3, so this isn’t implemented yet, but this is my plan. I’m firmly set on the “plot” idea as I have a lot of ideas for it (go read some Jorge Borges for some clues), and that necessitates true permadeath, but without the annoyance of endless re-rolling. I think it’s a good compromise, but I want to know what everyone else thinks. Let me know your thoughts! I should stress I have in no way settled on the three lives idea – maybe I will stick to normal one-life permadeath – but I’d like some feedback on the concept.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on July 02, 2013, 07:41:58 am
Tome4 emphasises the plot in roguelikes quite a bit and it's default mode has multiple lives for your character. It works. So based on what you have planned for URR, a single life permadeath is definitely not the way to go, unless you make it a lot harder to die. I trust you will find something good through testing and whatnot. Maybe just flat out multiple lives, maybe award people more lives as they progress in the game. Each time a player reaches a new 'plot' milestone they get an extralife, or part of an extralife. Or maybe even just some cosmic currency that can be used to purchase lives or other properly thought out and balanced goodies. There would be a certain risk/reward mechanic right there, "Do I get an extralife or do I get something that benefits me in other ways?".
You could always try to imbue death in to the gameplay and plot. Maybe you have things that need to be unlocked, but some require living deeds while others require character death. Background story in Icewind Dale had a great barbarian warrior sacrifice himself by sealing a demongate with his own body. Planescape: Torment used the PCs immortality in some puzzles, you could do the same in URR. Except you're not immortal, you merely shift your control from one digital peon to the next to advance in the game world.
I guess this all depends on how attached you want us to be in our singular characters. Am I, the player, Lord Karl von Hessen-Kassel, or am I some unexplainable force behind the actions of half a dozen or so individuals who all play their part in some cosmic powerplay?
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on July 02, 2013, 10:03:38 am
Post by: Dutchling on July 02, 2013, 10:29:06 am
A successor doesn't even have to be a kinsman. Maybe you can start a mercenary company and have a new leader appointed when you die, whom you can play as.
edit: It looks like you're actually making your own dreamgame, and not mine :P
Post by: Ivefan on July 02, 2013, 10:32:05 am
I was always under the impression that URR was going to be a free rowing, large scope sandbox game where you made your story yourself. That does not exclude semi random quests though, and I do not mean "go slay 4 wolfs in nearby region" but premade dungeons and the like that is just random in if they are in the game on this map and where you'll find questgivers.
Maybe you should separate your story/plot and a sandbox mode? The story mode would have a more narrow focus or scope where you go about your quest while the sandbox mode is do whatever and where you can inherit a portion of skills or items with a child, but where if you have none you can start over in the same world a few decades later. See how the world changed after your demise.
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on July 02, 2013, 10:59:23 am
I do not know how you plan the plot you're thinking of, but having 3 different characters progress the same story sounds weird to me.
I disagree. The original Star Wars films. Luke, Leia and Han. While they did party up, they all spent time doing their own things that advanced the plot. Or Lord of the Rings, Frodo & Sam were doing their stuff, Gandalf was doing his wizard things, Merry & Pippin were somewhere else and Aragon led his little ragtag of heroes doing yet more things. All were part of the same story, everyone was doing something different at different places.
I guess I tilt slightly towards stories that feature large casts and multiple points of view.
Post by: Glloyd on July 02, 2013, 12:13:54 pm
But at the same time you said you want a low fantasy world.
I was always under the impression that URR was going to be a free rowing, large scope sandbox game where you made your story yourself. That does not exclude semi random quests though, and I do not mean "go slay 4 wolfs in nearby region" but premade dungeons and the like that is just random in if they are in the game on this map and where you'll find questgivers.
Maybe you should separate your story/plot and a sandbox mode? The story mode would have a more narrow focus or scope where you go about your quest while the sandbox mode is do whatever and where you can inherit a portion of skills or items with a child, but where if you have none you can start over in the same world a few decades later. See how the world changed after your demise.
This.
I became interested in this, BECAUSE it was a scalable low fantasy sandboxy RL. But by the looks of it, it's suddenly Ghost's n' Goblins and I need to conserve my 3 lives (or whatever you decide on) to make it to endgame? That holds no appeal for me. I assumed (and I'm assuming so did others (oh god so many assumptions)) that the overarching "goal" was whatever we wanted it to be. Want to unite the desert tribes as their chieftain? Go for it, and recreate the Mongol hordes while you're at it. Want to go pirate? If you can get a ship (and I'm assuming, a crew), go for it. The thing that drew me to this game was the apparent freedom it offered, and I fear that having a plot will take away from these freedoms.
Post by: Dutchling on July 02, 2013, 12:29:00 pm
I agree with this as well. I was initially very hyped about this game as it seemed to be very close to my 'dream-game'. Later on you moved even closer, but it seems like you are moving away from it again :/But at the same time you said you want a low fantasy world.
I was always under the impression that URR was going to be a free rowing, large scope sandbox game where you made your story yourself. That does not exclude semi random quests though, and I do not mean "go slay 4 wolfs in nearby region" but premade dungeons and the like that is just random in if they are in the game on this map and where you'll find questgivers.
Maybe you should separate your story/plot and a sandbox mode? The story mode would have a more narrow focus or scope where you go about your quest while the sandbox mode is do whatever and where you can inherit a portion of skills or items with a child, but where if you have none you can start over in the same world a few decades later. See how the world changed after your demise.
This.
I became interested in this, BECAUSE it was a scalable low fantasy sandboxy RL. But by the looks of it, it's suddenly Ghost's n' Goblins and I need to conserve my 3 lives (or whatever you decide on) to make it to endgame? That holds no appeal for me. I assumed (and I'm assuming so did others (oh god so many assumptions)) that the overarching "goal" was whatever we wanted it to be. Want to unite the desert tribes as their chieftain? Go for it, and recreate the Mongol hordes while you're at it. Want to go pirate? If you can get a ship (and I'm assuming, a crew), go for it. The thing that drew me to this game was the apparent freedom it offered, and I fear that having a plot will take away from these freedoms.
Not that you don't every right to do so, it's your game after all :P.
But yeah, I do hope you can just play this game in sandbox mode all day and ignore game-arching plots. Cult, or whatever it's new name is already got that going anyway, albeit in a fantasy world.
Post by: mendonca on July 02, 2013, 12:37:37 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on July 02, 2013, 12:53:15 pm
Post by: casserol on July 02, 2013, 12:56:31 pm
Post by: Ivefan on July 02, 2013, 01:09:16 pm
I disagree. The original Star Wars films. Luke, Leia and Han. While they did party up, they all spent time doing their own things that advanced the plot. Or Lord of the Rings, Frodo & Sam were doing their stuff, Gandalf was doing his wizard things, Merry & Pippin were somewhere else and Aragon led his little ragtag of heroes doing yet more things. All were part of the same story, everyone was doing something different at different places.Right. Except that it seems that its just one point of view by three different guys, because the first guy died and the second one picked up the same plot after that. Using your comparison, that would be like Luke died and Han picks up his light sabre and cry that Vader is his father...
I guess I tilt slightly towards stories that feature large casts and multiple points of view.
Post by: Warmist on July 02, 2013, 02:15:08 pm
So that’s the current plan. There is no way to die in 0.3, so this isn’t implemented yet, but this is my plan. I’m firmly set on the “plot” idea as I have a lot of ideas for it (go read some Jorge Borges for some clues), and that necessitates true permadeath, but without the annoyance of endless re-rolling. I think it’s a good compromise, but I want to know what everyone else thinks. Let me know your thoughts! I should stress I have in no way settled on the three lives idea – maybe I will stick to normal one-life permadeath – but I’d like some feedback on the concept.I know this will be a lot harder, but what about implementing a lot of plot lines. They would lie dormant in the world until you create a character. Also you could run a few npc over them so playing the world you could sometimes meet them. I mean this because i'm a very big fan of persistance (be it in df or ksp or any other) and to throw away a world just because some dude dies is just not fair with all the stuff you do to it. Sure the crawl has little persistance in that way: just a ghost of your predecessors, but it's still fun to find.
Post by: Rowanas on July 02, 2013, 05:47:42 pm
Now, I know the worry you have over incremental and unstoppable final victory, by using each of your characters to build up to the plot finale, but I really don't think it will significantly affect anyone's enjoyment of the game. Lots of roguelikes have your character drop his equipment on death, and a later character can go and loot it to claim various shiny things to help them progress further in the game. Having some kind of impact on the world is important if you want URR to be anything like it was originally envisioned, and like it was originally presented to us. The character and nation that we've spent days shaping into the perfect tool for whatever we had in mind, will still deal a huge blow to us, the player, if killed. We're not going to throw away our pet champion just because we know we can work our way to the top again. A new character has new problems, new obstacles; the fledgling kingdom we built will fall to chaos and the ravages of fueding dukes, perhaps a new leader takes the throne while we work our way out of our humble beginnings. Out of such things are great stories made, histories of the noble leaders of desert tribes and the untested sons of kings, working to create a plot more complex and excellent than is possible with 3, 4, 5 lives. Entire dynasties, in which you, the player, have played king, conqueror and ambassador or even started on the other side of the fence and set siege and spy against the very things you helped build.
TL;DR
The scope of this game demands unlimited lives for freeplay. Perhaps some division between plot-based and sandbox?
Post by: Neonivek on July 02, 2013, 06:32:58 pm
You get 3 lives and after that the world generates a bit more and you are thrown back in to the same world that has changed a great deal since you were away.
Post by: Glloyd on July 02, 2013, 07:56:59 pm
Or how about this solution Rowanas.
You get 3 lives and after that the world generates a bit more and you are thrown back in to the same world that has changed a great deal since you were away.
I'm not sure. I think descendants would be a good and less immersion breaking idea. You die? Play 20 years~ down the road as your son/daughter. Lives just feels way too "gamey" for me. It's a dealbreaker for me. I love me my permadeath.
Post by: Devling on July 02, 2013, 07:58:27 pm
I totally agree with Giloyd. Maybe not being forced into playing your descendent, but having the option would be sick-rad.Or how about this solution Rowanas.
You get 3 lives and after that the world generates a bit more and you are thrown back in to the same world that has changed a great deal since you were away.
I'm not sure. I think descendants would be a good and less immersion breaking idea. You die? Play 20 years~ down the road as your son/daughter. Lives just feels way too "gamey" for me. It's a dealbreaker for me. I love me my permadeath.
(that's TWO positive adjective)
Post by: Neonivek on July 02, 2013, 08:06:13 pm
Quote
I'm not sure. I think descendants would be a good and less immersion breaking idea.
I always assumed that the three lives was your family or people who decide to take on your cause. Not the "come back to life" or "Retcon you didn't die" variety.
But after you lose 3 people, you suffer a time gap.
In otherwords you cannot babe and save.
Post by: Man of Paper on July 02, 2013, 08:13:37 pm
The storyline is hopefully something along the lines of "player discovers x, slowly finds evidence of y, gets a hold of z, and eventually solves humanity. Or whatever. And the three or so people destined to go down this path. My idea is that in order to continue the storyline, then you must first find the corpse of your last character. Or at least reattain the items once they are scattered across the kingdom/continent/world/space and time. That way it's like you get to play out the lives of the second+ characters prior to their life-changing discovery.
The comment on the other characters maybe being specialized to pass certain parts makes me think you'd have someone die, and then the next character, who was also on the trail of the endgame, but from a different direction, finds the body of the previous character in, say, a trap that this guy can easily manage. How lucky he is, to have come across this smorgasbord of information that pertains to his quest!
Post by: Neonivek on July 02, 2013, 08:20:46 pm
Quote
The storyline is hopefully something along the lines of "player discovers x, slowly finds evidence of y, gets a hold of z, and eventually solves humanity. Or whatever. And the three or so people destined to go down this path. My idea is that in order to continue the storyline, then you must first find the corpse of your last character. Or at least reattain the items once they are scattered across the kingdom/continent/world/space and time. That way it's like you get to play out the lives of the second+ characters prior to their life-changing discovery
Ok, I will tell you that there are elements of GENIUS! in here.
I certainly would love to play a game where you are an Archiologist in the future from the games main setting... and you play the game by finding the bodies of dead adventurers.
And you can only continue their story by finding more artifacts and bodies... heck the world could only be as large as your knowledge of the ancient world.
Honestly there is soo much that could be done with that premise.
DANG IT MAN OF PAPER! Now I want to play that game!
Post by: tootboot on July 02, 2013, 08:41:06 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on July 02, 2013, 10:28:00 pm
Post by: Delta Foxtrot on July 03, 2013, 06:40:19 am
I think it would be cool to have a procedurally generated plot, I don't think that's been done before.
Gearhead 1 & 2 have procedural plot generation, though how well they succeed is another thing. It's been a while since I played so I can't quite comment on what it did right and wrong, though it was more or less a procedurally generated excuse plot to have you blow stuff up with a mech.
Post by: Rowanas on July 03, 2013, 12:56:35 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2013, 06:21:12 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 11, 2013, 04:44:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 13, 2013, 07:43:08 am
Post by: Sharp on July 13, 2013, 08:51:51 am
Is Gearhead 2 still a thing? I heard JH got a job and the whole thing died. A look at the forums supports my assertion. Shame.
No he is working on new things, he did a recent blog update and is actually working on a different gearhead https://github.com/jwvhewitt/gearhead-caramel
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Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 18, 2013, 11:29:28 am
Firstly, many thanks to everyone who responded to my consultation thoughts about permadeath. Between here, Twitter, Facebook and a bunch of forums I had about fifty responses about the three-lives idea. Most people were against it, whilst a small number lamented the fact the game is gradually becoming less open world (more on this in a moment) and a few said the three-lives thing could work with some kind of story reasoning behind it. Quite a few also thought that a minute or two of rolling a new world – given that early-game death will be rare in URR, and that length of time is certainly nothing on DF – wasn’t too bad. I’ve tried to put as many of these comments as well as my own thoughts together, and I think I’ve found a good solution.
So, firstly, something about “open-world”. As I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve come to realize that there are perhaps two different things encapsulated in that term. On the one hand you have a world with a great degree of freedom – one you can move around in any direction you like (though with perhaps limits on certain buildings/dungeons early on) – and on the other hand you have a game that is “open world” in the sense of Dwarf Fortress. DF is open world in that first sense, but also in another sense – there’s no plot, no story, no objectives, etc. Maybe there are two distinct terms and I simply don’t know what they are, but I think it’s worth distinguishing between games where the world is open, and where the gameplay is… “undirected”? This puts me in mind of Mafia II – that had a wonderfully realized Goodfellas-esque “open world”, but because there was nothing to do except the main story missions, the gameplay was very linear (and the world was, I think, somewhat wasted).
Anyway, URR is most certainly staying an open world in the first sense of a planet with few restrictions on movement and exploration, and partly so in the second sense. I am keen to involve a story, but I do not want to fall into the Mafia II trap of having an impressive world with little do outside linear story missions. There’s a bunch of ways I’m navigating this – firstly, by simply making the plot a lot “wider” and requiring quite a lot of the world to be explored to complete. Secondly, obviously, the procedurally generated aspects mean more exploration of the world is required and there’s no way to know up front (except in quite broad parameters) what parts of the world will be involved. Thirdly, it’s not at all a linear story/plot, and will be playable in a large number of different orders and sequences (think Dark Souls if you have the Master Key). Fourthly, I plan for each area/challenge to be conquerable in a number of different ways depending on your character’s skill set, and the player’s preferences. There will also be a lot of optional activity which might make later activities easier – for example, if you need to move through a war zone, you don’t have to try and intercept some intelligence beforehand, but it’s probably going to help.
I am firmly fixed on the story idea. I have some ideas for that (I think!) are interesting, original, and can provide a lot of challenging gameplay. I therefore put out a consultation about lives and reloading. As above, most people didn’t like the three-lives idea, and I agree with most of the criticisms leveled at it. Thus, the model we’re going for is that of one life, permadeath, and you need to roll a new world upon death.
I was concerned about this system for one major reason – that it takes a minute or two to roll a new world. From talking to friends who don’t play RLs I have increasingly realized that my concern over three-second load times in-game and the like are maybe a little misplaced; however, a few minutes is still a chunk of time. However, I think this will be an acceptable solution for two reasons. Firstly, world generation does show you its progress, and once history generation is fully implemented, I intend to include counters and rapid updates showing you its progress. Based on my early experimentation of this, it looks pretty neat. But the second (and rather less trivial) reason is simply that although there is permadeath, and I intend to ensure there’s a lot out there that can kill you, there probably won’t be that many particularly early in the game. Unlike a lot of RLs which struggle from the problem of that early game being the hardest segment, I’ve been planning seriously to make sure this isn’t the case. A new player is unlikely to encounter rapid death both because they won’t necessarily be aware of where to travel and what to do, but also because the early game will be relatively (relatively) friendly. Having to reroll a world will be reasonably rare as a new player.
So that’s the model. I don’t think rolling a new world upon death will be too annoying as it should be relatively rare when you’re a new player, and as a more experienced player you should get much longer games before you do expire (if you do, that is). Also, due to the procedural generation, dying once after uncovering a small part of the plot will likely mean the next character in a new world might come across a different aspect of the story first. It will be interesting to see how players try to put components together, especially if they’re new to the game and only seeing small fragments of the plot with each character as they learn the game. I’m very much looking forward to this shift for the game – I think it’s a good way to meld the open-world I want to make, but also the narrative I want to write and maybe more importantly that sense of real progression you get from playing something like Crawl.
Lastly, a more general note. I’ve been very ill the last few weeks, and whilst I thought it had largely cleared up, it has un-cleared in the last week (hence why this update was so badly delayed). Once I feel better I think I’ll be able to get back on track, but I don’t know when that will be. Still aiming for an August release, but it’s probably going to be towards the end of August. Thanks everyone for keeping with me during this unusually long release – I do still aim for six month releases a maximum, and after this one and normality is restored in my non-URR existence, hopefully I’ll be able to stick to that.
Post by: Ivefan on July 18, 2013, 12:59:48 pm
Consider following games:
Oblivion & Skyrim; Open world, go wherever you want whenever. Linear story, Npc's waiting for you to talk to them so they can give you a task with no options.
Fallout 1 & 2; Open world, Go wherever you want but face the consequences because wherever does not care if you carry a rock or a minigun. Multi-path story, Events wait for you to arrive but your actions determines the result.
Dwarf fortress; Open world, Go wherever you want but the RNG rules supreme. No story or events, The RNG and you decide your story.
Planescape torment; Sequential world, Travel between unlocked areas. Multi-path story, Actions have a bigger influence over future events than any other game I know, not to mention the 5-15 dialogue options every time you get to input and a great story.
From the little you've written about your story, It seems like treasure hunting. Find a part of the puzzle that the RNG decides to give you then track down the rest.
In my experience, Open world games should have events that appears depending on ingame criteria which with what the player decides to do and what events occur will decide the story.
To tell a good story you need to restrict the player to a predictable path but you create different branches for the player to take.
Post by: PTTG?? on July 18, 2013, 01:04:19 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on July 18, 2013, 02:50:28 pm
Or maybe there could be an extra couple options for worldgen, Storyline Elements and Auto-World Deleting or something to that effect.
I ask because I think it'd be a shame not to experience the unique and admittedly sexy worlds to the fullest extent, but I do get what you're doing with the permadeath and think one of these might be a good compromise.
Post by: coolio678 on July 18, 2013, 03:18:39 pm
Post by: Xantalos on July 18, 2013, 03:20:15 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on July 18, 2013, 03:23:15 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on July 18, 2013, 07:22:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 21, 2013, 09:05:58 pm
Not knowing how you plan to tell your story nor what it will be, Its a bit hard to properly advice.
Consider following games:
Oblivion & Skyrim; Open world, go wherever you want whenever. Linear story, Npc's waiting for you to talk to them so they can give you a task with no options.
Fallout 1 & 2; Open world, Go wherever you want but face the consequences because wherever does not care if you carry a rock or a minigun. Multi-path story, Events wait for you to arrive but your actions determines the result.
Dwarf fortress; Open world, Go wherever you want but the RNG rules supreme. No story or events, The RNG and you decide your story.
Planescape torment; Sequential world, Travel between unlocked areas. Multi-path story, Actions have a bigger influence over future events than any other game I know, not to mention the 5-15 dialogue options every time you get to input and a great story.
From the little you've written about your story, It seems like treasure hunting. Find a part of the puzzle that the RNG decides to give you then track down the rest.
In my experience, Open world games should have events that appears depending on ingame criteria which with what the player decides to do and what events occur will decide the story.
To tell a good story you need to restrict the player to a predictable path but you create different branches for the player to take.
I think the Bethesda model is a very solid one. I want a little more story direction than they give, and have more of the world connected to the central story, but not much more. Secondly, re: your "from the little you've written" comment and treasure hunting, clearly I gave the wrong impression, as that is precisely the opposite of what I want! In this release, that will be the focus, but that's only because I've been working on the basic components of one particular dungeon type this time. The way you put this:
To tell a good story you need to restrict the player to a predictable path but you create different branches for the player to take.
is precisely what I want! It's just going to take quite a few releases to get us there :)
I have to say, I really do like the DF approach that allows the player to get to know a specific world. I know it's "realistic" (in literally the most morbid, existential treatment I've ever seen in a game) that when you die, you can never again experience the world. I'm just not sure that that is going to be a good idea for something that is presumably fun.
Several things here. Firstly, of course, most classic roguelikes adhere to the one life one world model. Sure, I'm generating more of a world than just a dungeon, but the principle is the same. Secondly, could you say a bit more about what you mean by "fun"? I find the term fun a very troubling word to use to describe games, or at least, to describe the kinds of games I like to play. To me, the word "fun" implies a certain triviality, or a lightness, or something that's just passing entertainment, whereas the games I enjoy playing provide far more concentration, learning and complexity than a passing bit of fun would generally imply. I want a game that is highly "enjoyable" for people who want the kind of challenge I'm trying to make, but depending on your definition of fun, I may or may not want to pursue that particular goal :).
Would there be a way to, instead of deleting the world, just delete the parts pertinent to the storyline? Say, for example, the ziggurats hold the key to the holy macguffin. Would it be possible to have those or the items/art important to the story be deleted instead? This way you can still experience the unique world that's been created and interact freely with it, but not be able to power through the storyline.
Or maybe there could be an extra couple options for worldgen, Storyline Elements and Auto-World Deleting or something to that effect.
I ask because I think it'd be a shame not to experience the unique and admittedly sexy worlds to the fullest extent, but I do get what you're doing with the permadeath and think one of these might be a good compromise.
An interesting question, and one I'm not sure I can give an answer to yet beyond: maybe. I'm not sure to what extent that would leave that much to do, though - a lot of the game mechanics are being subtly reworked in my head at the moment in much more focused and interesting ways around a central plot. Nevertheless, it's a very interesting idea, and don't think I'm dismissing it. I'd just have to think a lot about how I could make it work.
What happens when you complete the story? does the world get deleted (which would be hella lame), or does it open up into "undirected" gameplay? Also, do you have to follow the story, or could you go off adventuring while the story waits for you to pick it back up?
Well... completing the story in every other game "deletes" the world! Or at least, certainly in every other classic roguelike. Ascending in Nethack or Crawl, or closing the portal in Adom, or whatever, deletes that particular world for good. As I say, whilst the world will be open, the gameplay is now going to be a little more focused and directed, and much of the exploration aspects will be focused around both discovery, but also "gearing up" (think mass effect 2 squads, or x-com at the strategic level) and moving forward in the plot. However, depending on how the plot pans out, I suppose it could potentially open up at the end. I very much intend to allow you to pursue your own directions in the game, but much of what you encounter will be tied to some key central themes. Sorry if that's vague, but I'm still partly working it out in my design documents myself!
Could you have an option to gen the world with story or not? Because that would be pretty awesome.
I'm afraid not. That would be a lot of extra effort away from the main direction I want to take. However, rest assured the story is not high fantasy swords and sorcery fare; I'm hoping it will be something sufficiently interesting to interest people not always interested in stories, but also told in a very Dark-Souls-esque way, so if you want to largely bypass the details, that should also be possible. I enjoy having to actively seek out stories myself, and that's the kind of feeling I want to emulate.
Ooh, there's something I'd like to suggest isn't done: If the world does get deleted or the storyline somehow ends with the death of the character or world, don't Fallout 3 it. By which I mean make sure the player knows where the point of no return is, and that there is one.
Agreed. Points of no return are absolutely, utterly, essential to highlight, especially in permadeath or no-reload games.
aw, i was hoping the lineage idea would catch on; continuing to play as long as you have a direct descendant
'fraid not, unless things change. But we'll see. Once ziggurats are out, I'm then going to be working on history and civilization generation for a few months, and things could change in that period. But I feel very confident about the game I can see cohering in my head at the moment!
Post by: Ivefan on July 22, 2013, 03:03:56 am
I think the Bethesda model is a very solid one. I want a little more story direction than they give, and have more of the world connected to the central story, but not much more.And, In my opinion, The story telling of bethsedas games sucks. I did oblivions main quest and finished it at.. level 5 perhaps? I can't even remember the story. I never even finished the plot of Skyrim and only tend to do quests from npcs if theres a reward I desire.
I should probably mention that I mod Beth games and that i mostly roam the world in the way that currently pleases me, building character and piling up loot
What is it you intend to do with the open world you are generating? Is it the stage for traveling between/finding the different story dungeons and having random encounters on the way?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 22, 2013, 05:36:57 am
I think the Bethesda model is a very solid one. I want a little more story direction than they give, and have more of the world connected to the central story, but not much more.And, In my opinion, The story telling of bethsedas games sucks. I did oblivions main quest and finished it at.. level 5 perhaps? I can't even remember the story. I never even finished the plot of Skyrim and only tend to do quests from npcs if theres a reward I desire.
I should probably mention that I mod Beth games and that i mostly roam the world in the way that currently pleases me, building character and piling up loot
What is it you intend to do with the open world you are generating? Is it the stage for traveling between/finding the different story dungeons and having random encounters on the way?
Heh - I agree, I think the actual storytelling is pretty awful. Some of the faction plots in Skyrim weren't bad, but the main plots have always been pretty bad. But I think the model is a good one, though they don't do it very well. As for your second question about the purpose of the open world... that's a difficult one to answer. It is a stage for travelling; it will have encounters (though of a very particular sort); it will hopefully provide a suitably interesting and interconnected world that your objectives and intentions can be approached in a lot of different ways, and I want to give a lot of value towards exploring on your own, as you may find things that are of use to you. It is also to provide a lot of the detail of the story; much of its details will be generated anew each time, and I want you to be able to explore and come across all these historical sites, great battles, famous cities and the like. As I say, I want a lot of the story to be "in the background" and garned by exploring and finding all these sites (and sights).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 23, 2013, 03:29:13 pm
(http://s15.postimg.org/kgujpot9n/Sdown.png)
Post by: SealyStar on July 23, 2013, 08:29:38 pm
Here's a nice staircase for you, INTERNET PEOPLE:Holy crap.
(http://s15.postimg.org/kgujpot9n/Sdown.png)
I've been watching this mostly for the interesting gameplay, but... dat art.
Post by: Graknorke on July 24, 2013, 08:43:42 am
Post by: Rowanas on July 26, 2013, 04:22:13 pm
Don't get me wrong, I'm still watching and waiting with eagerness, but I may need to continue the search for the game that URR was.
Post by: Graknorke on July 26, 2013, 04:42:22 pm
URR changed a lot at some point. There was a moment in development many months ago where it seemed plausible to rock around the world, being Genghis Khan. I'm not sure Ultima Ratio Regum applies any more...That one that's on haitus looks pretty good.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still watching and waiting with eagerness, but I may need to continue the search for the game that URR was.
Being developed by a b12ite. Kind of like URR but set in the stone age and I believe that the guy was just finishing up trading framework before he left for exam reasons.
EDIT: Here we go. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=121634.0) It's called Iron Testament.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 27, 2013, 10:54:25 am
I've been watching this mostly for the interesting gameplay, but... dat art.
Thanks! Check the last bit of this reply for a bit more!
I'm kind of hoping that this game will be about exploring all the ruins and finding the final boss (or whatever) in the same way that DF is about getting the nobles up to the king, digging to hell and fighting demons. That is the path that follows the natural power/difficulty curve of the game, but it's not the only thing that there is to do.
Your second sentence sums it up perfectly. That's very much what I'd like to get going - that you need to "build things up", gain allies, gain stats, and you can follow the plot directly/indirectly. Vaguely like the new XCOM game, in that there are "story" progressions, and none-story progressions, but each builds up your power and the difficulty.
URR changed a lot at some point. There was a moment in development many months ago where it seemed plausible to rock around the world, being Genghis Khan. I'm not sure Ultima Ratio Regum applies any more...
Don't get me wrong, I'm still watching and waiting with eagerness, but I may need to continue the search for the game that URR was.
It really has. I know what you mean, and I'm sad if it's no longer quite what you're after, though obviously one man's ideal game will never map perfectly to another :). I just find with a project as big, long and time-consuming as this, I have to develop in the direction I'm passionate about, and if that changes, I have to follow the change. It's funny you mention that about the name, as the exact same thing has occurred to me! There will still be armies, in one form, but you're right, it's no longer a totally logical name. But I like it, people are used to it, and it's a cool name, so it's staying.
Meanwhile, doing insane levels of bug-fixing and tweaking, and working on some basic mechanics for languages - for this release the player can read all languages, but here's an example of a generated inscription (with the translation hidden, for now!):
(http://s2.postimg.org/3uogrbd5l/Scrip2.png)
Post by: SealyStar on July 27, 2013, 12:55:50 pm
(http://s2.postimg.org/3uogrbd5l/Scrip2.png)Are those ASCII/ANSI, or custom tiles? I don't recognize any of those, which is why I'm asking.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 27, 2013, 01:00:46 pm
Are those ASCII/ANSI, or custom tiles? I don't recognize any of those, which is why I'm asking.
All custom tiles - the game has 16 languages I've created added into the font files.
Post by: Rowanas on July 28, 2013, 02:50:14 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 29, 2013, 06:50:05 am
Heh, awesome. Like I said, still watching and waiting with eagerness. The effort and skill you've put into everything so far should give this the kind of atmosphere that's missing from most roguelikes. Every picture you show us is rendered beautifully in ASCII/ANSI/custom graphics.
Thanks! Atmosphere is something I think is really important, and I'm really happy with how these early dungeons are shaping up in that regard. I've just uploaded a huge gameplay update on the blog - http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/07/29/contiguous-world-maps/ - but here's a copy of the update:
Currently, all grids are contiguous on the human level. Which is to say the map continues scrolling as you walk to one side or another, and when you get close enough to a new map grid that grid is loaded. The @ stays centered in the screen at all times unless you reach the absolute edge of the map, in which case I believe it currently crashes, so please don’t test that and just take my word for it. Good. As of version 0.3 (due to be released in August!), this is changing. You will no longer be able to move contiguously between grids on on the human level, which is to say that when you choose a grid to load from the Travel screen, that grid and that grid only loads. When you reach the edge of a grid, it will cease to scroll and you will bump up against the edge of the map. If you try to move over it asks you if you want to go over, and if you say yes, it loads the next grid along, moves you to it and unspawns the one you’re on. You will therefore still be able to move across the entire world on foot rather than travelling, but it will be through distinct map grids. This is a significant change, but one with three causes. I hope to explain my reasoning as clearly as possible here, as I think this is a big positive move for the game.
1) Loading and memory. Loading times suck. People kept saying this about 0.2, and they were correct. Now that there are things to do in map grids loading zones are far rarer, but they’re still a pain and everyone hates them. This would hugely reduce the regularity and size of load times. Secondly, it would mean the same would take up a lot less RAM when running, as no more than a single map grid would be loaded. These aren’t the main factors (reason #3 is the major one), but I think they’re important nonetheless.
2) Contained player experiences. At the moment, if you encounter something that requires fighting (when there are things to fight), you’ll be able to keep fleeing and running across maps. And that’s ok… if you’re making a truly open-world game, and whilst URR is within an open world, it’s no longer so much an open-world game. I think there’s a definition issue here that could merit another blog entry where I ramble about what exactly these terms all mean, but back to the point – if you cannot leave the map grid that easily, then you are forced to deal with challenges within the map grid rather than simply fleeing from it. There is a place for fleeing, and I’ll have to think about implementations, but I don’t want fleeing to be the automatic response. I also think there’s something to be said for making each area feel like a distinct area – you enter that area and explore that area. Open-world games have a very particular kind of exploration, but that’s not quite the kind I’m now after.
3) Doubling (!) the space of play. Weirdly, this change would actually give you over 50% more play on each grid without loading zones. ALLOW ME TO EXPLAIN. Currently each grid (by which I mean one icon on the Travel map) is 200×200 tiles. When you enter that grid, you enter at a point appropriate for the direction from which you can in from. If you enter from the north, you appear at 100/50 – so in the middle of the northern edge (i.e. 100 squares in from the left, 50 squares in from the top). The south-east spawns you at 150/150, and so on. The trigger for loading neighbouring grids is the player being < 30 or > 170 on either axis, as the picture below shows:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/07/Exp1.png)
In this image a ziggurat has spawned within the non-loading boundaries. If the player attempts to enter, for example, the pale green area on the right, it will load the grid on the right. Entering any of the light green corners would result in three full grids being loaded (which takes maybe 30 seconds). Believe it or not, this system actually means that less than 50% of a map grid can be explored without straying into a load zone! The grid is 40,000 squares, and a quick calculation shows that only 19600 of those squares are outside a loadzone. Whilst not perfectly accurate, the picture below demonstrates this to some extent. All four of the bars fit in, but if you were to fit in the corners, it would exceed the space in the central area:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/07/Exp2.png)
When grids do not load and sew themselves together, all 40,000 tiles in a grid can be used for gameplay. Until now I haven’t wanted to spawn any buildings within the loading zones because it would be even more annoying if things starting loading whilst you were exploring! This way you will never get any loading zones once you first enter a map grid – which will itself be quick – and buildings can be placed in all kinds of areas, allowing for rather more interesting map grids:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/07/Exp3.png)
…such as those which have multiple buildings that could brush up against the corners and the edges, and thereby doubling the amount of play per map grid by removing areas where I “cannot spawn buildings”. It also allows for a rather more interesting piece of gameplay for the player, from an experiential perspective – if you enter from the north, you now spawn at the coordinates 100/0 – i.e. right at the top of the middle – and therefore can explore the entire grid and see what it contains, rather than the small size of the non-loading-zone forcing me to spawn the player basically right next to the ziggurat. From the playtesting I’ve done it’s lot more interesting to play when you don’t immediately see the grid’s contents. This will be taking effect this release, though I don’t yet know if multiple ziggurats will appear per grid or not, as that requires a rework of some code I implemented whilst assuming nothing like this would be the case. Either way, I think this is definitely the right move forward, but as ever let me know your thoughts in the comments. Next week: the final update before release?!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2013, 11:26:12 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/07/Doorzig.png)
Post by: coolio678 on July 30, 2013, 04:26:27 pm
edit: ooh, I only just noticed the tile's content list on the right. Does this mean you'll eventually be able to see people from the first person perspective?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2013, 06:44:26 pm
I was a little opposed to your envisioned change in direction, but now I'm actually really excited for it. If you do manage to make the plot something unique and engaging, this could be one awesome game.
edit: ooh, I only just noticed the tile's content list on the right. Does this mean you'll eventually be able to see people from the first person perspective?
Thanks - I really, really hope so. There's only a tiny bit of plot in this release, but I'll be adding more as subsequent releases come.
Re: tile contents, it means you'll be able to view every single item with the same level of detail as in the scenery, but I'm not yet sure about people. I'd love to, but faces are the real problem with that. Armour, weapons, whatever, I think I could do really well in this graphical style, and could look really striking/interesting with all kinds of different loadouts NPCs might have, but faces. Faces. Faces are the problem. So: I hope so, but not sure yet. I'd have to really work on making faces look non-stupid...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 01, 2013, 03:57:19 pm
After 7 months of development, and assuming no game-breaking bug presents itself, I will be releasing Ultima Ratio Regum v0.3 this Saturday!
Post by: Xantalos on August 01, 2013, 03:58:34 pm
Post by: mendonca on August 02, 2013, 03:52:28 am
Really excited for this, I hope I can get some time at the weekend to play about :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 02, 2013, 06:28:50 pm
Post by: adwarf on August 02, 2013, 06:39:19 pm
Post by: generalpie on August 02, 2013, 07:33:52 pm
After 7 months of development, and assuming no game-breaking bug presents itself, I will be releasing Ultima Ratio Regum v0.3 this Saturday!
WOO!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 08:54:06 am
Ultima Ratio Regum v0.3.0 released, after seven months of work!
Head to http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/) to read about and download it!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/Skullo.png)
Post by: wathundar on August 03, 2013, 09:09:33 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 09:20:24 am
Post by: Rilder on August 03, 2013, 09:27:41 am
I'm not sure what you mean. You can climb, walk and run, and there are large areas of in-game dungeons now to explore...
He seems to be going around to every thread to try and troll? Looking at his post history it looks like he got denied to join the Bay12 bloc group and started spamming the forums with posts like that one.
Post by: wathundar on August 03, 2013, 09:30:03 am
I'm not sure what you mean. You can climb, walk and run, and there are large areas of in-game dungeons now to explore...
He seems to be going around to every thread to try and troll? Looking at his post history it looks like he got denied to join the Bay12 bloc group and started spamming the forums with posts like that one.
define:criticism
The expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes: "he ignored the criticisms of his friends".
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 09:32:27 am
I'm not sure what you mean. You can climb, walk and run, and there are large areas of in-game dungeons now to explore...
He seems to be going around to every thread to try and troll? Looking at his post history it looks like he got denied to join the Bay12 bloc group and started spamming the forums with posts like that one.
Oh. Well, whatever. For those of you who don't seek to waste everyone's time, I hope you enjoy 0.3!
Post by: GreatJustice on August 03, 2013, 09:35:54 am
Post by: PTTG?? on August 03, 2013, 10:22:35 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 10:29:12 am
You are a very good person. I hope you know that.
Why thank you :).
Found a tiny bug in that version; uploading 0.3.0b momentarily.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 10:30:37 am
This is the most graphically stunning game I've seen in a long time. I mean that; modern games make very _realistic_ scenes, but these aren't artistic expression, they are merely simulation. The lovingly crafted ASCII renditions here seem to have a weight behind them that makes them truly impressive.
Thanks for the very kind words, that really means a lot to me. The aesthetics of the game are really crucial to what I'm trying to convey (not to mention a lot of fun to make!). It's great to hear people like them. I totally agree with you though that graphical fidelity does not necessarily equate to graphical quality; I'd rather look at Crawl than Gears of War any day, for instance. And there's a lot of aspects of design, colour, etc, that aren't really reflected in "number of polygons"...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 10:35:35 am
Post by: SealyStar on August 03, 2013, 10:53:16 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 10:58:45 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 03, 2013, 11:06:52 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 11:09:43 am
Ah. Did you set the spawn_ziggurat_top_crashifier to 0%?
That is PRECISELY what I did. Foolish of me to not do so before...
Post by: Reyn on August 03, 2013, 12:17:09 pm
Loving what I'm seeing so far. Posted a couple of hiccups on the site, sorry for not giving any positive feedback there, I went right into the bugs!
Post by: Iceblaster on August 03, 2013, 12:24:27 pm
Sooooo... this won't be an epic civilization simulator anymore?
Meh, I still like the idea. Hope it continues to get updated, I don't have time to DL yet, but when I do, I shall give my feedback
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 01:25:01 pm
Randomized ASCII landscape on main menu every time you boot it up, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Loving what I'm seeing so far. Posted a couple of hiccups on the site, sorry for not giving any positive feedback there, I went right into the bugs!
Haha - no problem, I'm glad you've posted bugs you found. It's really helpful - as much as myself and a few friends can playtest, there's no substitute for getting hundreds of people in (though I think it's safe to say we got rid of a good 99% of the bugs... I hope...)
/me walks back into thread
Sooooo... this won't be an epic civilization simulator anymore?
Meh, I still like the idea. Hope it continues to get updated, I don't have time to DL yet, but when I do, I shall give my feedback
Weeeeeell, depends on what you mean by epic civilization simulator. Do I still intend to have a thousand years of history, myth, legends, wars, families, cities and religions that actually have serious gameplay effects, within the next two releases? Yes! Will you be able to lead armies or command the civs? No. For a one-man development team, in my spare time, I've moved the game both towards things I'm more interested in pursuing, and towards things that might actually get the game finished within the next decade : )
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 03, 2013, 03:16:59 pm
I seriously think that you should make multiple games or license the engine or something, because what could be done with all of this is just... awesome. I don't even mind that I was ultra-excited from the first post about the roguelike civ sim and was disappointed that it's not in the game nor going to be.
Also, that puzzle. I had to actually open notepad to coordinate all the hints and make the connections. I hope the other puzzles are similar, but even so, good job on being cryptic and making it a bit difficult without making it impossible or giving everything away.
Spoiler: Complete! (click to show/hide)
That said, I don't actually know what I'm supposed to be doing, or what there is even to do. Haven't read through the thread all the way, though, so that's probably my fault.
Post by: Glloyd on August 03, 2013, 03:41:45 pm
Will you be able to lead armies or command the civs? No.
Dealbreaker right there. That's the premise which the game was founded upon, and that's the premise that got me interested in the game. I'm sad to say that I've lost my main reason for being interested in URR. Don't get me wrong, I am still amazed in how you've pushed the boundaries of ASCII, but when I was told about this game about a year ago now, I was told that you would be able to indirectly command armies by giving your generals orders etc. Also, becoming ruler of a civ, and leading your civ to glory in a 1600's 1700's environment was the main focus of the game. Plus epic naval battles which you could command. It's obvious that these are no longer the main focuses of the game, or even a focus at all. This... Kind of lost me as a fan. I'm still interested in how this turns out, and I wish you the best of luck with it.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 03, 2013, 04:06:40 pm
Spoiler: Inscription (click to show/hide)
There are also numerous typos/errors elsewhere, like in the guidebook. Anywhere convenient where I can send you a list?
Edit: Also, just went up a set of stairs and was surrounded by blocks. Had to push one away to make it into the puzzle chamber.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on August 03, 2013, 04:43:01 pm
Will you be able to lead armies or command the civs? No.
Dealbreaker right there. That's the premise which the game was founded upon, and that's the premise that got me interested in the game. I'm sad to say that I've lost my main reason for being interested in URR. Don't get me wrong, I am still amazed in how you've pushed the boundaries of ASCII, but when I was told about this game about a year ago now, I was told that you would be able to indirectly command armies by giving your generals orders etc. Also, becoming ruler of a civ, and leading your civ to glory in a 1600's 1700's environment was the main focus of the game. Plus epic naval battles which you could command. It's obvious that these are no longer the main focuses of the game, or even a focus at all. This... Kind of lost me as a fan. I'm still interested in how this turns out, and I wish you the best of luck with it.
i'm sad to say I agree. What if we threw our money at you URR? Would you go back to making our dreams come true?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 05:01:48 pm
I am blown away by this roguelike engine. Seriously, what I'm seeing is overwhelmingly impressive. It shows a level of attention to detail in the graphics that just floors me. I was solving a ziggurat block puzzle and noticed that there were multiple snake blocks, and they had different designs (though I think there were only two different designs). That is just something that greatly impresses me. Not to mention the word feels rich and inspires the imagination even though it's ASCII+custom.
I seriously think that you should make multiple games or license the engine or something, because what could be done with all of this is just... awesome. I don't even mind that I was ultra-excited from the first post about the roguelike civ sim and was disappointed that it's not in the game nor going to be.
Also, that puzzle. I had to actually open notepad to coordinate all the hints and make the connections. I hope the other puzzles are similar, but even so, good job on being cryptic and making it a bit difficult without making it impossible or giving everything away.Spoiler: Complete! (click to show/hide)
That said, I don't actually know what I'm supposed to be doing, or what there is even to do. Haven't read through the thread all the way, though, so that's probably my fault.
Firstly, thanks a ton for the amazing comments! After all the work I've poured into the damned thing, this kind of feedback means everything to me. I'm glad to say there are not just two snake blocks - the snake, for example, is composed of 2 components, a body and a head - there are 3 bodies, 2 heads, so 6 possibilities (bodies with a few/some/many coils, and heads open/shut). Some blocks have only one or two total variations, whilst others have 12 or 16 permutations (I think the octopus block has 16, and that's the highest, but I'm not sure). I want *everything* that can possibly be random/varied/procedural to be so :). I'm glad you feel that way about the world, as that kind of "lived in" feeling is what I want. I mean, yes, ok, right now you're the only human alive, but give it time!
Licensing is an interesting idea. Multiple game, at least with this engine, is never going to happen - this one is going to take a decade, then I'll either never make a game again, or make one completely different (some kind of very difficult platformer appeals). Those are the only two options I really foresee. I have considered bringing on extra help, but I'm not sure about that, and if I did it would be one close friend of mine who has helped me with designing the game a lot up to this point.
The puzzles are all of that type, though puzzles in other dungeons will be utterly different. The solutions and the clues are randomly generated, and I can't even begin to consider how many puzzles there are. For example, in the "boss" room like you posted, there are 80 different layouts of the room, about 30 or so different blocks exist, there are several thousand variations for how the clues can be expressed... and that's just for the boss rooms, let alone all the smaller puzzles. It was an interesting design challenge to make the clues cryptic, but unambiguous - for instance, I previously had "shadowed moon", but does that mean eclipse, or crescent? Or either of the other two? It was cryptic, sure, but it was too VAGUE, so it had to go. I've made sure all the clue synonyms now can only possibly mean one thing. I hope.
As for "objectives", right now you can explore ziggurats, and find "secret" items atop over 50% of them. If you got a "clue" ziggurat, that should point you towards the ones that contain the items, which will have important story value later! Equally, if you check out the '?' on the map...
Found a simple error in a puzzle inscription.Spoiler: Inscription (click to show/hide)
There are also numerous typos/errors elsewhere, like in the guidebook. Anywhere convenient where I can send you a list?
Edit: Also, just went up a set of stairs and was surrounded by blocks. Had to push one away to make it into the puzzle chamber.
Well spotted. Now I need to find where the hell that is in the code...
Are there really many others? How embarrassing. Er, mark@ my domain is my email address, and that would be great. I playtest a lot, but thinking about it I really don't proofread. As for coming up stairs into blocks, I knew that was possible (but rare) and I ensured all "boss puzzle" designs CANNOT trap the player, no matter where stairs spawn. However, someone pointed out to me elsewhere that blocks being unable to pass over downward stairs can "trap" a block in a corner. Will be fixing that.
Will you be able to lead armies or command the civs? No.
Dealbreaker right there. That's the premise which the game was founded upon, and that's the premise that got me interested in the game. I'm sad to say that I've lost my main reason for being interested in URR. Don't get me wrong, I am still amazed in how you've pushed the boundaries of ASCII, but when I was told about this game about a year ago now, I was told that you would be able to indirectly command armies by giving your generals orders etc. Also, becoming ruler of a civ, and leading your civ to glory in a 1600's 1700's environment was the main focus of the game. Plus epic naval battles which you could command. It's obvious that these are no longer the main focuses of the game, or even a focus at all. This... Kind of lost me as a fan. I'm still interested in how this turns out, and I wish you the best of luck with it.
i'm sad to say I agree. What if we threw our money at you URR? Would you go back to making our dreams come true?
@ Glloyd - sorry to hear that, but I fully understand where you're coming from. I know the game has mutated a lot as time as gone by, but the reason is because I'm putting so much time and effort into it that I just have to follow what concepts and mechanics really interest me at this point. There's also, as I mentioned above, a timescale issue - my current plan is audacious, but not impossible to complete before my death; the original plan, unless I suddenly started working at it full time and brought in help, was simply impossible. Also, psychologically, those goals were too "far away" - I have the next three or four versions very clearly planned out, I know where I'm going, and the development plan I have on my computer now is so much more "focused" than my original. Thank you re: ASCII, and thanks for the good wishes.
@ Scoop - again, sorry to hear that, but I'm afraid not. As above, with a one-man team and with the amount of detail I'm putting in, and the amount of time I expect the game to take, I simply have to focus on what I feel really passionate and driven about creating, and that's the universe I'm working on now. If I was to still be doing what I originally planned, I don't know if I'd still be doing URR now, or at least not at the same speed. So much time and energy is going into it that I have to direct that in the way I want. I hope I'll be able to produce something cool which will interest you "back" into the fold, but if not, no hard feelings and thanks for following this far. Though as for the money - if I ended up doing a kickstarter (unlikely, but possible), I would certainly take advice/thoughts on people on goals, rewards, etc...
Post by: Glloyd on August 03, 2013, 05:09:59 pm
@ Glloyd - sorry to hear that, but I fully understand where you're coming from. I know the game has mutated a lot as time as gone by, but the reason is because I'm putting so much time and effort into it that I just have to follow what concepts and mechanics really interest me at this point. There's also, as I mentioned above, a timescale issue - my current plan is audacious, but not impossible to complete before my death; the original plan, unless I suddenly started working at it full time and brought in help, was simply impossible. Also, psychologically, those goals were too "far away" - I have the next three or four versions very clearly planned out, I know where I'm going, and the development plan I have on my computer now is so much more "focused" than my original. Thank you re: ASCII, and thanks for the good wishes.
Fair enough, and thanks for the response. I tried v.0.3.0 out, and the ziggurats are pretty cool. I like what you've got so far, it just... Isn't the droid I was looking for.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2013, 05:31:06 pm
Fair enough, and thanks for the response. I tried v.0.3.0 out, and the ziggurats are pretty cool. I like what you've got so far, it just... Isn't the droid I was looking for.
Haha, I understand. I hope to produce a pretty awesome substitute droid, though.
Post by: Edmus on August 03, 2013, 09:58:11 pm
Post by: ConsUme on August 03, 2013, 10:11:55 pm
is ther going to be side-quests?
Two, Are they going to be randomly generated?
And is there a sandbox aspect to this? oops three things
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2013, 05:33:47 am
Downloading now...
Hype!
Big question... two parter
is ther going to be side-quests?
Two, Are they going to be randomly generated?
And is there a sandbox aspect to this? oops three things
1) Er. Depends on how you define side-quests, but yes, I suppose so. They will be side quests, but will contribute and help you towards the "main" quest, I think. Or something like that. The honest answer is I'm not sure yet how "quests" etc will work, but there will be far more to do than directly engaging with the story.
2) Of course! If I make the graphics on stone blocks procedurally generated, quests certainly will be.
3) Yes, in the sense of the world is large, and open, and you will have a significant level of freedom in navigating it. However, it won't be quite to the level it is now, when you can magically cross over water!
Post by: Man of Paper on August 04, 2013, 06:21:23 am
So will it be something like that or similar? I'm trying to figure out what beast you're raising now, since I personally haven't seen much to hint at me how the game's going to feel and such. The first version was outlined very clearly, but not this one so much. I do see that you're trying to keep it under wraps a bit so if you don't feel like sharing much, that's cool.
I'm so conflicted! Half of me is in the same boat as Glloyd and them, but the rest of me is still all in since you've shown some great ideas and I'd like to see what you do with a more focused objective.
Post by: ConsUme on August 04, 2013, 11:36:51 am
I thought when things changed the game would lose replayablity...
Like Shadowrun Returns. It's fun but too linear compared to the eariler games.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2013, 01:05:35 pm
So forgive me of my ignorance, as I haven't played it much, but ADOM was something of an open world with a loose-ish storyline, right? I mean, I never got past the first couple caves/dungeons, mostly because I'd walk into one of the later ones and don't comprehend the concept of "retreat" when not preceded by "tactical" and ending with enveloped Gauls.
So will it be something like that or similar? I'm trying to figure out what beast you're raising now, since I personally haven't seen much to hint at me how the game's going to feel and such. The first version was outlined very clearly, but not this one so much. I do see that you're trying to keep it under wraps a bit so if you don't feel like sharing much, that's cool.
I'm so conflicted! Half of me is in the same boat as Glloyd and them, but the rest of me is still all in since you've shown some great ideas and I'd like to see what you do with a more focused objective.
I wouldn't call ADOM at all open-world, personally. I mean, compare that to something like DF, Cataclyms, or (hopefully), URR. ADOM was more like a bunch of very specific dungeons at fixed locations - even though there was an overworld, it isn't really "open" at all. So, I'm thinking of my goal as more like... DF adventure mode with a plot. That's a better comparison. It's a tricky balance to keep things interesting and secret, whilst also make it clear what I'm working on. I want a game focused on exploration, puzzles/riddles, combat, making/breaking alliances... of which ziggurats are just one dungeon type, and riddle puzzles are just one element.
I do understand the boat dilemma, believe me. I just hope I'll be able to win over some more waverers as time goes on : ). But yeah - a world with rare and brutal combat, a heavy exploration combat, and some pretty weird, anomalous factors. I am actually trying to work on a better description at the moment, but it is tricky!
Thank You for answering...
I thought when things changed the game would lose replayablity...
Like Shadowrun Returns. It's fun but too linear compared to the eariler games.
Maximum replayability is a central goal - EVERYTHING, from art to doors to puzzles to swords, will and must be procedural...
Post by: Dutchling on August 04, 2013, 02:15:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2013, 02:17:18 pm
Well, as long as you can ignore the main quest and just go kill random peasants I'm 100% okay with all the changes :P
Yep... but there will be CONSEQUENCES. Real ones, not this Skyrim "a small number of people panic briefly and then go back to behaving like normal" rubbish.
Post by: Dutchling on August 04, 2013, 02:18:57 pm
Well, as long as you can ignore the main quest and just go kill random peasants I'm 100% okay with all the changes :P
Yep... but there will be CONSEQUENCES. Real ones, not this Skyrim "a small number of people panic briefly and then go back to behaving like normal" rubbish.
I would expect nothing less :D
Post by: TanSerrai on August 05, 2013, 06:01:14 am
First time poster here - I have been following this thread for over a year now and would like to compliment you on the beauty you have achieved using Ascii...I was immediately hooked after realizing the level of love I saw/felt being poured into this game.
Now for a (jarringly) simple question: I did download and fire up 0.3 (first time user), walked the (larger) map, found two ziggurats, entered the (detail) map, walked and climbed all over those two ziggurats - but was unable to find an entrance. I did 'l'ook at a ton of squares (again, compliments on achieving 'natural' vine growths...in an ascii game...wow!) but could not find any. Is there something very obvious that I am missing? Note that I found the (locked) door to a '?' building so I at least know how the symbol does look....a pointer on how to enter a ziggurat would be appreciated - my thanks!
--------
ah. Found it. Cunningly intertwined with vines....puzzles next! Thanks for the help!
Post by: Anvilfolk on August 05, 2013, 06:13:07 am
Basically you're looking for an inverted U. It's a door! I think it should usually be at the center of one of the walls, north, west, east or south ones :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 05, 2013, 08:26:36 am
Hi!
First time poster here - I have been following this thread for over a year now and would like to compliment you on the beauty you have achieved using Ascii...I was immediately hooked after realizing the level of love I saw/felt being poured into this game.
Now for a (jarringly) simple question: I did download and fire up 0.3 (first time user), walked the (larger) map, found two ziggurats, entered the (detail) map, walked and climbed all over those two ziggurats - but was unable to find an entrance. I did 'l'ook at a ton of squares (again, compliments on achieving 'natural' vine growths...in an ascii game...wow!) but could not find any. Is there something very obvious that I am missing? Note that I found the (locked) door to a '?' building so I at least know how the symbol does look....a pointer on how to enter a ziggurat would be appreciated - my thanks!
--------
ah. Found it. Cunningly intertwined with vines....puzzles next! Thanks for the help!
Hey - thanks for the feedback! Glad you like how things are working out. You're not the first person to say doors are hard to hard to spot - for 0.3.1, which I'll release this week, I'll make them white so you can't miss them (or some other, much more obvious colour), though you can only see them if you are on their level or below. There is no use using the look function to try and spot them, and they only show if you can see them! Haha, glad you found it - but as I say, doors are clearly too hard to see. I'll change that.
I had the same problem! And that was after my first map didn't spawn any ziggurats :)
Basically you're looking for an inverted U. It's a door! I think it should usually be at the center of one of the walls, north, west, east or south ones :)
Didn't spawn any?! That should be utterly impossible. Can you export the world map ('X' in game) and post it somewhere so I can see? Anyway, I think I'm going to adjust the door colour so it always displays as white. A few people have said they can be hard to spot, and I think they're right...
Post by: Rowanas on August 05, 2013, 08:34:11 am
Maximum replayability is a central goal - EVERYTHING, from art to doors to puzzles to swords, will and must be procedural...
You know how to win a fanbase, sir. :D
Post by: Anvilfolk on August 05, 2013, 10:51:03 am
Sorry I can't help more!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 05, 2013, 12:15:23 pm
You know how to win a fanbase, sir. :D
Haha; I cannot wait to start some procedural weapon graphics down the line...
Sorry, after walking around the map for a while and not seeing any Z's I regenerated it on top of the old one. I was on Earth and definitely walked around all of the continen hat I could walk on, and there was no Z. I tried that for a fairly long time, and actually went into places that had resource deposits becuase I couldn't figure out where the ziggurats would've been :\
Sorry I can't help more!
AHHH. In this release, for the time being... you can cross ocean freely. I think we've found the issue!
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 05, 2013, 06:31:33 pm
Also, I forgot the button it told me to look up the controls and now I don't know how to do anything. Either that or it really is "C" and its just not working.
Two things in particular I don't understand: can I look in a direction without moving that way, and why does hitting "." to wait seem to deplete my stamina/will/exhaustion? The first thing I did was climb a volcano, so I ran out of energy pretty fast.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 05, 2013, 06:57:41 pm
That title screen. I don't think its a rougelike if it looks pretty. Everything feels really polished, even the map displays for things that don't exist yet.
Also, I forgot the button it told me to look up the controls and now I don't know how to do anything. Either that or it really is "C" and its just not working.
Two things in particular I don't understand: can I look in a direction without moving that way, and why does hitting "." to wait seem to deplete my stamina/will/exhaustion? The first thing I did was climb a volcano, so I ran out of energy pretty fast.
Haha, thank you. The Options screen ('O') will let you then view controls. I'm going to move it to the Guidebook ('?'), though, as a few people have said that would make a lot more sense.
You can turn around by moving in a direction you aren't facing, and you will stay still, but not turn. HOWEVER, several people have noted this isn't a totally logical solution. It makes more sense to have you move+look as default, then move-without-look and look-without-move as alternates (say, with Ctrl and Alt), so I'm going to change that. Also, '.' should *not* be doing that! Thanks for alerting me, I'll fix that. There isn't much in the wilderness yet, the ziggurats ('Z' on the map) are the main focus atm.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 05, 2013, 07:31:44 pm
Also, '.' should *not* be doing that! Thanks for alerting me, I'll fix that.
I tested it a little. Before my stamina runs out, it works as I would expect. Once I run out of stamina though waiting causes the willpower bar to drain, and then the exhaustion bar, and then I get the message "you start to regain your reserves of strength" and it all comes back.
I might think this was intend behavior, with the exhaustion bar just representing the time it takes for my character to catch his breath. However, the message I get when I run out of willpower ("you can keep up this level of activity no longer; you are exhausted!") implies that the willpower bar at least should refill if I wait.
Post by: Deon on August 06, 2013, 05:55:58 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2013, 07:50:41 pm
I tested it a little. Before my stamina runs out, it works as I would expect. Once I run out of stamina though waiting causes the willpower bar to drain, and then the exhaustion bar, and then I get the message "you start to regain your reserves of strength" and it all comes back.
I might think this was intend behavior, with the exhaustion bar just representing the time it takes for my character to catch his breath. However, the message I get when I run out of willpower ("you can keep up this level of activity no longer; you are exhausted!") implies that the willpower bar at least should refill if I wait.
Ah, gotcha. Willpower and exhaustion go down no matter what you do, once you go into them. It's not a perfect system yet, and needs a bit of planning. It is exactly what that is meant to be, but I see what you mean, that's not clear. The idea is that once you start using your willpower, it's semi-similar to berserking in Crawl, and then you are exhausted for a period. However, these mechanics aren't really fully implemented yet (as you may have spotted!).
The first thing I tried to do when I made my first game is to find a volcano. I found a living volcano and tried to jump in, but the game said to me "That would be a suicide!" and did not let me! Awwww :'(.
Haha - it will one day! I just haven't coded either a) handling death, or b) handling death by lava, yet...
Post by: Frank2368 on August 07, 2013, 12:32:59 pm
Post by: Iceblaster on August 07, 2013, 12:38:47 pm
Maximum replayability is a central goal - EVERYTHING, from art to doors to puzzles to swords, will and must be procedural...
EVERYTHING, from art to doors to puzzles to swords, will and must be procedural...
swords, will and must be procedural...
swords
will and must be procedural...
As long as I can have a sword that has a crazy appearance that I can set on fire, I will happily await this
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 07, 2013, 02:52:28 pm
In the wall carvings, skull blocks are referred to as "the reminder of morality". Is that a typo?
It is indeed! Thanks for spotting; fixed.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 07, 2013, 02:53:49 pm
As long as I can have a sword that has a crazy appearance that I can set on fire, I will happily await this
The first part. Definitely the first part. MAYBE the second. Set on fire via magic or mundane means?
Post by: Rowanas on August 07, 2013, 04:19:16 pm
I assume, fi he's been paying any attention, that he means mundane. Wrapping a sword in oil-soaked cloth might make it a worse sword, but it makes a much better torch.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 07, 2013, 04:49:38 pm
Post by: Aoi on August 07, 2013, 06:59:44 pm
Wrapping a sword in oil-soaked cloth might make it a worse sword, but it makes a much better torch.
Not that I have any personal experience here (barring a near accident with a marshmallow where I was the perpetrator...) but being hit with a flaming bludgeon still smarts quite a bit.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2013, 05:37:25 am
See you fixed the quote.
I assume, fi he's been paying any attention, that he means mundane. Wrapping a sword in oil-soaked cloth might make it a worse sword, but it makes a much better torch.
Heh, yes. Incompetence ftw. Yeah, there will be no magic flaming scimitars, I'm afraid...
Or he's wondering if you're going more for the Elona route, where weapons can be made of raw meat and cloth among basically everything else possible.
No raw meat. At least, in sword form.
Not that I have any personal experience here (barring a near accident with a marshmallow where I was the perpetrator...) but being hit with a flaming bludgeon still smarts quite a bit.
Hmm, I can imagine. I mean, maybe you'll be able to attack with a flaming torch, for instance, if you have nothing else wielded, but I haven't yet totally decided how to handle non-weapons in hands (like torches). We'll have to see!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2013, 06:53:08 am
Most roguelikes have a single z level and a single perspective. What I mean by the first of these is simple – each floor of the dungeon is flat, and there are never objects you’re too “high” or too “low”, vertically, to see. You cannot be too low to see over a particular barrier, and nor can you ever be too high to see something hidden below a ledge, for example. What I mean by the second, however, is that tiles look the same irrespective of the angle they’re viewed from. Viewing a wall tile from any angle is always a wall, whether you’re in the chamber the wall makes up, or the corridor that the wall is just one side of. Viewing a door will always look like a door whichever side you view it from. Obviously there may be modifiers – spells of effects that reduce your line of sight, or cause hallucinations, or similar – but the objects remain stationary in your view under normal situations.
URR is a little different. Originally I only had z levels, and that means certain areas would have to look different. This is much the same as Dwarf Fortress. Areas significantly above the player print as a filled-in ‘^’ icon; areas above you produce a ‘v’; whilst your line of sight is obstructed by areas that are too high above the player’s current level. This needed a lot of work to implement because the characters that need printing on each tile are not fixed but relative to the player’s height. However, there’s also a second aspect which is becoming increasingly important – tiles which look different from alternative angles, not just from alternative heights. In this first screenshot inside a ziggurat, you’re in the room with the relevant clue, and that displays correctly. That’s obviously what’s meant to happen, and it does so fine.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/I1.png)
However, it is possible for the player to get behind this inscription and view it from the back. This could lead to the possibility that depending on the generation of the level, you could see a clue from behind before you actually reached that room with the clue! If the wall containing a clue was also a wall of a corridor leading to the clue, then you’d get to see the clue early (odd, but not a big issue), but also the player character would be able to magically read an inscription through the wall, which I deem to be a real immersion-breaker, and also warn the player about the location of a puzzle room in the dungeon. At the moment that final aspect doesn’t matter, but in the future with resource management and potential enemies, that kind of foreknowledge about the terrain might matter. So, I had to find a solution to this.
I considered what exactly the problem was; seeing the inscription tile, without being in the room the inscription refers to, should not show it. My first trial simply made the game notice which wall the clue was on, and print appropriately. If it was on the southern wall, any player north, north-west, north-east, west or east of the clue would see the ‘?’ whilst any player south of the clue would see the brick icon. This resulted in this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/I2.png)
Which worked great. What this meant, however, was that being below the inscription, even if you couldn’t actually see it, would have it reprint. Moving across the horizontal or vertical axis for a clue would make its appearance change even if there was no way to view it from behind. This worked to fix the original bug, but made other possible situations rather less elegant. If you were north of a north-wall inscription but couldn’t see it, it would still reprint. This meant that moving around would randomly keep redrawing the visible inscriptions according to each axis for each inscription that you crossed. As above, this did prevent the reading-inscriptions-through-walls error, but there’s really no need to hide the inscription in this case because you cannot view this from behind. I needed a system that would do what was shown above – inscriptions viewed from behind vanish – but only if they can be viewed from behind, so that the image below could also occur:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/I3.png)
Without changing from the above code, the inscription to the south of me would vanish, for no good reason. So, I returned to the process and iterated it again. I added in a new piece of code that had it check whether that particular square can even be seen from behind. So, if an inscription is on the southern wall, it checks if the south-western, southern or south-eastern tile from that tile are “open” to the player, and therefore can be seen. If any of these registered as being open, then it would revert to the solution in the second square – being behind it print the wall instead. However, if they are register as closed – in the third picture it is on the northern wall, and the NW, N and NE squares are all walls – it doesn’t need to print anything new because you can never view that inscription from behind. This solution ensured that only in the very, very rare situation where the inscription can be viewed from behind will it print a wall instead.
This is part of a much wider requirement for the game. There are multiple other types of tile that have to display differently based on the player situation. For example, doors can only display if the player’s height is less than or equal to the door’s location. For example, if there is an area with a height of 20, and levels 18/19/20 contain a three-level door, then standing atop that tile must hide it, whilst being anywhere below it must show it. This means a hefty part of the rendering code is basically for “exclusions” – for showing things if the player is at certain heights, or certain angles. Most tiles can be trivially displayed regardless of your angle, but a few tiles of these sorts require special treatment. Indoor areas, because they lack height, are significantly simpler because nothing has to be rendered specially to take account of the player’s location on the z axis. I haven’t yet decided how to handle things like bridges that you can walk under, but it’ll probably be handled like walking underneath tree leaves. I don’t yet know how many other aspects like this there will be, but I’m sure more will arise as time goes by. In the mean time, however, version 0.3.1 will be released in the coming week with a set of minor bug-fixes, and will be the last version until 0.4 later this year, in which – I am proud to announce – you will be able to die. I’m hyped.
Post by: guessingo on August 08, 2013, 02:58:47 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2013, 07:05:10 pm
is there anything to do in the game yet? In .2 it was more of a demo of the interface. Not complaining just asking. is there any kind of a game yet? I know its still in alpha stage.
Yes, the latest release contains a number of ziggurats with three-dimensional dungeon generation, procedurally generated puzzles, a lot of graphics and artwork, and a few secrets :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 09, 2013, 08:43:09 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 09, 2013, 10:07:59 am
As for the typos, sure thing. I'll make a list of what I can find and send them to you later today.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 09, 2013, 10:38:19 am
Post by: Aoi on August 09, 2013, 11:07:04 am
No raw meat. At least, in sword form.You don't like the mental image of someone trying to kill another guy with a chunk of sharpened, raw meat?
Wasn't it IVAN where you could have your limbs turned into various things, like fruit (or less interesting materials, like diamond or wood), then cut off, whereupon you would wield it and beat your attacker to death?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 09, 2013, 03:54:17 pm
Uhhhhhh... no, sorry, I don't recall. I'm thinking it might have been the two big north/south squares with a single line of 10 or 12 through the middle, but I really can't recall.
As for the typos, sure thing. I'll make a list of what I can find and send them to you later today.
Got it - will have a look.
No raw meat. At least, in sword form.You don't like the mental image of someone trying to kill another guy with a chunk of sharpened, raw meat?
Well, I say...
Well, that was less of a time investment than I thought. Sent what I could find without doing a bunch of playtesting.
Much obliged!
Wasn't it IVAN where you could have your limbs turned into various things, like fruit (or less interesting materials, like diamond or wood), then cut off, whereupon you would wield it and beat your attacker to death?
I do believe it is, though I've never played it myself. It's somewhere on The List, though.
Meanwhile, I've just quickly adjusted the in-game inventory; categories are grey if empty, and white if not empty:
(http://s23.postimg.org/4bx26clvf/Inv2.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 11, 2013, 09:43:48 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/08/11/urr-version-0-3-1-released-on-to-0-4/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/08/11/urr-version-0-3-1-released-on-to-0-4/)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 13, 2013, 09:31:11 am
Post by: Ikaruga on August 13, 2013, 11:26:12 am
I know where to place what but I have a problem interpreting what is what.
The singer of the early chorus : the sun, I suppose
The dark crescent : gibbous moon ?
The tusked one : the boar
The hidden moon : the eclipsed moon ?
I tried alternating the two moons but it didn't work either.
Any help please ?
Post by: Gradiant on August 13, 2013, 02:08:19 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 13, 2013, 04:01:25 pm
Hi, I'm stuck on a riddle :
I know where to place what but I have a problem interpreting what is what.
The singer of the early chorus : the sun, I suppose
The dark crescent : gibbous moon ?
The tusked one : the boar
The hidden moon : the eclipsed moon ?
I tried alternating the two moons but it didn't work either.
Any help please ?
All correct, except singer...
I have a question about the puzzles. Does opposite just mean next to, or am I missing something. Also, sometimes I just read two nouns next to each other in a sentence, like "the dead one the several tiers", and then the rest of a seemingly unrelated clue. Is this intentional?
There should be "is next to" or some direction in the middle. That's a serious bug. Can you tell me exactly what layout of puzzle it was, and what that and all the other clues were?
Edit: whoops, yes, opposite means next to. There's an irony here, since it used to say "next to" but I removed that because people felt it was too vague! It means it is the closest to another in any direction. Like:
OBADO
OOCOO
With a one-square gap in the middle; A is "opposite" B, C and D.
Post by: Graknorke on August 13, 2013, 04:19:44 pm
I think know what the singer is.It's pretty obvious.Spoiler: answer (click to show/hide)
Post by: Gradiant on August 13, 2013, 06:02:04 pm
There should be "is next to" or some direction in the middle. That's a serious bug. Can you tell me exactly what layout of puzzle it was, and what that and all the other clues were?
Edit: whoops, yes, opposite means next to. There's an irony here, since it used to say "next to" but I removed that because people felt it was too vague! It means it is the closest to another in any direction. Like:
OBADO
OOCOO
With a one-square gap in the middle; A is "opposite" B, C and D.
Thanks for the answer! I managed to solve it, but for bugfinding's sake the puzzle was set up like
ooo ooo ooo ooo
And the clues were:
- The dead one the several tiers, the snowed one rises west of the great serpent, and the several steps are built east of the flaming mount.
- The twisting river rushes opposite the one who fires ink and the towering flame
- The pale insect drifts opposite the pale white and the mischievous one.
- The many tiers were built opposite the several tiers and the dark arc.
- The buzzing one flies opposite a coiled creature and the memento mori.
Another question: I got to another Ziggurat, and the final puzzle, which is formatted the same as the previous one, there has clues in the form of "A and B are together and opposite C and D". Does this mean that part of the solution is
XAB CDX
where X's identity doesn't matter?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 13, 2013, 07:09:47 pm
Another question: I got to another Ziggurat, and the final puzzle, which is formatted the same as the previous one, there has clues in the form of "A and B are together and opposite C and D". Does this mean that part of the solution is
XAB CDX
where X's identity doesn't matter?
Thanks for the info! Will look into it. Must be a bug in that particular puzzle type.
As for the other, damn. It's a really ambiguous clue and I thought I'd removed all possibility for it to generate, but apparently I hadn't. Dammit. I'll make that change and upload a new version today or tomorrow. Many thanks for spotting it though :). It means CABD - so AB are touching, and the group are opposite C and D - but it's really unclear.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 17, 2013, 04:20:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 18, 2013, 05:53:13 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 18, 2013, 07:45:36 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/08/18/the-roguelike-community-kickstarter-cult-and-urr/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2013/08/18/the-roguelike-community-kickstarter-cult-and-urr/)
(Next week I'll be starting a retrospective series about a lot of the coding/design of 0.3!)
Post by: Man of Paper on August 20, 2013, 12:53:16 pm
Quote
now we’re onto something more like… I don’t know, Dark Souls meets Dwarf Fortress meets Europa Universalis meets Jorge Borges?
I am okay with all of this.
Post by: Mephansteras on August 22, 2013, 03:05:08 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 22, 2013, 08:24:42 pm
Quotenow we’re onto something more like… I don’t know, Dark Souls meets Dwarf Fortress meets Europa Universalis meets Jorge Borges?
I am okay with all of this.
Eeeeeexcellent.
Glad to hear you've got a good handle on what it takes to actually make your game.
I think/hope so. I know it's the long haul, and that's fine.
Meanwhile:
"Trap smoke. Don't breathe this!" (WIP)
(http://s21.postimg.org/nt7ojz7hj/Cloud1.png)
Made huge progress with traps - will be posting some screenshots of them in action soon!
Post by: Glloyd on August 22, 2013, 11:58:48 pm
Post by: Neonivek on August 23, 2013, 12:07:01 am
Quote
"Trap smoke. Don't breathe this!"
Could they even do that? I mean I guess it could be an alchemical reaction between two compounds or a poisonous powder.
Post by: Muz on August 23, 2013, 01:43:22 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 23, 2013, 06:45:14 am
ASCII?
Well, ANSI, mostly :)
Quote"Trap smoke. Don't breathe this!"
Could they even do that? I mean I guess it could be an alchemical reaction between two compounds or a poisonous powder.
Something of that sort is my rationale for poisonous cloud traps in dungeons. You might be able to disarm them later and extract the poison?
Any combat yet? I'd play just for the combat features, but last time I downloaded it, it wasn't there yet.
Nope, but you WILL be able to die in this release from having you limbs blown off by a ceramic explosive, or asphyxiating in a poisonous cloud. That's got to be worth something, right? Combat won't be appearing for several releases, because it requires SO much else about handling NPCs, AI, pathfinding, item management etc, to be in place first.
Post by: Graknorke on August 23, 2013, 07:37:40 am
A pressure plate on springs with a blade underneath. When it gets compressed the knife cuts through a rope, loosing a cylindrical weight down a tube of almost identical size. The weight falling would compress air, which could then be forced through a wire mesh or cloth covered in a powder that is toxic when inhaled.
Post by: PTTG?? on August 23, 2013, 10:29:24 am
Post by: Rainbows on August 23, 2013, 11:22:39 am
Discovered an unknown locked structure which I assume you had to find the keys from inside the ziggurats.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 23, 2013, 11:34:28 am
Is the game currently just shuffling blocks around? I went through 3-4 layers of a ziggurat before becoming bored.
Discovered an unknown locked structure which I assume you had to find the keys from inside the ziggurats.
Yep. I will point out though that it does explicitly say that when you load up the game for the first time. Future version info can be found at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/).
Post by: hops on August 23, 2013, 04:42:18 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 23, 2013, 06:44:24 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 24, 2013, 07:01:33 pm
So, this first entry will detail the design goals of the puzzles and the process of creating the puzzle solutions, checking the solution will be valid and assigning clues to them; next week’s entry will conclude this two-part series by covering how clues are generated and written by the game, and how to ensure clues are clear, even if they are cryptic (two apparently contradictory goals).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/Victory.png)
I had three objectives when beginning the process. These will also be applicable for future forms of puzzle too.
Firstly, all puzzles should be solvable on the first try. There must be no trial and error. Some puzzles may, later, come with traps of varying severity and lethality (traps will likely be integrated into puzzles for 0.4); they must be avoidable with perfect play. This is not to say they might not take a long time to solve, but you should always be able to submit the correct answer first time. If there is any ambiguity, there need to be more clues, or the puzzle needs reworking. Given the clues, puzzles can be cryptic, but they must never be ambiguous.
Secondly, the puzzle must have only one solution. This is not just because having multiple solutions makes a puzzle easier, but also because getting the software to recognize all solutions that meet the clue requirements on the fly, rather than upon the generation of the puzzle, was a far more challenging task.
Thirdly, all puzzles must use the smallest number of clues possible. That is to say that if the game provides you with four clues, but one is superfluous, it should be able to remove that clue and keep paring down clues until you have the bare minimum required. This once again increases difficulty, but also reduces the amount of data (potentially duplicated data) the player needs to process.
There are three stages to the puzzle, of which the second stage is the major focus. The first stage is deciphering the riddle – for example, understanding that “the creature of poison arrows sits north of the many-legged one” means “a frog is north of a spider”, which we’ll talk about next time because those phrases are generated quite late in the process. The second stage is working out the placement of all the different blocks based on the clues you’ve been given (which, as above, should be only just sufficient to solve the puzzle with), and the third stage (the most minor) involves maneuvering the blocks into position. The third is just a minor Sokoban puzzle in some situations, so let’s skip over that one.
The first stage in generating a puzzle is to determine how difficult a puzzle should be placed. There are two sizes of ziggurat, “medium” and “large”. I originally intended to have “small” ones as well, but I found them a little too small to really feel like a full dungeon (using “dungeon” in the broadest sense); whilst that feeling would decrease in future versions once I add more room types, for the time being we’re just going for medium and large. A medium ziggurat has four floors and a large has five. There are five different “levels” of puzzle, 1-5, of which level 5 are considered “boss” puzzles and can only be placed on the penultimate floor (so the third floor in a medium, or fourth floor in a large). The final floor always houses either a clue, or a secret item – in later versions there will be far more variety and these peaks will include treasure, loot, weaponry, various other items, and potentially “boss” level NPCs who have also made their way into that same ziggurat. For now, however, three ziggurats contain secrets, whilst the others contain clues directing the player towards those with secrets.
The floor the puzzle is being generated on determines the level of puzzle; harder puzzles appear on higher floors. It is weighted to give you a logical progression of puzzle difficulty in each ziggurat, but also to allow for unusually difficult puzzles to rarely appear on each floor (similar to “out of depth monsters” in Dungeon Crawl). I will focus on the placement in the later entry of ziggurat dungeons, but the game basically draws a route from door -> stairs or stairs -> stairs and places rooms of appropriate difficulty along that route. Some ziggurats will have a tougher combination of puzzles, some easier, but given that I’m making a procedurally generated game I certainly don’t mind a little variation, and once other factors are in play – such as traps in 0.4! – difficulty should equal itself out more easier than with just a single challenge from the puzzle rooms.
The next stage is to pick a puzzle. There are several for each level. For example, Level 1 puzzles can be 2×1, 3×1, or 4×2. Level 2 can be 2×2 or a “cross” (like the five dots on a die rotated 45 degrees). At the higher end, the Level 5 boss puzzles can be 12×1, 3×3, 5×2 or a “star” (3×3 with the middle removed but an extra pressure pad on each edge), as shown below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/Bpssrooms.png)
Once it has chosen a puzzle shape, it then selects correct blocks at random from a series of all blocks. So, if we have a 2×2 puzzle, it might select a Full Moon, a Snake, a Spider and a Winter Tree. Full Moon might be classed as block a, Snake as b, Spider as c and Winter Tree as d (the puzzle being ab on the top level, then cd below, to form the 2×2 square). The game then picks from a variety of what I’ve been called “clue orientations”. For 2×2, for instance, it may pick a particular corner then give two definite orientations next to it. So, if it picks the top-left corner, it would generate a clue (details next week) that says the top-left is on the east of the top-right and north of the bottom-left. It would then know that the second clue needs to relate the bottom-right tile, but because the earlier two clues are directional, this final clue doesn’t need to be.
In any case where a non-directional clue can be used, the game prefers to do that because it’s automatically more difficult. Saying “X is west of Y” is simpler than “X is opposite Y” and having to figure out whether that is north, south, east or west according to the rest of the clue. However – and 0.3.1b fixed a few issues like this – it soon became clear you simply had to have some directional clues. For example, the 3×3 grid is symmetrical in all four orientations, to simply saying “opposite” for all clues would mean the clue could be solved in four orientations. I felt this both made the puzzles easier, and possibly more importantly, would actually be a lot harder for the game to check if there were multiple solutions. For more advanced sets of pressure pads, there are a large number of potential methods by which the game can produce the clues. For example, for a 3×3 grid, it might create a clue for the top row, a clue for the bottom, then go from there; or it might create a clue for the top-right corner, a clue for the bottom-left corner, then three more; or it might create a clue for the three in the middle (vertically) then work out from there. Obviously the larger the pressure pad pattern, the more clue orientations there are, but the harder it was to make sure all clue orientations can be solved. Despite my best efforts 0.3.0 had a few that couldn’t be solved, but those were all fixed for 0.3.1′s release. Lastly, each puzzle can only contain a particular block once, so you can never get two of the same block in one puzzle, although variations upon a theme – ziggurats of different sizes or trees of different seasons – are allowed. This is again to be remove ambiguity – if there are two frogs in a puzzle, there might be multiple solutions, which means trial and error might come into it, and that was unacceptable according to the design plans at the top of this entry.
Thus, once it has selected it blocks and gone through a number of possible permutations, it then develops the clues. Next week I’ll be going over this process, and the tricky balance between keeping clues cryptic, but also unambiguous.
Also, 0.1.3c is out with a few small bug fixes, and one big one which nobody spotted but I realized was there, which I’m afraid breaks save compatibility. ENJOY, INTERNET! Download it at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 26, 2013, 09:09:01 am
(http://s10.postimg.org/71d1gqfpl/Ulp.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 29, 2013, 11:29:28 am
(http://s2.postimg.org/3k039n5uh/Torch.png)
Post by: Willfor on August 29, 2013, 01:58:22 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 29, 2013, 04:16:15 pm
The looks an awful lot like a torch.
It's actually a very confused volcano.
Post by: Reyn on August 29, 2013, 06:58:46 pm
Magic being brought back, confirmed!
Post by: Aoi on August 30, 2013, 11:17:25 am
Post by: Man of Paper on August 30, 2013, 12:20:37 pm
Post by: GFXiNXS on August 30, 2013, 11:06:40 pm
I've downloaded the latest version "0.3.1c", though, when running the game it still says "v0.3.0" in the title bar.
Either way, I love where this project is headed - keep up the good work!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 31, 2013, 05:30:13 am
Loving what you have going here. I seem to keep hitting annoying hurdles, though. I have had numerous Ziggurats with duplicate blocks that are seemingly impossible to solve, even the the puzzle is as basic as can be.
I've downloaded the latest version "0.3.1c", though, when running the game it still says "v0.3.0" in the title bar.
Either way, I love where this project is headed - keep up the good work!
Thanks! But I think generating impossible puzzles was long since fixed. Can you give me an example with clues, the orientation of the pads, and the available blocks? :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 31, 2013, 04:22:17 pm
Where we left off last time we had a series of clue planned. For a 2×2 puzzle, for example, the first clue might need to be “Top-Left is west of Top-Right and north of Bottom-Left”, and the second is “Bottom Right is next to Bottom-Left”. To do this, the game then finds a synonym for each clue component, all of which have a variety of synonyms. For example, a lizard can be referred to as a “reptile”, “sticky footed one”, “cold blooded one”, “scaly one”, “one who regrows tails” or “tree climbing reptile”, whilst a skull may be a “dead one”, “cranium”, “one of bone”, “memento mori”, “reminder of mortality” or “deathly visage”. One is chosen at random each time a particular block is in a puzzle, with plurals added appropriately.
An earlier release had a number of different ambiguous clues. One was “the reptile” – this could be a snake or a lizard. If only one of the blocks had generated that would be fine, but there was always the risk that both would generate and therefore the solution would be ambiguous until you’d tested both, at which point the player would know from that point on which was correct and which was false. A few people actually suggested to me that ambiguity of this sort was acceptable – the player needs to figure out the identities of vague clues – but this is a very bad idea. It fails to meet the three design goals I mentioned in the first part of this series, and given that some puzzles will be associated with traps in the coming version 0.4, I cannot allow any trial-and-error where’s something to stake.
It reminds me of the idea of “Guess what the teacher’s thinking”. Imagine a teacher says “Name a classical composer”. You say “Beethoven”, and the teacher says “Wrong! The answer was Mozart”. You did answer the question, but the question wasn’t worded well enough to make clear to you the range (or narrowness) of the expected responses. It question implied there were many possible answers, but since there was actually only one, a less stupid question would have been “Name a classical composer born in 1756″. This would be the same issue – the “lizard” clue could mean either, but only one will be accepted by the game. Another example of this was the “shadowed moon”. This was meant to be the eclipse, but it could be interpreted as being eclipse, crescent, half or even gibbous moon. Much too unclear. Another clue that I never realized was vague came to my attention in a very unusual way which I think says something interesting about the different ways people “read” games.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/Boar.jpg)
This is a young boar (this is also the only blog entry which will have such endearing pictures). It has stripes. One of the clues for a boar was something like “the one with the young stripes”. I realized most people might not instantly know this, but with a little bit of research, or a process of elimination, should have made this clear. However, consider the three variations of the boar block – two of them have things akin to “stripes”.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/08/Boar21.png)
One player suggested they found the clue confusing because one of the boar designs didn’t have stripes, and this made them wonder if the variations of image on blocks had some impact on the clues. Nothing like this even remotely occurred to me before release, but it made me realize (not for the first time) that others will “read” a game differently to you, especially if you’re the designer and have been staring at the game for a long time. I therefore removed this clue because it raised a little confusion about the relationship between the clue and the particular variation of the block.
Similarly, for those who follow the blog you may know of the endless confusion and debate over how to work one particular clue. “West of” is fairly self-explanatory, but there are a large number of clues that state one block is “opposite” another. This is meant to refer to a block that is orthogonal and as-close-as-possible to another block. For example, if you have a 2×2 clue, then the bottom-right could be “opposite” the bottom-left or top-right, but not the top-left. The lower-level clues were designed to build up an understanding of what exactly this term means that could then be applied to the higher-level challenges. This went through a number of different iterations. I tried “next to”, but that meant that if there was a gap between two pressure pads – even if orthogonally adjacent – some players were confused about whether this classed as “next to”. I also tried “adjacent to” but some players thought this meant only left-right, not up-down. “Touching” was equally unclear, whilst “proximate to” was vague and could include diagonals, conceivably. I don’t know if “opposite” is ideal, but it’s certainly less ambiguous than a bunch of the other options – it implies there are no other blocks in between A and B, and that it can be vertical as well as horizontal. This was another example where both my “reading” of the game differed from that of others (I thought “next to” was fine, at first), and that clues need to remain cryptic, “in character”, without being unclear. Of course, every clue could say “A is either left, right, up or down from B, without a block in the middle, and potentially with a blank tile in the middle”… but somehow that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 14, 2013, 04:01:44 pm
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/articles/1/139/138148/auto/POisons2.png)
There are currently five different shapes of bottle (all shown below, though I might add a sixth too) – these shapes have no gameplay effect, but are just for variation. Each has five different levels for the substance inside – full, three-quarters full, half full, one-quarter full, and empty. Once empty you will be able to refill them from an appropriate source (like blood from a corpse, water from a river, poison from a deactivated poison trap, etc). There are, as above, currently only four substances, though I can imagine several others that might be useful in the future. There are therefore at the moment exactly a hundred different permutations of glass bottles (5 designs, 5 levels, 4 substances). Thus far this is the highest number of permutations to date, I think, for any particular graphic, and will only continue to grow as I add another type of bottle and various other substances.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Psmall.png)
I’ve also remade the inventory (for the final time). The inventory in 0.3 is effectively a “fake” inventory – you can only pick up the three key segments, and you cannot drop them, and only one aspect of the inventory can be accessed. Additionally the system for picking up wasn’t “real”, in the sense that the items were implemented in a way which couldn’t really support anything other than the three key segments. This entire debacle system has now been changed in several ways. Firstly, when you try to pick up an item on a tile with more than one item, it produces a list of possible items (shown below).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Inventory1.png)
You can then highlight the ones you want by pressing the appropriate letter, and press Enter to confirm your selections. Those are all then added to the appropriate inventory sections. The inventory itself, meanwhile, can now handle, sort and allow you to select arbitrary items from any category. When you open your inventory categories with > 0 items in will appear white rather than grey. Also, opening your inventory for different purposes – looking, dropping, using, etc – will obviously have a different label. You then select the appropriate inventory subgroup and do whatever it is you opened the inventory for. Esc or any movement key will get you out of this screen.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Inventory.png)
When you select an inventory sub-group, it then brings up a list of everything in that subgroup. I debated just having one large inventory for all items, but I decided against that for various reasons. Firstly, because some inventory classes have limitations – for instance, you will only be able to carry one long weapon with you – and I felt this needed to be clear. Secondly, some inventory categories might have large numbers of similar items, for example lots of branches for making torches, and I didn’t want that to “clog up” other inventories. Thirdly I suppose it also serves a small gameplay effect for showing you what category certain items fall into, and fourthly, I just felt having a “main” inventory menu looked aesthetically nicer. I did a lot of practice with it and much like one becomes used to doing several-stage macros in Nethack or Crawl, so to does one quickly become used to clicking the shortcut to the right inventory area. One of the items I’ve now implemented graphics for is the torch, which looks like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Torches.png)
Torches have five different images which reflect how burnt down they are (0-20%, 20-40%, and so on), and there is also a different colour of wood for each type of branch (the above being olive, and 20-40% burnt), resulting in something like eighty different torch images or so. I am currently in the process of adapting and balancing the extent to which I want torches to boost your vision, and also to allow the player to make torches via the new ‘m’ake command. “Crafting” will not be a large part of the game, but there will be a few situations where you will be able to combine items to others. I’ll have more on this screen and this mechanic once I’ve worked on it a bit more, but you’ll soon be able to use flint, stone and a tree branch to create a torch (i.e. creating a spark with which to light the branch). Over the next week or two I’ll be looking to implement the difference in torch radius when you wield a torch, and allow you to wield and un-wield them. You can also now drop items, either singly or in large numbers, much like the pick-up-multiple-items menu; you are given a list, you highlight the ones you want, then press enter.
Next up I’ve been working on the health and limb system, which has undergone a not insignificant number of changes over the lifetime of the game thus far. I’m implementing this now because traps need to be able to hurt you (funnily enough) which means that acid burns, fire burns, physical limb damage and all the rest of it need implementing. The first part of this is ensuring that limbs all display correctly when you look the player (and later at other foes). This can either be done by ‘l’ooking at yourself, or pressing the ‘@’ button. Here’s a quick preview of how the three screens currently look (they can be tabbed between):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Inventory2-1024x357.png)
The second and third screen are largely placeholders at the moment, since you cannot change your clothes/weapons nor gain or lose any allegiances aside from the civilization and religion you start off belonging to. The first screen, however, now displays whatever dreadful ailments have befallen your character, as in the example below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Inventory4.png)
And also, as we can see, whatever healing items have been applied. I’ll do a full blog entry later on how health and healing are going to work since this entry is getting long enough already, but items like bandages, sutures and splints are going to be important to healing various parts of the player’s anatomy. Also, you really don’t want the rotting status.
Lastly I’ve also worked on external lighting sources, though they are still very much a work in progress. When you drop a lit torch, it currently lights up an area around the player (the radius is not yet fixed or decided; this is just a proof-of-concept example). If you can see the external light source, you will be able to see everything in it, as in the left picture. In the right version, there is a tree trunk between you and the light source; you can therefore see parts of it, but not all of it. You will not be able to see creatures or items between you and an external light source if there is a gap between the two – whilst obviously in the real world you would see a silhouette, I think it would make for more interesting gameplay if you could only see foes when they’re in lit areas, thereby perhaps allowing you to place and move light sources strategically to keep track of enemies.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Vision1.png)
What I’m not yet sure about though is the relationship between external light sources and undiscovered terrain. In this example, although you haven’t explored the middle you can still see through it to some of the light source, but since parts of it are blocked, you can reasonably deduce there is probably a tree or two in the shroud you cannot yet see. This model treats undiscovered areas the same as areas you’ve discovered but cannot currently see – you can see through them, but you cannot see into them.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Vision2.png)
Whilst I think the first two implementations both make sense, I’m really not sure about this one, so leave thoughts on whether you think this makes sense, or whether undiscovered terrain should totally block your line or sight. I can see arguments for both versions. That’s quite enough for this week – next week I’ll probably be moving onto discussing either traps, limb damage, or both, in more detail, but as ever let me know what you think of these latest steps towards 0.4! As a whole, things are well on track for a winter release, and now that I actually have a working microphone again, I’ll be looking to stream more coding sessions and Q&As and the like in the near future – stayed tuned to Twitter (https://twitter.com/UltimaRegum) & Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/UltimaRatioRegumRoguelike) for details…
Post by: Hugehead on September 14, 2013, 04:24:40 pm
0.4 is looking great, can't wait to mess around with poisoning myself and covering myself with oil. (Will that be possible in 0.4?)
Post by: Dutchling on September 14, 2013, 04:39:38 pm
Not saying it is bad or anything :). I am definitely liking basically all the art so far!
Post by: PTTG?? on September 15, 2013, 11:36:52 am
Post by: Dutchling on September 15, 2013, 12:16:08 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 18, 2013, 10:31:09 am
I'm not sure that the 4 empty bottles should be considered different. ;)
0.4 is looking great, can't wait to mess around with poisoning myself and covering myself with oil. (Will that be possible in 0.4?)
Thanks! Er... I'm not sure. I would think I'll probably let you immolate yourself horribly. I mean, now you've suggested it, I can't not... :)
No (e.g.) salt water or different kinds of blood / poison? Is the current "simplicity" just a placeholder or are you going to keep it like that?
Not saying it is bad or anything :). I am definitely liking basically all the art so far!
Salt water will be distinct; I'm just considering what kind of image to give it. Maybe just make it paler for the sake of visual distinction. There will be different kinds of blood. I'm not sure about poison, as it depends on the poison mechanics - either you can have "strong poison", "weak poison", etc, OR you just have "poison", and subsequent multiple poisonings raise the severity of the poison in your system. Haven't decided yet.
Poisons could have different effects with identical (or similar pallet-shifted) graphics.
If I have varied poisons, that's probably what I'll do.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 19, 2013, 08:21:37 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 24, 2013, 05:27:04 pm
Now, onto the actual update which, as promised, is pretty brief (though what it describes is pretty significant!). Firstly, you can now throw items. Doing so brings up a crosshair, this time yellow (the ‘l’ook function is white, whilst the ‘g’rab function is orange), which also produces a “tail” behind your cross hair which shows you whether or not your throw will reach its target, sections of which will light up red if you’re trying to throw it through something you can’t. You then press enter, and the item soars across the map (some items spin whilst flying, so a torch will display as ― / | \ whilst flying) and hits whatever. I’ve also enabled a system for a message to display both when the item hits something, and when it lands, along with any other effects. For instance, you might get “The torch hits the wall”, or “The torch lands on a fire trap”, or “The torch hits the wall and lands on a fire trap” if you aimed the throw at or beyond a wall, it hit the wall, and then comes to land on whatever is below it. Additionally, some objects now set off some traps. Anything passing through a tripwire (not over a tripwire – it must land on the tripwire) will set it off, and heavier objects landed on pressure pads will set them off. You will also soon be able to ‘u’se branches to, rather than just throw them at traps, prod a trap in any square adjacent to you. Bear traps cannot be set off by something as light as a branch landing on them, but they will be triggered if you push down on the trap with one manually. Naturally all of this need will need balancing in the future once I know how much the player can carry, the scarcity of items, etc, but I’m just focusing on the mechanics for now. Below are two pictures of valid and invalid throws:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Valid.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Invalid.png)
Secondly, torches now produce lighting whilst they fly! It is a very, very cool effect, and means you can now throw torches into the darkness to see what’s ahead, if so inclined. There will be very little in the current release that you might need to do that for, but in later versions it will be of much more use in certain situations (though you’d always run the risk of alerting people up ahead). The image below should give a vague idea of what it looks like, but I’ll try and produce a gif of it at some point.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/09/Torch-Throw.png)
My next objectives are making sure all the interactions between objects and items on the map a) are correct and b) give correct messages whether in or out of sight, working a little more on tripwires so they spawn correctly in some unusual map situations, and finishing off the trap graphics, around 70% of which have thus far been done. After that I’ll be working on the ‘m’ake menu for combining items (for example, constructing torches), and then I’ll be moving onto the second big part of this release, which is health, damage and healing items. Well on track for releasing 0.4 before the end of this year! I’m also going to start producing much more detailed changelogs from here on (akin to something like Dungeon Crawl) since there’s always a lot of tweaks and minor new features I end up fitting in.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 05, 2013, 01:11:17 pm
I'm still streaming coding a lot on the twitch link in the posts above, so do stop by if you want to see the game being developed/playtested. I'm really happy with how traps are working out, and soon I'll be working on the health/damage/limb system, so that they can actually start hurting the player...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 12, 2013, 04:21:52 am
This week we’re going to talk about the languages in Ultima Ratio Regum. These have two components – the visual side, which is this week’s topic, and the coding side which allows the game to build up full dictionaries for each language. The latter side isn’t yet fully implemented, and I’m still working on how precisely language as a mechanic is going to work in-game, but as those who played the last version will have noticed there were a large number of possible fictional languages. If you looked in the game’s files, you’d have noticed sixteen languages, each in the 12×12, 10×10 and 8×8 font sizes. This entry is about how I went about creating these, what each is based on, and some of the restrictions I discovered I had to impose in order to make languages visible and distinct in as little as 8×8 pixels. I’m only going to cover some of the language here; by my own admission some are less interesting, and some more obvious in their origins, so I’m going to only cover the ones I think are the most intriguing, or that required the most work or research to bring to fruition. The game mechanics side of the in-game languages I’ll cover at some point in the future once said mechanic does, in fact, exist…
The first language is based on various runic alphabets.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Runes1-300x223.png)
I confess that such alphabets are routinely used in various fantasy contexts and on this count I haven’t been particularly original here. I’m not quite sure why languages that look this way are so popular, though a few rationales present themselves. They’re clear and all aesthetically similar; they look like the kinds of characters that could believably be hewn into ancient rock with only basic tools, rather than more intricate or curving designs; they are somehow rather striking and lack any real ambiguity or potential to confuse one letter with another; and perhaps the cultural pervasiveness achieved by our long-dead Viking ancestors above many other non-extant civilizations has something to do with it too. Regardless, I started off with these because they could be drawn with clear, thick and straight lines, and could easily be scaled upwards or downwards to different font sizes. Despite some fairly heavy restrictions in terms of focusing on straight lines and as small a number of those lines as possible, a decent level of variation was possible. Here’s what the language looks like in the end:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Runic.png)
This second language is inspired by Rongorongo, the as-of-yet untranslated series of glyphs (linguists are uncertain whether it is indeed a “language”, or perhaps a form of mythological archiving or memory aid) found on Easter Island.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Runes12.png)
I’ve always found Rongorongo to be a particularly aesthetically pleasing language with its combinations of half-ambiguous plants, humans and fish, and I find something quite enticing about the fact we don’t yet know how to categorize it – a language, a proto-language, or something else altogether. That it has held its mystery strikes me as an interesting aspect of the language, and I wanted to try and echo something about the lack of clarity Rongorongo displays about whether the images are letters, direct representations, or something else altogether. This was a much tougher language to create due to the intricacy of some of the designs – I was eventually able to make them all identifiable at even the 8×8 font size, though some were a lot trickier than others. I think this one turned out well and has a certain feel to it the other languages (not being at all symbolic) lack.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Rongo.png)
This next language is based on Hindi.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Runes13.png)
A language joined up a consistent line, rather than the ways in which handwriting is “joined up” in western European languages, was one I wanted to make from the start, whilst still making sure it remains distinct from any real-world equivalents. This one was both enjoyable and relatively simple to make, and scale down to the 8×8 font, though the application of a horizontal line imposes a few minor restrictions on it I haven’t yet worked out ways around – for instance, if generated around a ziggurat door. I will likely simply prevent this language image from being chosen in such situations, though I hadn’t done so just yet. However, long sequences of this language look very nice in-game, and contributes further to trying to produce a variation in linguistic aesthetic reasonably comparable to that we see in the real world.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Hind.png)
The language below is based on cuneiform (much like, for all intents and purposes, the dragon language in Skyrim).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Runes11-300x223.png)
Much like the runic language, this one is very clear at all scales, and also lends itself to a variety of combinations of length and orientation of indentation. Equally, the way in which one can imagine such a script being carved into rock has always given the language a particular interest for me, and thematically I find the origin of such a language being centuries or even millennial before the start of the game very believable. The fact the tools used to carve the language are reflected in the language itself lends it, I think, a very unique air:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Cune.png)
The next language you see below was a very deliberate attempt to make a language that differed widely from all the ones above. I can remember looking at the current file of languages and trying to think of an aspect I hadn’t used – many diagonal lines, or several curving lines – before realizing none of the languages so far used dots alongside other components. One was composed entirely of dots (not shown in this entry), but none uses dots in small amounts or as an accompanying part of the script to other aspects. Thus, I created this language, which was envisioned as a combination of curves and dots in different quantities, and one I think turned out very well:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Dots.png)
Now we come to one of my favourite languages. I think this is one of the best languages I’ve created thus far, though it is not based in anything in particular (beyond labyrinths and mazes). This was one of my attempts to create a totally unique language, and I certainly can’t think of anything resembling it in either modern times or earlier history. Some parts bear passing resemblance to certain tiles in logographic east Asian scripts, but otherwise I wanted to make this language very detailed, very dense, but with a clear geometric preference for orthogonal lines and right-angles, and generally only a single consistent line that makes up the entire letter. Although it may not look it, this one translates well into small font sizes by simply reducing the numbers of loops, for example, a particular character in the language has.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Laby.png)
Ultimately, what struck me as the most important factor was the internal consistency in each language. When one looks across languages, even those character seemingly very different, clear differences between scripts become very clear – whether alphabetic, syllabic or logographic, each has a preference for straight or curved lines, a willingness (or not) to use dots and other small markers, restrictions on how the language may be constructed, a way of joining up characters (or an insistence characters must be kept separate), and so forth. The languages for the game have tried where possible to reflect this, and to generate a reasonable amount of variation for each language whilst still staying within logical boundaries. Equally, there are rare cases where certain characters have been maybe slightly changed or slightly simplified just to aid ease of writing (or reading), and in some of the languages I tried to add a character or two that were slightly different, but could conceivably have developed from a slightly more awkward variation of the same character. There are perhaps another half a dozen languages in the works too, but they probably won’t make it into the game until 0.5, when full civilization and history generation will be implemented. It is worth adding, for those unaware, the name and the dictionary for a language will be generated at random each game. Which is to say, the “Hindi language” might have one name one game with a particular set of words assigned to it, whilst it will be totally different next time. Once 0.5 is implemented the game will generate a dozen ancient languages, assign names, dictionaries and images to each one, and then populate those in global ancient ruins logically. All contemporary languages in the game will use a contemporary Latin alphabet, albeit with a full potential complement of umlauts, accents and other diacritics.
Lastly, and as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve now hit over 1000 followers on Twitter, so this coming Sunday (the 13th) I’ll be doing a celebratory all-day coding/playtesting stream from (roughly) 12am GMT -> 12pm GMT (www.twitch.tv/maasbiolabs). Do please stop by and say hello; I’ll be following it up with (most likely) some Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup in the evening, so if you’ve ever wanted to get into the best classic roguelike out there, be sure to tune in. Next week I’ll be doing another big URR update as I finish off everything in the release that isn’t health, injuries and death, after which – you guessed it – we’ll be moving onto health, injuries, and indeed, death. Stay tuned! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 18, 2013, 01:42:04 pm
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/18/interview-ultima-ratio-regum-a-generated-4x-roguelike/ (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/10/18/interview-ultima-ratio-regum-a-generated-4x-roguelike/)
Post by: Mephansteras on October 18, 2013, 02:12:15 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on October 20, 2013, 12:44:50 pm
Quote
Some of the central thematic elements of the game (which as I say are only now starting to emerge) are about how we understand truth, and the ways in which different civilizations perceive reality according to different metrics (science, myth, etc).
I approve of this.
Post by: dennislp3 on October 20, 2013, 11:27:49 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 23, 2013, 08:36:21 am
That language stuff is both nifty and impressive!
Thanks! I've got a couple of others in the works, but as the language aspect in general isn't really a big factor yet, it's not a priority at the moment.
QuoteSome of the central thematic elements of the game (which as I say are only now starting to emerge) are about how we understand truth, and the ways in which different civilizations perceive reality according to different metrics (science, myth, etc).
I approve of this.
Excellent :). As I say, in a version or two these will slowly start to become visible in the game...
I have been watching this for ages but I don't think I have yet to post here to watch it! Silly me...done!
Wise move sir! I'll be continuing to cross-post things from the blog over here, as I know there's a lot of Bay12 folk interested in the game.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 26, 2013, 05:23:05 am
This fortnight’s update is a relatively short one, though a lot of work has been done. I’ve now enabled the ability to export the map grid you’re currently on into a .png file (much like you can currently export the various world map overlays by pressing ‘X’). More importantly, I’ve been redoing all the terrain generation, and have reduced the loading and saving times on all map grids by between 50% and 90%, depending on what’s on the map grid. Grids with buildings and interiors naturally take slightly longer to generate than other areas, but the reduction is very significant. All of those who say the game takes too long to load some segments (you are undoubtedly correct) can hopefully, now, rest easy that they won’t be waiting through the same kinds of load times. I’m also changing how the game stores data so that the save files will be less colossal; this is an ongoing process, but the save files for 0.4 will certainly be smaller than their titanic 0.3 brethren. The remaking of the terrain generation algorithm is perhaps 90% completed now, and one thing I’ve been doing is also adding more detail to the ziggurat regions. I felt they were looking a little sparse, so it seemed appropriate to do something to improve them a tad:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/ZigB.png)
And a gif of these structures at dawn, day, dusk and night (note also the changing shading on the trees):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/10/Ziggif.gif)
For the time being these extra structures are just decoration, but in the future they too will be fully explorable, and each ziggurat region on the world map will have a lot more content in it than it currently does. In line with some feedback I’ve got, I’ve decided that there are only going to be three ziggurat locations on the map – each one will contain a single large ziggurat that will contain a key fragment, and the other ziggurats will contain a number of other things in them. I’d like each map grid you end up exploring to be a significant thing, so each grid area (like the one above) is going to contain a far larger amount of content. I’m now switching back to finishing off throwing and projectiles once and for all – perhaps only a day’s work remains there – then I’ll be moving onto handling the health system. Next week we’ll have a summary of all the other developments over the last month and then follow that up with the start of health and injuries.
Post by: Mephansteras on October 28, 2013, 01:14:16 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 29, 2013, 06:28:21 am
Impressive looking, as always!
Thanks :). Probably going to get out a nice and detailed trap screenshot next week...
Post by: Silleh Boy on October 29, 2013, 07:48:25 am
While the open world that you initially had planned was interesting, something about the change of focus to dungeon crawling, dealing with deadly traps and deciphering puzzles in ancient languages reminds me of how much I wished that the ziggurat in Gearhead had a little more to it - I remember many playthroughs I'd up my toughness, resiliance to status effects, get medication to deal with anything that got through and then head out to this one specific hostile location to crawl through it for its treasures.
This seems to capture the same promise of exploration, using your wits and tools to overcome the challenges before you, of coming out atop it all with your reward - or dying a horrible death because you underestimated the challenges before you and for that, it has not just rekindled, but sparked a new interest in me.
The artwork that you've done using the medium you have, along with the effects you've applied to it add a great deal of appeal to the game too as while there's a lot that a player's required to imagine with games of these styles and this acts as a potent catalyst.
With the sun setting you're dappled with the last dying rays of golden-red light filtering through the canopy above, facing a forboding structure made of stepped and weathered sandstone forgotten for countless ages in the untamed forest.
Do you dare enter before morning returns with the warm glow of the sun to give you false courage before you march into the darkness?
I'll be looking forward to seeing this when there's more substance, so the cries of joy along with the screams of horror of my foolhardy adventurers will mark their many successes and failures.
Best of luck!
Post by: Dutchling on October 29, 2013, 07:53:16 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 06, 2013, 07:09:46 am
Personally, I've found this game to be of more interest since the change of focus.
While the open world that you initially had planned was interesting, something about the change of focus to dungeon crawling, dealing with deadly traps and deciphering puzzles in ancient languages reminds me of how much I wished that the ziggurat in Gearhead had a little more to it - I remember many playthroughs I'd up my toughness, resiliance to status effects, get medication to deal with anything that got through and then head out to this one specific hostile location to crawl through it for its treasures.
This seems to capture the same promise of exploration, using your wits and tools to overcome the challenges before you, of coming out atop it all with your reward - or dying a horrible death because you underestimated the challenges before you and for that, it has not just rekindled, but sparked a new interest in me.
The artwork that you've done using the medium you have, along with the effects you've applied to it add a great deal of appeal to the game too as while there's a lot that a player's required to imagine with games of these styles and this acts as a potent catalyst.
With the sun setting you're dappled with the last dying rays of golden-red light filtering through the canopy above, facing a forboding structure made of stepped and weathered sandstone forgotten for countless ages in the untamed forest.
Do you dare enter before morning returns with the warm glow of the sun to give you false courage before you march into the darkness?
I'll be looking forward to seeing this when there's more substance, so the cries of joy along with the screams of horror of my foolhardy adventurers will mark their many successes and failures.
Best of luck!
Thanks for the very kind words :). I'm glad you like the new focus - you've described very well the kind of thing I'm trying to pursue. The feeling of exploration - and, ultimately, having enough content, including enough optional content, that one should hopefully always encounter something quite new and interesting - is a high goal, but one I'd definitely like to work on. Don't get me wrong, I love the challenge of roguelikes, but I really want to instill those feelings of both fear and excitement when you reach a brand new area in a permadeath game that you've never been in before. And thanks re: the artwork - as I've mentioned once or twice before in this thread, it was never an initial goal, but now I've seen what can be done within the limitations, it has become a key aspect of the game. Fantastic italicized description, btw!
I somewhat agree. While I was at first disappointed with the change of focus (other than the removal of most fantasy elements, I liked that change) I think I'm starting to like what you are making more and more :D.
Glad to hear it sir :). Development has slowed a little now as I have a ridiculous amount of academic work that demands my time, but 0.4 is still well on-track for release by the end of the year...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2013, 04:27:37 pm
- I’ve improved the way saving is handled, reducing the length of time it takes by around 40%, and I am confident I can take off at least another 10%, and possibly even enable multithreading so that saving (though not loading) can actually take place in the background.
- Fixed a large number of issues around throwing items indoors/outdoors, how they are rendered, and the messages they display upon impact, which can be dependent on whether you see the thing they hit, and/or the thing they land on. I believe every variation is now catered for, but this requires a little more testing.
- Having finished off all the procedural graphics that appear when you look at terrain, I’ve worked on the ones for trees. Each species of tree has a distinct colour for its bark and its leaves – in general these are true to life, though a few trees are slightly stylized in their choices of colours purely to aid in distinguishing them, rather than submit to absolute realism. The branches display at different angles based on what part of the tree you ‘l’ook at, and the leaves and branches are naturally procedurally placed, so here are some examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/11/Eight3.png)
I’m pretty happy with them. Anyway – I’m tentatively going to estimate that 0.4 will be released either around the 20th, or if it takes a little longer, around the 29th/30th of December (or possibly even on New Year’s Day). I have a hefty amount of academic work that needs to be done, so it’ll all depend on how the two both play out. Either way, within two months, the next version will be out, and you’ll be able to set yourselves on fire and throw torches down darkened corridors to your heart’s content. Once we get closer to release blog updates will return to weekly, not fortnightly (as they always do), but I suspect we’ll only have one more update in November.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 13, 2013, 06:30:56 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 16, 2013, 06:20:51 am
Amazing the things you force ascii to do...
Thanks :). Now just to finish off the small bugs/improvements list by the end of the week...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 20, 2013, 02:59:00 pm
(http://s9.postimg.org/wuy4l921r/Guidebook_Traps.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 27, 2013, 03:49:24 pm
(http://s29.postimg.org/us2fr5w6f/Mine.png)
Post by: Mephansteras on November 27, 2013, 03:53:51 pm
Post by: coolio678 on November 27, 2013, 11:54:04 pm
That bear trap looks decidedly unpleasant.It's just smiling at you, harmlessly inviting you to pry open those metal jaws.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on November 28, 2013, 03:17:45 pm
The "Traps" entry in the guidebook - not 100% finished, but has everything relevant to the next release:
... and only whispered about as the having caused the deaths ...Not sure what you were trying to do there =P
... - either by tripwires, or pressure pads.Comma unnecessary.
URR is still looking good. Keep up the good work!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 28, 2013, 07:50:10 pm
That bear trap looks decidedly unpleasant.
Excellent.
It's just smiling at you, harmlessly inviting you to pry open those metal jaws.
At some later point I intend to add the ability to reset, pickup, alter/change/deactivate traps :).
The "Traps" entry in the guidebook - not 100% finished, but has everything relevant to the next release:... and only whispered about as the having caused the deaths ...Not sure what you were trying to do there =P... - either by tripwires, or pressure pads.Comma unnecessary.
URR is still looking good. Keep up the good work!
Er. Nice find. And I like commas! You should read my academic work, I litter them with commas, in the most unnecessary, places.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on November 28, 2013, 08:17:14 pm
Er. Nice find. And I like commas! You should read my academic work, I litter them with commas, in the most unnecessary, places.
/wrists
Why do you do this.
Post by: Mephansteras on November 29, 2013, 02:24:04 pm
Er. Nice find. And I like commas! You should read my academic work, I litter them with commas, in the most unnecessary, places.
/wrists
Why do you do this.
They are a most subtle trap.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 01, 2013, 03:56:34 pm
Er. Nice find. And I like commas! You should read my academic work, I litter them with commas, in the most unnecessary, places.
/wrists
Why do you do this.
They are a most subtle trap.
They really are. I don't know why I do it, but I always have. I'm getting better at not littering my works with commas these days, but only because my supervisor routines chastises me for it...
Post by: coolio678 on December 01, 2013, 06:39:00 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 01, 2013, 07:13:53 pm
I always used to throw commas into the most unneeded spots. Ones where they didn't seem super wrong, but they would grind the flow of what I was writing to a halt :P. It's gotten better recently.
*Exactly* this. My academic writing has so much more punch when I'm able to stop myself using endless commas - it reads as if I'm actually confident making an assertion, whereas loads of commas makes it seem like I'm always qualifying what I'm saying and being very cautious about it...
Post by: Putnam on December 02, 2013, 03:03:49 am
I should also start reading what I write so I don't say more than I need to.
Post by: Edmus on December 02, 2013, 05:02:13 pm
Post by: Willfor on December 02, 2013, 05:15:44 pm
I find it sadly amusing that my English class focuses so much on analysing texts, that we have no idea how to use simple punctuation. <<Case in point, I don't even know what I've done wrong there.It's just that one comma that you got wrong. The comma in your second sentence is correct.
I come from the fiction side of writing where it doesn't really matter if you're entirely correct in your comma usage in certain applications. It's an established convention to use commas as a single breathing pause in dialogue. It bleeds over into my own post writing where I subconsciously insert a comma at the natural breath point unless I stop myself.
Post by: Putnam on December 02, 2013, 06:13:20 pm
I'm going to write that now if I were to follow the opposite paradigm:
Never use commas, unless they are entirely necessary. It makes reading a bit easier, and prevents awkward pauses, where you wouldn't expect them.
Which one is easier to read?
Post by: varsovie on December 02, 2013, 11:05:12 pm
Never use commas unless they are entirely necessary. It makes reading a bit easier and prevents awkward pauses where you wouldn't expect them.This one.
I'm going to write that now if I were to follow the opposite paradigm:
Never use commas, unless they are entirely necessary. It makes reading a bit easier, and prevents awkward pauses, where you wouldn't expect them.
Which one is easier to read?
Never use commas, unless they are entirely necessary. It makes reading a bit easier and prevents awkward pauses where you wouldn't expect them.
There's actual rules for when and where to use commas, like not before "and". In fact they can help reading (more so out loud) when they replace the comma and link to sentences togheter.
Post by: Putnam on December 02, 2013, 11:41:09 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 06, 2013, 03:02:12 pm
I come from the fiction side of writing where it doesn't really matter if you're entirely correct in your comma usage in certain applications. It's an established convention to use commas as a single breathing pause in dialogue. It bleeds over into my own post writing where I subconsciously insert a comma at the natural breath point unless I stop myself.
I think that might be the similar cause of my ridiculous over-usage - I end up writing as if I was speaking, not as if I'm writing.
Are, you, sure, about, that,?,
This is worryingly akin to how I write :(
Anyhoo, here's an update for you all! Things have happened in the last week, and here is a run-down of some of them:
Throwing
Throwing is basically finished. You can throw items around, and they will bounce off objects they hit and hit the floor, or just hit the floor immediately if you throw them at it. Tripwires will be triggered when you throw stuff at them, but currently pressure pads will not. I’m still debating whether there should be a weight requirement for triggering them, but I’ll update here once I’ve decided how this aspect should work. Additionally, message adjust themselves based on your knowledge. For example, if you throw a stone through a tripwire, it will produce one of three different messages. If you can see it, it might say “The stone falls to the floor and triggers the tripwire!”; if you cannot see it but have previously explored it, it might say “The stone falls to the floor, and you hear the tripwire release!”, and if you have never explored it, you might get “You hear the stone fall to the floor, followed by a loud snapping sound!”. There are equivalents of these messages for everything your projectiles can possibly hit, which has already built up into a pretty impressive database of messages.
Terrain
Almost all forms of terrain now come with their own lookup images, all unique and procedurally generated. This is something I’ve been meaning to get done for a while, so I just spent a few hours and put together some graphics I liked the look of. Some are more “realistic” and others more stylized, but I’m very happy with how they all look. Here’s a selection. Row by row, left-to-right, these are snow, sand, rock, dried lava, grass/undergrowth in the tropics, savannah, temperate and taiga, the bark of a tree, some branches, lava, and water. I probably shouldn’t need to say it at this point, but these are naturally all procedurally generated for every tile. Some of the wood/tree colours are a little stylized, but they generally try to adhere to a reasonable level of realism/accuracy.
(http://media.indiedb.com/images/articles/1/145/144545/auto/IDBT.png)
Exporting Levels
You can now export the interior or exterior level you find yourself on, by pressing ‘X’, which will save to a .png file appropriately named (e.g. “25x29_Ex”, for the exterior of map grid 25 [x-axis] by 29 [y-axis]). Alternatively, the first floor interior of the first ziggurat on a grid would be saved as “25x29_Z1_F1″, and that kind of notation will be expanded to everything else. That function is still in its early stages – and later on you’ll be able to save and export information about your character, or the world’s histories and civilizations and so on – but this is a good start.
The Great Bug Purge
Over the last fortnight I’ve hacked the number of bugs and small fixes I wanted in this version down from a towering 50 to a mere 2 at time of writing, both of which are decidedly non-essential (they are more like slight improvements, not actual bugs). As such, I’m now moving onto developing the health system. Additionally, from this point onwards I’ll be increasing blog entries back up to one per week as we move towards the 0.4 release at the end of December. All that remains is the health system – or, at least, the components of it relevant to this release – and some very simple things like ensuring general “terrain items”, like branches and stones, spawn, and that some start in the player’s inventory. I was intending to allow you to create several items this release, for example oil-soaked torches (combining a torch and some oil, funnily enough), but there isn’t going to be time for that feature. I’m therefore going to push it back a version or two, and that’ll give me more time to think about what other item combinations I want to allow.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2013, 03:01:06 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Suture.png)
I’ve been certain for a long time I didn’t want a hit points system. It’s perfectly valid for some games, but I decided I wanted something more detailed, with limbs and components of limbs, in the model of Dwarf Fortress or (to a much lesser extent) something like Deus Ex or Fallout. I felt I needed to find a middle ground between the two – DF’s limb system has an incredible amount of detail which suits a “simulationist” game, but I felt wouldn’t be appropriate here; by contrast, both Deus Ex and Fallout seem to generally underuse the potential of a limb-based health mechanic, and rarely do more than “damaged legs = cannot stand up”. I’m currently in the process of considering what effects injuries are actually going to have, but I suspect certain injuries may lower your maximum stamina, reduce your damage and/or accuracy, slow your actions, reduce the weight of items you can carry, and so forth. At this point in time your limbs have two components – the flesh, and the bone – and each may be damaged. In the future certain classes of weapons will be more/less likely to damage each, which will be one of the ways different weapon types are balanced. In this release it is only traps that can hurt you, but in order to enable traps, we have to have a health/damage system, and this required a lot of thought to figure out.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Moss.png)
I was originally planning to have items like bandages function in the following way: you apply them to a limb, then after x turns, the effect of the bandage takes place. Maybe it takes 200 turns for a bandage to aid a wound in healing, for example. The downside of this was quickly apparent once I thought about it – in a game where combat is going to be reasonably rare, and given that I no longer plan on having a hunger clock of any sort, the fact that healing is “slow” is no downside at all. You could just wait around between battles until the healing was complete, which doesn’t exactly make for interesting gameplay. The methods out of this were to either change how the healing items worked – make them instantaneous, for example – or to introduce either a food clock or some other kind of “clock” which pushes the player on. I decided to do the former, and produce a pretty unique (or at least very unusual) health mechanic.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Bandage1.png)
Thus, the current plan is that healing items work as follows. When a healing item is used it temporarily removes all negative damage to that limb, and that limb then functions as if that type of damage hasn’t been dealt. For example, even if you have a very deep cut on one arm which might, for example, be seriously damaging your accuracy, applying a suture to that limb will remove the negative modifier, though the wound will still be there. The way I plan for combat to play out will be such that you will be able to prioritize/handle various limbs in various ways, so it will allow for battle plans where you might have to play more defensively to protect a particular limb that is currently healing. There are two types of each healing item – those which have temporary effect, but cannot be undone by another attack, such as healing moss and medicinal salve (no image yet), and those which have a permanent effect , but will be undone by taking another attack, such as bandages and sutures. The latter are for longer-term strategic use until you get back to a doctor, whilst the former are for tactical use in the midst of battle. In turn, different wounds have different effects – wounds to your arms will reduce accuracy and damage, wounds to your torso will reduce stamina, wounds to head have a variety of fun effects I’ll share in a later post, and so forth.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Splint2.png)
In order to truly “heal” a limb, you will be able to visit a physician/apothecary/equivalent NPC who will, for a price, be able to heal your limbs back to full. As these will generally only be found in cities (though perhaps you can recruit them into your party?) this will further emphasize the concept that cities will be your “base” of operations – even if the city you are based in might change throughout the game – and you restock and reequip in cities before setting out for each dungeon or area you want to explore. I am not yet sure what effects broken bones will have – nor what effects putting a splint on a broken bone will help out with – but I’m open to suggestions. I’m in the process of figuring this out and whilst a health mechanic will be implemented for 0.4 (due for release in a week or two), it is nevertheless one that is subject to change. As a whole, though, the health system boils down to this – damage is qualitative, not quantitative; items may heal you temporarily but without the possibly for being undone, or a “permanent” heal which may be undone; and cities will be the hub at which you repair your damage inbetween excursions. There will therefore be a risk/reward — how much do you push your luck staying out in the wild, but not being charged valuable coin for healing, and how often do you play it safe and heal yourself up with a doctor?
Lastly, it should be noted none of this is balanced yet – I have no idea how rare/common/cheap/expensive healing items will be, how many turns they might take to apply, and so on, but the basic mechanics as planned out to be as described above. It’s an unusual system, and I think it could work well, but I’d like any thoughts on the concepts anyone has to offer. In the future I’ll talk about my ideas for the combat mechanics, but that’s a long way off – next week we’ll be close to release of 0.4!
Post by: Mephansteras on December 12, 2013, 02:19:40 pm
Post by: BigD145 on December 12, 2013, 02:52:45 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on December 12, 2013, 03:14:06 pm
First off, bodies are very interconnected. People tend to forget this fact, for some reason. So having a leg chewed on by a bear trap isn't just going to slow you down, it's going to make many things more difficult. You can't carry as much, for one thing. You also get tired much more quickly when moving (which is also very slow, at least for anything long term). A walking stick helps with this, as can a makeshift crutch, but even with those you're going to be gaining either the ability to carry a bunch or the ability to move a good bit faster. You usually can't do both on an injured leg. Severity has an impact as well, but generally speaking the lower down the injury the bigger an impact it has.
Having an injured arm makes that arm pretty useless, of course, but it also hobbles many tasks. It's really hard to do things well with only one usable arm. Even something as minor as an injured finger can really making doing anything with your hands more difficult.
A cracked rib is going to make doing things in general more difficult, reduce how much you can comfortably carry by a good bit, and increase how quickly you get tired from performing actions. And for all actual broken bones the more you push things the increased chance that you'll sustain additional injuries.
Head wounds, especially serious ones, will pretty much impact everything. A good concussion and you're going to be downgraded in probably all categories until you have a chance to rest up for a bit. Not an issue if you have time to rest, but if you're in a dangerous situation (say...the ancient temple collapsing around you) it could be a serious problem indeed.
Thinking about this some more, I think I'd do something kind of like this:
Have a general endurance system. Taking any wounds at all is going to reduce endurance, both current and maximum. The more serious the wound, the bigger the hit. Current endurance comes back fairly quickly with a little rest, but maximum endurance takes proper rest and healing to come back. Reduced endurance is going to impact the player by reducing all of their abilities. Skill checks, perception, and the like. It's all well and good that in peak condition you're a master at disabling traps, but how well can you do when you're pressed for time after sprinting down a corridor dodging blowdarts? (Adding a Stress condition might also be handy, but that could also be rolled into endurance)
I'd then assign each body part a % effect on skill types & stats (Movement, Carrying Capacity, Perception, Manual Dexterity, etc). So that an Injured Hand might just reduce your Carrying Capacity and Manual Dexterity by a bit while a Broken Ankle will serious hamper both Movement and Carrying Capacity, along with seriously reducing your maximum Endurance.
Bandages can help support things like twisted ankles or cracked ribs, both reducing the negative effects a bit and reducing the chance of further injury during heavy activity. Walking sticks, crutches, and the like can do the same for any sort of leg injury. They also reduce the Endurance cost for moving with those injuries, but you'll still be worse off than you would when uninjured.
Hopefully I explained that reasonably well.
Post by: Nighthawk on December 14, 2013, 07:45:23 pm
I think it's a fair system, and as long as limbs can be hacked off and other such fun can ensue from hitting certain spots on a body, it's detailed enough for me.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2013, 06:43:07 am
@ Meph - that was very much my thinking, that managing wounds and the like is a strategic thing as well as a tactical thing within specific battles. As for interconnectedness, that's an interesting one. All wounds contribute to an overall "pool" of blood loss, for instance. However (as Nighthawk said), I think having too much overlap between injuries would actually be to the detriment of gameplay - I think it's better to have mechanics which are very distinct, so you know that taking damage to your arms will do a/b/c, taking damage to a leg will do x/y/z, and there's no overlap between them. Obviously an example of gameplay over realism, but I think it is better that way.
In terms of parts of legs or arms, I've decided to just treat legs as singular things, with a "bone" and a "flesh" value, purely for the sake of simplicity. The health system is proving relatively complex already and I felt that would just further confuse things. Head-wise, concussion is something I intend to implement, though it isn't going to be in 0.4. My intention is that superior head damage raises the risk of blacking out, which will only be for a few turns, but could obviously be very significant in battle (similar to paralysis in other RLs). I do agree with your idea about body parts having effects on various stats - for example, currently leg and torso damage reduces your overall stamina, whilst in the future torso damage may also reduce carrying capacity, arm damage will reduce the strength/accuracy of weapons and shields, etc. True re: bandages for support, but again, I'm trying to keep healing items very distinct, so bandages are only (currently) for burns, though they might gain another effect in the future. We'll see. I'm still not clear on how splints are going to work though - for the duration of 0.4 broken bones and splints will likely have minimal effect, but we'll see. Basically, I'm going with the kind of idea you suggested where damage to different limbs has different effects, but aside from some things which "carry over" - pain, blood loss etc - they will remain totally distinct. With that said, it is naturally still in flux, to an extent, but having been playtesting what I currently have I'm really happy with how it's looking.
@ Nighthawk - Detailed and not-too-complicated is exactly what I'm after. Limbs will indeed be off-hackable, but that's going to be very rare, and I'm not yet quite sure how to handle it. I'd like to make it something which seriously affects how you play the game, but doesn't make it unplayable if you lose one - for instance, maybe you need to move your skills into commanding allies if you lose your sword arm, or similar...
Lastly, my intention is now to release 0.4 on the 21st (or 22nd) of December! It'll be a week of crunch time, but it should be possible. More updates hopefully over the next few days :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2013, 12:44:11 pm
- I’ve finally created an ointment graphic I’m actually happy with. This blasted thing went through over a dozen iterations until I found one I liked. Many of the earlier versions were more like small bottles, but they didn’t look particularly impressive, shading was proving difficult, and I didn’t want there to be any overlap with the ‘bottle’ item type (which will appear more fully in later versions), so I changed it to be something more like a jar instead.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Ointment.png)
- I’ve done a significant overhaul of the in-game UI. Health is still displayed on the left, but it is now displayed in a very new way which gives you all the information you might require about your various limbs in a very concise manner (more on this below). Secondly I’ve added a huge number of extra possible in-game messages, colour-coded them appropriately, and also recoloured some older messages to help them fit into the new order of things. I’ve also adjusted the various bars displayed below the map screen. I’ve taken out the idea of willpower as being akin to a “berserk” attack, and the idea of exhaustion, as I felt they were adding an unnecessary extra layer of complexity, probably wouldn’t play all that well, and – perhaps most importantly – there were other things I wanted along the bottom. So, next to stamina (which is all but disabled for this release) you have four new metres. The first displays your pain level, and as this increases you may start to notice some visual effects clouding your sight. The second is the amount of air you have. Standing inside any kind of cloud (and swimming underwater, in later versions) takes away a unit of air each turn, and unless you replenish your air in time, you will suffocate, as well as taking whatever forms of damage (fire, poison, etc) might be caused by the cloud. In the future there may be items to negate this effect or provide you with more air. Next to that is your blood level. You regain 1 unit of blood every turn, but injuries which are left bleeding without being staunched (by healing moss) or sutured will also cost you blood with each step you take. I would advise against letting that counter reach 0. The final meter shows your poison level; above a certain point poison is fatal. For this release you will either be equipped with a single potion of antidote when the game begins, or I will simply disable fatal poisoning (depending on the time each of these would take). Also, an important note – for 0.4, when you die, you will respawn in the same world. This will not be the case in later versions, but I want people to be able to experiment in multiple lives with the health/damage/limb system without having to create a new world each time.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/New-UI.png)
Here’s a closeup of the new health system. Along the top we have the six “limbs” – Head, Left arm, Right arm, Torso, Left leg, Right leg. The bits in brackets are not shown in-game, but are visible in the guidebook entry which explains this in detail. Flesh and bone show their statuses on a range of 1 to 4 (with different colours), whilst fire and acid burns are shown by stars. Infections (disabled for this release) and blood loss are shown by exclamation marks. Ointments, healing moss, sutures, bandages and splints are displayed as shown in the diagram, whilst old wounds (caused by failing to set a broken bone quickly enough after breaking it) show as a counter. Do also note the diagram below is actually impossible, as your torso cannot be splint-ed for example, and just serves as an illustration of the system.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/HLT.png)
There’s now not much left to do. I need to have the game spawn branches and stones across the map, dependent on biomes; I need to spawn the player with an appropriate variety of inventory items; I need to enable the player to ‘w’ield torches and ensure that torches actually burn down, though until a later version you will not be able to make torches yourself; ensure all throwing/hitting/landing messages for items are correct for all combination of impacts on things you can and cannot see; and then work on the death system, which for now will despawn you, explain to the player that “true” death is not enabled for this version, then respawn you elsewhere on the map. Barring some unexpected pitfalls, see you all next weekend for the 0.4 release!
Post by: Mephansteras on December 16, 2013, 12:56:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 18, 2013, 07:08:12 am
Looking good!
Thanks!
I've now compiled 0.4 to .exe, cannot find any immediate gamebreakers that have arisen post-compiling. Today and tomorrow are playtesting days, and possibly a few other very minor additions if I have the time. Still on track to release this Saturday!
Post by: Sharp on December 18, 2013, 07:25:07 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 18, 2013, 02:14:17 pm
Post by: varsovie on December 19, 2013, 08:22:25 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Suture.png)
Sorry, but I must disagree the fact that a sutured wound is less prone to infections. If not thoroughly cleaned, then kept clean and dry for at least two days, you'd have an heavier risk of infection or making an abscess. The "prevent infection" phase would start about 72h after the suture, since at that point if no complications the skin as clotted together.
Of course it will be more about game mechanic than simulation. Who would like to be bed resting a week after a penetrating abdominal injury, or can't walk forever after receiving an arrow in the knee.
You also need to implement pain killers, and all their secondary effects including dependency... :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 20, 2013, 06:15:09 pm
Sorry, but I must disagree the fact that a sutured wound is less prone to infections. If not thoroughly cleaned, then kept clean and dry for at least two days, you'd have an heavier risk of infection or making an abscess. The "prevent infection" phase would start about 72h after the suture, since at that point if no complications the skin as clotted together.
Of course it will be more about game mechanic than simulation. Who would like to be bed resting a week after a penetrating abdominal injury, or can't walk forever after receiving an arrow in the knee.
You also need to implement pain killers, and all their secondary effects including dependency... :P
Hmm, interesting. As you say, the mechanic has to win out, but I haven't decided yet how infection is going to work (if it'll even be a thing at all), so maybe something slightly more realistic will appear later :). As for pain killers, I have thought about opiates and the like, but for the time being you have medicinal ointments to help out with the pain.
Well, every bug is fixed, and I'm released 0.4, at long last, tomorrow! Will post here when it goes live.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 21, 2013, 06:48:28 am
HIGHLIGHTS:
- Limbs – damage, healing, movement penalties/bonuses, etc.
- Expanded basic inventory system.
- Addition of torches & healing items.
- Traps – trap rooms, lethal/non-lethal, gas/acid/spikes/poison/fire and more.
- Ability to throw/pick-up items.
- Full terrain & tree procedural graphics.
- 50%-75% time reduction for all saving/loading screens.
The focus of this release is on several mechanics relating to traps which generate in dungeons – specifically throwing items, picking up items, and the implementation of the early stages of the health system. Unlike in most roguelikes where traps are invisible until “detected” or triggered, traps in URR are fully visible, and making your way through them with a minimum of damage forms a puzzle of sorts. In future versions there will be additional methods to navigate traps including raising shields to deflect incoming projectiles. This release has also seen significant improvement in saving/loading/world generation times, the addition of procedural graphics for all terrain when you ‘l’ook at it, and the implementation of a simple and modular inventory system which will be developed in future versions.
For information about the future of the game, please check out the development plan page (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/), and if you have any questions or comments or bug reports, please let me know, here or by emailing me at mark at my domain. Thanks to everyone for your support thus far, and I hope you stick with the project as we move forward to generating the rest of the world – civilizations, cities and everything else – in the next few releases.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2013, 09:49:30 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 28, 2013, 09:31:38 pm
Post by: PTTG?? on December 29, 2013, 09:31:12 pm
Post by: coolio678 on December 30, 2013, 11:18:16 am
edit: Just made it to what I think is the boss room. Massive puzzle. Badly injured character. I'm ready to go.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 01, 2014, 05:31:18 pm
Doin' some bang-up work on his. [Smokes pipe]
Thank you sir [doffs hat].
I've gone through a couple characters so far, and only on the last one remembered the inventory system :P. So now I can actually make progress that isn't blunder ahead half-blind until I died of poison. Certainly makes it a lot more enjoyable.One question, though. Where are the puzzles? Another thought that just popped into my head, will we eventually see puzzles and traps overlapping, so you're sliding around your blocks while trying to not run over the bear trap?
edit: Just made it to what I think is the boss room. Massive puzzle. Badly injured character. I'm ready to go.
Ah, well, that would certainly help! The puzzles are on the penultimate floors of the ziggurats only. They may one day overlap with the traps (they probably will) though I haven't worked on that yet. I am keen to hear how you found that first trap :). There used to be many more, but it was clear they were a less-is-more thing, and relegating them to the "boss" rooms of ziggurats I found in closed playtesting made people much more interested in them.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 04, 2014, 05:10:54 am
The first stage of this has come in the form of flags. Currently there is only form of flag viable in the world, which you’ll have seen in the current release. They are all modeled – though some are a little more exotic than others – on real-world flags, predominantly European ones, though some resemble eastern/central Asian flags too. I thought about having some flags akin to many modern African flags – with distinct items and the like emblazoned on them – but the resolution of the flags prevented that. However, this was a blessing in disguise, since it lets me use more “symbolic” flags in other situations.
Civilizations are now being split into three categories with significant gameplay variation between the three. I’ll talk more about this in a later entry, but the three categories are “Feudal“, “Nomadic“, and “Hunter-Gatherer“. Nomadic societies will be generated in deserts and upon plateaus and plains; hunter-gatherer societies will be generated in tundra regions, and possibly in tropics too; feudal societies will generate everywhere else. All societies will avoid colonizing polar regions, whilst feudal societies will be reluctant to attempt too much conquest in deserts, jungles or tundra, though they will if pressed, and will certainly be willing to start up trade links. Equally, certain rulers who are particularly keen on imperialism may seek to conquer these not for any pragmatic or practical gain – territory, resources, whatever – but simply because they are there. Our own history is replete with wars fought for such foolish and quintessentially human reasons, and it seems like this is something that should be reflected.
So, I decided to revisit the symbolic idea. It wouldn’t really make any sense for nomadic or hunter-gatherer societies to have the same kinds of flags as their more stationary castle-building cousins, so they needed a different type of flag. I did a lot of research into the flags of various non-European societies from the past, or the symbols, sigils or whatever other terms were used, and eventually decided on two different aesthetic styles.
For the nomadic flags I decided on two components – a border and a symbol. The borders pick from a variety of ten, all of which are basically either a single line or a pair of lines, but that vary a little in size and shape. For the symbols I decided I wanted to focus on ones that were either dramatic, military, or more generally “symbolic”. A very different kind of symbol is used for the hunter-gatherer societies, as you’ll see below, but for these I wanted a particular kind of look. These are generally more militaristic societies than the hunter-gatherer ones, more concerned by trade and “statesmanship”, but that need to put forward a strong external image. Many of the symbols fit this bill – maybe a hand, or a fist, or a fire, or a sun, or some swords or other weapons, or an anvil, and the like. Many of the nomadic societies we (in the west) are most familiar with are those from central Asia. Much of my inspiration for these flags came from both contemporary and older flags from central Asia and the eastern-most parts of Europe and seeing the kinds of symbols they would place upon flags. Some – like sickles – were just damned impossible to actually depict within the limitations, but most of the others along with a large number I also came up with myself came out very nicely. Whilst implementing such symbols into full flags in a small version would have been near impossible without an entire database of custom tiles and symbols for it, when the basis of the flag is a symbol which takes up the majority of the square, I think they work quite nicely.
The hunter-gatherer flags, on the other hand, I wanted to be simpler and to contain symbols directly relevant to nature or survival – the kinds of symbols one might imagine a “clan” adopting, but not perhaps a “nation” – and to only have two colours, the foreground and the background. The symbols in this case fall into two categories – the majority of the symbols are animals, though a few represent more abstract things like a field of stars, or a human, or a simple building. There are currently twenty-eight designs of each type – given that each world is unlikely to have more than half a dozen nomadic or hunter-gatherer civilizations generated, it’ll be a while until any player has seen the full selection (especially if/when I add more to the database). There’s also variation in the colour scheme used by either type of flag. Feudal flags select either a pair or a trio of colours from a large set (as long as that trio has not already been used); nomadic flags select one from ten different presets of colours that look suitable together; hunter-gatherer flags have a selection of dark colours to choose from, three very pale colours (which are basically variations on “white”), and then 50% are inverted so some have light backgrounds and some have dark.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Flags051.png)
Hopefully the variation will do several things. Firstly, and most obviously, it should just contribute to a more varied and more believable world. Not all civilizations in history have flags (or symbols, sigils, whatever) akin to those of Europe, and this should help in that regard. Secondly it will mean you can immediately identify the type of civilization you’ve encountered from its flag, even if you know nothing else about it. Seeing someone with a shield marked by a particular symbol, or catching a glimpse of part of an army travelling with a banner will be able to give you at least some information about their civilization, and – given that different types of civilization are restricted to different biomes – have some idea of where that civilization might hail from. Thirdly it’s just another aspect of civilizations that differ according to their basic phenotype (though more on this in another entry) and reinforce the differences between the different sorts. Next week I’ll likely be talking about the early stages of city, road and town generation, and showing off some snazzy new screenshots of how the world map for 0.5 is currently looking.
Post by: Mephansteras on January 07, 2014, 04:14:06 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 10, 2014, 11:42:09 pm
Sounds nifty!
Excellent! Will be uploading this week's post in a few hours...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 11, 2014, 06:30:02 am
Meanwhile, once the cities have been placed on the map the game then adds a series of roads. I expected this to be quite simple, but as it turned out making a network of roads which wasn’t too dense, wasn’t too sparse, looked organic and found their own way around the map in an intelligent way was surprisingly tricky. Firstly, I didn’t want diagonal roads. Roads had to move orthogonally – the logic behind this was simply that I couldn’t find any ANSI/extended character that could accurately depict the shift from horizontal or vertical roads to diagonal ones. So, that meant that the pathfinding algorithm had to work only by moving in orthogonal directions. However, this was not without problem. For those who know how A* works, if you disable any diagonal directions it will still basically split the path into “diagonal” bits – even if those are just done by going up-left-up-left-up-left, rather than diagonally – and then long stretches of horizontal or vertical bits. What this meant was that any time roads were trying to path to a distant point, all the roads would line up (as we see below) and funnel themselves towards their target. Needless to say, this looks like crap.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situation1.png)
My initial solution was to try having the path sometimes divert from the optimal route. Say, each four “steps” there is a possibility for the path to divert one tile in a direction perpendicular to the route of travel. However, having tried this, it rapidly produced its own set of problems. What if the road decides to divert at a crucial point, and then cannot actually rejoin the initial route? Say, if it diverts on the tile before a coastline, and then cannot path back to where it needs to be, what would happen to that road? The solution to this would be to have the game check every time it wants to divert and make sure it can safely get back onto the right route, but then you’d just have roads which basically bounced up and down on a straight line, which – having tested it – also looked like crap. In the end the solution was pretty obvious, but I think reasonably elegant and simple. Once the world map is created, the game goes through the map and picks a certain selection of tiles – very few, and in a regular (though hard to spot if you don’t know it) pattern – that prevents any horizontal or vertical line from continuing for more than nine tiles at the max. A trivial solution, and once it tried to pathfind on this new, hidden map – also excluding mountains and deserts, which will in the future have their own methods of travelling across – you get something like this. The routes are still fairly optimal, but look organic and realistic:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Sit41.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situation21.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situ3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situation21.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situ3.png)
Once the road system is added to the map, the game then starts to work on placing towns. Whilst roads are being placed the game makes a note of each road – once they’re done, it then goes through each road in turn and measures how long it is. The longer it is, the more towns will be placed. In general each road will only have a single town, but roads above 50 or 60 tiles have a good shot of generating with two towns. This is obviously subject to change – I have on idea yet whether this will be too many towns, too few, or roughly enough. I should add towns and roads will not generate on the human scale for the next release; they will only be shown on the world map for now. However, if you check the development plan, 0.6 will see some of these areas actually starting to generate for you to walk around. As for mountains and deserts, the current intention is for “mountain passes” to generate which require navigation in a special way (still working on the specifics) whilst deserts have no roads or obvious means of travel. I currently plan for the player to be able to either navigate across them on their own – whilst taking the risk of running into a travelling nomadic civilization – or to make contact with a nomadic caravan who may take you safely across the desert. Again, this is for now squarely in the “future mechanics” category, but those are my initial thoughts. I’m also currently working on having the game add in other appropriate settlements (e.g. towns which aren’t on main roads, mines atop resources, farms, etc) and connecting them intelligently to the main road system, and we’ll have some more 0.5 world maps in a few weeks. Next time I’ll talk about generating the names for cities for all types of civilizations (hunter-gatherer settlements, feudal cities and nomadic encampments have very different names) and for the various religions the game is generating.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2014, 01:08:29 pm
(http://s28.postimg.org/4eh0y3s5n/Tersmall.png)
Post by: coolio678 on January 17, 2014, 01:11:53 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2014, 01:17:26 pm
ooh. Will there be/ is there a way to view world maps either in game or exporting a file? I could totally use a world this game generates as a desktop background
Yup - press 'X' in game, select the terrain map, and export away! In the current version they are 150x150, but in the version I'm working on now (as in that screenshot) they are 250x250.
Post by: coolio678 on January 17, 2014, 10:21:44 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 18, 2014, 07:25:32 am
When the game starts you are prompted to select a civilization. You can only choose a feudal civilization to begin with, though you will be able to change civilization as much as you please in later versions of the game, including to nomadic or hunter-gatherer civilizations, though there will be penalties associated with this for abandoning your old civ. On this screen you’ll see the flag, religious affiliation (if any), capital city, name of ruling individual/family/party, and the national policies that civilization adheres to. Each civilization has eight different policy categories – foreign, military, leadership, trade, intellectual, religious, cultural, and judicial. Each of those eight categories has at least five different policies, all with their own icons like the ones in this screenshot, though some categories have more. I don’t currently intend to publish a full list of policies and their effects, though as you can see some of the policies haven’t yet had their effects assigned. Some policies have just “abstract” effects – like Str + 4, say – whilst others have direct effects. A civilization with the “theocracy” leadership policy, for example, isn’t going to have a separate building for a palace and a religious hub, as the two will be the same. A civilization with the “penitentiary” judicial choice will have prisons, whilst one without that will not, and so forth.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Preview.png)
Thus, the “gods” in URR are the civilizations, and each is randomly generated. Although there is a small non-random element – civilizations cannot have conflicting policies such as “Theocracy” and “Religious Freedom”, or “Pacifism” and “Imperialism” – there’s over a quarter of a million permutations for the policy selections you’ll start with. My hope is that as the game progresses, choosing your civilization will actually push the player towards play strategies they might not ordinarily consider. You might be a player who prefers to have few allies and use heavy weapons, but if you saw a civilization which granted significant bonuses to allies and short weapons, you might be more inclined to try that model for once. As much as I think the Crawl gods are a good template, there is little impetus to go out of one’s comfort zone until one is very comfortable with the game. I’ve won Crawl half a dozen times and I’ve only recently started properly exploring some of the less straightforward gods. I think the random generation of policies helps to counter that – you have to take one of the selection you’re given, and some of the combinations may yield interesting gameplay possibilities I haven’t yet planned out. As I say, some of the policies are still being worked out, and there may be more in later releases. Next week we might have a non-URR post as some of the aspects I’m currently working on – religions, coats of arms and family trees – are probably going to take over another week to get to a state where I can show them off. Until then, enjoy the policy icons, and we’ll be back a week from today with something new.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 19, 2014, 05:28:22 am
(http://s27.postimg.org/df50f3ccz/Itbegins.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2014, 05:16:50 pm
(http://s11.postimg.org/3wdsxnpfn/Skull.png)
Post by: Dutchling on January 24, 2014, 05:20:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2014, 05:51:05 pm
Sweet. Is that feudal or...?
It is indeed - only feudal civs will have coats of arms. The others will have other things I'm still figuring out/working on :)
Post by: Draxis on January 24, 2014, 07:04:10 pm
Post by: coolio678 on January 24, 2014, 09:00:25 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 25, 2014, 06:43:10 am
Having the nonfeudal civs being associated with one or more items and animals would be neat - they could both use it as a symbol and have a general preference for it. Not sure how that fits in with what you have though.
Ah, they are! Take, for example, this pic:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Flags051.png)
Nomadic and hunter-gatherer civs aren't going to have the same kind of "family"/"house" dynamics as feudals, but rather the entire civ will be represented by these icons. Nomadic shields will contain their civ icon (shields as in the actual physical objects), and I'm still designing how hunter-gatherer shields will look, but I have a few ideas.
You make some lovely looking ANSI skulls. It never fails to impress me
Thank you good sir :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 25, 2014, 07:38:04 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Shields-Small.png)
With that done, I then came to the question of the designs. There are several possibilities for what designs will be assigned to the shield; the most common will be a single large figure that takes up most of the shield. Whilst I am aware this is actually relatively rare in real-world heraldry, it is (obviously) easier to draw a single large figure to a solid level of detail than several small ones. There will be some shields which use a number of other designs – for example, a shield where two horizontal designs are laid one above the other, or two vertical designs side-by-side, or a number of smaller, quarter-sized designs. I’ve currently drawn up sixty-four full-size designs; maybe half of these will be generated each game – based on the number of feudal civilizations and the existence of other two- or three- or four-part shields – and, given that you’ll have to explore and survive in the world to find them, it’ll be a while until anyone has seen them all (not to mention the fact I’ll probably add more to the database as time goes by). I don’t want to show off all the sigils up front, but here’s a selection of six with randomly generated colour palettes:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Six-Shields-Small.png)
I’m currently working on what in-game role families are going to play. I suspect they are going to be similar to religions – they are more to do with allies and associations than with bonuses and buffs, like civilization policies. URR won’t be a “you start as a random peasant” game, as you’ll be starting as part of a noble house/family – there are various reasons for this, one of which is plot-based (and will become clear later) and it is easier to start the game as a character which can reasonably be assumed to be literate and educated. Lastly, I’ve taken to updating the development plan page (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/) both with plans further afield than the immediate release I’m working on and the one or two after that, and also checking off when certain objectives have been completed by striking through them. Let me if you have any thoughts on the sigils, everything else in this entry or the future plans now up on the development plan page, and I’ll see you all next week.
Post by: Dutchling on January 25, 2014, 07:46:52 am
Will the noble houses that lead a (feudal) nation at the beginning of the game be the same that lead it once you start playing? (AKA can houses get wiped out and replaced?)
Are you planning on making them able to merge or 'inherit each other' somehow? I mostly ask this because merged coat of arms is something I like, even though it'd obviously be a little impractical because of the game's graphic.
Spoiler: I mean something like a (less extreme :P) version of this (click to show/hide)
Post by: BigD145 on January 25, 2014, 11:06:09 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 25, 2014, 11:17:03 am
Oh nice! Some questions...
Will the noble houses that lead a (feudal) nation at the beginning of the game be the same that lead it once you start playing? (AKA can houses get wiped out and replaced?)
Are you planning on making them able to merge or 'inherit each other' somehow? I mostly ask this because merged coat of arms is something I like, even though it'd obviously be a little impractical because of the game's graphic.
Also, I assume (given the game's name) motto's will be in Latin?
Excellent question. Houses can get wiped out and replaced, yes, and the in-game history should show you some information about the fallen houses, though I'm still working on the specifics. Merging is an interesting question, and initially my answer is "no", but actually, two would be easy to blend - take the image from one and the background from another say. Interesting notion! I'll have to think about it :). The mottos will probably be generated in English as Latin isn't a "real" language in the in-game world, but I haven't decided just yet.
Further question: Why does that coat of arms include the bird's cloaca?
It does?! That herald looks like a cloaca-free zone to me!
Post by: Dutchling on January 25, 2014, 11:37:31 am
Further question: Why does that coat of arms include the bird's cloaca?If you mean the bird in the pic I posted, it's Granada's pomegranate. You should play more Europa Universalis ;)
Post by: BigD145 on January 25, 2014, 11:54:11 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 25, 2014, 12:32:08 pm
Further question: Why does that coat of arms include the bird's cloaca?If you mean the bird in the pic I posted, it's Granada's pomegranate. You should play more Europa Universalis ;)
Oh, THAT herald! I thought you meant one of the URR ones. I do have EU IV downloaded, and it looks amazing, but I just haven't had the time to really get into it yet :(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2014, 11:10:37 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2014, 04:27:16 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2014, 08:35:07 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/Two-Corners.png)
Also, as you can see I’ve now added a banner for house mottos! For houses with a shield that has a single large icon (like the ones we saw last week) there will be a number of preset ones that are occasionally used, but generally all coats of arms will generate mottos anew. I’m not sure if I’ll be working on mottos next or on coats of arms that have icons that take up half the shield – like the top half, or the left half, or similar – but either way next week’s update will probably be more on coats of arms. I anticipate either a week or two until all the graphics and mottos for these are generated, so one or two more entries, then I’ll be moving onto generating family trees and traits for families, and then assigning the player one at the start of the game based on what civ they decide to start in. Stay tuned…
Post by: Man of Paper on February 02, 2014, 08:44:38 am
Also, Nur-pol made me giggle. You don't want to rub them the wrong way. I wonder if their flag is purple. Additional nipple joke.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 05, 2014, 08:44:28 am
With the hunter-gatherer and nomadic groups instead of a coat of arms or whatnot how do you feel about tattoos or something of the sort as an identifier? Like anyone of the equivalent to the royal bloodline in a nomadic group would have a sun tattooed on their hand, or a scrotum on their forehead (it's a little-known fact that fraternities are based off of long-forgotten tribes). That'd also call into question concealment of the tattoo as well. Which would be neat if you say, stab some dude a few dozen times, only to find the tattoo of some family you were supposed to be helping on his shoulder. Also, secret societies. I want to go off on a tangent as I usually do, but limited access to intertubes is restricting my ability to go off like I tend to do. Tomorrow, I promise.
Also, Nur-pol made me giggle. You don't want to rub them the wrong way. I wonder if their flag is purple. Additional nipple joke.
HG groups have the flags shown before, but no particular icons for families; Nomadic groups will use the same icons as their flags, though the tattoo idea IS interesting. I'll give it some thought. I love the scrotum-on-forehead idea. Secret societies WILL exist, but are very closely plot-tied - there are currently five cults I've decided on the names, specifics and plot importance of, and I estimate there being maybe nine or ten by the end. NUR-POL! I do see what you mean. I have a system that prevents any obvious swearwords from generating, but it's harder to stop it generating names that just sound daft...
In the mean time I've started work on the smaller horizontal/vertical designs. Also, a few people have asked me recently what the "game" is to be about, since so far I seem to have focused on worldbuilding (though there is a good reason for that). I think I may end up doing a big update on that some time soon...
Post by: FireCrazy on February 05, 2014, 09:11:32 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 08, 2014, 01:55:50 pm
Seems interesting. Downloading now.
Much obliged :). Let me know what you think of the early stages. This week's update will be coming tomorrow rather than today, but the weekly update plan will not be defeated by mere "important academic work" or any such nonsense.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 09, 2014, 03:40:47 pm
As mentioned in an earlier entry – and as you’ll see in the game – URR contains a bunch of different languages. In the current version of the game the game simply picks a language at random for each ziggurat and then implements them as simply one letter from the translation serving as one letter from the language itself, and since no language mechanics are yet implemented it just auto-translates. However, I’ve been thinking about what kinds of changes I want to make. It’s been proving tricky, however, to think of a language mechanic which is interesting, balanced, and wouldn’t just end up being bothersome. Some examples of the ideas I’ve considered:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/Lang1.png)
- Your language learning level is an incremental %, and that % of words translate.
This was my original idea. You’d maybe acquire language knowledge in small parts by reading books, talking to NPCs or other things, and the higher the % the more words would translate. At first I thought this was a reasonable idea as it would mean even with a small amount of language knowledge you could still potentially make educated guesses. However, this seemed to have a bunch of problems. Firstly there would be a lot of components to learning a language (i.e. a lot of books or NPCs) – it might take a long time to learn a language in-game, and one that is only used for a single ziggurat. Secondly, I realized that it could lead to some very annoying gameplay situations. If you had 98% knowledge, for example, you could reasonably expect to be able to clear a dungeon… but if a single vital word was missing, it would still be impossible without a lot of guess-work, and potentially too much guess work to be still playable. This then raised questions about how common language-information would be, and a couple of other issues too, so this one got quickly ditched.
- You can learn a language in % chunks, say 25% at a time.
The next idea was much the same as the above, but in much more distinct chunks. Perhaps one could only learn a language to 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%, so at anything below 100 you would know going into a dungeon that you were running a risk. I felt this removed both the problem of how many sources are there for learning languages (as now the answer would just be “not many”) and the risk of you completing almost an entire dungeon and then failing on a final key word (since 98% language knowledge would be impossible), but it just didn’t sit right with me. It still felt like an arbitrary barrier between the player and proceeding with the game’s story – you had to find language books or other sources of information before going anywhere. So…
- You either know the language (via a “dictionary” item), or you don’t.
Under this model language items would be very common – “dictionaries”, for example – but of a reasonably high price. Perhaps some would be very cheap, or the player would start with one if the player chose certain classes… but again, it was just an arbitrary barrier. Once you knew that dungeons would require some level of translation you’d still have to find your way to acquiring a dictionary beforehand, and that still seemed like a barrier to “progressing” with the game.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/Lang2.png)
- A fourth option presents itself…
So, none of these have really worked out. I felt that the languages were both an important part of the world-building process, and could produce some very interesting and unusual gameplay… but I just couldn’t work out how. However, I think I’ve settled upon a good solution. Instead of making languages something the player character learns, I’m instead going to basically turn the languages into ciphers for the player to solve. Although the game is permadeath, I expect each playthrough to last for a length of time more akin to DF adventure mode even for new players, rather than the length of time a new player attempting Nethack is likely to survive before having everything stolen by a nymph and dying to a stray cat. It’s going to have much more of a feeling of developing your character over a longer period of time, and I think this will fit in nicely. Some for early dungeons (such as ziggurats) are going to be very simple, perhaps only substitution ciphers, whilst the languages for the later dungeons will be much more complex ciphers. For the very late dungeons, perhaps they will be sufficiently tricky to solve that it might even require multiple players to work together to decipher the keys… and that, by my standards, would be a great success. Cryptography is a long-standing interest of mine and it’ll be fun to see how I can implement it into the game. I’m still working through the specifics, and this change won’t take place for some time, but that’s the long-term goal for languages. Next week (assuming there’s no more coding progress, which I fear will be the case) I may post a bit about some other longer-term goals, particularly the plot structure of the game, as I’ve had a few people asking about that and it may be useful to take stock of what exactly that’s going to entail.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 11, 2014, 12:02:56 am
Post by: FireCrazy on February 11, 2014, 04:36:45 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2014, 02:28:36 am
So, I found some proving grounds, couldn't get in, found a Ziggurat, walked past the traps and died pretty quickly. Came back and tried to figure out what im supposed to do to get past, and only managed to think of throwing a branch at the tripwires, couldn't get past the pressure pads though. And I have no idea how to get up the stairs... yep. By the way, Ascii graphics were awesome. Looking forward to updates, I was trying to find some civilization until i realized there was none.
You can use the stones on pressure pads :). Obviously in the future there will be many other ways, but these are just the ones I implemented for the sake of testing the traps. Stairs are the usual > < keys for roguelikes! Glad you like the graphics. The next update I'm working on adds civilizations, religions, noble families, etc - then the release after that will be focused on developing cities for the first time!
Post by: Man of Paper on February 12, 2014, 05:49:55 am
(Fun Fact, also: My primary goal in life for the longest time was to get a job as a cryptographer, so you just keep making this game more and more appealing to me.)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 13, 2014, 06:16:34 am
When you described the current version's method of translation I was like "Oh hey, a simple substitution cipher. That'd be neat if we had to crack the languages like some sort of code..." and then I kept reading, and was pleased. And then I remembered this is the same thread where cryptography was discussed in depth, albeit then it was for issuing orders securely, so I'm pretty confident that you'll be able to do that effectively.
(Fun Fact, also: My primary goal in life for the longest time was to get a job as a cryptographer, so you just keep making this game more and more appealing to me.)
Thanks :). I've already been putting down some ideas for how the languages/ciphers are going to differ - they need to be crackable without computer help, but still challenging, but also have enough hints that people aren't just flapping around aimlessly. It'll be an interesting balance to strike but I've had what I think are some very workable ideas. Also, re: job, that is awesome. I am sure the answer will likely be yes, but have you read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon? That was what got me really interested in crypto a few years ago...
Post by: Man of Paper on February 13, 2014, 07:45:55 am
It is now in my library and will be opened once I finish reading 2312.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 15, 2014, 04:32:35 am
I don't know how I've managed to avoid reading Cryptonomicon. This will be rectified.
It is now in my library and will be opened once I finish reading 2312.
Eeeeexcellent.
Post by: Ivefan on February 15, 2014, 05:01:00 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 15, 2014, 06:55:49 am
Although it is an interest of yours, I think that most people will just go to URR wiki and spoiler themself rather than sit down and decipher texts.
That is why the ciphers will gen anew each game :). I'm very happy with people working collaboratively to work out HOW to solve the texts, but the actual keys will vary each game. But nevertheless, I don't see that as an issue - some people will always choose wikis, some people (like myself) won't. Nothing one can do about it, and when one day such a wiki exists, I will be hugely flattered anyway by its mere creation, so I wager I won't mind too much.
Post by: Ivefan on February 15, 2014, 07:34:15 am
That is why the ciphers will gen anew each gameSo you'll make a cipher generator for each game making it so that the cipher will never be the same?
So does the player solve the cipher once in the game and all subsequent cyphers of the same language, In that game, will be automatically translated?
Though i guess it depends on how easy the cipher is, I think I'm one of those that would just go to a wiki because deciphering just takes time. Unless the player likes to figure it out just for the sake of deciphering it, it becomes a tedious choir rather than an interesting feature.
Do note that i do not know how important it is to read the ciphers, nor do i know if there is alternative ways to progress.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 15, 2014, 08:24:55 am
You can be assured that there will be a wiki.That is why the ciphers will gen anew each gameSo you'll make a cipher generator for each game making it so that the cipher will never be the same?
So does the player solve the cipher once in the game and all subsequent cyphers of the same language, In that game, will be automatically translated?
Though i guess it depends on how easy the cipher is, I think I'm one of those that would just go to a wiki because deciphering just takes time. Unless the player likes to figure it out just for the sake of deciphering it, it becomes a tedious choir rather than an interesting feature.
Do note that i do not know how important it is to read the ciphers, nor do i know if there is alternative ways to progress.
Correcto re: cipher never being the same. It will be the same SORT, but a different key. Well, for the "core" game (like 3 Runes in DCSS) ciphers will be optional, but for the extended game they will be an important part. It will be *very* clear these extended areas are only for players very well-skilled in the game, and will be very tricky, of which ciphers will be only one part.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 15, 2014, 08:55:53 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/Twopart3.png)
But now onto the crux of this entry. Recently I’ve had a few questions about the long-term plot and direction of Ultima Ratio Regum. Many have noticed – rightly – that 99% of what has been implemented in the game so far is best termed as world-building. Ziggurats are the only “gameplay” that has yet been developed, but they are obviously in their very early stages and lacking a large number of features. A few people have asked – what is the plot of the game? What will the gameplay actually look like? What kind of structure will the game possess in terms of advancement, leveling, and so forth? I’m therefore going to answer some of those questions. Some of them, however, I’ll be keeping secret, and some will be partial answers, since a large part of the game is going to be around uncovering what exactly there is in the game, how to decipher languages, gain access to new areas, find artifacts, and so forth. This entry is therefore going to let you know a bit about the structure, and some hints towards what some of the areas are, and what the overall “arc” of the story and the game are.
The game will consist of nine central dungeons, located in broadly random positions around the world map. Three of them will be “easy”, three reasonably tricky, and three very, very challenging. As long-time readers of this blog will know, Ultima Ratio Regum is not just intended to be a game which is difficult in a game-mechanics sense like other roguelikes – which require you to understand the game’s systems, think tactically about your choices, and balance large numbers of different factors – but also a game that will require the player to think hard about puzzles, riddles, cryptographic languages, and a number of other delicious secrets I’m not going to share yet. Although permadeath, each game is likely to last longer than a game of traditional dungeon-crawling roguelikes, and a significant portion of the game is coming to understand the world intellectually, not just learning how to defeat it mechanically. Much of the world building is important in this regard – noble family mottos might contain clues, for example, whilst city districts might harbour cults that can help you with particular dungeons or distant cities might contain trade routes that help you easily move between them.
The game plan roughly divides into four blocks as shown below. The first block which we’re a good 50%+ through now is the world-building block. This block is coming first because as I’ve developed the game it has become clear it needs to be done in this order. How can NPCs spawn in dungeons without a civ for them to belong to? How can there be any use to money and loot if there’s nobody to trade with? How can you survive for any length of time without people to buy healing items from? Not to mention the fact that a number of the plot details of the world need there to be civilizations in existence that can be affected by your actions in the nine central dungeons. Something I’m going to be announcing later in the year (think around May/June time) once I’ve finished my doctorate might mean Block 1 might be finished in the space of just a year rather than at the current pace (part-timing is tricky), but Block 1 is going to be the priority until the main five points highlighted below are finished. Once “the world” is in place, I’ll then be moving onto Block 2, containing the three easiest dungeons, and also the end-game dungeon. The game will therefore be winnable upon the completion of Block 2. Blocks 3 and 4 are for those of us who like going after our 15 Runes in DCSS, the toughest endings in ADOM and the conducts in Nethack.
Block 1: World-Building
- Town/Village/City Building Interiors
- NPCs, Schedules, Occupations, Conversations.
- Trade, Markets, Shops, Coinage, Mountain/Sea Travel
- Weapons, Armour, Shields, Ammunition, etc
- Combat mechanics, Move Sets, Skills, Stamina.
Block 2: The Early Game
- Dungeon 1, Ziggurats (three small structures, tropics, traps, riddle puzzles)
- Dungeon 2, (one large structure)
- Dungeon 3, Saal’s Cage (one large location)
- End-Game Dungeon
Block 3: The Mid Game
- Dungeon 4, (three small structures)
- Dungeon 5, The Garden of Forking Paths, (one large location)
- Dungeon 6, (one large structure)
Block 4: The End Game
- Dungeon 7, (three small structures)
- Dungeon 8, The Cog of the World (one large location)
- Dungeon 9, (one large structure)
As above, the model of the game is going to be akin to that of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (I do know what all nine areas are going to be, I just don’t want to reveal/name them all yet). Once you complete any three dungeons, of which naturally the three early-game dungeons are the easiest, you will gain access to the end-game dungeon (akin to the Realm of Zot). You can complete the game there… or keep playing, for the end-game dungeon will serve a purpose that is not just “the final dungeon”, but rather the actions you take there will affect the outside world as well and potentially aid your quest to complete all nine areas. Once you unlock the end-game dungeon, which will happen upon clearing three dungeons, you can close out the game or continue playing to try and seek out a higher-scoring victory. I haven’t even begun to think about the scoring system yet, but it will be very clear how many of the nine dungeons have been cleared when a player completes the game.
I’m also going to say a little about the story. The three primary inspirations for the story are Neal Stephenson, Umberto Eco and most importantly Jorge Borges. The core of the game’s story is basically an exploration of reality – to what extent is reality fixed, and to what extent is it contingent on our beliefs? Is there an external reality or is the universe just what we all “agree” it is? This is particularly relevant when considering Borges’ short story Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, which is a key inspiration for the game. In the tale a kind of “conspiracy” of intellectuals seek to change what we hold reality to be by imagining a new world that is roughly contiguous with the existing one but with many distinct differences, and that by replacing all records of this world with records of that currently “fictional” world, that world will “become” this – the consensus will be that this new world is the real world, for there will no longer be any records to suggest otherwise, and that therefore ideas and beliefs determine the reality we perceive. I think this is a fascinating idea (and this is partly the academic in me speaking now) and will be reflected within the game. I’ll be saying more about this later, and once the early-game dungeons become fully implemented this will become clearer, but this concept will not just be part of the story but also have an important gameplay aspect later on. So that’s all the plot/game future information for now! Next week I’ll be rounding up the concluding parts of sigils, and then working on families and histories – see you all then.
Post by: thepodger on February 15, 2014, 04:20:53 pm
Both, while not quite obscure, are not nearly as widely read as deserved. True masters of language with a boggling creative scope and genius. I believe I am going to find a home in URR.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 16, 2014, 12:43:00 am
Borges and Eco are two authors that always occupy a spot in my top five.
Both, while not quite obscure, are not nearly as widely read as deserved. True masters of language with a boggling creative scope and genius. I believe I am going to find a home in URR.
I am in complete agreement (and thanks!). One of my favourite Eco concepts is the library in Name of the Rose - the way it's mapped out is a fascinating idea and there may just be a library in URR's future, though not of quite that sort...
Post by: Man of Paper on February 16, 2014, 08:26:15 am
With all the travel and stuff it seems we'll be doing, will we be able to set up a base or something like a home, or would we be living out of our inventories as we would most other RLs?
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 16, 2014, 12:12:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 17, 2014, 12:20:45 am
So I know the large army command stuff was dropped a good bit back, but the mention of cults being able to assist in dungeons piqued my interest. Of course they'd be able to help in the intellectual sense ("All of us know that a three-headed boar guards the hidden macguffin), but would they be included in the dungeon-diving itself? I can see them getting in the way, and there'd be difficulty in making them move "smart" (i.e. not stepping onto a clearly-marked or obvious trap...speaking of which, perhaps a tool like chalk to mark our path would be neat), but nobody can deny the benefits of having someone else check out that pit o' spikes for you.
With all the travel and stuff it seems we'll be doing, will we be able to set up a base or something like a home, or would we be living out of our inventories as we would most other RLs?
Firstly, re: cults, they're primarily going to have hints and possibly useful items for particular dungeons or hidden minibosses. So there might be a cult for Dungeon X, and if you follow that cult, Dungeon X will end up being a little easier. Still working out the specifics in my head. As for living-out-of-inventories, you raise a very interesting question, and one I hadn't decided on yet. Maybe you'll have a "base" in your civ of choice, but maybe not - perhaps you can hire pack animals to transport your larger inventories? Maybe you do just live out of your inventory? I'm not quite sure yet.
Will there still be in-game languages in addition in crytography? If you're willing to do it i very much like the idea, especially if it's moddable.
Well, the crypto *is* the in-game languages, but as for "living" languages - spoken by civs, not in ruins - I'm not sure. Probably. It won't be moddable though - I'm afraid I don't plan on making the game moddable as that would require a lot of time taken away from actually making the game! But yeah, for languages spoken by civilizations, I might use a percentage system for that, I'm not quite sure yet :). I think a percentage system might work fine there, and would allow for similar civs to have similar languages, which might be cool and interesting.
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 17, 2014, 11:02:49 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 20, 2014, 01:47:14 pm
Ah good. I wish you could mod it, if only for the sake of including real world languages.
Heh, a neat idea, but I think would give a pretty distinct gameplay advantage to some people :).
In other news, I'm going to be presenting at the Canadian Game Studies Association conference this year with a paper on "The Semiotics of Roguelikes". I'll be posting the abstract here in a couple of days, for anyone who is interested.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2014, 06:06:15 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 26, 2014, 02:16:26 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/Fort.png)
Post by: Neonivek on February 26, 2014, 05:14:39 pm
Edit: That sounds wrong somehow. I'll edit it a bit.
Honestly Roguelikes have a lot of untapped potential and I am glad it is starting to get tapped.
Post by: Dutchling on February 27, 2014, 03:23:31 am
Not to mention 'actual' roguelikes, which there really are a lot of I think? Unless you only count finished ones of course :P. Not sure if that ever happened~
Post by: Willfor on February 27, 2014, 03:40:05 am
Edit: I should probably mention that I am watching this whole project with great enthusiasm.
Post by: Neonivek on February 27, 2014, 08:20:01 am
Quote
Not to mention 'actual' roguelikes, which there really are a lot of I think? Unless you only count finished ones of course :P. Not sure if that ever happened~
Actually I consider dungeons of Dredmor to be a typical roguelike (Sort of). As well the typical roguelike strategy is to eventually just give up and consider the game finished.
Quote
Remember you're talking to Neonivek
Has... this become... a Meme? Or have I somehow developed a Catcher-phrase?
Post by: Willfor on February 27, 2014, 05:38:30 pm
Has... this become... a Meme? Or have I somehow developed a Catcher-phrase?It's just because you tend to come out of the left field a lot in conversations. And then sometimes not quite explain where you're coming from for six pages. And then continue to come from the left field once a certain amount of understanding between parties has been reached. I kind of expected a two page derail on the fundamental nature of a roguelike.
Post by: Neonivek on February 27, 2014, 05:55:05 pm
Especially in a genre I feel needs the attention. Which I didn't really argue because it just fell to opinion: I feel like the genre is still somewhat stagnant while Dutchling considers the current selection to be proof that it isn't. We both have the same info but came to different conclusions.
Quote
I haven’t even begun to think about the scoring system yet, but it will be very clear how many of the nine dungeons have been cleared when a player completes the game.
One feature I've been very fond of is when Roguelikes actually keep track of how you are playing the game and actually comment. Such as if you managed to be a vegetarian.
It would be interesting when there is a scoring system that there are aspects of that.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 01, 2014, 09:14:23 pm
Once again thanks Ultima Ratio Regum for contributing to the small force of people managing to pull roguelikes out of their current state of stagnation.
Edit: That sounds wrong somehow. I'll edit it a bit.
Honestly Roguelikes have a lot of untapped potential and I am glad it is starting to get tapped.
Thanks for the amazing compliment :). Today's update is a day late (it'll be up tomorrow), but now development on 0.5 has resumed properly and I'm pushing ahead at a very solid speed.
QuoteI haven’t even begun to think about the scoring system yet, but it will be very clear how many of the nine dungeons have been cleared when a player completes the game.
One feature I've been very fond of is when Roguelikes actually keep track of how you are playing the game and actually comment. Such as if you managed to be a vegetarian.
It would be interesting when there is a scoring system that there are aspects of that.
I most definitely intend to have a scoring system, and possibly some kind of optional conduct system too - we'll have to see!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 02, 2014, 08:02:20 am
To allow you to view the kind of in-game data, I’ve now begun work on the encyclopedia. This is distinct from the guidebook – the guidebook is designed to be a very basic guide (with a minimum of hand-holding) about core game mechanics and information, but without any information about your objectives, good strategies, etc. I’ll be adding several new sections to that for this release, and for each release until (funnily enough) it’s full. The encyclopedia, by contrast, will be unique to each game, and will be constructed via in-game information each time you play. It will start off relatively empty, but the more information you gain, the more will appear. The first page of the encyclopedia currently looks like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/March1.png)
I think those are all the important categories, but a couple more might be added in time. You select a category, and you get a list of everything your character knows that fits into that category. I’ve been working on implementing the civs list in the encyclopedia, and now that’s working, I’ve been adding in the family list. For the sake of testing all families generated in game are visible (and with numerical placeholder names), so the family screen currently looks like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/March2.png)
To the right of the coat of arms will be other relevant information like the civilization the family belongs to, the important people within it, whether it is a ruling family, their chief interests, etc. There may be two pages of information for each family or just one with the information tightly compressed. In the game, therefore, this screen will only start with information about the families within your chosen civilization – and any others your civ has close trade/military/diplomatic contact with – and will fill up as the game proceeds.
There have also been a few other developments. Nomadic and hunter-gatherer civilizations now show up on the world map when you look over them (the numerical names are naturally placeholders)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/March3.png)
…and each type of civilization is distinct on the map. Feudal civilizations are stripes in their flag colours (like the green/orange and the blue/cyan civs shown here), nomadic civilizations are given a zigzag pattern, while hunter-gatherer civilizations (with two-colour flags) are given solid blocks of colour, but they are generally small in size so easily identifiable without having to look over them and find out what they are. This week my objectives are to finish off everything to do with families – which means family trees, family status, and everything else that can be done in this release before I started generating cities, and therefore family dwellings, next release – and then move onto integrating religions into civilizations. I’ve been working on a generator for religions, and they are producing some very interesting names and beliefs, and with any luck I’ll be able to say more about that next week.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 03, 2014, 03:57:49 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 07, 2014, 06:23:02 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 08, 2014, 09:51:28 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Cities.png)
Although generating the interiors of cities for the player to work around are going to happen in the release after the one I’m working on now (currently 0.5, city interiors will see the light of day in 0.6), I decided to work on generating the rough outline of those interiors so that I could begin to fill up the “Cities” section of the in-game encyclopedia with some meaningful information. Thus, cities are split into districts. I’ve done this for several reasons. Firstly it will aid the player in knowing approximately where in the city they want to go for a particular objective by splitting the city into distinct parts; secondly it is arguably more realistic when one considers the kinds of layout post-medieval cities had; thirdly it allows for various mechanics involving the player either being allowed into certain districts, or being able to sneak/fight your way in, rather than having the city as a single huge map; and, fourthly, it allows for some rather aesthetically pleasing city maps. There are currently a range of districts planned. Here’s an incomplete list of what will generate in each district:
Docks: Ships. (Blue ‘D’)
Market: All types of item shop. (Yellow ‘$’)
Recreational: Arenas, pubs, gambling. (Purple ‘R’)
Upper Class Housing: Noble houses. (White ’1′)
Middle Class Housing: Guilds? (Light Grey ’2′)
Lower Class Housing: Jails, keysmiths. (Grey ’3′)
Medical: Gardens, Apothecaries, Hospitals, Fountains, physicians. (Green ‘+’)
Military: Barracks, weapon/armour traders, smiths. (Red ‘[‘)
City Centre: Cathedrals (and equivalents), libraries, government, universities, courts, mints, etc. (Blue Diamond)
Castle: Dungeons, ruler (if Monarchy/Stratocracy), weapons/armour, treasury. (Grey ‘#’)
Religious: Many religious temples, smaller altars, etc. (Lilac ‘^’)
Once I’d settled on this, I needed to get the game generating the districts in sensible layouts. This took a bit of working out because there were a range of variables. Firstly there were some districts cities had to have – such as city centres, and castles, and so forth. Secondly I had to order additional districts, like military or medical districts, in an appropriate order and probability weighting to get them appearing at the kind of frequency I want; thirdly, and most trickily, I needed to make sure districts that could sometimes be viable – such as docks if near a cost, military districts if the civ isn’t pacifist, and religious districts if the civ allows freedom or religion – generated in the right cities, knew which districts they were “more important than”, and generally were integrated into the lists of the generic districts well. Once this was done, I then worked on getting the cities to show in a zoomed-in map the player will be able to view both in the encyclopedia, and when moving between districts. I’m very happy with how these have come out:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Districts.png)
Castles and city centres are *generally* close to the middle of the city, but you can get significant variation if the city has grown in a strange shape, existed near a coast where it couldn’t necessarily spread out a lot, or simply if the 1/9 chance (I think) for a castle or city centre to not be at the geographical centre of the city comes to pass. I’m still deciding what other information the encyclopedia should display for cities, but this will be one key part. In later versions city districts will be unknown until the player either explores them for the first time or learns information about that district from some other source, but for now I’ve just got it showing all the districts. Next week I’ll be talking about religions, their icons/symbols, how they generate, what benefits/disadvantages they give you, and what agendas religions may want their followers to pursue.
Post by: Willfor on March 09, 2014, 06:58:37 pm
fourthly, it allows for some rather aesthetically pleasing city maps.You're not joking around about that. Goddamn, those are pretty.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 10, 2014, 02:12:18 pm
fourthly, it allows for some rather aesthetically pleasing city maps.You're not joking around about that. Goddamn, those are pretty.
Haha, thanks. Currently adding some stuff external to the walls, like graveyards and slums...
Post by: Ivefan on March 10, 2014, 02:18:50 pm
Yes. You gotta stop making everything so pretty or we will not be able to play any other roguelikes anymore.fourthly, it allows for some rather aesthetically pleasing city maps.You're not joking around about that. Goddamn, those are pretty.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 10, 2014, 08:30:16 pm
Yes. You gotta stop making everything so pretty or we will not be able to play any other roguelikes anymore.fourthly, it allows for some rather aesthetically pleasing city maps.You're not joking around about that. Goddamn, those are pretty.
I actually once entertained the idea of an April Fools release where I just reduce everything to atrocious ASCII scribbles, but in the end I decided it would be just too much work to convert it all to something uglier :(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 11, 2014, 11:27:56 am
Post by: Mephansteras on March 11, 2014, 01:39:44 pm
Post by: Ikaruga on March 12, 2014, 04:45:50 am
Post by: BishopX on March 12, 2014, 07:21:11 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 12, 2014, 01:42:49 pm
Sounds like things are shaping up nicely!
Thanks! At some point I'm thinking of moving to two big weekly updates rather than just one, maybe in a month or two...
A question about the plot you talked about : will you be able to completely ignore it and travel around, talk to people, fight stuff, etc. ?
It depends what you mean. If you mean "is this game like Skyrim where you can take or leave the main plot?", the answer is no. If you mean "is this game like Dark Souls, where there is a core component and lots of hidden additional stuff", the answer is yes.
Have you considered cities without walls? or cities that have grown past their walls?
Cities without walls: no, but there are various reasons for that. The main one is because of several mechanics I want to implement about moving around cities and districts, partly for ease of visual recognition, and partly because I like splitting settlements into very distinct categories that the player can interact with in different ways. As for grown past their walls, yes! We have some cities now starting to spawn certain districts outside their walls (currently graveyard/necropolis and slums).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 12, 2014, 02:46:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 16, 2014, 05:24:42 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/16March1.png)
However, for the most part this week I’ve been working on filling out the remaining parts of the worldbuilding required. I firstly wanted to finish off what remained of civilizations, and have all the relevant information display in the in-game guidebook. The guidebook civilization entries currently show a number of things. They show the flag of that civilization, the religion that civ follows (if any) and a 7×7 image of their capital city (along with its name). Down the left side it quickly summarizes the policies that civilization follows, then tells you information on the right about their leadership. It starts with the term they use to describe their leader, which depends on policy and civ-type: a monarchic feudal civ might be led by a “Czar” or an “Emperor”, while a chiefdom-focused hunter-gatherer civ might be led by an “Ice-King”, or a nomadic civ by a “Great Sultan”. Most civs will use different terms for those who rule. It then lists the important houses in that civ, followed by other information which differs according to civ. If feudal, it shows the towns in that civilization (and later mines and other structures); for nomadic civs it lists their fortresses, whilst I haven’t fully decided yet on what information will show for hunter-gatherers. It lastly states whether the civ allows slavery and/or gladiatorial combat, and if slavery is allowed, how slaves can be easily identified (e.g. missing little fingers, facial tattoos, brands, collars, etc). In the image below you can also see on the left of this image some of the potential names for civilizations, such as “Nation of X”, or “Descendants of X”, or “Brood of X”, of “Wanderers of X”, and so forth. These reflect different types of civilization and also, in some cases, their policy choices about leadership, producing a wide range of different naming conventions for civilizations. A player should come to recognize what each denotes in time, but I think they – like the myriad other name generators in URR! – do a lot towards my goal of building a world of complexity, ambiguity, and non-uniformity.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/16March2.png)
I have also finished up most of the information on noble houses in the encyclopedia. Each entry (all guidebook entries will only appear when you discover the civ/ family/ religion/ whatever in question) shows their name, what civ they belong to, their coat of arms and their motto on the left, and then the flag of their parent civilization and the family tree on the right. Getting the family trees to work well was surprisingly tricky, but I’m very happy with how they’ve worked out. The oldest members are the top, the youngest at the bottom. The oldest member of the family that wasn’t someone who married into the family will be the unofficial “head” of the family. The key to understanding the diagram is as follows: double-lines show someone from the house itself; dotted lines someone who married into the family; white shows someone alive, grey someone deceased; gold denotes the ruler of the civilization the house belongs to (so in this case, Tol Malake is the ruler of Utokaqu); whilst a blue colour will denote the player in whatever house the player belongs to (not shown here). Also, I’ve somewhat altered the rules of succession from the real-world of the (roughly) 17th century. Family names are not carried according to the men in the family, but rather by the status of the family. In the case below, some of the people who married into the family (the dotted lines) may be of either sex, but the noble family name was the one that “won out” and was used for any children.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/16March3.png)
As above, the remaining major chunks of content are finishing off religion generation and then beginning to work on significant historical events. After that I need to make a few changes to the world-gen screen to incorporate the new history/civ gen, update the start/load screen with information about the player’s civilization, house, religion etc, improve map data storage (I should be able to hack down map load times again with this new change) and then it’s bug-fixing and optimization. Next week we’ll probably be talking about languages or religions (the latter of which I know last week I suggested would be this week, but coding has gone in a different direction in the past seven days). Stay tuned!
Post by: darkflagrance on March 16, 2014, 05:40:58 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 16, 2014, 12:59:23 pm
"For the honor of House Ej-ipox! Let's slaughter those Ejop-ax curs!"
I think you will fit into this world VERY WELL.
Post by: Dutchling on March 17, 2014, 02:18:16 am
Quote
Family names are not carried according to the men in the family, but rather by the status of the family.
Is this game going to be gender-egalitarian like Dwarf Fortress, or (unlikely, considering the above quote) male-centered like Crusader Kings? Or maybe a mixture of both?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 17, 2014, 03:39:49 am
This might have come up before, but:QuoteFamily names are not carried according to the men in the family, but rather by the status of the family.
Is this game going to be gender-egalitarian like Dwarf Fortress, or (unlikely, considering the above quote) male-centered like Crusader Kings? Or maybe a mixture of both?
#1, it will be DF-esque in that regard. I was originally going to have some civs male-dominated and some female-dominated, but that was surprisingly challenging to implement in terms of succession to the throne and so forth compared to simply saying "eldest of family is next in line".
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 17, 2014, 10:41:55 am
(http://s27.postimg.org/s3hkfbtq9/Terrain.png)
Post by: Dutchling on March 17, 2014, 10:55:05 am
Post by: Glloyd on March 17, 2014, 12:15:22 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Dutchling on March 17, 2014, 01:37:34 pm
Post by: Glloyd on March 17, 2014, 02:37:09 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 19, 2014, 03:02:29 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 20, 2014, 08:50:00 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 22, 2014, 06:24:42 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Rel1.png)
As in the above image, feudal religions have agendas and rewards. I have tried to design these so that you cannot build your game plan around pursuing them – since there will be an overarching “clock” in the game (not a food clock, something else) you will not be able to farm for the rewards that your religion offers, but rather these are things that in the process of playing you might be able to work towards and thereby gain the religion’s rewards. Many religions have agendas that you can pursue by exploring the world, getting access to multiple cities and the like, but carrying out one religion’s wishes may turn others against you. As with most good things in roguelikes, the religious agendas are meant to be a middle-ground between things you can plan for – “I’m going to focus my gameplan around doing X and Y that my religion wants” – coupled with things you cannot plan for, such as which religions might be close to you, which religion you start with, how easy or difficult its agendas will be to carry out, etc. Religions will be one “faction” you can assist, and gain rewards from, or not, depending on the situation and your preference.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Rel2.png)
Religions can all now be viewed in the in-game encyclopedia once you’ve discovered that religion. Monotheistic and animist religions can fit all their information on one page, whilst you can use Tab to cycle through the gods in polytheistic religions (as below). For monotheistic and polytheistic religions, the symbols or items that individual deities carry are dependent on what their worship entails; an agriculture god may have a sheaf of wheat, a war god an axe, and so on and so forth.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Rel3.png)
The last part of religions I need to finish off for this release are the spread of religions, but I think this might need a reasonably sophisticated mechanic. In the end it would be interesting if you could view the spread of each religion on the world map (i.e. switch between religions, as many may overlap) so that you can see where in the world you might meet with a positive response, and where else you might meet with a rather less positive one. However, depending on how complex I want to make that system, that might get relegated to a future release or not. Currently hard to say. Some religions appreciate the player spreading their religion to other nations – setting up altars, encouraging nobles to allow the religion to exist within their borders, etc – so such data about the spread of religions will be important for that, though I still need to desire exactly how that mechanic is going to work.
I have also begun work on some of the hidden cults in the game – their names/functions will be fixed, though their locations, how you access them, who leads them etc, will be changed each game. I wonder what purpose they serve?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Rel4.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 23, 2014, 03:30:33 am
Post by: Silleh Boy on March 23, 2014, 05:19:08 am
causing her axe Wrathshatter to be lost on the battlefield.
Ignoring the thought of "Could I keep this for myself?" ...
There's the mention of gaining favour within a faction by doing tasks for them / recovering things of note for them, but, this has me wondering if this was specifically mentioned to tie directly into that, or to indirectly allow for the player to find things related to a faction that while not directly mentioned as a thing that they wish to recover.
If so, would this mean that you could identify the location of the battlefield, recover the lost weapon and return it to the family (thus permitting them to honour / put to rest this lost relative.) whom wouldn't have disclosed that this was something they desired?
Would you be able to pass it to a faction opposed to their own, thus gaining a reward with them instead for denying them this lost treasure?
Would returning it to the faction in question improve your standing with them directly, as well as the view they hold of your family/faction?
Would putting it into the hands of an opposing faction have negative consequences instead?
Would whomever it ends up in the hands of have a chance of discretion, so that you gain all the positives of dealing with them, but none of (for the time being at least) the negatives as the other factions do not know you have had any involvement (yet)?
Given you've mentioned recently that the religious factions would have their boons for assisting them, it makes me wonder if noble houses and nomadic tribes and the like would potentially have undisclosed ones.
The direction things are going sounds ambitious, yet when done right it could make for a rich and unique experience - One that I'm still keen to see the realisation of.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 25, 2014, 05:37:04 pm
The sentence you described about the battlefield is precisely what I intend. It will not be the gameplay focus, but it will be one way, of many, to curry favour with one particular kind of faction (again, of many). There will be a "global clock" - akin to corruption in ADOM, but rather more subtle - so you cannot meander forever, but there will be many ways to support your character by gaining favour with factions. Opposing factions is an interesting question though and how they would respond - I'll have to think more about that when I come to implement the faction system more fully (i.e. once NPCs exist, etc).
Houses and tribes and so forth will all have agendas (I think), though I am still working on the specifics. A lot will be unknown to the player at the game's start, and that may be well part of it. Thanks for the long-term support, by the way - it really gives me faith for the continuation of this huge project :).
Post by: Neonivek on March 25, 2014, 05:39:38 pm
Since a lot of these religions seem to have a lot of mystical names or themes.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2014, 06:59:54 am
Honestly the further you develop this URR the more I kind of want to see more fantasy elements.
Since a lot of these religions seem to have a lot of mystical names or themes.
I'm afraid it's staying fantasy-clear, but as I've mentioned in the past, there will be elements of "magic realism", but nothing even remotely like fantasy species, magic, or anything like that. They do, but that's largely because it's hard to gen religion names without! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2014, 07:20:35 am
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/24/devlog-watch-trees-religions-spaceships/ (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/24/devlog-watch-trees-religions-spaceships/)
Post by: Neonivek on March 26, 2014, 07:57:45 am
Quote
I'm afraid it's staying fantasy-clear, but as I've mentioned in the past, there will be elements of "magic realism", but nothing even remotely like fantasy species, magic, or anything like that. They do, but that's largely because it's hard to gen religion names without!
I know, the grass is always greener and all that.
Also I wanted to ask
Are bones dusk or monsters? Because Bones as monsters is kind of hilarious.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2014, 08:45:08 am
Also I wanted to ask
Are bones dusk or monsters? Because Bones as monsters is kind of hilarious.
I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean! Can you elaborate?
Post by: Neonivek on March 26, 2014, 10:11:03 am
Also I wanted to ask
Are bones dusk or monsters? Because Bones as monsters is kind of hilarious.
I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean! Can you elaborate?
For what a god holds in its hand. Does it hold bones if it is a god of monsters or a god of dusk?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2014, 12:58:54 pm
Also I wanted to ask
Are bones dusk or monsters? Because Bones as monsters is kind of hilarious.
I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean! Can you elaborate?
For what a god holds in its hand. Does it hold bones if it is a god of monsters or a god of dusk?
Ah. That's odd, I'm not sure what the bones are for in that instance. Let me check...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 28, 2014, 08:17:53 am
Today I'm working on hacking load times down way further in the main menu, and also redoing the "choose a save" screen so that you can see much more information about your world, and then also reducing the file sizes of each world (down by maybe 20-30% or so)...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 29, 2014, 10:25:32 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Hist1.png)
All the histories you see here are procedurally generated to a greater or lesser extent. Some build upon archetypes that vary game-by-game, whilst others have a huge range of different sentences that build up into a coherent story. The above screenshot also showcases one important aspect of the histories – any NPC mentioned in a history who is still alive will spawn in game (NPCs will be spawning in a few releases time – we’re getting close!), any weapon mentioned will appear somewhere, any and every town/city will be on the map, and so forth. As well as giving hints towards the story and – I hope – just being generally interesting/varied tales to read, the histories will also highlight potential items, people or locations of interest. In later versions histories will only “unlock” in the encyclopedia once you reach a logical location – a city’s history will only appear once you discover it, the history of a language’s discovery when you find the appropriate book that records the initial research, etc. I’m still working on the precise triggers, but when you begin the game you’ll only start off with the history known to your civilization (and also histories from the perspective of your civilization). For this release, however, all histories will be visible except for cult histories (which will remain hidden), most discovery histories (because a lot of those hint towards hidden parts of the later game) and individual histories (because I’m still working on how those are going to function, and those may stay absent until NPCs are added a few releases down the line).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/03/Hist2.png)
So, what does all this mean for you, the player? Well, for starters, it means an early release! This is going to be my fastest release yet (surprising, given the first two months were very academia-heavy); I’m currently expecting to release – at the very latest – in the middle of April, thereby making this between a 3 and 3.5 month release, as opposed to my others which have ranged inconsistently between 4 and 6. This has come down to my general improvement as a programmer and also, in part, my attempts to “standardize” and optimize my coding practice a little more (thereby speeding up development times) in the lead-up to something I’ll be announcing soon after this release. As for 0.5, all that now remains is tidying up the encyclopedia a little bit then a whole range of small optimizations and bug-fixes for unusual situations that can occur in world-gen such as handling unusual angles were territories meet, speeding up the placement of roads, limiting the number of towns a civ can spawn, ensuring the game never runs out of feudal flags to generate, adding some more variety to religion names, etc etc. Within a week from now I would hope to have a build that is pretty much finished, assuming all goes according to plan. I’ve also worked on upgrading the “Choose a Save” page to give much more information about each world you might have saved, whilst at the same time hacking down saving and loading times even further (because those can never be hacked down enough), and on a rather snazzy new world gen screen that’s a great improvement over the old one.
Post by: Reyn on March 29, 2014, 06:23:00 pm
Any possibility in normalizing them, or giving them an english variant, like DF does?
P.S. First picture has a typo in the name of the people for "Rites of the whisperers"
Post by: Servant Corps on March 30, 2014, 10:08:21 am
For example...Uqbar is more interesting (and sounds like Iraq, so it's familiar) than the feud between Ej-ipox and Ejop-ax.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2014, 03:28:34 pm
The names of all these are very cool, it all sounds fantastical, I can't wait to drawn myself into reading what each new world can generate for history. I'd like to point out though, something that's been irking me. The names of civilizations and families. They're too..difficult? Too strange, too unfamiliar. Too hard to remember. If they're to be of importance in the plot, the first thing players will forget will most likely be this. I've gone through the 2 pictures presented, and 2 different civilizations have been talked of. They've been wiped from my memory already(the meteor, green eleven, the math language however, haven't)hope I don't come off as offending
Any possibility in normalizing them, or giving them an english variant, like DF does?
P.S. First picture has a typo in the name of the people for "Rites of the whisperers"
Not at all! I appreciate all feedback :). What kind of english variant do you have in mind? Also, I suspect that as the game goes on that will become less and less the case with a player spending time in the world; additionally, the other distinguishing factors (like flags, political systems, etc) I think will stick in people's minds a lot more. Do you mean the '!' as the typo? That's not a typo - that's a click sound! Language have a small chance of having them.
URR is inspired by Borges, right? So instead of having the names of civilizations and families be random strings of letters, why not lift them wholesale from Borges' work?
For example...Uqbar is more interesting (and sounds like Iraq, so it's familiar) than the feud between Ej-ipox and Ejop-ax.
You raise an interesting point - but Uqbar will be playing a huge plot role in the name in its own right :). And besides, I don't think there would be enough Borgesian civilizations to use anyway.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 31, 2014, 12:02:02 pm
Post by: mendonca on March 31, 2014, 04:08:21 pm
Good luck getting it out there! Very excited to have a play with it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 01, 2014, 01:38:34 pm
Glorious news indeed.
Good luck getting it out there! Very excited to have a play with it.
Thanks :). I think people will really like what's being set up in this release...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 02, 2014, 06:39:04 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Citywindow.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 03, 2014, 04:42:11 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Islandia.png)
Post by: BigD145 on April 03, 2014, 05:07:54 pm
Post by: Neonivek on April 03, 2014, 05:14:09 pm
That looks quite defensible. Really nice deep water port.
Yep, too bad you can only get there by boat... or I guess swimming.
Post by: Mephansteras on April 03, 2014, 05:30:43 pm
Post by: Dutchling on April 03, 2014, 08:10:50 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 04, 2014, 08:05:12 pm
That looks quite defensible. Really nice deep water port.
Yep, too bad you can only get there by boat... or I guess swimming.
That's almost a really awesome feature. Give it a narrow bridge out from the mainland and that'd be a great thing to have crop up on rare occasions.
Thanks all :). Yeah, it's pretty neat. Rare, but I rather like it. It should crop up occasionally.
Is it a bug or is it located on a small island?
The latter!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 06, 2014, 08:13:39 am
First off, for those who didn’t see this on Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere, this week the game really surprised me for the first time in a while by producing this rather tremendous city upon a small island (with a single slum just on the outside) and only accessible by docks:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Islandia1.png)
This in turn raised several things I’ll need to take account of for the next release, 0.6, when I’ll be generating the interiors of cities, towns, fortresses and settlements! Which is – what if a city has no roads? Or what if a town is completely enclosed by mountains? I’ll need to have the game recognize that and ensure the former can only be accessed by docks, for example, or ensure a mountain pass is generated to access the latter. It shouldn’t be too tricky to do that, but I’m glad this brought those possibilities to my attention.
I’ve also updated the “choose a save” screen, so it now looks something like this. For this release it just lists every civilization, but in the future it will naturally only list those you have actually encountered:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Newsaveload.png)
And now some other more general notes:
- There will only be three cults visible in the in-game histories for this release and in the encyclopedia; these are the cults that will relate to the three early-game areas. Others are being coded in the game but will remain hidden for the time being. Likewise, only certain languages will show up in the “discoveries” list, but this will expand as versions go on.
- Although you can view nomadic fortresses and hunter-gatherer settlements in the encyclopedia, there is (as of yet) not a lot of information about these. I’m still working on precisely how they’re going to be structured, so there will be more on that in the near future.
- The resources map has been changed to the “resources and trade” map which displays roads as well as mineral resources, and will later show naval trade routes, mountain passes, etc (passes will show on the normal map too, but they’ll just be highlighted on this one).
- I’ve adapted the ziggurats to feature the correct language – though in this version you can still auto-translate the clues – and I’ve also begun some work under-the-hood for displaying other languages, allowing you to keep track of your information on languages, etc.
And that’s pretty much everything. See you next week for 0.5′s release!
Post by: flame99 on April 07, 2014, 08:35:56 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 08, 2014, 04:45:33 am
This game sounds amazing. PtW.
Well, thank you :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 08, 2014, 09:44:26 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 10, 2014, 01:11:11 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Threeroads.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 11, 2014, 02:39:01 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on April 12, 2014, 07:50:54 am
Edit: So I've read that you can be rewarded for setting up altars and shrines, and there's a militaristic religion that leaves foes injured but alive to spread tales of their holy warriors. Admittedly it's been a long while since I've downloaded any updates, but I also see like 5 bars at the bottom. How long's that been there?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 08:07:04 am
With 3.5 months of development behind it (my fastest release to date), I present Ultima Ratio Regum v0.5! You can download it @ http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/. Here's a summary of the major additions:
- History generation! The world now contains over a thousand years of history of conflicts, religions, settlements, colonies and more. Some categories such as discoveries and cults will be added to more in later versions. Although they are currently all shown at the start of the game, exploring and discovering these histories (and the gameplay/world information they provide) will later emerge into a central game mechanic.
- Enlarged world map! The world map is now 250x250 rather than 150x150, but due to various optimizations takes up less memory than the older version. This allows for far more room for everything the game needs, and with a larger world map I can start to think about various mechanics for exploring the world without it all opening up too quickly.
- Religion generation! The world is now populated by religions - monotheistic, polytheistic and spiritual/animist/shamanistic - some of which may spread between multiple civilizations. The game describes their entire pantheons in addition to (for feudal religions) what agendas they might wish their followers to pursue.
- Cities, towns, fortresses and settlements! The world map is now populated by the capital cities and smaller towns of feudal civilizations, the desert fortresses of nomads (between which their caravans will later roam) and the settlements of hunter-gatherer civilizations. These different types of civilization also have different types of flag and symbols associated with them. In the next version, 0.6, these population centers will be fully explorable.
- Coats of arms and families! Feudal civilizations now contain a number of noble houses, each of which has a procedurally generated coat of arms to go with it. The player is assigned to a non-ruling house in their civilization of choice, and house allegiance will be one of several "faction" alignments that offer both benefits and risks as the game progresses.
- Updated start/load screen! The start/load a game screen now displays a wealth of information about each save to allow you to easily browse the saves you may have, and also loads in a fraction of the time that was required in the past. You are also now given a choice of what civilization to follow, and whether to follow the lead religion in that civilization (if any).
- Policies! There are now a large number of "policies" that each civilization possesses, spread across eight different categories. These will act as passive boosts to the player's abilities, skills and stats in various areas.
- Road generation! A network of roads now criss-crosses the parts of the world controlled by feudal civilizations, and also generate on the human-scale map (not just the world map).
Hope you all like it. Let me know any feedback you have, any bugs you might find (I think the release is bug-free, but there is only so much playtesting two people can do) and any other suggestions or feedback. In the next few weeks I'll be talking quite a bit about the plans for URR this coming year which I'm rather excited about, so I invite you all to join me for that discussion in the near future. Hope you enjoy the release!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Ratcatdoge.png)
Post by: Man of Paper on April 12, 2014, 08:31:29 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I dunno if you need the rest of the log before I entered the area, if I have everything from when I entered, or even if this is the log you need at all. I'll mess around some more to see if it's the proving grounds that did it or something with the ziggurat, but I figured I'd shoot this out there as soon as I could.
Post by: gimli on April 12, 2014, 08:33:32 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 08:40:09 am
I found some proving grounds and, upon not being able to enter at the time, took a detour to a nearby Ziggy. Where the game immediately crashed upon trying to go into dude view.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I dunno if you need the rest of the log before I entered the area, if I have everything from when I entered, or even if this is the log you need at all. I'll mess around some more to see if it's the proving grounds that did it or something with the ziggurat, but I figured I'd shoot this out there as soon as I could.
Damn it. Thanks, fixed, uploaded new version.
This looks like a very promising game, but I am kinda confused atm. Is it playable as it is now? I mean do we have any content gameplay wise? What can a player character do in the lastest version?
A lot of the information I just posted above answers that question, but the primary gameplay currently is exploring ziggurats. I'm working on most of the world-building before the gameplay aspects, but a lot of the world-building also informs the gameplay, as you'll see if you look at the in-game history, for example :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 08:42:23 am
Psst guys it's time to play 0.5
Edit: So I've read that you can be rewarded for setting up altars and shrines, and there's a militaristic religion that leaves foes injured but alive to spread tales of their holy warriors. Admittedly it's been a long while since I've downloaded any updates, but I also see like 5 bars at the bottom. How long's that been there?
5 bars? Do you mean stamina etc? Er... those were added in 0.4!
Post by: Man of Paper on April 12, 2014, 08:46:08 am
Now when did you add the voices telling me to do things I'm hearing on startup?
(http://fuuu.us/263.png)
Post by: Reyn on April 12, 2014, 09:01:47 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 09:08:54 am
Now when did you add the voices telling me to do things I'm hearing on startup?
Ha, well, they're certainly one of the more unusual features in the new release. REVOLUTIONARY GAMEPLAY!
Few things noticed at first: numpad enter doesn't work on the new menus(encyclopedia included), numpad arrows don't work in the encyclopedia.
Ta - will fix for next release.
Post by: gimli on April 12, 2014, 09:12:37 am
This looks like a very promising game, but I am kinda confused atm. Is it playable as it is now? I mean do we have any content gameplay wise? What can a player character do in the lastest version?
A lot of the information I just posted above answers that question, but the primary gameplay currently is exploring ziggurats. I'm working on most of the world-building before the gameplay aspects, but a lot of the world-building also informs the gameplay, as you'll see if you look at the in-game history, for example :).
Allrighty, so the major gameplay elements like moving armies, conquering, expanding the realm, diplomacy etc. are not in the game yet. Can we have some info that when will those be added? I will keep an eye on this thread. Keep up the good work!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 09:18:42 am
This looks like a very promising game, but I am kinda confused atm. Is it playable as it is now? I mean do we have any content gameplay wise? What can a player character do in the lastest version?
A lot of the information I just posted above answers that question, but the primary gameplay currently is exploring ziggurats. I'm working on most of the world-building before the gameplay aspects, but a lot of the world-building also informs the gameplay, as you'll see if you look at the in-game history, for example :).
Allrighty, so the major gameplay elements like moving armies, conquering, expanding the realm, diplomacy etc. are not in the game yet. Can we have some info that when will those be added? I will keep an eye on this thread. Keep up the good work!
A lot of those are no longer gameplay goals! It has shifted to a much more plot-based game, actually. There's a development plan on my site (link in my earlier post) - I've been making the game for over 3 years now and expect maybe a decade until it's finished? I'm coming to the end now of the world-building chunk, and I'll soon be working on the key story/area/enemy elements.
Post by: gimli on April 12, 2014, 09:24:55 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 09:39:50 am
Oh, so this isn't a roguelike with lot of strategic elements like creating armies etc.? It sounded awesome, it makes me sad if those plans have been dropped.
Correcto. I've moved onto a much more philosophical/sociological theme about the nature of history, reality, and various concepts like philosophical idealism, particularly inspired by the literature of people like Borges and Eco. I wanted to move in this direction both because these are interesting themes I want to explore, and also because I was simply more passionate about creating something really unique in this direction. For a project of this size I had/have to go in the direction I'm most enthused about, and I just wasn't that interested in those ideas any more :(
EDIT: longer explanation here: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/02/15/plot-story-and-the-game-itself/
Post by: gimli on April 12, 2014, 10:24:07 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 10:34:25 am
Ah, thanks for the link, now it's clear. Well, it's as shame that you dropped the original ideas, those were awesome and unique. Now this will be yet another dungeon crawler baiscally. Oh well, it is your game, so I won't complain. It's just that the original plans sounded much more epic. IMHO of course. :)
With all due respect, another dungeon crawl is *PRECISELY* what it will not be. There's no magic, minimal combat (and combat there is will be wholly unlike other roguelikes, and will instead be a timing/rhythm style akin to a turn-based Dark Souls, for lack of a better description), basically no fantasy creatures, a lot of procedural graphic generation (other dungeon crawlers have that?!), cryptography and procedurally-generated languages, and will be heavily focused around a certain unique mechanic do to with history and knowledge which I haven't fully unveiled yet. "Dungeon" is perhaps too broad a word, or one that evokes certain things, but it will be nothing like your Nethack, DCSS, whatever (as much as I love those games). If I failed to express this in that blog post, that's my mistake, but rest assured nothing like the central mechanics I have in mind have *ever* been done in a game before (whereas armies, 4X etc, all have). I don't think a game with "places in which you do things" instantly becomes a dungeon crawler!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 04:20:16 pm
Post by: thvaz on April 12, 2014, 04:30:40 pm
Ah, thanks for the link, now it's clear. Well, it's as shame that you dropped the original ideas, those were awesome and unique. Now this will be yet another dungeon crawler baiscally. Oh well, it is your game, so I won't complain. It's just that the original plans sounded much more epic. IMHO of course. :)
With all due respect, another dungeon crawl is *PRECISELY* what it will not be. There's no magic, minimal combat (and combat there is will be wholly unlike other roguelikes, and will instead be a timing/rhythm style akin to a turn-based Dark Souls, for lack of a better description), basically no fantasy creatures, a lot of procedural graphic generation (other dungeon crawlers have that?!), cryptography and procedurally-generated languages, and will be heavily focused around a certain unique mechanic do to with history and knowledge which I haven't fully unveiled yet. "Dungeon" is perhaps too broad a word, or one that evokes certain things, but it will be nothing like your Nethack, DCSS, whatever (as much as I love those games). If I failed to express this in that blog post, that's my mistake, but rest assured nothing like the central mechanics I have in mind have *ever* been done in a game before (whereas armies, 4X etc, all have). I don't think a game with "places in which you do things" instantly becomes a dungeon crawler!
I love what are you doing here. In the beggining I thought it would be just a DF's adventure mode clone, but it is turning to be a very unique game. Go on, it is looking great.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2014, 06:09:39 pm
I love what are you doing here. In the beggining I thought it would be just a DF's adventure mode clone, but it is turning to be a very unique game. Go on, it is looking great.
Thanks very much :).
Post by: darkflagrance on April 12, 2014, 08:31:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 13, 2014, 03:10:42 pm
Independently, I would not have associated the culture-politics sim aspects of URR with the Borgesian focus on mystery and puzzle solving. I find it hard to imagine they melding into a cohesive gameplay experience. One aspects seems to revolve around solo exploration of isolated dungeons and relies on the player's skills and knowledge, while the other seems to involve managing armies and balancing constantly shifting allegiances as the world outside the ziggurats evolves.
Thanks for the message. It's... tricky to answer this question without giving too much away, but I can totally see why it might seem like a strange meld. The best answer I can give it that the former - the exploration and puzzle solving - will have a direct effect on the larger world. If you give a look at "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", that might give you a tiny bit of an idea about the idea that actions can change the agreed-upon reality of the world. That's... sort of the idea... but yeah, I totally see where you're coming from. All I can say is "take it from me, the big picture is coherent!", though I know it'll be more convincing when you see it :).
Post by: FireCrazy on April 13, 2014, 10:52:19 pm
Shouldn't the thread title be changed to v0.5 released?
Post by: Mesa on April 14, 2014, 03:39:46 am
I was really looking forward to the original idea of the strategy-esque URR, and it's sad for me to know that this is no longer in the plans.
But it's your game and I can't change that.
Just letting you know that there's one person less following the project.
I may look at it every now and then, but it's definitely not my "#1 game to make hype about".
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2014, 02:30:43 pm
Downloading the new version now!
Shouldn't the thread title be changed to v0.5 released?
Ah, yes! I need to do a big update of screenshots and information here, my blog, a few other sites too; I might get on that tomorrow...
Aaaaaaw. :-\
I was really looking forward to the original idea of the strategy-esque URR, and it's sad for me to know that this is no longer in the plans.
But it's your game and I can't change that.
Just letting you know that there's one person less following the project.
I may look at it every now and then, but it's definitely not my "#1 game to make hype about".
It has been in this new model for over a year now!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 15, 2014, 12:16:45 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 15, 2014, 12:43:36 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 18, 2014, 03:50:40 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/TerrainTest3.png)
I’ve also begun to implement some of the basic parts of town generation. It starts off by creating a network of roads appropriate to the type of road going through the town (if any – special cases for isolated towns have not yet been handled) and then spreading buildings along them. There will be a variety of rare and crucial buildings in towns – more on this in some later entry – and then a large amount of general housing and the like. For now, just for the sake of testing the system, the buildings are generating… as lava… but I’m sure you get the idea in the bottom image for how towns will end up looking. The town code as it stands now only took a little over a day and I’m amazed at how interesting these layouts are already looking. Once I start to add buildings to towns I’ll put up another update on that. I’ve started to work on generating architectural styles as well, and varying the materials that civilizations like to construct buildings from, but the next step for towns is basically the creation of a massive building database.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Towns.png)
From this point onwards (once I’ve done the few additions to farms I need to do) I’ll be working on the non-building parts of other settlements. I’ve got some very interesting ideas for how hunter-gatherer settlements will generate, but I think I may work on graveyards next, or possibly nomadic fortresses. We’ll see. Either way, I have a train so catch to that’s everything for this week. Let me know what you think of these very early stages, and see you all in eight days.
Post by: Mephansteras on April 18, 2014, 02:56:09 pm
Post by: dwarfhoplite on April 18, 2014, 03:22:50 pm
Post by: Shriek on April 21, 2014, 01:34:27 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also, I should really have sail this earlier, but your game is amazing. And I, for one, am actually more intersted in it after the focus shift. I've always wanted to play a roguelike that focuses on exploration. :)
Post by: Putnam on April 21, 2014, 03:02:34 am
Quote
line 176874
I bet you're damn good at regular expressions :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 23, 2014, 07:11:01 pm
Fancy as always!
Thanks!
Looks sweet. It could be a traditional hand sewn pattern.
Awesome :). I should have some more settlement-y stuff to show this week, hopefully...
I was playing 0.51 and I got a crash when I was walking around a volcano. The output log is here:You may want to look into it.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also, I should really have sail this earlier, but your game is amazing. And I, for one, am actually more intersted in it after the focus shift. I've always wanted to play a roguelike that focuses on exploration. :)
Ah, thanks for the bug report. That's a new one on me. Walking around a volcano? I think I can guess the cause; I'll look into it. Glad to hear you like how it's going! :)
Quoteline 176874
I bet you're damn good at regular expressions :P
Ha - AS IT HAPPENS, I am better than that implies. All the game's graphics are stored as strings and those take up at least 60%+ of the game's "code". Though I confess, some of the oldest code is very poorly written, but works fine, so I haven't felt moved to upgrade it when there are new things to add!
Post by: Clownmite on April 23, 2014, 07:22:38 pm
Post by: The13thRonin on April 24, 2014, 01:38:30 am
What is there to do in this game if I download it right now ????
Can I engage in combat with Nazis while hunting for treasure? *Cracks whip*.
On a serious note I don't get what I can currently do in this game from the opening post. How fleshed out is it? Could you give me a textual example of a 'game' of it or is it still mostly in concept phase?
Post by: teoleo on April 24, 2014, 03:31:07 am
Post by: hops on April 24, 2014, 08:41:02 am
is playable? is similar a df adventur mode?yes is playable technically but more of just engine
so like df adventur mode without real gameplay
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 24, 2014, 09:57:31 am
Can I ask you you generated those roads? They look nice and smooth/curvy.
I'd love to say I used quadratic equations, but they are all sections of circle circumferences!
So... Um...
What is there to do in this game if I download it right now ????
Can I engage in combat with Nazis while hunting for treasure? *Cracks whip*.
On a serious note I don't get what I can currently do in this game from the opening post. How fleshed out is it? Could you give me a textual example of a 'game' of it or is it still mostly in concept phase?
is playable? is similar a df adventur mode?yes is playable technically but more of just engine
so like df adventur mode without real gameplay
As the opening post says, you can explore and find 'Z'iggurats on the world map, which are the only current gameplay. The latest thing from this release is the encyclopedia, accessed via 'E', which gives you a lot of information about the current world. For various reasons explained in this thread and on my blog, I'm forced to complete the world-building aspects of the game first before I can move onto the core gameplay (though many aspects of the world-building will directly influence the gameplay). Currently you can explore the world, explore the depth of the world so far created, and explore ziggurats - the next release is focused on generating cities, towns, settlements, fortresses and whatnot, and moves us ever closer to my continuation of the playable parts! Also, needless to say, ziggurats are still in a very early version too.
Post by: miki151 on April 24, 2014, 10:11:04 am
Can I ask you you generated those roads? They look nice and smooth/curvy.
I'd love to say I used quadratic equations, but they are all sections of circle circumferences!
I'd love to hear how one could use quadratic equations to generate smooth roads and rivers :)
Post by: The13thRonin on April 24, 2014, 10:59:43 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 27, 2014, 07:48:00 am
I'd love to hear how one could use quadratic equations to generate smooth roads and rivers :)
I believe (despite having aced this at GCSE level, I have all but forgotten any kind of vaguely non-basic mathematics) one can easily do stuff with the ax2+bx+c. I tried, I failed, so I used this circle method instead. But hey, it works! And that, ultimately, is what matters.
Will I be able to hunt peasants with a smooth-bore rifle while wearing a top-hat?
I... er... partly. Possibly. But it might not end well. Law enforcement is going to be pretty... brutal.
No big update this week I'm afraid as I've been away and unable to code for most of the past few days. I've uploaded a second part in my "RTS Level Design" series (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/04/27/real-time-strategy-level-design-ii/), but if that's not your bag, I'll see you next week for a first look at graveyards!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 29, 2014, 02:12:53 pm
Post by: guessingo on April 29, 2014, 09:36:40 pm
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on April 29, 2014, 10:10:51 pm
Post by: Retropunch on April 30, 2014, 06:39:29 am
Although things like cleverbot seem pretty shallow and gimmicky due to needing to handle a massive variation of general input, game based chatbots don't need to bother about that, as all their conversations happen in the setting which you've created and can only respond to 'in world' stuff.
They also can easily wander off/have negative reactions if you derail the conversation too much away from stuff they know about, and they can have distinct personalities to help color their responses.
It's not too tricky to do and it gives a much more immersive level of interaction than selecting options - just something to think about anyway!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 30, 2014, 04:16:39 pm
Is this a game yet? I tried .3 and you cpuld move, but that got old after a few minutes
There's now a massive encyclopedia you can view with a wealth of information about the in-game world - cities, civilizations, religions, cults, histories - and, as below, a very small piece of early gameplay has been implemented. I have to focus on the wordlbuilding aspect before much of the gameplay aspects can be implemented, unfortunately, but the world I'm creating is itself a core part of the future game.
Have you considered having chatbots for your NPCs? It's what I've been doing with my RL (using python+libtcod as well) and it's coming along nicely.
Although things like cleverbot seem pretty shallow and gimmicky due to needing to handle a massive variation of general input, game based chatbots don't need to bother about that, as all their conversations happen in the setting which you've created and can only respond to 'in world' stuff.
They also can easily wander off/have negative reactions if you derail the conversation too much away from stuff they know about, and they can have distinct personalities to help color their responses.
It's not too tricky to do and it gives a much more immersive level of interaction than selecting options - just something to think about anyway!
I'm... not sure what you mean. NPCs haven't been implemented yet (though they are coming soonish), and once they are I'll just be writing all the conversation code from scratch. As with everything, a core design philosophy has been "Do things that others haven't done yet!" so I'm trying to think of some kind of very new conversation system. I've got a few pretty unusual ideas, but we'll see how it works out.
Post by: Retropunch on May 01, 2014, 12:57:54 am
I'm... not sure what you mean. NPCs haven't been implemented yet (though they are coming soonish), and once they are I'll just be writing all the conversation code from scratch. As with everything, a core design philosophy has been "Do things that others haven't done yet!" so I'm trying to think of some kind of very new conversation system. I've got a few pretty unusual ideas, but we'll see how it works out.
I'll try to be a bit more clear. Basically, in my RL all my NPCs are all chatbots, in which you can type in a sentence like 'how are you?' or 'which way is it to xyz' and they'll respond. This is in much the same way as Cleverbot (http://www.cleverbot.com/) works, basically by parsing input and trying to work out what you mean. Although general chatbots tend to be a bit rubbish due to the vast amount of random and complicated sentences they need to understand, in game it's a lot easier - you've only got a set number of topics in your game world and the npcs don't need to always try to respond in the best possible way and their responses can be colored by things like allegiance, mood and so on.
I think being able to just 'talk' to NPCs gives a much more immersive experience than selecting from a list, and also allows you to just strike up random conversations with anyone in the street. It's not a perfect system, and certainly there needs to be a 'hints' system or something so the player isn't just stabbing in the dark, but I do think it'd be a very interesting way forward.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 02, 2014, 08:17:35 am
I'm... not sure what you mean. NPCs haven't been implemented yet (though they are coming soonish), and once they are I'll just be writing all the conversation code from scratch. As with everything, a core design philosophy has been "Do things that others haven't done yet!" so I'm trying to think of some kind of very new conversation system. I've got a few pretty unusual ideas, but we'll see how it works out.
I'll try to be a bit more clear. Basically, in my RL all my NPCs are all chatbots, in which you can type in a sentence like 'how are you?' or 'which way is it to xyz' and they'll respond. This is in much the same way as Cleverbot (http://www.cleverbot.com/) works, basically by parsing input and trying to work out what you mean. Although general chatbots tend to be a bit rubbish due to the vast amount of random and complicated sentences they need to understand, in game it's a lot easier - you've only got a set number of topics in your game world and the npcs don't need to always try to respond in the best possible way and their responses can be colored by things like allegiance, mood and so on.
I think being able to just 'talk' to NPCs gives a much more immersive experience than selecting from a list, and also allows you to just strike up random conversations with anyone in the street. It's not a perfect system, and certainly there needs to be a 'hints' system or something so the player isn't just stabbing in the dark, but I do think it'd be a very interesting way forward.
Ah, got it, thanks for the clarification! That does sound like an interesting system, but as I say, I'm planning to build from the ground-up for two reasons. Firstly because I'm trying to build everything myself that I possibly can (just because I want as much of the project to be "mine" as much as possible, and minimize external library use where I can), but also because I have some very specific things in mind for how I want conversations to work out, and I don't think that's really in line with my goals :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 02, 2014, 09:34:53 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2014, 04:27:19 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/TerrainTest3.png)
As for the graves, there are twelve different headstone styles, twenty different “base” styles, thirty different patterns (the little flourishes on the grave, like spirals or diamonds or whatever), and each headstone style may be undamaged, slightly damaged, or heavily damaged. A zoomed-out picture of all the headstone variations is shown before, but once you include the number of possible patterns and bases, there are over 20000 possible graves, more than enough to service any playthrough. I’ll soon be adding a little bit of moss and general overgrowth at the base for the older graves.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/04/Graves1.png)
The graves note three things – the years the person lived to and from (the date of birth may not be known, and older graves are more likely to be damaged), their name, and – if appropriate – what they died of (so naturally with these three aspects, the permutations are almost infinite). Obviously things like “He died of a horrifying wasting illness” would never be mentioned, but things that most would think merit commemoration, like falling in battle, or a duel, or whatever, might be mentioned, along with graves relating to important historical events like disasters. Thus, importantly – and rather nicely I think - these now link up to the histories! If you see a civilization fought in a particular war, you can check out the graveyard by their capital (and likely the minor graveyards in towns) and, indeed, find people to died in that war within the years that war was fought. Ditto for diseases, civil wars, whatever. I’m still working on thinking about tombs, catacombs, ossuaries and the like for wealthier people, rulers, etc. There is a good chance that graveyards which have catacombs below (which may not be all of them) might connect to the subterranean regions of the game (in the future), but these are still early plans right now.
Equally, as with all the history stuff, this will later have gameplay repercussions – maybe you hear somewhere of something buried in a particular grave, or in a particular tomb or ossuary? Or possibly that a particular set of graves are in a particular pattern that has some deeper meaning? As with other things like this relating to the in-game histories, you’ll always be making a choice: do I have the time to explore this little side-aspect whilst you’re passing through a city, or do you need to continue? The overall global clock (which I know I haven’t said anything about yet in detail) will give you time for some side exploration as these explorations of the world will be key to building up your character, but it’ll be up to you to decide which you can/cannot risk.Graveyards as a whole will also serve other functions. Maybe particular cults, religions, smugglers or other individuals might meet there? Perhaps there is treasure to be grabbed from any remaining tombs?
So there you have it. Next week’s blog entry could be at pretty much any time since between the 8th and 12th I’m in Berlin for the International Roguelike Developers Conference! Thus, the next update will either be whilst I’m in Berlin, some time a bit before, some time a bit after, or SOMETHING ELSE. It will likely be on slums and the early graphical generation of keys, and possibly something about the system of keys/doors/civilians I’ve been thinking about for a little while now. See you all next week (at some point)!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 05, 2014, 04:17:30 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/Swankygraves.png)
Post by: Askot Bokbondeler on May 05, 2014, 05:18:24 am
Post by: Neonivek on May 05, 2014, 06:01:32 am
Ok not really
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 05, 2014, 04:33:37 pm
the graveyards are comming out nice, but maybe you could do some more interesting things with dead people, for example, often big aristocrats and royals were buried in religious monuments they'd built or sponsored. It'd be cool if some national heroes got a more public resting place rather than being tucked away in a graveyard.
Thanks! I really like the idea of heroes maybe being buried beneath a special statue in the town, for instance. There will be catacombs beneath some graveyards, but my intention is for those to primary contain those from very, very early history, many of whom's names may have been forgotten. Still working on the specifics, though.
Awww no Kings Quest style ironic tombstones? I am almost disappointed :P
Ok not really
Ha, I am afraid not :(. Though the odd gravestone may contain a secret or two...
Post by: Neonivek on May 05, 2014, 04:41:25 pm
Post by: Retropunch on May 05, 2014, 05:30:18 pm
However, I'm guessing you probably don't want to spend too long on graveyards as I don't imagine the player will be constantly visiting them/exploring them in as much depth as other areas. Just a thought though!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 07, 2014, 04:34:38 pm
Will villains tend to have unmarked graves?
Hmm, an interesting question. I am not sure yet - more likely, I think, is that they will fallen somewhere out in the world where you can find them.
Could graves/graveyards be impacted by religion as well? Many religions have their own special graveyards (or parts of larger ones) and often have grave stones with religious motifs (like the obvious Christian Crosses) IRL, and it'd make a lot of sense as well as add more depth to the religions.
However, I'm guessing you probably don't want to spend too long on graveyards as I don't imagine the player will be constantly visiting them/exploring them in as much depth as other areas. Just a thought though!
Ah, now that's an interesting thought. I think I will definitely add religious symbols to some graves (maybe only to those who are denoted as having "died for the faith" or "are now with [godname]" etc), I really like that idea. No, indeed, graveyards are just one of many areas for this release! I'd say I have only one day's worth of work left on them for this release, as any catacombs and whatnot that go beneath them - and connect to parts of the nearby city - will all be coming later.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 08, 2014, 01:39:40 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/Slum2.png)
I also did a little bit of work on generating keys. Although these will only be relevant from 0.7 onwards once I start to generate building interiors, I’ve been starting to implement small bits of the relevant infrastructure for it up-front. The inventory has changed to have a “Keys” section, for example, and I decided to work one day on generating keys. As with almost every other item the images for keys are procedurally generated, so each key should be unique. There are four “tiers” of keys – unique keys which will have their one special graphics (which I haven’t shown here) and then three levels of keys for all other buildings in the game. The top category of keys are for buildings in city centres, in castles, and other places of wealth and influence; the second category are the “middle-class” keys for buildings you’d find in markets, some parts of docks, medical districts, maybe military districts too; the last row are keys for lower-class housing, slums, many parts of recreational districts, and the like. All three tiers of key shown here have their own sets of possible handle designs (though the top/middle share one or two and the middle/bottom share one or two), while the top keys have their own unique set of “bits” (as the part of the keys that go into locks are apparently called!) and the middle/bottom keys share a larger set of possible bits. Lastly each set has its own possible colour schemes which will give you an immediate hint about the purpose and value of any key you should happen to find.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/Key2.png)
Now I must depart, for I have a flight to catch for the Roguelike Developers Conference; I’ll upload my slides (though they are lacking in text!) once I return. By next week I should have finished up graves and graveyards since they still need some religion-related graves, full integration with the in-game histories, and a few other tweaks (such as making sure trees cannot obscure the entrances, adding a few more entrances, etc) and have hopefully moved onto another aspect of 0.6. I think there’s a good chance I’m going to start working on hunter-gatherer settlements next, both generating the settlements (with another new algorithm) and working on the appropriate textures and graphics to display structures made of stone, wood, bone, etc. See you all then!
Post by: Retropunch on May 08, 2014, 10:07:28 am
1) Slums tend to be wider than they are thick as they tend to expand/snake along the city limit so as to be as close as possible (although they're sometimes constrained by walls/things).
2) Slums tend to have set parameters, without many houses just laying as outlyers, this is again because they're built up trying to be as close to the city as possible and there would be little incentive to live further out.
3) They tend to have main paths as well as lots of small offshoots. These tend to be a bit random, but they'd be say three 'dots' thick in your rendering. These are still dirt kind of roads, but they're often big enough for cars (or in your case carts) to go up or down without problem.
Again, these are all modern slums and I'm sure there are variations, but most of these make sense logically I guess. People want to be nearer the city walls/limits for work/services/protection and the wider paths are required to move stuff around. Outlying buildings probably make more sense in a medieval context with farming/huts and stuff though.
Post by: Neonivek on May 08, 2014, 04:51:22 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 11, 2014, 03:43:04 pm
As always - awesome! That's a very big slum! A few observations from having worked in slums myself (admittedly not medieval ones :( ):
1) Slums tend to be wider than they are thick as they tend to expand/snake along the city limit so as to be as close as possible (although they're sometimes constrained by walls/things).
2) Slums tend to have set parameters, without many houses just laying as outlyers, this is again because they're built up trying to be as close to the city as possible and there would be little incentive to live further out.
3) They tend to have main paths as well as lots of small offshoots. These tend to be a bit random, but they'd be say three 'dots' thick in your rendering. These are still dirt kind of roads, but they're often big enough for cars (or in your case carts) to go up or down without problem.
Again, these are all modern slums and I'm sure there are variations, but most of these make sense logically I guess. People want to be nearer the city walls/limits for work/services/protection and the wider paths are required to move stuff around. Outlying buildings probably make more sense in a medieval context with farming/huts and stuff though.
Those are all very interesting. I'll make some changes based on #1, definitely, and that makes a lot of sense about outlying buildings (I'll reduce their number and maybe bring them a bit closer in as well). Also, re: large paths, that's good to know - I'll think about a good way to try and integrate that. Many thanks for this, it's really helpful! Everything you've said makes a lot of sense to me. I probably won't post a slum update this week, but I expect I will before the next release...
To admit I don't think the game has the typical city "main road" or all important city center (Modern Cities tend to have the dead center)
We do have city centres, but I'm still working on how roads within the city limits will work!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 14, 2014, 09:05:20 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/Swed.png)
Post by: mendonca on May 14, 2014, 12:48:52 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 15, 2014, 06:49:25 am
Wow, that's awesome! Congrats!
Thanks! Meanwhile, polar regions look so much more interesting now with ice, don't they?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/TerrainTest8.png)
Post by: Retropunch on May 15, 2014, 08:46:31 am
As far as polar regions go, they do look awesome, but I'd kinda like more contrast between sea and ice. I know it might not look so pretty, but it's currently a bit hard on the eyes for me. Even just a small nudge to either the sea or the ice would help a lot in differentiating areas.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 15, 2014, 10:40:58 am
Congratulations!! I'd love to know what it says if anyone could give a rough outline?
As far as polar regions go, they do look awesome, but I'd kinda like more contrast between sea and ice. I know it might not look so pretty, but it's currently a bit hard on the eyes for me. Even just a small nudge to either the sea or the ice would help a lot in differentiating areas.
Thanks! Here's a rough translation someone did for me:
"With random generators becoming more advanced the roguelike genre has made a comeback. Now there are so many that they need a gimmick to stand out. We have platform roguelikes and space roguelikes. But Ultima Ratio Regum is more of an everything roguelike.
The game not only generates the world you explore, but an entire solar
system. There's no use for it in this early alpha stage, but these planets
and moons will later help you research things. The plan is to have randomly generated history, mythology, civilizations and religion.
Right not the game isn't that grand scale, but the ambition is more epic.
In the open, ASCII-rendered world you can right now only visit the pyramids that are scattered here and there. Here you will find ancient cave systems with ASCII puzzles based on riddles. Randomly generated riddles, of course. Ultima Ratio Regum aims to create a rich world to lose yourself in."
As for ice/snow, bear in mind that's an image with everything "lit" - when you walk around, only that which is within your field of view is lit. Most of it is therefore actually a lot darker, and it doesn't look at all too bright :).
Post by: Retropunch on May 15, 2014, 06:08:37 pm
For me it's less about the colour/brightness and more about the contrast between the sea and the ice - possibly in the game it'll be clearer, but boosting the white content of the ice may help distinguish it a bit more. Just a thought from seeing the picture.
Post by: Silleh Boy on May 15, 2014, 10:05:35 pm
Your art assets are as always, looking impressive for the medium you use to create them.
With the way they're shaping up and the world itself is shaping up, I have to wonder how many people will one day have the guilty pleasure of simply examining everything they are able to see what it appears like and what snippets of history may be gleaned from it.
A question that has come to mind for me is, if a figure that you are associated with or one of your companions or whatever dies during your adventures, will you be able to visit their place of burial and find a headstone dedicated to them?
Some people grow attached to certain characters that they interact with in games, so being able to pay their respects to a friend or a comrade in arms would be quite a poignant thing from their perspectives.
On the flip side of that question, would you be able to deface or even plunder the grave of a rival if you were inclined to that level of disrespect?
Post by: Retropunch on May 16, 2014, 10:36:06 am
A question that has come to mind for me is, if a figure that you are associated with or one of your companions or whatever dies during your adventures, will you be able to visit their place of burial and find a headstone dedicated to them?
Some people grow attached to certain characters that they interact with in games, so being able to pay their respects to a friend or a comrade in arms would be quite a poignant thing from their perspectives.
On the flip side of that question, would you be able to deface or even plunder the grave of a rival if you were inclined to that level of disrespect?
These are both things I'd be very interested in, especially if they had wide ranging affects. For instance other companions getting a boost/positive thought from paying their respects, or rivals/religious factions getting more angry due to the grave digging.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 17, 2014, 08:11:32 am
Ahh thanks for that! It's definitely an everything roguelike!!
For me it's less about the colour/brightness and more about the contrast between the sea and the ice - possibly in the game it'll be clearer, but boosting the white content of the ice may help distinguish it a bit more. Just a thought from seeing the picture.
Ahhhh, I see. Hmm. I think it is clearer in the game, but I'll fiddle with the colours a bit and see if I can up the contrast a little more :).
Congratulations on the recognition - ambitious projects and big dreams tend to capture the imagination of those that wish to see them reach fruition.
Your art assets are as always, looking impressive for the medium you use to create them.
With the way they're shaping up and the world itself is shaping up, I have to wonder how many people will one day have the guilty pleasure of simply examining everything they are able to see what it appears like and what snippets of history may be gleaned from it.
A question that has come to mind for me is, if a figure that you are associated with or one of your companions or whatever dies during your adventures, will you be able to visit their place of burial and find a headstone dedicated to them?
Some people grow attached to certain characters that they interact with in games, so being able to pay their respects to a friend or a comrade in arms would be quite a poignant thing from their perspectives.
On the flip side of that question, would you be able to deface or even plunder the grave of a rival if you were inclined to that level of disrespect?
Thanks :). I hope a lot of people will, but I also know the world and its history is core to the future gameplay of piecing things together, exploring hidden regions, figuring out the connections between NPCs/wars/items/places/etc, and I can't wait until more of that is implemented and players can actually figure things out themselves.
Re: headstones, yes - major graveyards have a small region that starts empty, and any NPC who you see die - so an ally who dies, or an enemy - will be placed there, assuming it is logical (so obviously Civ X who hates Civ Y won't bury a Knight of X in their graveyard). So if you recruit a friend from X, they die, they should show up in X's graveyard a bit later. I'll do the code for that once NPCs are implemented (and, importantly, once you can kill 'em!). On the flip side, you will definitely be able to dig up graves. It is possible things of note will sometimes be buried in them - but as there may be 2000+ graves to a graveyard, you'll need to figure out which grave it is first (by exploring the history, the lore, talking to people, etc), make sure nobody's watching (or you can deal with/silence anyone who is), and make sure you have a shovel!
These are both things I'd be very interested in, especially if they had wide ranging affects. For instance other companions getting a boost/positive thought from paying their respects, or rivals/religious factions getting more angry due to the grave digging.
I like both of those ideas. I'll have to think about how best that kind of thing could be implemented!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 17, 2014, 09:30:48 am
Below is a screenshot of the player wandering around a lower-class housing district, having just come through a gate from another district (the large white door below the player). You can see a number of connected buildings, each with a single locked door. I have to say, just walking around these city districts is incredibly exciting. Even though there are no NPCs wandering around yet and you can’t get into buildings, it feels very dense and very like you’re wandering around a game now, rather than a world where a game is being developed. As part of this I’m also carrying out a major overhaul of how saving and loading works – to prevent larger file sizes causing slower load times – and, in turn, of how doors and interiors work. The new system is almost so laughably simple I’m ashamed I didn’t create it a year or so ago, but there you go. This will allow interiors to be made and handled on the fly, so that these interiors don’t have to be made until you actually need them, and will create a far superior database structure for the future. It’s not exciting work, but this kind of optimizing I try to do each release goes a long way to preparing the game for the future. If I still had the data structure now I had two years ago the game would have slowed to a halt, and this big change is another step along that same path. Anyway, here’s the district as seen in-game…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/TerrainTest10.png)
… and here is a debug screenshot of how the map looked after I’d explored roughly a quarter of this one district:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/145x90_Ex.png)
I’m still working on the exact mechanics for moving between districts, but as mentioned in previous entries each district will be distinct. Some might spread over two or even three map grids, in which case you can move between them without going through a gate, but otherwise you need to find yourself a gate (on the edges in each grid) and pass through them. In later versions some may be guarded, or locked under certain conditions, and I hope to have the regions of the city you have access to partially determined by your relationship with different factions in that city.
The next picture shows a quick floodfill on all the tiles of the map that are not wall or buildings. As you can see we get some central alleys where the main roads are, and then a fairly complex web of pathways outside from them. Do note there is a difference here from the slums I showed a few weeks ago – the paths here are straighter and longer, and rather more regular, whilst the buildings are generally a little larger and there are generally two tiles of gap between buildings rather than just one. Also the map below does not show any special buildings that may spawn in lower-class housing districts – such as black markets, prisons, slave quarters (if the civilization is a slaving one), asylums, and other goodness. I’ve been composing quite a list of special buildings for each district that can integrate well into the dense world lore the game generates (and that serves as your basis for exploration and sidequests), and these are some examples of the special buildings that will appear in these districts.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/Roadmap.png)
Next week… I have no idea. Probably more city districts, though it’s not impossible I’ll be doing some work on settlements or finishing off graveyards instead by then (the system for connecting graves to histories is working, but needs tweaking to ensure all histories are “caught” by the system). Equally, I might be doing a lot of under-the-hood work this week to implement that new saving/loading system, which is one of those coding tasks that should be relatively simple but will probably take a fair bit of time to complete. Or something else! I’m reaching the point in the release where the number of aspects I have ongoing are spiraling outwards, which will be the case for the next month or so before I start to bring all the strands back in. See you next week!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 19, 2014, 07:24:00 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 24, 2014, 02:36:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 26, 2014, 10:18:04 am
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BokjjdiIQAE2D4D.png)
Post by: Neonivek on May 26, 2014, 11:19:44 am
I always said Ultima Ratio Regum was a Sandbox Bagel Sandwich
Post by: dennislp3 on May 26, 2014, 12:24:22 pm
Post by: BlindKitty on May 26, 2014, 12:31:45 pm
Post by: hops on May 26, 2014, 07:39:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 28, 2014, 07:21:11 pm
Anyhoo, working (whilst at a Canadian game studies conference) on this week's update which will be a pretty sizable one, I hope. More on districts, shops, special buildings, other such goodness...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 02, 2014, 02:21:56 am
Housing Districts: I’ve worked on the standard building distribution for middle-class housing districts. Much like lower-class housing districts (and every other) these will be populated with special buildings as well, which I’ll talk a bit about below, but these are the standard looks for this kind of district. Compared to their lower-class brethren, I wanted to make some pretty obvious changes to the algorithm here – more roads and a clearer road system, larger buildings, fewer connected buildings, some more open spaces (especially near main roads), and more trees. I’m now working on deciding what rare buildings should spawn in these areas, and I’m hoping to finish the districts I’m working on currently before moving onto any others, though I confess working on docks generation – especially given its future link to sea travel – is rather exciting too.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Twodis.png)
I’ve also begun integrating rivers into city districts, which is proving to be an interesting challenge. In some cases it needs to account for where a river is coming through in order to move the doorways between districts; the gates between each sector can be placed in the middle of a wall or on the left/right side (or the top/bottom if a vertical side) and if there’s a river, the river has to take priority. Here are two examples of rivers; as you can see, the in the top picture it needs to figure out how to place bridges intelligently, which I’ll get on to dealing with soon, though the bottom picture works quite nicely. More on this once I’ve got rivers sorted.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/05/TerrainTest11.png)
Special Buildings: Housing districts will contain a range of other buildings. Lower-class housing districts, for example, may contain prisons, asylums, sewage works, arenas (if the civilization supports gladiatorial combat), slave quarters (if the civilization keeps slaves), etc. I’m not sure yet what middle-class districts will have, but I’m working on it. Maybe things like theaters, opera houses etc, might be fun if I can think of some clear gameplay value for them and integration with the rest of the game. Rarely a district will have one massive special building – the world’s largest prison, or asylum, for example – which will have significant representation in the world’s history and other information. Next week I should be able to show off both the normal-sized special buildings, and some of the larger, unique ones too (which will not spawn every game).
Markets (early version): One of the next districts I want to work on is the market district. Each city will only have one of these (and will be tied to the strategy layer in a way I’ll talk about some other time), and consists of a range of different things. It firstly places various shops along the main paths through the district – these may be any one of currently thirty-two different types of shop, ranging from a helmet shop to a cartographer, from a gunpowder shop to a botanist, and from an antiques shop to a general store. Some of these shops will also be closed or abandoned, and as time passes in the game other shops may open and some may close. I am still working out (in my head) the exact mechanics that I want to use in terms of shop stocks, restocking (or not), etc, but I think I have a good idea of how this is going to look. It then places some market squares where there will be several shops in the centre, in this case heavily biased towards general stores and certain other kinds of common, useful shop (but again, some may be closed). I’ve had a few very interesting ideas from people about what else I could include in market districts (since you can only have so many shops!) and these will include warehouses with large stockpiles locked away, currency exchange buildings, auction houses (still working on how exactly these function), and possibly guilds in the future if I decide to add them as another form of “faction” one can align to, along with religions and cults. So, in the picture below you can see the shops spread out along the main path through the area and the start of a market square in the bottom-right; next I’ll be adding the shops to the square and then adding the other buildings listed above, and should have a finished market district to show next time.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Market-early.png)
Shop Signs: Shops have signs next to their doors to show you what kind of shop they are. These are all depicted with shapes and symbols instead of words (though I confess, the antiques shop is depicted by an ‘A’ symbol). I haven’t yet finished varying the metal part of the sign, but here’s a decent impression of how the signs are looking. The shape of a shop sign is dependent on the civilization and the wood types are connected to what forms of wood grow in that area (so you won’t get taiga-only trees being used for shop signs in a desert, etc). There are currently thirty-two different shop signs, and I may have another seven or eight planned depending on how exactly I decide to distribute information and items between the different shop types.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Market-early1.png)
CGSA Talk: One of the reasons I managed very little coding this last fortnight was due to travelling to Toronto for the Canadian Game Studies Association conference. This was fantastic – and some people even knew me as the URR person, which blew my mind – and I gave a talk I mentioned in a previous post about the semiotics of roguelikes. I still intend to write this up into a full paper, possibly with a shorter-than-full-paper-but-longer-than-abstract version in the middle, but here’s the presentation slides I used for it. I’m afraid I never write notes for my presentations, but I think you can broadly guess what I was talking about from the context on the slides. Enjoy, and feel free to drop any questions in the comments! The last set of feedback was really useful and helped me correct a few mistakes and focus the talk a bit more. Disclaimer: a small number of colours for a small number of monsters were changed just for ease of viewing on a projector screen. FORGIVE ME, INTERNET. Download it:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/?wpdmact=process&did=NDMuaG90bGluaw==
Next week I will either be talking about city districts some more – probably with a focus on way more special buildings, and maybe finishing off market districts – or hunter-gatherer settlements, since I’ve done the initial stages of generating those but have yet to actually implement it fully, so we’ll see how that goes. Until next time!
Post by: Zireael on June 02, 2014, 07:25:21 am
Post by: Dutchling on June 02, 2014, 07:37:35 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 02, 2014, 06:18:54 pm
Posting to read the slides later.
Feel free to shoot with any questions - as I say, I think they're clear without my comments, but one or two slides might be a little obtuse without.
Nice update, as always.
Much obliged :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 07, 2014, 08:57:38 am
Settlement Patterns
I’ve started early drafting work on hunter-gatherer settlements. They all appear as ritualized patterns of building-placement – you might get one which looks like a spiral, as the one below, or any one of several dozen other shapes (which themselves vary between playthroughs, but broadly confirm to a preset archetype). Each will contain some crucial buildings such as a town hall, housing for their chieftain and a shrine (if their religion has outside worship), and then various others like forms of burial (pyres, crypts, graves, excarnation platforms, etc), later probably some enclosures for animals, etc. They have no “shops” as such – those who trade are simply individuals who will do so from their own homes. I’m still deciding if all hunter-gatherer civilizations will have a barter system, or have their own forms of currency (shells, certain types of pebbles, etc) they use instead. I think a mix could be interesting, but we’ll see. Each also has a different form of building construction – some use mud bricks, some wattle and daub, some blocks of ice (if located in tundra), some use thatch, some use stone, and so on. Here’s an example of one possible layout, though so far lacking much detail beyond just standard buildings and one or two special ones near the core:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest1.png)
One thing I struggled with what a distinct thematic role for them compared to cities, towns and nomadic fortresses. I’ve now settled on something I’ll talk about in more detail in a later entry, but it focuses on the historical myths and legends of the world, and giving out particular kinds of information that might only be available from them. As with all other settlements, of course, they will be connected to the world histories – if a historical entry mentions a great cavern beneath the settlement, that cavern will indeed be there…
District Buildings
I’ve started to add special buildings to city districts. This is just a very early example but should give a decent impression. This is a lower-class housing district which has had a prison, an asylum, a graveyard and some slave quarters spawned in it. Naturally each will have a huge number of designs (with some randomized aspects within those designs), and these designs are just a placeholder, but you get the idea. As mentioned before there will also be some rare, unique, larger special buildings that take up the entire district and are world-renowned (“the world’s greatest prison”, etc), which I hope to show off soon. Although I haven’t yet begun work on them, I’ve figured out how I’m going to get upper-class housing districts to spawn, and I have some ideas for docks and making appropriate room for ships to appear and dock in later releases, so I might work on those in the near future.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest3.png)
Development Plan
I’ve updated the development plan (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/). I’ve been thinking for some time about the correct order to do the four releases after this one, and I have settled on what is undoubtedly the most logical sequence based on the dependencies each may have with the other. The next release will focus on building interiors and redoing the interior saving/loading system to make it far more efficient (part of the gradual efficiency-improvement of the overall game as talked about last week); then I’ll be adding NPCs, and then moving onto a release I’m particularly excited about which was basically heavily focus on the strategy layer of the game – currencies, movement on the world map, etc. Depending on how long the NPC release takes (it might be much easier than expected) those might be combined into one. After that, we’ll be onto generating weapons and armour and various other items, and implementing combat for the first time. Dev plan:
CROPS!!!!
On one of my first and most-jetlagged days back I didn’t feel up to any coding, so I threw together the procedural graphics for most of the crops that can show up on farms, and also added fruit to fruit trees. THIS IS CRUCIAL.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Plernts.png)
Concluding Thoughts
So, things are moving once more, and hopefully will pick up a little bit more speed from here on in. I’m balancing my coding at the moment between settlements and city districts, so it could be either of those next week, or something totally different. From now on I’m not really going to try to predict what I’ll post on next week because, as time and experience has shown us, I basically never get it right.
Post by: Retropunch on June 07, 2014, 10:10:13 am
I have to confess though, I do have a worry. I've tried to hold back from mentioning it, and I feel like it's a sin of which the gods of proceduralism will strike me down with a procedurally textured lightning bolt:
There might be too much stuff. I just mean this in that I'm assuming you're going to have each building be enter-able/usable, and even the most tenacious explorer might find that they're way too much stuff to look in. In the lower class housing picture you've got over 200 houses, and I'm assuming only 5-10 of those would be of real use to the player.
One way round this might be to have the inside of cities without a fog-of-war (for want of the real term) and have the useful buildings (shops and such) very well highlighted, with a rule being that non-useful houses will have nothing in them. By this rule I just mean that even if the player finds one coin in a box, they'll then smash every box to find more - I feel it'd work very much the same here, if you had one mundane house with something useful in (that wasn't just flavor) the player would be tempted to go through every house.
It's a tricky one, and something I hate to say, but I do feel it needs to be addressed otherwise it'd be just wayyyy too much work for the player.
Post by: Dutchling on June 07, 2014, 10:52:50 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 07, 2014, 11:25:33 am
I know I say this every time, but that looks awwwwwesome. With special buildings in it looks like a proper, living city. I'd thoroughly recommend putting in loads more small features if you get time, like broken down houses, bonfires and other small aesthetics.
I have to confess though, I do have a worry. I've tried to hold back from mentioning it, and I feel like it's a sin of which the gods of proceduralism will strike me down with a procedurally textured lightning bolt:
There might be too much stuff. I just mean this in that I'm assuming you're going to have each building be enter-able/usable, and even the most tenacious explorer might find that they're way too much stuff to look in. In the lower class housing picture you've got over 200 houses, and I'm assuming only 5-10 of those would be of real use to the player.
One way round this might be to have the inside of cities without a fog-of-war (for want of the real term) and have the useful buildings (shops and such) very well highlighted, with a rule being that non-useful houses will have nothing in them. By this rule I just mean that even if the player finds one coin in a box, they'll then smash every box to find more - I feel it'd work very much the same here, if you had one mundane house with something useful in (that wasn't just flavor) the player would be tempted to go through every house.
It's a tricky one, and something I hate to say, but I do feel it needs to be addressed otherwise it'd be just wayyyy too much work for the player.
Thanks! So glad you like it :). As for your very amusing query, I actually already have a full solution in place consisting of several components:
Firstly, you will require a key for any house - there will be no way to pass through doors without keys.
Secondly, different districts cost different amounts at customs houses to enter. Thus, you cannot infinitely go around a city - one aspect of the strategic layer of the game will be planning your path through a new city you've just reached based on what parts you want/need to visit, how much of that civ's currency you have, etc.
Thirdly, since the non-food-clock (which I'll talk about some other time) will keep you moving forward like most roguelikes, you can't revisit and endlessly wander around cities. You will need to make decisions, as above, about what to visit, when to visit it, etc. I find something actually very compelling and exciting about the idea of a procedurally generated world that is of such a size you cannot visit it all in one playthrough. There will always be nations unseen, houses unvisited! Some of these houses might hide black markets, or cults, or access to sewers or underground areas, or whatever else, but most of them won't, and they can anyway only be entered with the specific keys. And that nation will never generate again, even though you never got to see it. I think that will lend a real feeling of weight to your decisions, of discovery when you do find yourself somewhere new, and just the overall thematic feeling I'm going for - that of a world great in size, but also one very detailed and dense, and largely unknown, and that you simply cannot uncover it all in one playthrough.
The combination of those three means you simply can't toddle around a city visiting everything, but rather what you choose to visit will be much more focused towards your in-game objectives. It's an unusual system, I recognize this, but I think the kind of decision-making will work amazingly well whilst still keeping the feeling of a huge and expansive and interconnected world. Even if you just wanted to get every key for even a single district, you wouldn't have time. There's a huge amount "hidden" behind closed doors in each district, and it'll be up to the player to choose which bits are worth going after.
That or add, you know, law enforcement? :P
Ha! This also.
Post by: Retropunch on June 07, 2014, 11:44:31 am
EXTREMELY INTERESTING THINGS
Ha! This also.
That does sound very interesting, and I too love the idea of not being able to see everything in one play-through, especially when there is such a rich history with each faction/cult/nation. However, I'm still trying to understand how it works - lets say you have 200 houses on your screen (like the lower class district one) - you can't have keys for all the houses, so I'm guessing some will just be permanently locked? Where do you find these keys? Will the houses that you have keys for show up on the screen in a different color/have indicators?
Sorry for the stream of questions, I just can't imagine how to deal with navigating 200 or so houses!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 09, 2014, 12:27:16 pm
EXTREMELY INTERESTING THINGS
Ha! This also.
That does sound very interesting, and I too love the idea of not being able to see everything in one play-through, especially when there is such a rich history with each faction/cult/nation. However, I'm still trying to understand how it works - lets say you have 200 houses on your screen (like the lower class district one) - you can't have keys for all the houses, so I'm guessing some will just be permanently locked? Where do you find these keys? Will the houses that you have keys for show up on the screen in a different color/have indicators?
Sorry for the stream of questions, I just can't imagine how to deal with navigating 200 or so houses!
Excellent! Keys will be found from various places, but generally from individuals; if only a couple of those houses have special items, say, or a route to an underground black market, or similar, those keys will be much easier (but still not "easy") to locate and acquire. No, for keys, it won't immediately tell you what the key is for unless you actually know (so you get it from someone who says "This is the key for ___"). It has always bugged me in games how you instantly magically know what a key is for - instead you'll have to figure out by various contextual clues, but if you *do* know what the key is, I don't dislike the highlighting idea. That might be workable! I want to strike a balance between ease of use and not magically knowing the key's origin, but I think I have it worked out. Keysmiths, in lower-class housing districts and slums, will be very useful in this regard, if you can afford their prices :). Do, of course, bear in mind this is just one district in the picture, not the entire city - a city will have thousands of houses, and whilst they WILL all have keys, you'll only ever come across a few, and if you were to just start stabbing everyone for their keys, it might not end well. I... think that answers your questions, but let me know if it doesn't. I like fielding any queries, it's very nice that you're interested in the project!
In other news, yesterday the roads in URR turned to lava and farms ceased to have crops. It was basically the apocalypse, but IT HAS NOW BEEN FIXED.
Post by: Retropunch on June 09, 2014, 02:12:29 pm
In other news, yesterday the roads in URR turned to lava and farms ceased to have crops. It was basically the apocalypse, but IT HAS NOW BEEN FIXED.ALL HAIL THE ROADS OF LAVA, FROM STONE TO FIRE, FROM STONE TO FIRE!
(please include a reference to lava roads in your cult creation!)
I guess it does answer my question and does sound very exciting (see: heavy convulsions of excitement) but I still just can't imagine how it could be manageable and not a bit of a grind fest of checking loads of houses.
For instance, if you've got 200 or so houses per area, and without specific guidance (which might mean highlighting) I can imagine it being a bit of a slog just trying loads of random houses, even with some rough directions (and I can't imagine how to do really good ones with procedurally generated terrain/features). Similarly, having loads of houses that you could potentially enter which might have great stuff in (but which you don't have keys for) might grate a bit on some players.
I completely agree that magic location isn't great, but perhaps the houses (or doors) you have keys for could glow/highlight when you're near? I just think that with so many houses/buildings and such a deep history/atmosphere, you don't want the main part of the game to be 'hunt the house'.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 12, 2014, 05:28:53 am
In other news, yesterday the roads in URR turned to lava and farms ceased to have crops. It was basically the apocalypse, but IT HAS NOW BEEN FIXED.ALL HAIL THE ROADS OF LAVA, FROM STONE TO FIRE, FROM STONE TO FIRE!
(please include a reference to lava roads in your cult creation!)
I guess it does answer my question and does sound very exciting (see: heavy convulsions of excitement) but I still just can't imagine how it could be manageable and not a bit of a grind fest of checking loads of houses.
For instance, if you've got 200 or so houses per area, and without specific guidance (which might mean highlighting) I can imagine it being a bit of a slog just trying loads of random houses, even with some rough directions (and I can't imagine how to do really good ones with procedurally generated terrain/features). Similarly, having loads of houses that you could potentially enter which might have great stuff in (but which you don't have keys for) might grate a bit on some players.
I completely agree that magic location isn't great, but perhaps the houses (or doors) you have keys for could glow/highlight when you're near? I just think that with so many houses/buildings and such a deep history/atmosphere, you don't want the main part of the game to be 'hunt the house'.
Haha, I shall try! Hmm - you make a compelling argument for the highlighting. Perhaps only certain things highlight; maybe houses and regular buildings highlight, but special buildings you have the keys for don't highlight. Perhaps the compromise is that when the *player character* has knowledge of that key, it highlights; otherwise it doesn't. Importantly, just going around trying every lock for a key will quickly raise the suspicions of the city's security forces, which will be one major thing preventing you from finding a key and just trying it everywhere until you find somewhere it works. Once you know the location of the key, though, I don't see any issue with the highlighting idea! If the player doesn't know the key's use nothing will be highlighted (and trying every lock will get you in trouble); if the player character does, it'll be highlighted. The release after the one I'm working on now will be handling interiors, so I'll be implementing keys and whatnot then. I like this model so it'll be the first thing I try!
Post by: hops on June 13, 2014, 05:58:48 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 13, 2014, 10:15:34 am
Too bad that this is extremely low fantasy. I'd love some vengeful god turning floor into lava.
No lava gods, alas :(
Post by: Nighthawk on June 13, 2014, 11:09:16 pm
The amount of dedication you're putting into every part of the work is just astounding. There aren't many devs that are willing to pay so much attention to one aspect of the game to the point of ensuring that shop signs are made of the proper wood. Really. That is some serious attention to detail.
I can just imagine seeing the streets of a city bustling with workers, or a plaza hosting an execution attended by crowds of onlookers, or the scorched remains of a town after it is sacked by an opposing army.
I'm really excited for this. :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 14, 2014, 04:41:09 pm
Oh, my. It's been a while since I last checked up on this project, and... wow. I'm tempted to put myself into cryostasis with instructions to be awoken when the game is complete.
The amount of dedication you're putting into every part of the work is just astounding. There aren't many devs that are willing to pay so much attention to one aspect of the game to the point of ensuring that shop signs are made of the proper wood. Really. That is some serious attention to detail.
I can just imagine seeing the streets of a city bustling with workers, or a plaza hosting an execution attended by crowds of onlookers, or the scorched remains of a town after it is sacked by an opposing army.
I'm really excited for this. :D
Haha, you and me both! Thanks a ton :). The level of detail I'm going for has really just evolved quite organically over the process - so many of the games I like the worldbuilding/storytelling in the most have these incredibly dense, detailed worlds where everything subscribes to a certain kind of consistent "logic" (even if a fantasy/SF/whatever world), and that's something I'm really trying to emulate. As for NPCs, we're now only a release-and-a-half until I'll be working on NPCs! I'm incredibly excited about working on that release. I *hugely* appreciate the feedback, anyway! So great to know people like the project.
Post by: Neonivek on June 14, 2014, 04:45:13 pm
Quote
Haha, you and me both!
While I know what you mean I am chosing to misinterpret it.
Uhhh URR, I think there is a bit of logistical problems with you freezing yourself until the game is done. In that... I think you need to be awake to finish it... unless you aren't the... Your a robot!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 15, 2014, 12:50:54 am
QuoteHaha, you and me both!
While I know what you mean I am chosing to misinterpret it.
Uhhh URR, I think there is a bit of logistical problems with you freezing yourself until the game is done. In that... I think you need to be awake to finish it... unless you aren't the... Your a robot!
My secret is out!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 15, 2014, 03:03:54 am
Markets
Market districts are now finished. They generate a large number of shops, a warehouse for each of those shops (each of which will have a key located somewhere, or in someone’s possession), and an auction house and a currency exchange (the ‘+’-shaped building and the octagonal building respectively), though I am still figuring out the exact mechanics for auctions. They can now also handle rivers and various road layouts correctly, and all the shops spawn with shop signs on them so you know (assuming you can deduce the meaning of the symbol!) what kind of shop it is. Here’s one without a river and with the warehouse districts quite spread out…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest4.png)
… and here’s one with a river. Note that only the largest roads are turned into bridges for crossing the river, and due to the placement of the major roads, the warehouses are clustered in the upper-left corner.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest5.png)
I’ve also taken the graphics for shop signs out of my graphics file and integrated them into the game, as well as finishing off a few final signs I hadn’t sorted out (like those for auction houses and currency exchanges). Each market contains a lot, but you won’t be going back-and-forth to the same district over and over; once the story is implemented and you know your objectives, I wouldn’t expect you to visit the same market more than a couple of times at the most, but therein lies another strategic decision about returning to the same market for an item you couldn’t afford last time, or pushing onwards. Anyway, with this graphical integration you can now look at the shop sign and get a symbol depicting the use of that shop, as in this screenshot with the player wandering around a desert city:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Arena1.png)
Farms
I’ve finished farms. All graphics for crops and fruit trees are implemented, the generator is now more varied, farmhouses and other appropriate buildings spawned (which will one day be connected to the “sidequest” generation – perhaps a wanted criminal is hiding out in one?) and a few remaining bugs with them have been fixed. Farm generation has also been tweaked a little to make things more appropriate for different terrains and climates, and I’ve started to put in the appropriate data structures required for later handling things like animals in climates where crops might not grow so readily. Needless to say, farms are not exactly a core part of the game, but I think it’s important that even tangential parts of the world are highly detailed. So many fictional worlds (games and otherwise) fall apart on their unexplained aspects, and it’s hard to imagine empires being sustained without some kind of food source…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Farm1.png)
Settlements
More progress on hunter-gatherer settlements. They now spawn with an appropriate kind of building material for all their buildings. The settlement below is built from stone, but these materials include wattle & daub, wood, stone, mud bricks, blocks of snow (in polar regions), and many others. In the middle of this settlement you can see the house of the Wolf-Chieftain who ruled this civilization, the town hall (the long building), and also a ‘?’ within a walled-off area. I’ll be talking more about that ‘?’ next week, since as long-time players know, a ‘?’ is always something that can be viewed and read – an inscription, a shop sign, or in this case, a standing stone.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest6.png)
Towns
Lots of progress on towns. They now spawn actual buildings rather than lava placeholders (though I am sure some will be saddened by this news), doors spawn everywhere needed, shops now spawn (there’s only a very small number with a limited potential set of shops that can be chosen upon generation), and various other important buildings like town halls, barracks (if the civ is sufficiently militaristic), taverns, small graveyards and the like also generate. One of the things I need to work on next is getting religious buildings to generate, since each civilization’s religion will have a unique generated layout for its churches (or abbeys, chapels, basilicas, mosques, rectories, pagodas – whatever term that civilization prefers). I’ve also handled towns that spawn at the end of a road or spawn on no road at all (very rare), as those were causing a few issues with generating appropriate road patterns when there was no “core” road pre-existing on the map grid to go by.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest7.png)
I’m now going to renege slightly on my promise from last week to “never predict the next update”, and state that the standing stones mentioned above will definitely be included, though beyond that I’m not sure what else. Possibly some graphics, or another city district if I’m feeling like it. I’ve been doing a lot of draft work on paper to think about how docks and upper-class housing districts are going to generate, so it’s possible one of those will be coming next. Anyway, thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!
Post by: wobbly on June 15, 2014, 03:29:43 am
Do you mind saying a bit about how the time limit is going to work? I'm generally not a fan of time limits, but I don't mind them when they err on the side of generous (e.g. you can take your time, but you can't scum for instance). I generally like to take my time & explore the world, would be a shame if that wasn't possible.
Post by: Ivefan on June 15, 2014, 11:34:16 am
Some pretty nice work there. Looks well on it's way to being the most visually stunning rogue-like I've seen.
Do you mind saying a bit about how the time limit is going to work? I'm generally not a fan of time limits, but I don't mind them when they err on the side of generous (e.g. you can take your time, but you can't scum for instance). I generally like to take my time & explore the world, would be a shame if that wasn't possible.
Seconded.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 15, 2014, 09:34:33 pm
Some pretty nice work there. Looks well on it's way to being the most visually stunning rogue-like I've seen.
Do you mind saying a bit about how the time limit is going to work? I'm generally not a fan of time limits, but I don't mind them when they err on the side of generous (e.g. you can take your time, but you can't scum for instance). I generally like to take my time & explore the world, would be a shame if that wasn't possible.
Seconded.
Thank you, and sure! Well, the timer is best compared to the corruptions system in ADOM. It's not a food clock where you have to constantly top it up, but rather something "abstracted" out from the world a little bit which can be sped up/slowed down based on your in-game actions. It is linked, as you might expect, to the main quest, and connects to many of the high-level strategic choices I want the player to be making - where do you explore, who do you ally with, etc, knowing that you cannot do all or everything in one playthrough. As I mentioned in some other comment somewhere in this (endlessly ballooning!) thread, I find there to be something incredibly compelling about the idea of a world that you do *not* have time to explore everything in. A world where even if you complete the game, there might be nations you've only heard whispers or rumours of but never got the time to visit. A world where you have to make choices and prioritize your exploration. So, exploration is a core part of the game, rest assured on that. But, you cannot just meander around forever! Decisions must be made and priorities... er... prioritized. From my early experimentation of this on some unreleased builds, it lends an amazing sense of significance to your exploration choices, and to those parts of the world you uncover. I recognize it's an unusual idea for a core strategy-level mechanic but I think it'll work amazingly well. Equally, the level of detail in the game is important to this - although the world is procedurally generated, I want it to always feel hand-made. It will naturally need playtesting to find the exact balance for freedom/stopping-scumming, but that's a playtesting issue, not an overall mechanic issue. Hope that answers the question! :)
Post by: Retropunch on June 16, 2014, 06:18:19 am
Thank you, and sure! Well, the timer is best compared to the corruptions system in ADOM. It's not a food clock where you have to constantly top it up, but rather-snip-
Very interesting indeed. I love the idea of not being able to visit everywhere, especially when everything is newly generated each game - with enough difference between nations/places this would become something truly, truly remarkable. Tossing up the choice between visiting the Shining desert kingdom of Aaz'rh or the Swamp Citadel of Ringantal whilst knowing you only have enough time to do one would make me squirm in a truly horrified and fascinated manner.
I think what most people are opposed to is a sort of food/age clock which progresses on arbitrarily whilst you're just wandering around taking in the sights. From what you've said, it sounds like you're just tying it to strategic/logistical issues (such as travelling between cities, sending messages etc.) instead of the actual wandering around type stuff?
If you are, I would suggest to still have the days progress very slowly whilst you're on foot (maybe 24/48 minutes per day?) - nothing is more jarring than games where time completely stops when you're not purposefully waiting/resting.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 22, 2014, 04:38:30 am
Thank you, and sure! Well, the timer is best compared to the corruptions system in ADOM. It's not a food clock where you have to constantly top it up, but rather-snip-
Very interesting indeed. I love the idea of not being able to visit everywhere, especially when everything is newly generated each game - with enough difference between nations/places this would become something truly, truly remarkable. Tossing up the choice between visiting the Shining desert kingdom of Aaz'rh or the Swamp Citadel of Ringantal whilst knowing you only have enough time to do one would make me squirm in a truly horrified and fascinated manner.
I think what most people are opposed to is a sort of food/age clock which progresses on arbitrarily whilst you're just wandering around taking in the sights. From what you've said, it sounds like you're just tying it to strategic/logistical issues (such as travelling between cities, sending messages etc.) instead of the actual wandering around type stuff?
If you are, I would suggest to still have the days progress very slowly whilst you're on foot (maybe 24/48 minutes per day?) - nothing is more jarring than games where time completely stops when you're not purposefully waiting/resting.
I love how you put it re: horrified & fascinated - that's *exactly* what I'm going for. Well, the clock advances whatever you're doing (I know I keep saying this, but the actual nature of the clock will be explained later) along with the time/date. The time/date advance according to your actions and the terrain you're passing through; a frozen mountain pass will naturally take longer to cross than a farm. I'm still working on balancing exactly how long time takes, actually, since that's a surprisingly tricky thing to balance between it not being so slow you can explore 50% of the world in a "day", whilst not having it so fast that entire weeks will cycle by whilst you're exploring a city. It is possible I will need to extend the world map just a little to make these "proportions" a bit more appropriate. But yes, the clock is effectively tied to strategic issues; which is to say, poor strategic choices will "lose you" time you could have otherwise been spending progressing. For the next few releases the game will remain totally clock-free, since until the story etc is in I just want to let people explore it freely! Once i reach the point of actually implementing the "game" aspects above the world-building aspects, then I'll be able to say a lot more on it :)
Post by: Retropunch on June 22, 2014, 11:19:38 am
snip-snipThat sounds very interesting - I'm sure there will be a lot of balancing to come later but that's a very 'cross the bridge when we come to it' kinda thing.
Those four screenshots of districts stitched together look amazing, you really get a sense of what it'll look like all together. Just as a tiny wrinkle, from both a sort of realism and ease of play perspective it might be good to have a main-ish road running through the slum to the front gate. At ground level I imagine it might be difficult to navigate without one and while slums are supposed to be hard to navigate, having a focal point might make it a lot more reasonable.
I figuratively and literally can't wait for the next release!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 22, 2014, 07:27:11 pm
snip-snipThat sounds very interesting - I'm sure there will be a lot of balancing to come later but that's a very 'cross the bridge when we come to it' kinda thing.
Those four screenshots of districts stitched together look amazing, you really get a sense of what it'll look like all together. Just as a tiny wrinkle, from both a sort of realism and ease of play perspective it might be good to have a main-ish road running through the slum to the front gate. At ground level I imagine it might be difficult to navigate without one and while slums are supposed to be hard to navigate, having a focal point might make it a lot more reasonable.
I figuratively and literally can't wait for the next release!
Exactly this re: the bridge. I'm planning it out on paper, but the exact values will just need a lot of playtesting. Thanks! In this particular instance the four weren't actually together on the map, there would normally be a road going through the slum, I just took four screenshots and stitched them together to give the effect of what they looked like! I'd say I'm near to the 50% point on this release - there's a lot done, but a lot yet to do (and I have some serious academic commitments in the next few weeks), but I also need to lay the groundwork for 0.7 which will be generating all the interiors for these snazzy places :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 22, 2014, 08:50:30 pm
This week’s main project has been on upper-class housing. There will only be one of these districts in each city and will contain three manors for the most important families in that civilization (including your family); a number of smaller manors for the “second tier” of wealthiest family within that nation; then a range of large houses (larger than what any other district offers) for other wealthy families but ones who cannot quite afford one of these ostentatious manors. In this version you will begin the game in the courtyard of the manor for your family, whilst in other versions once the early-game story introduction is in place, you’ll spawn within the manor (though once you know what the introduction is, you will naturally be able to leave right away and begin the game).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest9.png)
For the sake of interest I also put together an image to show the four different levels of housing. Note that this is four screenshots stitched together – hence why the roads do not match up between districts – but remains nicely illustrative of the four different levels. I’m very pleased with the kind of variation between upper class/middle class/lower class/slums and can’t wait until the point where I can put together an entire image of a city in all its glory. Markets as discussed before are finished, recreational and medical districts are being removed (and absorbed into others), and my next district is probably going to be military districts, though that requires quite a bit of thought first about what exactly I want spawning there.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Trend.png)
Banks and Currencies
For the most part currencies are scheduled for a few releases hence (at least the generation of their images, exchange rates, etc), but since I came up with an interesting idea for banks on the strategic level of the game, I realized I need to implement at least the names of the currencies now even if their full realization would have to wait. As in the real world, the overwhelming majority of coins are metallic, though there are a very small number made from rather more unusual materials that you may come across (no more than one or two per game). Each currency is termed according to the material of its construction and the image that will be on the coin – you might encounter civilizations that deal in Golden Stags, Silver Wolves, Steel Fires, Bronze Axes, Copper Dragons, etc. Some also break down into lesser denominations like shillings, pence, cents, etc (a quick Google for a large number of these terms proved incredibly helpful).
Now, each civilization (Feudals only) will have a central bank with branches in some of its middle-class districts. I wasn’t sure at first what role these could play, but I had an interesting idea for the strategy layer of the game. As I’ve talked about before, the strategy layer of the game will involve navigating the world map in a range of difference ways. Different terrain types and elevations will take different periods of time to go across; some nations will be friendly, some hostile, some unknown; whilst mountains can only be crossed with a mountain pass, deserts with a caravan, and the ocean by finding a trade route and someone willing to accept you onto their ship. One other aspect of this layer is money – different districts will cost different amounts to enter, some exchange rates will/won’t be in your favour, and as you move around the world, you’ll quickly leave your home civilization far behind. Thus, once the strategy layer is implemented you will be able to invest your money into the bank in any civilization you pass through, and interest will accrue, but only in increments of one month and can only be collected if you pass back through that civilization again. The one-month requirement prevents farming (there is no way you can wait around a full month!) whilst it will raise another interesting strategic decision. Do I leave some money here on the assumption I’ll come back later to collect it? How much currency do I think I’ll need on my journeys before I next return to this city? Etc. It’s just a small aspect, but banks now spawn in middle-class districts, ready to receive future customers.
Special Buildings
Some more work on special buildings. There are going to be roughly twenty-five in total, and whilst they will not all spawn every game, a decent number of them will; they will then be distributed through-out the world’s cities. This means not every city is going to have one, but most cities will, and these special buildings will be especially prominent in world histories. Some will relate to the core quest, some will relate to other things, and they’ll generally add a little more variety. They will also allow me to further explore some of the sociological themes I want to get at in the game, so below is a screenshot of the player walking around the outside of the Panopticon prison (which this time happened to spawn in a near-polar nation):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Panop.png)
Next week, I can safely predict (for once) I’ll be talking about nomadic fortresses as I’ve been working on those the past couple of days. They’re starting to come together and have also helped me come to some conclusions about the role of military districts in cities, certain things to do with weapons (coming a few releases hence), and also to think through some other things about the strategy layer I’ll share next time. Until then, hope you enjoy the Ominous White Pentagon and the city districts, and let me know what you think.
Post by: darkflagrance on June 22, 2014, 09:46:40 pm
Post by: Man of Paper on June 22, 2014, 11:24:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 24, 2014, 10:51:03 pm
I hope that even if you implement a timer, you'll also implement a sand-box mode purely for exploration as well. The patterns your worlds generate make me feel like they need to be explored fully to be appreciated, and there is a kind of fun that can be had by leisurely breaking into mansions and interacting with their gardens and interiors.
I confess, I have no particular plans to do that. If I did, it would be like wizard mode in most roguelikes, i.e. a mode that is very explicitly just for testing/experimenting, but even that's unlikely (since so much of the game will be focused on exploration, secrets and figuring out what to do, any kind of wizmode would really ruin that).
I just want to kick things into a volcano when all is said and done.
One day, my friend. One day.
Post by: Retropunch on June 25, 2014, 07:56:25 am
I hope that even if you implement a timer, you'll also implement a sand-box mode purely for exploration as well. The patterns your worlds generate make me feel like they need to be explored fully to be appreciated, and there is a kind of fun that can be had by leisurely breaking into mansions and interacting with their gardens and interiors.I confess, I have no particular plans to do that. If I did, it would be like wizard mode in most roguelikes, i.e. a mode that is very explicitly just for testing/experimenting, but even that's unlikely (since so much of the game will be focused on exploration, secrets and figuring out what to do, any kind of wizmode would really ruin that).
I definitely think it's best not to have a mode like that - I find with a lot of games that have that mode it quickly becomes boring for the people who use it, and that creates tension with people saying that they've 'done everything' and want more. This is especially true with a game that is mostly exploration, as after you've explored everything the fun probably diminishes a lot.
Post by: coolio678 on June 25, 2014, 09:22:22 am
Post by: Retropunch on June 25, 2014, 10:04:49 am
I'd rather just have a way to export the world map upon completion or death before the save gets removed, so then you can commemorate/share a particularly cool city or something without breaking the gameplay challenge.
That sounds like a really awesome reward for completion actually!!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 26, 2014, 10:31:15 pm
I definitely think it's best not to have a mode like that - I find with a lot of games that have that mode it quickly becomes boring for the people who use it, and that creates tension with people saying that they've 'done everything' and want more. This is especially true with a game that is mostly exploration, as after you've explored everything the fun probably diminishes a lot.
Agreed, the impact of the actual discovery is totally lessened if you can just press Ctrl+Z and wander around and see everything anyway :\
I'd rather just have a way to export the world map upon completion or death before the save gets removed, so then you can commemorate/share a particularly cool city or something without breaking the gameplay challenge.
This is a great idea! Maybe something like the Civ "replay" map at the end of the game where it shows you every nation spreading, maybe something similar that gives you a mini-replay of your actions and you can save/export parts of the world you'd like to share?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 28, 2014, 02:05:29 am
Now on to the layouts of these fortresses. There are twelve different presets for fortress shapes, as shown in this illustrative and highly detailed diagram I created in the leading contemporary graphical software package, MS Paint:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Fshapes.png)
Most of these are self-explanatory – the ones with dots are ones where the entire fortress is not “enclosed” within walls, but many of the buildings surround the main towers of the settlement instead. It’s a rare variant, but one that I thought would add some nice variety. At time of writing five of these have been coded, and I hope to have the remaining ones finished in the next fortnight, then probably moving back to cities for a while. Below is one example of the “concentric circles” archetype. In the outer layer we see housing, and in the inner layer one region of barracks and military buildings with a second region of open-air markets. Gates in this case happen to have spawned in the west and east, and there are bridges for crossing the rivers, making sure every region of the fortress can be reached on foot. In all fortresses areas near the core are likely to be of soil or even have some plantlife, whilst the outer areas will remain covered in sand. Bear in mind, as ever, that screenshots of an entire map grid always look wildly different from a close-up (which you’ll have at the end of this post). Nevertheless:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Fts.png)
As you can see from that picture, the web of bridges and gates ensures that every area of the fortress can be accessed. In future versions once caravans are implemented there will be buildings and encampments around the fortress which will come and go as caravans and seasons pass, but these are the “stationary” parts that will remain constant.
Lastly, here’s two more screenshots, one from me entering a “square” archetype fortress, and one from a square fortress which had a river running through it, and its inhabitants had evidently decided to use it as a form of extra defence or a way to separate the different areas of the fortress, rather than just considering it something that had to be built around like those who crafted the circular fortress above.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest11.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/TerrainTest12.png)
TWO FINAL VERY IMPORTANT THINGS
Firstly, I’m going to be submitting my thesis within, I hope, a month (or at the most, perhaps a month and a half). This means the next 4-6 weeks are going to be very academically busy whilst I do the final edits to my hundred-thousand-word abomination masterpiece. I don’t yet know how many edits my supervisors will want (we’re meeting on the 4th of July to discuss this) and how long these will take to do, but whilst weekly updates will continue as ever, they may be shorter, or I may deploy some non-URR pieces I’ve had in the works for a little while. I think August remains a realistic target for 0.6, but we’re probably looking at the end of August, though it must be said this is the biggest release in some time. 0.7, by contrast, I would expect to be significantly shorter in duration.
Secondly, some absolutely incredible news has just come through regarding the next year of URR’s development (starting in two months once my thesis is submitted). I’m not really allowed to say any more on this topic yet, but by next week (or if not, definitely the week after) I should be able to make the appropriate announcement. GET HYPE.
Post by: darkflagrance on June 30, 2014, 04:33:00 pm
I definitely think it's best not to have a mode like that - I find with a lot of games that have that mode it quickly becomes boring for the people who use it, and that creates tension with people saying that they've 'done everything' and want more. This is especially true with a game that is mostly exploration, as after you've explored everything the fun probably diminishes a lot.
Agreed, the impact of the actual discovery is totally lessened if you can just press Ctrl+Z and wander around and see everything anyway :\I'd rather just have a way to export the world map upon completion or death before the save gets removed, so then you can commemorate/share a particularly cool city or something without breaking the gameplay challenge.
This is a great idea! Maybe something like the Civ "replay" map at the end of the game where it shows you every nation spreading, maybe something similar that gives you a mini-replay of your actions and you can save/export parts of the world you'd like to share?
I suspect that people will constantly clamor for a feature that removes time restrictions or allows some form of greater world access, and the fan base may become divided on this issue in the future. I tend to distrust examples of people seemingly growing bored with games after using "that mode" simply because a counterfactual where that same person was never exposed to "too much content" does not exist. I find it more convincing that people already bored with a game seek novelty by removing prior restrictions, and actually extend the game's lifespan for themselves.
Please don't take this as criticism. I just want to offer an alternate outlook to ensure that you are keeping your design goals well-thought out. ;D
Post by: Retropunch on June 30, 2014, 05:58:53 pm
I suspect that people will constantly clamor for a feature that removes time restrictions or allows some form of greater world access, and the fan base may become divided on this issue in the future. I tend to distrust examples of people seemingly growing bored with games after using "that mode" simply because a counterfactual where that same person was never exposed to "too much content" does not exist. I find it more convincing that people already bored with a game seek novelty by removing prior restrictions, and actually extend the game's lifespan for themselves.
Please don't take this as criticism. I just want to offer an alternate outlook to ensure that you are keeping your design goals well-thought out. ;D
I certainly agree that with some games sandbox modes are absolutely a good addition and I love such features. The only issue with URR is that it's primarily (from what I gather) an exploration game, or at least that's a huge part of it. If you allow the player to see pretty much everything in one sitting, that part of the game is pretty much over. Sure you might want to go back over cool stuff again as a new character and whatever, but why bother when you can just load up your old save (or the version with an alive, hard as nails character) and just see everything using that.
I think a balance can be reached with a relaxed time frame which doesn't make the player feel rushed but that they don't have time to go to on extremely long trips that aren't on their path. I would suggest though that any timelimits need to be very well worked into the game, as nothing drives people more crazy than arbitrary time limits.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 03, 2014, 01:39:38 pm
I suspect that people will constantly clamor for a feature that removes time restrictions or allows some form of greater world access, and the fan base may become divided on this issue in the future. I tend to distrust examples of people seemingly growing bored with games after using "that mode" simply because a counterfactual where that same person was never exposed to "too much content" does not exist. I find it more convincing that people already bored with a game seek novelty by removing prior restrictions, and actually extend the game's lifespan for themselves.
Please don't take this as criticism. I just want to offer an alternate outlook to ensure that you are keeping your design goals well-thought out. ;D
I certainly agree that with some games sandbox modes are absolutely a good addition and I love such features. The only issue with URR is that it's primarily (from what I gather) an exploration game, or at least that's a huge part of it. If you allow the player to see pretty much everything in one sitting, that part of the game is pretty much over. Sure you might want to go back over cool stuff again as a new character and whatever, but why bother when you can just load up your old save (or the version with an alive, hard as nails character) and just see everything using that.
I think a balance can be reached with a relaxed time frame which doesn't make the player feel rushed but that they don't have time to go to on extremely long trips that aren't on their path. I would suggest though that any timelimits need to be very well worked into the game, as nothing drives people more crazy than arbitrary time limits.
Dark, not at all! I really appreciate all feedback :). I understand that is a possibility, but I think I'm trying to be very clear that it's never going to happen. If people want an open-world proc-gen game, I will happily recommend DF, but I am creating something slightly different. Giving URR a non-story mode would be as crippling as an invincibility option or similar in a Souls game (to my mind). When you can instantly see everything in a game that is focused around uncovering stuff, then...
To lead onto what Retro said: you are right Retro, it is a very exploration-focused game (or will be). So much will rest on exploration and figuring out where to go next, and that would be smashed by allowing something of this sort in the future (though all 0.x releases will naturally be restriction-free, just since I want you to see the world and the story isn't there yet!). As for your final paragraph, I totally agree. It's going to be a very challenging but very interesting balance issue when I come to it to figure out the exact values. The timer is intricately linked to the story and the quest, though, so I think it should feel anything but arbitrary.
Post by: Ivefan on July 03, 2014, 01:58:39 pm
but i can say that I am one that dislike timers because i put an effort into building a character and just the possibility of not being able to use something i have put an effort into annoys me.
And just because i tend to build my character I also tend to do as much as I can with it because I do not play a second time just to find the lesser percentage of the things I did not find.
The times I play a game again, often months or years after the first time. tends to be because I liked what I did the first time and kinda want to do it again.
Post by: Dutchling on July 03, 2014, 03:14:30 pm
I'm mostly just looking forward to a more finished version of the game! I know there's some alpha versions or whatever on your site but I can wait, for now...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 03, 2014, 04:09:48 pm
This is just my gaming habits or opinions and I might not be the intended audience,
but i can say that I am one that dislike timers because i put an effort into building a character and just the possibility of not being able to use something i have put an effort into annoys me.
And just because i tend to build my character I also tend to do as much as I can with it because I do not play a second time just to find the lesser percentage of the things I did not find.
The times I play a game again, often months or years after the first time. tends to be because I liked what I did the first time and kinda want to do it again.
This is interesting, but I'm not quite sure I've fully got what you mean. Surely by this logic - do you only play sandbox games? An FPS, say, with different levels is in the way you've described it no different from a food/corruption/whatever timer - you have to move forward, you cannot do everything/whatever you want. As I read it, you're basically saying you dislike non-sandbox games? Which is obviously totally fine! I'm just interested in whether I'm reading that correctly.
I generally dislike timers too, but I know far too little about the story mode to really justify having an opinion about it.
I'm mostly just looking forward to a more finished version of the game! I know there's some alpha versions or whatever on your site but I can wait, for now...
Again, as above, I would ask - I don't think a clock in a roguelike is really any different from any non-sandbox game, in many ways; you have to "move forward" to complete the game. Also, "Or whatever"? That's three years of work, matey! Rest assured I am coding as fast as my hands can code (which is actually pretty damned fast). I anticipate finishing the entire worldbuilding block in under a year from now!
HOWEVER, as mentioned in my last update, something pretty awesome should be announced on this week's update (or possibly the week after next, depending on a few things). Development is going to speed up big-time (and it's not a Kickstarter).
Post by: Ivefan on July 04, 2014, 09:52:59 am
I play most any kind of game but I would say you are wrong in the case of a FPS game, one cancan do everything/whatever one wants.
This is interesting, but I'm not quite sure I've fully got what you mean. Surely by this logic - do you only play sandbox games? An FPS, say, with different levels is in the way you've described it no different from a food/corruption/whatever timer - you have to move forward, you cannot do everything/whatever you want. As I read it, you're basically saying you dislike non-sandbox games? Which is obviously totally fine! I'm just interested in whether I'm reading that correctly.
Its just that there isn't anything else to do than to move forward, because looking at the details of the room can't be that interesting for long.
I was thinking of rpg games in my last post, and out of the old goodies i can only recall fallout having a timer which didn't matter unless one spent a lot of time traveling on the overworld map.
When i play a good crpg game I go through the area to find all the things I can find and the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.
I might pull out a good game again, Just like re-reading a good favorite book. Maybe I find some more content, but mostly because I've forgotten most of the dialogue and want to do it all again.
Did I make more sense out of it this time?
Post by: Retropunch on July 04, 2014, 10:15:51 am
the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.
Yeah it seems as though this is going as more of a 'choice based' (in the most flexible sense of the word) timer where you just can't do everything due to time, rather than a just a case of not being able to enjoy yourself and relax in wandering around.
It's hard to speculate, but I'd say 20-30% of stuff is probably about the right amount of stuff to have to miss. I think more than that and the player might feel a bit cheated/try to break the rules, but less than that and It'd be a bit meaningless.
Regardless, making a choice which causes something else to be locked out completely is something that I really enjoy in RPGs - it gives a lot of weight behind choices, especially if you can't undo it. I'd really like to see that kinda thing in URR.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2014, 07:26:33 am
I play most any kind of game but I would say you are wrong in the case of a FPS game, one cancan do everything/whatever one wants.
Its just that there isn't anything else to do than to move forward, because looking at the details of the room can't be that interesting for long.
I was thinking of rpg games in my last post, and out of the old goodies i can only recall fallout having a timer which didn't matter unless one spent a lot of time traveling on the overworld map.
When i play a good crpg game I go through the area to find all the things I can find and the only content that I do not see is the content that gets locked out due to the consequences of my choices. In a good RPG with many choices that might be up to 10% perhaps, But in recent RPG games the consequences of the players choices tends to matter so little that there barely is any difference between the playthroughs.
I might pull out a good game again, Just like re-reading a good favorite book. Maybe I find some more content, but mostly because I've forgotten most of the dialogue and want to do it all again.
Did I make more sense out of it this time?
Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft. URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.
Yeah it seems as though this is going as more of a 'choice based' (in the most flexible sense of the word) timer where you just can't do everything due to time, rather than a just a case of not being able to enjoy yourself and relax in wandering around.
It's hard to speculate, but I'd say 20-30% of stuff is probably about the right amount of stuff to have to miss. I think more than that and the player might feel a bit cheated/try to break the rules, but less than that and It'd be a bit meaningless.
Regardless, making a choice which causes something else to be locked out completely is something that I really enjoy in RPGs - it gives a lot of weight behind choices, especially if you can't undo it. I'd really like to see that kinda thing in URR.
You're said it perfectly in the first sentence. This is going to be especially relevant to the "factions" in URR - I've started adding religions and cults and nations, for instance, but I have others planned, and which you are allied with should affect where you can safely move, what allies you can recruit, whether some areas are safe/dangerous, etc. That's part of the strategy layer and I think should be an interesting one, especially as the politics of the world shift as time goes on.
Post by: Retropunch on July 05, 2014, 08:17:20 am
Although I have no idea about your situation, one thing I'd suggest (what I did!) if you are trying to live frugally is to consider moving to a cheaper country. I know it seems painstakingly obvious, but moving to somewhere like Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania can basically double your finances and are fantastic places to live. Also, even if you aren't going down the KS road, I'd suggest at least allowing donation - DF does fantastically out of it, and I'm sure many people would be willing to give you at least some money for soy milk.
And to think, just 3 or 4 years ago you completed Nethack for the first time!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2014, 10:01:27 am
In response to 'THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT', I firstly want to say congratulations! I'm incredibly excited both to see the progress, and that you've got the chance to work on it for a years time - living the dream!
Although I have no idea about your situation, one thing I'd suggest (what I did!) if you are trying to live frugally is to consider moving to a cheaper country. I know it seems painstakingly obvious, but moving to somewhere like Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania can basically double your finances and are fantastic places to live. Also, even if you aren't going down the KS road, I'd suggest at least allowing donation - DF does fantastically out of it, and I'm sure many people would be willing to give you at least some money for soy milk.
And to think, just 3 or 4 years ago you completed Nethack for the first time!
Haha, thanks! I'm going to post it properly here in a little bit (and a couple other forums). That's a very interesting idea, but that's certainly not happening this year - I'm moving to another (albeit cheaper) place in the UK with my closest friend for this year! As for the donations idea, I'm vaguely considering a Patreon to support me living (a fraction!) less frugally this year. I'm still reluctant, though, but we'll see how it goes. Ha, yeah, it's pretty weird. I'm... 24 now, I first discovered and won Nethack a few times when I was 18, moved to DCSS after a year or two, started URR when I was 21, and now I'm here. I'm just amazed by how awesome a community I've managed to build up in the last few years :). I'm genuinely really humbled by how much interest/support people have shown.
Post by: Ivefan on July 05, 2014, 10:42:50 am
Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft.When i play skyrim i dont even bother with quests unless theres a good item reward or similar benefit. or just because i want a target to try my character against. Because really, the plot sucks and the dialogues is on the level of SNES japanese RPGs.
If you have time, try playing Planescape tornment, fallout 1 or 2 or Baldurs gate. I recommend Planescape.
URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.This is good because that gives the player the impression that his choices matters.
Perhaps what i wanted to have said about the timer is that I do not want the timer to drive me on to a new area before i am done exhausting the stuff i can do in the current one.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2014, 04:36:25 am
Ahh, I do see what you mean. Interesting, and that makes total sense. You're definitely right modern games don't generally exclude certain parts of content if you go a certain route; I think I would have see that as a flaw, though. If you only exclude a little through player choices it rarely seems "worth" a second playthrough, and I think that's a mistake - game-design-wise, I think it makes sense to either have a game where your choices have a massive effect on the content you can/cannot access, and you can only see a small portion of the content in one release, or just don't bother. Take Skyrim - I haven't really played it, but from what I hear the civil war choice is basically pointless. That seems daft.When i play skyrim i dont even bother with quests unless theres a good item reward or similar benefit. or just because i want a target to try my character against. Because really, the plot sucks and the dialogues is on the level of SNES japanese RPGs.
If you have time, try playing Planescape tornment, fallout 1 or 2 or Baldurs gate. I recommend Planescape.URR will definitely be the former - and this leads me onto the next answer - but I'll definitely have a game where large sections are unlocked/locked based on your decisions.This is good because that gives the player the impression that his choices matters.
Perhaps what i wanted to have said about the timer is that I do not want the timer to drive me on to a new area before i am done exhausting the stuff i can do in the current one.
Hmmmmmm, exhausting... that's so hard to judge, as what does one define as an "area"? A town? A nation? A city? A particular dungeon or area? Not nitpicking, I think that's a serious point about how much one expects before moving on. But I don't think there's really much more for me to say on this, other than: it'll become clear in a few versions time! And when it does, I'll be working very hard on getting the balance just right.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2014, 04:55:28 am
So, last week I hinted towards a big announcement that had come through about URR’s future, and today I’m actually able to talk about it.
Short version: I’m going to be working on URR full-time for the next year, starting around September! And not a Kickstarter to be seen.
I’ve been thinking about this a while. As regular readers will know, URR has rapidly become the project in my life I care the most about, and whilst I’m currently doing a doctorate in one field of social science, I want to move into game studies before my first academic job. It started to seem that taking a year “out” would be the perfect way to combine these objectives – I could finally work on URR full-time and push ahead with it, whilst simultaneously having time to start publishing in game studies in anticipation for jobs further down the road. With a full year I know I can easily finish the entire worldbuilding segment within a year’s full-time, and that’s hugely exciting to me, and I really want to finish this block off. This means adding currencies, ships, ocean travel, mountain passes and caravans, and not to mention building interiors, NPCs, and weapons, armour, and combat mechanics!
However, even if I was fixed on the idea, there were still questions of where I was going to live, how I’d get by financially, and so forth. At first I considered doing a Kickstarter or similar – I’ve been critical of many KS campaigns in the past, and I continue to feel it can turn into a very problematic situation, but that was what I first considered. However, through a combination of trying to live frugally and the kindness of a family member, I’ll be able to survive this year. I recognized I could still have tried a Kickstarter instead, and I feel I would have had a high chance of success, but now I’d been given this option I specifically decided not to go the KS route. Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, but it would also take several months to start the campaign, run the campaign and do the rewards (even if they were all virtual/game ones). Having been given the option not to, I don’t want to “waste” months of my URR year not actually working on URR! I also didn’t want to blur the line somewhat with URR and the involvement of money – right now it’s free, will always remain free, and I didn’t want to introduce money to the equation if I didn’t have to.
Another reason to not do KS, alas, is that in the next few months I’m not going to be able to do much URR work. Through no fault of my own the completion of my doctorate has been dragged out beyond what it should have been, and the next few months (July/August and probably September) are going to have to be very thesis-heavy. It’s annoying that this might eat slightly into my URR year (as I’ll be moving house in early September), but there’s nothing to be done, and focusing on my academic work now means that as much of next year as possible will be free. Doing a KS would just further eat into the year, and as above – now I’m lucky enough to have the option to not KS, I think the arguments for KS falter against the arguments for not doing one and starting URR coding the moment my thesis is submitted.
I’m… more excited than I can say about a year of full-time URR coding with some game studies on the side. I’m amazed things have come together after what was probably the hardest year of my life (for reasons I may post in a later blog entry and that had nothing to do with my PhD) and I’m already now figuring out the right order to go about the coding in this next year in order to achieve the worldbuilding-completion goal. There’s also a second half of the announcement I can’t say until next week, which – whilst very significant from my perspective – is secondary from the perspective of you fine blog-readers, but is just to do with my living arrangements for the next year and my continuing academic shift into game studies.
There you have it. The next two or three months will have unfortunately have little URRing due to a very unfortunate position I find myself in academically, so 0.6 will be pushed back a few months, but from the screenshots I’ve been posting in the last few entries, I hope you’ll all agree it’s looking like it’ll be worth the wait. The next few months will therefore have some URR updates when there is stuff to update you on, but also probably a greater number of general games criticism pieces than usual. After that, hopefully starting at some point in September, I’ll be working on URR full-time for a year! I cannot wait. Thanks to everyone for your support thus far, and I hope you’ll join me in the UNCONTROLLABLE HYPE for next year.
Post by: Retropunch on July 06, 2014, 07:51:22 am
Post by: Dutchling on July 06, 2014, 07:56:35 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2014, 08:06:47 am
Well I remember you telling me about the first time you completed Nethack and discussing the pros and cons of different RLs as I was firmly in the DCSS camp - I'll leave you to ponder who I am and where you know me from - it gave me quite a surprise!!
Well now I am puzzled & intrigued :o. How long ago, roughly?
That's awesome! And definitely better than kickstarter. Those always seem to have more cons than pros.
Agreed! Very happy with how things have worked out for it.
Post by: Retropunch on July 06, 2014, 08:14:14 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2014, 08:37:48 am
Roughly 4 or 5 years ago, before I went off to Finland.
I have figured it out...
Post by: aristabulus on July 07, 2014, 12:58:00 pm
... Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, ...
I think the guys over @ RPS have your back (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/07/yes-ultima-ratio-regum-dev-to-build-worlds-full-time/) on that note. :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 09, 2014, 07:28:52 am
... Sure, it would boost the publicity of the game somewhat, ...
I think the guys over @ RPS have your back (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/07/07/yes-ultima-ratio-regum-dev-to-build-worlds-full-time/) on that note. :)
RPS are the greatest.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 13, 2014, 08:10:02 am
Until then, however, I do (alas) need to actually finish my doctorate. I estimate this taking 2-3 months, so I expect to start the full-time year some time in September, depending on exactly how long it takes, when I move house, and various other factors. The second half of next week’s announcement is that my best friend has got a PhD in Game Studies in Lincoln, so we’re both moving there in September, at which point I’ll be starting my full-time year (with a little bit of game studies publication on the side, hopefully). As mentioned last week there will be no Kickstarter, though I do appreciate the willingness many have stated to donate to help me out this year. I may add the possibility for this, but I’m more likely to wait the full year and then evaluate. If, however, the entire coding year goes by and I haven’t yet found a job and I find myself ~15 months from now suddenly entirely lacking in money, I may then set up some form of donation system to potentially keep myself afloat. But that is in the distant future.
So, what now? Well, these next few months I’m unfortunately going to have very little time to program, though I hope to snatch a few hours of coding here and there. The past week I’ve been making a little progress on some more fortress archetypes and the mysterious standing stones in hunter-gatherer settlements, but not enough for a full update. Thus, instead, for these next two months we’re going to have primary game criticism updates. I know a lot of people have enjoyed these in the past and I’ve got a line-up of interesting ideas. Since it would be going off-topic a little, check out the full blog post at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/13/the-path-to-next-year/ for details of what these posts are going to be :).
Post by: mendonca on July 13, 2014, 10:14:22 am
Post by: Greenbane on July 13, 2014, 10:49:23 am
As for the name itself, Latin for "The Last Resort of Kings", it seems the phrase, while originally referred to war declarations, has gained a strong connotation towards cannons and artillery over the centuries. Louis XIV of France had it cast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) on the cannons of his armies, and it's the motto of at least a couple of artillery units. There's also a somewhat related quote from Frederick the Great, "Do not forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings." :P
So that begs a bonus question: will there be cannons? :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 13, 2014, 11:15:35 am
Cool. (Pre-emptive) welcome to Lincolnshire, my home county, I hope you like it there!
Haha, thanks! I've moved around the UK a heck of a lot by the standards of someone who's 24, but I've never been in the East of the UK. I'm visiting for the first time in a few days to have a look around, see where we'd like to live, etc...
Great work! I've been watching this for a good while, but I've yet to play it. How playable is URR at the moment, as of version 0.5.1? Is combat implemented yet? Or are you mainly focusing on the world-building mechanics, to create the framework for the actual gameplay development later on?
As for the name itself, Latin for "The Last Resort of Kings", it seems the phrase, while originally referred to war declarations, has gained a strong connotation towards cannons and artillery over the centuries. Louis XIV of France had it cast (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ultima_Ratio_Regum_Cannon.jpg) on the cannons of his armies, and it's the motto of at least a couple of artillery units. There's also a somewhat related quote from Frederick the Great, "Do not forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings." :P
So that begs a bonus question: will there be cannons? :D
No combat yet alas (though that is a core goal of the full-time year); I'm working on all the wordbuilding aspects first, and estimate at the most one year remaining on that (3 years on it to date). I want to add gameplay stuff, but I can't add weapons until there are markets, can't add markets until there are NPCs to man them, can't add NPCs until there are civilizations for them to belong to and cities for them to live in... and thus we come back to building the world first :). I'm really coming to the end of this phase though - I've enjoyed it a lot, and I'm hugely excited about the full-time year to finish off the worldbuilding, but I'm very much anticipating starting to work on gameplay. Combat will sort of be the last worldbuilding part and also the first gameplay part at the same time, so that should be very interesting. I have in mind something very akin to Dark Souls combat, and something very different from most ASCII-ish roguelikes.
Ha, I didn't know the Frederick quote! I like it. There will some early gunpowder weapons; I am still deciding whether things like sieges and siege weapons can play a meaningful role in the games story or not. There's a good chance it will, but not for quite some time...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 20, 2014, 06:34:36 am
So, as mentioned last time, here's the first of the game design/criticism blog entries for the next couple of months, starting with some detailed thoughts on the strengths (and, especially, weaknesses) of Dark Souls 2: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/07/20/dark-souls-2-design-ravings/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 23, 2014, 06:14:47 am
Post by: Xangi on July 24, 2014, 08:13:48 pm
Things are still ticking over, albeit slowly; thesis is going well though, which means I should be able to start the full-time URR year when I move in September, but started seriously working on the military city districts and the next fortress archetype (for the wise civilization that prefers their forts to be of a pentagonal nature). This downtime really sucks, but the full-timing will, I think, rather more than make up for it :)Awesome, you post here!
Anyway just wanted to know if you plan to make URR (easily) moddable? Sorry if it's been asked already, but 146 pages is a lot of text. I'd love to be able to tinker around with the game's balance and add content to it post-release.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 25, 2014, 02:44:09 am
Awesome, you post here!
Anyway just wanted to know if you plan to make URR (easily) moddable? Sorry if it's been asked already, but 146 pages is a lot of text. I'd love to be able to tinker around with the game's balance and add content to it post-release.
I do indeed! I'm afraid not - there's no plans to make URR moddable at this time. I'm always very open to ideas, and once we get to gameplay development I'll be very interested in any and all balance/design feedback, but modding isn't on the cards, alas.
Post by: Xangi on July 27, 2014, 07:55:00 pm
Yeah I suspected as much, thanks anyway. I'll be waiting anxiously for the next release.Awesome, you post here!
Anyway just wanted to know if you plan to make URR (easily) moddable? Sorry if it's been asked already, but 146 pages is a lot of text. I'd love to be able to tinker around with the game's balance and add content to it post-release.
I do indeed! I'm afraid not - there's no plans to make URR moddable at this time. I'm always very open to ideas, and once we get to gameplay development I'll be very interested in any and all balance/design feedback, but modding isn't on the cards, alas.
Post by: Pwnzerfaust on July 28, 2014, 11:16:08 pm
Is there a wiki or an overview of what you hope to make the game look like when it's "done" (or as done as such things ever are)?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 29, 2014, 01:49:23 pm
Yeah I suspected as much, thanks anyway. I'll be waiting anxiously for the next release.
No worries :). 0.6 is the biggest update ever - you'll be able to walk around cities, towns, farms, graveyards, settlements, fortresses, slums, and other such goodness.
How have I never seen this thread before? This looks amazing.
Is there a wiki or an overview of what you hope to make the game look like when it's "done" (or as done as such things ever are)?
Thanks! The best thing I can recommend would be this blog post:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/02/15/plot-story-and-the-game-itself/
and the "Info page":
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/info/
where I talk a bit about some of the long-term goals. Don't know if you've seen this in the thread/on my site, but in a few months I'm going to be taking a year to work on the game full-time. By the completion of that year I am to have the "worldbuilding" block of the game finished, and that'll be ~33% of the game complete, and will have a ton to do and explore. Basically, think of it as a cross between Dark Souls and Dwarf Fortress. That's always the best way to describe it, I think. I do actually have stored on my laptop a very specific and very detailed release plan from here until release, but I only list a few versions ahead on the site - there's not much point in saying "Three years from now I'll be working on x!" at this point :)
Post by: Alev on July 31, 2014, 12:43:59 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 31, 2014, 03:43:50 pm
Post by: Alev on July 31, 2014, 06:17:12 pm
I'm glad to say in my upcoming full-time-development-year, a Linux native version is one goal. Hopefully from 0.7 onwards (next version is 0.6). But if you get it working, do let me know! :)Yeah, I'll test it when I get computer access.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 02, 2014, 08:07:22 am
Fortresses
I’ve done a few more fortress archetypes. As mentioned before, there are twelve “shapes” fortresses can generate in total; each civilization chooses one, and there can never be more than five nomadic civilizations, so it’ll be a long while until you see each archetype (not to mention, obviously, that each instance of each archetype will generate differently). I’ve thrown together the “Pentagon” and the “Double Fort” algorithms, and here are a bunch of screenshots. Fortresses are really interesting to walk around – they definitely evoke a very different feel to towns or cities or settlements. One thing I’ve found to be a very good idea is to really emphasize difference in procedural generation – sure, in the real world, a “castle” and a “fortress” may be very similar, but by placing one at the core of cities and giving the other to nomads, I’ve emphasized the differences in each one to create two totally different kinds of structure. Even though they lack NPCs yet, walking around the four different types of population centre (cities, towns, settlements, fortresses) all feel totally, totally different (which was exactly the goal) and I can’t wait to see what everyone else thinks once this release is out. Some fortresses are more or less militarized than others; some have larger or small markets, or housing, or defenses; some are more open, some are more closed and more challenging to navigate. There’s a great amount of variety, and they all also handle rivers in different ways, leading to some really interesting maps (which have been challenging to make ensure walkable generation on)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/Double.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/Double2.png)
Hunter-Gatherer Buildings
I’ve thrown together the generators for the textures of all the different building materiasl hunter-gatherer civilizations might use. Whereas feudal civilizations use variations of bricks and nomadic civilizations sometimes uses bricks, or stone, or drystone walls, hunter-gatherers are forced to be a little more resourceful. There are currently sixteen different materials, each civilization will choose a different one (a couple are tied to particular climates) and they won’t repeat, so you’ll have a wide variation every game. Here’s an example of the outcomes of each of the generators for the different materials. Going left-to-right and top-to-bottom, these are “logs”, “leaves”, “wood”, “stone”, “bones”, “mud bricks”, “snow bricks”, “interwoven sticks”, “mud”, “drystone”, “thatch”, “wattle and daub”, “rope”, “bamboo”, “leather”, “fur”:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/HG-Building2.png)
The materials have no particular gameplay difference, but they do lend a nice variety to the hunter-gatherers, especially as the way they are displayed in-game varies according to the colour of each texture. HG civilizations are now looking rather more complete than they were before, and the other reason for this is the introduction of standing stones.
Standing Stones
Different religions worship in different ways; some have big idols, some might have small totems in the houses of worshipers, and so forth. Some hunter-gatherer civilizations have standing stones in the middle of their settlements as the focal points for worship. Each of these is a different shape, contains a symbol of the appropriate religion, and… some other text, in an ancient language. In future versions this text will be one of many clues around the world to help you find your way through the world’s mysteries, and will be one of several reasons you might consider visiting a hunter-gatherer settlement you pass on your way to parts unknown.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/SSs.png)
NEXT UP:
The next three entries will probably be the other games criticism entries I discussed before, then we’ll have a roundup of some more code at the end of August/start of September. By then I should have more of the fortress archetypes done (maybe all of them?) and maybe some more city districts too – military districts might be next on my list, though I think I also need to make some changes to market districts; playtesting them by myself suggests that they might need to be a little more contained and a little less open to make them more enjoyable and more understandable to navigate. The plan thus remains: I’m working hard to finish my thesis before I move house in late September, and then to start the full-time year of development in October, with the intention of releasing 0.6 – admittedly the biggest URR update ever, since it is generating every town, city, fortress and settlement – within November.
Post by: Alev on August 05, 2014, 04:32:35 pm
Edit: Is there much you can do besides wander around the world? Most sites are inaccessible, ziggurats appear to be just buildings with nothing inside, and farms or people don't exist.
Post by: coolio678 on August 05, 2014, 07:41:14 pm
URR opens flawlessly with wineskin, now time to play it.You didn't look hard enough at those ziggurats, then. The doors are only a single tile and can be a bit tricky to spot, but they're there. You can also open up the encyclopedia (forgot the hotkey) to read about your world's history.
Edit: Is there much you can do besides wander around the world? Most sites are inaccessible, ziggurats appear to be just buildings with nothing inside, and farms or people don't exist.
Post by: Alev on August 06, 2014, 12:43:02 am
E. Yes, the history and stuff is interesting. Is the entrance on the bottom level?URR opens flawlessly with wineskin, now time to play it.You didn't look hard enough at those ziggurats, then. The doors are only a single tile and can be a bit tricky to spot, but they're there. You can also open up the encyclopedia (forgot the hotkey) to read about your world's history.
Edit: Is there much you can do besides wander around the world? Most sites are inaccessible, ziggurats appear to be just buildings with nothing inside, and farms or people don't exist.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2014, 04:45:53 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2014, 12:11:47 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/NewS2.png)
Post by: Alev on August 06, 2014, 01:33:23 pm
It is indeed - a white door. Currently the game is worldbuilding-focused - the core gameplay mechanic involves manipulating the world and the world's history, and as much as I'd love to get onto the gameplay immediately, you can't fiddle with a world without a detailed world in place! My full-time development year (starting ~October) is designed to totally finish the worldbuilding aspects of the game, something that should be easily achievable with a full-time year.Ok, cool. But you can't really manipulate the world currently, right?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 06, 2014, 02:24:51 pm
It is indeed - a white door. Currently the game is worldbuilding-focused - the core gameplay mechanic involves manipulating the world and the world's history, and as much as I'd love to get onto the gameplay immediately, you can't fiddle with a world without a detailed world in place! My full-time development year (starting ~October) is designed to totally finish the worldbuilding aspects of the game, something that should be easily achievable with a full-time year.Ok, cool. But you can't really manipulate the world currently, right?
Nooo! Not at all, but that's only because the world isn't finished yet. I have actually implemented some of the appropriate data structures, but they're "disabled" and incomplete atm.
Post by: Alev on August 06, 2014, 02:26:24 pm
Ok. It should be fun when you can do that.It is indeed - a white door. Currently the game is worldbuilding-focused - the core gameplay mechanic involves manipulating the world and the world's history, and as much as I'd love to get onto the gameplay immediately, you can't fiddle with a world without a detailed world in place! My full-time development year (starting ~October) is designed to totally finish the worldbuilding aspects of the game, something that should be easily achievable with a full-time year.Ok, cool. But you can't really manipulate the world currently, right?
Nooo! Not at all, but that's only because the world isn't finished yet. I have actually implemented some of the appropriate data structures, but they're "disabled" and incomplete atm.
Post by: Pwnzerfaust on August 07, 2014, 08:14:57 pm
Post by: xaritscin on August 07, 2014, 10:08:27 pm
I've got a question. Will there be technological advancement? Obviously the game generates a whole solar system, including atmospheres for the various planets. Does that mean we will at some point have the means to visit them?
althought that would be really awesome, the scope of the game history seems to be locked to medieval background...unles the developer says it otherwise....
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2014, 06:52:36 am
I've got a question. Will there be technological advancement? Obviously the game generates a whole solar system, including atmospheres for the various planets. Does that mean we will at some point have the means to visit them?
Technology won't be advancing; the planets serve a different important purpose, though one not yet implemented (once it is implemented, I look forward to seeing who first figures out what they do). It is set ~16th/17th century, scientific revolution time (which influences a lot of the themes of the game), and won't be moving from there. It's not quite medieval as there is gunpowder and the like!
Post by: Neonivek on August 08, 2014, 07:00:41 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2014, 11:11:44 am
Mmm love that Poise bar. I mean, it is one thing to be a warrior of legend... but if you can't do it while looking great in some fashionable clothes you might as well not bother.
Ah, took me a moment to figure out what you meant! The final bar is poison; that's one you DON'T want filling up...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 10, 2014, 08:05:29 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/URR-ships.png)
Also did a little bit of work on making Upper Class Housing districts just that little bit snazzier (as ever, this graphic is generated, there’s over a hundred possible variations):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/TerrainTest.png)
Next week I'll be back to non-URR updates on my blog for a little while, but around the start of October remains the target for starting the full-time year! See you all next week...
Post by: Alev on August 10, 2014, 10:11:51 pm
I was planning to upload another non-URR post today, but Sunday has crept up upon me with alarming speed and I haven’t actually finished the one I was working on. So, instead, here is a very short and screenshot-heavy update for this week instead with a couple of things I’ve thrown together. As well as the fortress above, I also on a whim threw together some graphics for a future release, 2 or 3 down the line, once I start putting together ships and trade routes. These are just stylized graphics to denote the different classes of ship, military and transport, when you look them up in the Encyclopedia. Alongside them you’ll see information like the ship’s schedule, its armaments, what it trades in, its captain, etc etc.Cool. Do you plan to let the player go on/captain a ship with that release?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/URR-ships.png)
Also did a little bit of work on making Upper Class Housing districts just that little bit snazzier (as ever, this graphic is generated, there’s over a hundred possible variations):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/08/TerrainTest.png)
Next week I'll be back to non-URR updates on my blog for a little while, but around the start of October remains the target for starting the full-time year! See you all next week...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 10, 2014, 10:18:32 pm
Cool. Do you plan to let the player go on/captain a ship with that release?
INDEED! Though it will not be the next release (0.6). Probably .9 or .10, based on my current development plan (almost certainly 0.9).
Post by: Alev on August 10, 2014, 10:48:47 pm
Mmk. What do you have planned for .7 and .8?Cool. Do you plan to let the player go on/captain a ship with that release?
INDEED! Though it will not be the next release (0.6). Probably .9 or .10, based on my current development plan (almost certainly 0.9).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 11, 2014, 11:51:56 am
Mmk. What do you have planned for .7 and .8?
This seems like a sensible point to post this link: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/development-plan-2/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 13, 2014, 01:44:18 pm
Post by: Graknorke on August 13, 2014, 06:25:05 pm
So this is kind of veering back to the original idea by letting the player be in charge of some things?Cool. Do you plan to let the player go on/captain a ship with that release?
INDEED! Though it will not be the next release (0.6). Probably .9 or .10, based on my current development plan (almost certainly 0.9).
My interest is again grabbed.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 14, 2014, 03:29:35 am
So this is kind of veering back to the original idea by letting the player be in charge of some things?Cool. Do you plan to let the player go on/captain a ship with that release?
INDEED! Though it will not be the next release (0.6). Probably .9 or .10, based on my current development plan (almost certainly 0.9).
My interest is again grabbed.
Ahhhh, not as such, but as a high-level perk you may be able to sail a ship yourself rather than choosing a ship that's going on the path/trade route you desire. Or maybe as a player class. I have some very interesting ideas for player classes, but maybe that could make a decent one. But the way you describe it, and what I think you mean by your question, the answer's no - I mean, you're going to be changing the entire face of the world, but you won't be "in charge of things" like armies etc.
Post by: Robsoie on August 14, 2014, 07:09:15 am
Amazing piece of world exploration, the visual is really great, trees are superb, and those 2D arts pieces i see everywhere are fantastic i wasn't expecting when i pressed l and was looking at a tree foliage and the terrain under it to see actual artwork to describe what i was seeing.
Of course it's only 0.5 so there are many things i can't yet get to and there's limited amount of sight seeing to do then, but the potential of awesome is there and from what i read on your website, there's a lot more to explore and discover in the next version.
Keep it up !
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 14, 2014, 01:51:52 pm
It's been a very long while i didn't checked URR , i just did and wow.
Amazing piece of world exploration, the visual is really great, trees are superb, and those 2D arts pieces i see everywhere are fantastic i wasn't expecting when i pressed l and was looking at a tree foliage and the terrain under it to see actual artwork to describe what i was seeing.
Of course it's only 0.5 so there are many things i can't yet get to and there's limited amount of sight seeing to do then, but the potential of awesome is there and from what i read on your website, there's a lot more to explore and discover in the next version.
Keep it up !
Thanks! It's exactly this kind of feedback that keeps me motivated :). I'm glad you like all the graphics (there are many more delicious ones coming in this release) - if you haven't, press 'E' to bring up the encyclopedia, and give that a look...
Post by: rabidgam3r on August 14, 2014, 02:56:32 pm
OH HOLY HELL YES THIS IS AMAZING THANK YOU
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 14, 2014, 04:47:43 pm
I checked out of this for quite a while, and just read up on it today.
OH HOLY HELL YES THIS IS AMAZING THANK YOU
NO THANK YOU! Glad you like it :). Don't know how much of the recent stuff you've read, but starting around October I'm going to be working on it full-time for a year, rather than part-timing it as I've been doing the last three-and-a-bit years. I AM HYPED.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 17, 2014, 04:07:46 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/08/17/the-shortest-update-in-urr-history/
Post by: Zireael on August 17, 2014, 10:54:47 am
Post by: Retropunch on August 17, 2014, 11:27:28 am
I had just settled in for a long read of the finer points of URR development - cup of tea in one hand, delicious cake in other - and was fooled!
By the all knowing ancestors of the Pry'Keru hierocracy, I demand satisfaction!
Post by: Graknorke on August 17, 2014, 06:55:18 pm
But the way you describe it, and what I think you mean by your question, the answer's no - I mean, you're going to be changing the entire face of the world, but you won't be "in charge of things" like armies etc.I didn't mean specifically that, but just that in general the scope has now definitely widened considerably beyond, "Find dungeons, explore dungeons, find more dungeons."
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 18, 2014, 02:12:56 am
TRICKERY AND DECEIT.
I had just settled in for a long read of the finer points of URR development - cup of tea in one hand, delicious cake in other - and was fooled!
By the all knowing ancestors of the Pry'Keru hierocracy, I demand satisfaction!
Nothing I can say can ever make up for this betrayal. I know this :(
But the way you describe it, and what I think you mean by your question, the answer's no - I mean, you're going to be changing the entire face of the world, but you won't be "in charge of things" like armies etc.I didn't mean specifically that, but just that in general the scope has now definitely widened considerably beyond, "Find dungeons, explore dungeons, find more dungeons."
I'm not trying to nitpick (and I'm very glad you're re-interested!), but this has honestly never been the "scope". The core of the game is the manipulation of the world's history, of which exploring dungeons is just one part; much of the gameplay will take place outside dungeons with exploring cities and other settlements, gathering and using information and knowledge. The way you have expressed it resembles ADOM, for instance, and is nothing like my intentions for URR. If this is unclear then it's because I've failed to elucidate it thoroughly enough - I realize I am cautious about saying too much about the final version of the game, given I'm maybe ~1/4 through development, but I don't see much value to saying "In four years the game will include x!". I try to keep updates/future plans no more than a year ahead, even though the entire thing is planned out from my end. Saying URR is just "find dungeon and explore dungeon" would be like saying Mass Effect is "just" "find planet, explore planet". I'm not doing one of those "my game is special and different!!!" things - that description is genuinely very inaccurate, though it is probably my fault if I've given off that impression. It is difficult managing a many-year project of this sort and describing it accurately without getting people excited for features that may be years away.
Post by: Man of Paper on August 18, 2014, 06:45:48 am
Quote
core of the game is the manipulation of the world's history
So will we be changing the history of the world through interactions with some long-forgotten (though possibly not gone) civilization (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens) or the artifacts they left behind in order to avert impending doom somehow connected to the aligning of planets (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens)? It's these little bits of info you give that throw my hyperactive brain into overdrive.
If that's not it then I think I have a good idea for a URRlike. That'd be a hell of a thing, to join Rogue and DF in the list of games that have -like tacked on to denote a whole subgenre of games.
I love the progress being made, and morethanlove that you'll have a year dedicated to URR. I was going to try to figure out what was written on the shrines a couple pages back, but it looks like it's just alphabet, which is no help since languages are going to be randomized anyways. I also started reading 2312, which I think you were responsible for suggesting to me (could be wrong, you've suggested quite a few novels in this thread), but have been delayed by an abundance of books from the Black Library. I have started every sentence in this paragraph with "I" and it bothers me.
Post by: Retropunch on August 18, 2014, 01:00:26 pm
Quotecore of the game is the manipulation of the world's history
So will we be changing the history of the world through interactions with some long-forgotten (though possibly not gone) civilization (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens) or the artifacts they left behind in order to avert impending doom somehow connected to the aligning of planets (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens)? It's these little bits of info you give that throw my hyperactive brain into overdrive.
If I may step in (not that I know much more about it than anyone really), I think it's aiming to be neither of those from what I understand.
I think it's more that you shape the world through your actions. I suppose a somewhat basic example would be like a much deeper mass effect - you negotiate deals, take part in battles, explore and have an influence over how things progress by your actions. This is all done with as much realism as possible and you don't have god like powers to sway entire battles or change the world at a snap of a finger, but that you can influence things in a more subtle (or occasionally slightly more overt) fashion. So you might be a hero, but not the only hero.
I also remember it being said that there is to be no aliens, magic or supernatural stuff at all.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 20, 2014, 12:58:58 am
I didn't recommend 2312 (I haven't yet read it myself, though I would like to)! RE: the language, yeah, indeed, you'd need the specific "key" for that world generation to try to translate them, and anyway, I think it was just a placeholder message for "abcedf ghi jklmno" or something in those screenshots!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 23, 2014, 06:07:50 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/08/23/the-value-of-maps/
Post by: Zireael on August 23, 2014, 01:31:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 25, 2014, 02:04:13 am
That's an excellent post!
Thank ye :).
Post by: Alev on August 25, 2014, 12:28:06 pm
Post by: Retropunch on August 25, 2014, 03:41:21 pm
Yes, interesting post. Would we be able to make maps, for example, to mislead others?
That's a very interesting point. Deception in games is hardly ever done well, and being able to deceive others well (or 'realistically') would be an incredibly exciting mechanic.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 26, 2014, 11:20:56 am
Post by: dwarf_reform on August 26, 2014, 05:16:19 pm
I've strangely been following URR development since the first time it showed up on roguebasin but I haven't played any since one of the first couple versions :> Maybe I should change that soon.. Been patiently waiting for more flesh on the bones, mostly.. Just wanted to say you're awesome for not giving up on this (it seems to be a Dwarf-Fortress-amount of work), and for actively communicating with the fans, and finally that I'm looking forward to (eventually) seeing a near-final end-result :D
Keep on keeping on! :>
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 26, 2014, 07:06:10 pm
I love mental-idea-spirals, especially when devs have them! :)
I've strangely been following URR development since the first time it showed up on roguebasin but I haven't played any since one of the first couple versions :> Maybe I should change that soon.. Been patiently waiting for more flesh on the bones, mostly.. Just wanted to say you're awesome for not giving up on this (it seems to be a Dwarf-Fortress-amount of work), and for actively communicating with the fans, and finally that I'm looking forward to (eventually) seeing a near-final end-result :D
Keep on keeping on! :>
Hey, thanks for the message, and glad to hear you've been following it this long! I've been fleshing the bones as quickly as humanly possible for a one-man development team doing it part-time, though I know it must look like we're still a way from something "playable" - the full-time development year I'm starting in a couple of months should help with that a *lot*. Thanks for the kind words anyway, it's awesome to see this kind of interest :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 31, 2014, 11:58:10 am
In the little bits of time I’ve been able to find to code at the moment, I’ve managed to just about finish off all the different fortress archetypes. There are twelve in total – each nomadic civilization decides on one at worldgen that it will use for their desert encampments, and then each is subsequently generated according to the chosen algorithm. They each also handle rivers going through them in different ways – some loop rivers around them, some have rivers go through them, and there’s a fair bit of code handling the placement of bridges and entrances to ensure that no matter your angle of entering the fortress, and the position of the fortress on/off a river, you can always access the entire thing. Some are large, some are small; most have all their components within the walls, but some have spread out beyond the walls; some are well-defended, some less so. The white %s are placeholders for market stalls which I haven’t yet created the terrain type for, and the large “oval” buildings are barracks, the smaller circular buildings in military districts being buildings where you may find particular NPCs of military value.
Here are some examples. Bear in mind that these images don’t show the changes in height, but rather give you an overall plan of how these areas are laid out. The algorithms shown here are the “Concentric Square”, “Circle Lines”, “Star Fort” and “Cross” variations. They’re tremendous to walk around – even without NPCs (two versions away!) one can already tell what they’ll be like once they’re populated.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Fort1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Fort2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Fort3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/perhaps/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Fort4.png)
Now, for a general update. Editing my PhD thesis for submission is going well. The first third of it is bordering on submission-ready and I’m now working on the middle third. I’ll be moving house to “start” the full-time development year around the first week of October, give or take, but I suspect I won’t be submitting my thesis until some time around the middle of October. So, for the next month-and-a-bit we’ll be focusing on non-URR entries with a few short updates like this one, then my current prediction is starting my full-time development year some time in October. Once we do, we’ll switch back to full and detailed weekly blog updates, regular Facebook/Twitter updates and the rest of it. AND 0.6 WILL BE COMING, as the first step to totally finishing the worldbuilding block within a year of going full-time. Once that officially starts, I might even put up some kind of “one year countdown” on the blog to remind me how many days I have left to finish the worldbuilding. It’s going to be awesome, internet friends. Next time: an entry I’ve been working on for the best part of a year with some thoughts about AI…
Post by: Retropunch on September 02, 2014, 01:29:37 am
Have you thought about adding underground areas? things like escape tunnels and caves out of the forts could be very useful in sieges.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 05, 2014, 09:23:31 am
Looking fantastic as always, I cannot wait to wander around them!
Have you thought about adding underground areas? things like escape tunnels and caves out of the forts could be very useful in sieges.
I have indeed, though I'm still pondering what kind of role they may have. A later plan is an entire subterranean map related to several plot areas, but that's a way off yet...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 06, 2014, 07:22:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 07, 2014, 10:06:35 am
Post by: Arcvasti on September 09, 2014, 10:22:24 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 11, 2014, 01:36:29 pm
PTW, this looks somewhat intriguing. Going to have to check this out later.
An excellent choice.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 13, 2014, 04:34:20 am
This day of talks is on the 8th of November and the current plan is to have it streamed on Twitch. Tickets are going to be available soon, so if any of you live in London or can make it down, come along! You can read more about the game jam here (http://itch.io/jam/procjam), and the tumblr blog for updates is here (http://procjam.tumblr.com/). The jam is a week-long and there are seven or eight speakers lined up; one of the other speakers who hasn’t yet been announced will also be very familiar to those of you who follow your roguelikes…
The working title for my presentation is “Managing Size, Scope and Scale in Procedural Generation” – I’m going to talk a bit about how to manage a project of URR’s size in regards to two main themes. Firstly, the programming side – what kind of data structures can you use to handle all these different scales of information, from the histories of entire civilizations down to what items people have in their homes? How can you have the game link everything together from a battle between two civilizations, to who fought in it, to what weapons they used, where they were buried, where you might find that weapon, and what meaning others might attribute to it? The second half of my talk is going to be about this same issue but from an artistic/creative standpoint – what’s the value of having a game which holds data at all these scales, and what kind of interesting gameplay mechanics can you create with it?
In other news, still aiming for next month for beginning full-time development. New obstacles are arising as ever, but we’ll see how it goes, and PhD-finishing-work is proceeding at a damned good pace now. More updates as and when…
Post by: Retropunch on September 14, 2014, 03:16:09 am
It's a opensource recreation of C&C, Red Alert and Dune 2000 for multi-platform support and updated features:
Code: [Select]
Careful rebalance of the factions and units
Modular MiniYAML game logic parser instead of simple INI rules
New units: such as sniper or flak truck
Right-click orders to avoid miss-clicks
Fog of War hides enemy units
Spectator mode and replays for e-Sport events
Support for mods and mini-games
Tabbed build palette which allows queuing
Bounties for kills and unit ranks
New effects: e.g. tank husks and aircraft trails
Lua scripting instead of hard-coded mission triggers
A non-cheating AI that is still challenging
Integration of a content delivery platform for custom maps.I've found it pretty great actually, it's very faithful to the originals with a lot of settings and ease of use functions that we expect in games these days.
http://www.openra.net/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 19, 2014, 12:12:29 am
Post by: Retropunch on September 19, 2014, 11:13:22 am
I have! I've seen a few videos of it on Youtube and it looks great, though the absolute purist in me is slightly annoyed by the fact they've changed a small number of the weapon animations and that kind of thing (I think Nod's artillery have been altered a bit?). Either way, when I have a bit of time I'm definitely considering giving it a look, I've always wanted to play some multiplayer on the classic C&Cs!
There are a few changes - artillery has had a bit of a buff in general, and there are a few units that I don't remember being in (although they may have been in expansion packs I don't have) but it's surprisingly well balanced. The main thing is that it stops you getting that slightly grating feeling that you get when going back to old games and have forgotten how quirky their interface/controls are.
The AI is quite competent too, slightly weak (and doesn't guard it's harvesters at all), but combats basic tactics without too much trouble.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 20, 2014, 09:10:32 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 21, 2014, 05:27:40 am
So, in keeping with my objective to give everything in the game a totally unique generation algorithm and therefore make my workload infinitely greater (and, y’know, make the game look better), I decided to try something new with religious buildings. They are created in a modular manner. Each religion chooses a unique layout for its religious buildings (and also a unique name, so you’ll get churches, stupas, pagodas, monasteries, convents, etc) and this consists of a central component and a number of peripheral parts to the building. The central part of the religious building has a number of points where extra parts can be “attached”. There’s somewhere in the range of fifty cores to these buildings (each of which will have unique generated interiors in the next version), and around fifty attachments. Some attachments can only go on some cores, so there’s a little over a thousand possible religious buildings. Each religion will always have the same type so the player may come to recognize them as the game goes on. Whereas most cities have their religious buildings scattered around, some cities have religious districts like this one:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/09/Rdis.png)
So, in this case we have nine religious buildings; this is from a nation with a lot of religions. Only nations with the “Religious Freedom” policy will have such a district, so it’s pretty rare. Other nations will place their religious buildings in other districts – a “Zealotry” nation will have a religious building in every district and have no room for other religious buildings (much like those with “Theocracy” leadership), whilst some might have religious buildings in city centres, or in a small number of districts, or throughout the countryside in towns. In a “Collective Faith” or “Organized Religion” civ, for instance, you’ll have religious buildings around most districts, though OR will be a little more centralized/organized than CF. Some nations will therefore have many religions represented, some will only have few, and in 0.7 you’ll be able to walk around inside these modular buildings and steal the holy cheeses, or whatever one may find inside.
The last thing to do on religions for this release is to handle the spread of religions so we know which are represented in which cities, and therefore which religious buildings should appear where. I’ll probably implement a simple version of this for this release, and then in later versions possibly allow you to the spread of each religion on the world map, or at least give the player more information about it. I also fixed a bunch of bugs to do with roads I hadn’t really noticed before, stacked up a bunch of other things to fix closer to release, and started to seriously think about how docks were going to work before realizing I needed to do a lot more research first on how the hell 17th-century ships actually docked.
Post by: coolio678 on September 21, 2014, 08:17:00 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on September 21, 2014, 10:51:42 am
and started to seriously think about how docks were going to work before realizing I needed to do a lot more research first on how the hell 17th-century ships actually docked.
I like this. I understand you're pretty much doing a realistic game, so i wonder how you want to give that feel? I'm particularly interested in day to day life.
Post by: Retropunch on September 21, 2014, 02:08:01 pm
One thing I'd really, really like to see in this though is a number of different 'levels' of religious buildings and a central ruling place for the religion. For instance, church->city cathedral->central cathedral.
I know this is a lot of extra work, but with a modular design I could imagine that it might not be too difficult. This would allow you to have more options via policy, and also allow for a rather interesting 'gradient' effect, where as you get closer to the central ruling position of the religions, their buildings could grow larger. Similarly, smaller religions may never have anything above small temples.
I can well imagine that this might cause problems in recognizability however, so you'd need to do some careful work to get around that, but I think it'd be very worth while.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 22, 2014, 04:28:52 am
looks great as always. You might already be aware of this, but the image link is broken on your website for a few people at least (myself being one of them).
Thanks :). Yeah, not sure why, but I think I've fixed it now.
I like this. I understand you're pretty much doing a realistic game, so i wonder how you want to give that feel? I'm particularly interested in day to day life.
Yeah, the game is... 98% realistic. There are a few unusual elements, but it's going to be left very open just how real these other elements are (more on this in the future). For docks you should be able to view ships entering and leaving the docks on an appropriate schedule as the ships move around the world, but I need to figure out what's the best way to have them dock/depart that is somewhere between "easiest to program" and "most realistic based on historical record".
As always, phenomenal.
One thing I'd really, really like to see in this though is a number of different 'levels' of religious buildings and a central ruling place for the religion. For instance, church->city cathedral->central cathedral.
I know this is a lot of extra work, but with a modular design I could imagine that it might not be too difficult. This would allow you to have more options via policy, and also allow for a rather interesting 'gradient' effect, where as you get closer to the central ruling position of the religions, their buildings could grow larger. Similarly, smaller religions may never have anything above small temples.
I can well imagine that this might cause problems in recognizability however, so you'd need to do some careful work to get around that, but I think it'd be very worth while.
Eeeexcellent. I do intend to have two levels for each religious building, a "small" type like shown here that might also appear in towns, in other districts etc, and then a "large" version that each religion will only have one of, that will be its main religious hub (like the vatican) that can be found generally in city centres. With modular design as you say it wouldn't be that hard, should only be a day's work to create the larger versions of each tile. Religions for hunter-gatherer civs won't have anything vatican-esque, only these religions that show up in feudal civilizations, but I think all of them should have a religious 'hub' building somewhere. I'm currently in the process of figuring out how city centres are going to generate, and I think I have a good idea for the method that could include (or not) religious hubs whether or not one needs to spawn in that nation. For theocratic nations that religious building would also be the seat of government/rule.
Post by: Retropunch on September 22, 2014, 11:37:14 am
Eeeexcellent. I do intend to have two levels for each religious building, a "small" type like shown here that might also appear in towns, in other districts etc, and then a "large" version that each religion will only have one of, that will be its main religious hub (like the vatican) that can be found generally in city centres. With modular design as you say it wouldn't be that hard, should only be a day's work to create the larger versions of each tile. Religions for hunter-gatherer civs won't have anything vatican-esque, only these religions that show up in feudal civilizations, but I think all of them should have a religious 'hub' building somewhere. I'm currently in the process of figuring out how city centres are going to generate, and I think I have a good idea for the method that could include (or not) religious hubs whether or not one needs to spawn in that nation. For theocratic nations that religious building would also be the seat of government/rule.
Bow to me, the lord of feature creep!!
I think that sounds great, I really like the idea of a few levels - I feel the more the better (or 3-4) would be good, but obviously a line needs to be drawn. Perhaps very small shrines could also spawn in villages?
Perhaps hunter-gatherer civs would be more inclined to have a 'sacred ground' which could be a natural landscape feature (like a big rock) or something like a ziggurat? Perhaps others would have an elders hut/circle/area, or to a sacrificial place - which may or may not be in the settlement itself. It'd be incredible to see villagers going on a sort of mini-pilgrimage (I think there's a proper Anthropological word for that) to the village elders or their spiritual place.
This could also lead to some interesting game play interactions where the player would need to respect (or horribly defile) their sacred areas/elders/whatever.
Post by: coolio678 on September 22, 2014, 04:52:36 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 26, 2014, 06:11:40 pm
Bow to me, the lord of feature creep!!
I think that sounds great, I really like the idea of a few levels - I feel the more the better (or 3-4) would be good, but obviously a line needs to be drawn. Perhaps very small shrines could also spawn in villages?
Perhaps hunter-gatherer civs would be more inclined to have a 'sacred ground' which could be a natural landscape feature (like a big rock) or something like a ziggurat? Perhaps others would have an elders hut/circle/area, or to a sacrificial place - which may or may not be in the settlement itself. It'd be incredible to see villagers going on a sort of mini-pilgrimage (I think there's a proper Anthropological word for that) to the village elders or their spiritual place.
This could also lead to some interesting game play interactions where the player would need to respect (or horribly defile) their sacred areas/elders/whatever.
Small shrines, perhaps so - I do intend to have things inside buildings that denote religious affiliation too, like little idols or something. Should be quite fun to work on. As you say, a line needs to be drawn, and I straddle the "super-detailed world" inclination vs "this is not just a worldgen program". I think I get the right balance normally, and I don't intend to spend more than another year on world gen. Sacred ground is a very cool idea, I'll think about whether I could implement that into my existing ideas on that count (though I do think I will add a pilgrimage as a religious variation possibility). Respect/defile options are, I think, in the "religious agendas" list, currently...
Romans also kept small shrines to the household deity in the main room where they left offerings, if you feel that religions need even more unique forms of worship.
As above ^, I definitely want to include something like this. Maybe some religions only have "interior" things that note belief, rather than big shrines, statues, churches, etc etc.
Post by: Man of Paper on September 27, 2014, 07:51:14 am
While I already have a number of ideas I wish to implement (Sledgehammer Samurai being my favorite title, and one I felt I had to share), my magnum opus, the whole reason why my brain is screaming at me to learn a programming language (it's a weird sensation, when you get an idea that wraps its tentacles around your mind and absolutely refuses to let go) is a Survival/Sim/RPG set in the trenches of The Great War. I know the next couple decades of my life are going to be dedicated to this project, and I'd like to get started on the right foot or foot-analogue. And with URR being one of my big influences (though honestly URRs influence is more along the lines of "Look at this! This is fantastic! You have ideas, make them fantastic too! Make the game you've gone to sleep thinking about"), I feel inclined to ask for some advice for the budding coder, especially as for the time being I'm going to be self-taught.
Before anyone says it, while DF and URR have provided me with influence, I know it's likely I won't be as big as DF or as anticipated as URR. But that's what I'm aiming for. Well, I'm striving to be even bigger and more anticipated, but don't tell anyone.
Since I'd like to end with something relevant to URR itself, will stigmas be attached to religions? Would a religion that views all life as sacred look down on or despise one that promotes ritual sacrifice? Would, for example, a known member of a sacrificial religion be viewed as more intimidating by others outside their circle due to their religious dogma? On a different tangent, is there a chance that actions that cannot be attributed to the PC that (s)he carries out be chalked up to the divine? (General Takesgoldfrombandits was found in his home, nothing but a charred corpse. He must have really pissed off Bort, God of Honor and Justice!)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 27, 2014, 08:30:05 pm
So: I'm writing in Python, using libtcod 2.7.1, I believe. It's awesome you're taking the first step! Whilst I like 7DRLs, I think the freeware/indie world needs more epic projects. There's something I really enjoy about following a huge game through it's development, and I think others do too. I definitely relate to the mental-tentacle feeling (as it were...) and it sounds tremendously interesting, I'm immediately thinking of so much stuff you could do with that setting. I was self-taught too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with starting on your big project right away, *as long as* you know a lot of the first year or so is going to be spent rewriting as you learn more efficient ways to do the same things. I'm so glad I've provided you with the inspiration to make the move and go for it (in much the same way DF did for me!). I very much like your idea for a huge project that isn't medieval, too. That's one of the reasons I pushed away from a medieval setting and towards the scientific revolution and a world of gunpowder, to explore an era I thought was very interesting politically/socially/philosophically/culturally but you really don't see in games a whole lot (indie, AAA, whatever). Are you planning to start a site, or devlog, twitter, blog, etc? Feel free to fire with any other questions, and I'd happily give some feedback on any more specific ideas about objectives/mechanics/etc.
Stigmas, I hadn't thought of that idea, but I love it. Some religions that particularly hate each other, or religions seen in some civs as being unacceptable. Will implement. As for attributing actions to other characters, that's a very interesting one, and might tie well into my plans for manipulating the game's history, though I'd have to think about how precisely it would work...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 28, 2014, 07:37:49 am
Religious Freedom: cities have a single, well-organized district for religious worship; towns will have a single random religious building chosen from all the religions within that nation. This means finding a religious freedom civ early in the game might give you a chance to encounter a lot of other religions earlier than you otherwise might.
Cultism: These civs have no religious buildings in them whatsoever, but the secretive cults (which will be making more of an appearance later) will be much more likely to have a presence around their cities/towns. Religious worship wouldn’t be banned within the home, however.
Collective Faith: I decided to make this and “Organized Religion” into opposites; collective faith religions have a religious building in every town, but only a small number in their main city. I wanted to get a feeling that this was slightly more of a ground-up religion, perhaps without too much wealth at the top, so it’s distributed well through-out the nation.
Organized Religion: By contrast, Organized Religion civs have a religious building in every middle-class or lower-class district within their capital, but no churches out in the far-flung reaches of their nation (causing those people to probably result to quiet worship, idols/shrines in the home, etc). Wanted to emphasize the centralization of this religion in this case, and that it’s a religion very focused around the nation’s capital.
Zealotry: Civs with the “zealotry” religious policy go all-out: they have a religious building in every housing district and in every town, and no religious buildings from other civilizations are allowed anywhere within their borders.
Here’s an example of a town with a religious building in:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/09/Dist4.png)
…and, since I’ve been working on it, a town in the marshland (though totally unrelated to all this religion stuff, I just wanted to show off this new and very rare terrain type)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/09/Dist3.png)
…and a lower-class city district with a religious building, a tavern and some slave quarters…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/09/Dist2.png)
…and a middle-class district from the same city with a park and a religious building (in this case with a road around it, and some flower/vegetable beds):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/09/Dist1.png)
There’s also now a bunch of variables for religious buildings, primarily whether walls spawn around them, whether roads spawn around them, and whether vegetable/flower beds spawn within their walls/roads. Currently in a religious district they have walls, in middle-class districts they will have roads, in lower-class districts they will only have roads if they intersect a main road, and in towns they will have roads; they will have vegetable/flowerbeds in middle-class districts and religious districts, but not in lower-class districts or towns. This means that even though the church structure for each religion is the same each time (picked from the 1000+ variations mentioned last time), each actual iteration will always look a little different. My objective now is to finish off adding some variety to religions – in the comments in the previous entry it was suggested I add unique identifiers like festivals, likes/dislikes of other religions, pilgrimages etc, and I love these ideas, so they’re going in – then religions will be pretty much done for this release. I’ve also been doing some bug-hunting this week and a lot of bugs to do with placing city gates, handling roads and slums/graveyards, towns generating on rivers and handling unusual cases of combinations of coasts and cities have been resolved. Until next time, internet friends!
Post by: Man of Paper on September 28, 2014, 08:05:30 am
As you may have guessed at the mention of another person, this is starting as, and hopefully will remain, a two-man project, with a third providing more of an idea-bouncing/playtester role. The group of us have been good friends since we were in the single digits (for point of reference, we're in our mid-20s now), so I hope the project won't be dropped by the other two (For simplicity's sake I'll use their paintball callsigns from now on). Tiger, the other to-be coder, has a problem following through with anything, but maybe having someone constantly bringing the project up will keep him interested. However, I'm prepared and willing to shoulder [EPIC TITLE] myself if need be. Shoulder might be the wrong word, makes it seem like a burden. If it comes down to it, at worst I (my callsign is Tree Lobster, by the way) will be the lone coder and Tiger and Pangolin will do playtesting and the like.
World War I seemed like an obvious choice of setting for us, since there really hasn't been a good game that we know of for the era (mods to games not included). There definitely hasn't been one that wants to have a heavily detailed anatomy, including bodily functions and digestion, as well as exploring the mental strain the horrors of that war provided. Digestion should be a simple delay from when you eat/drink to when you have to relieve yourself, and the inclusion of bodily functions, while questionable for some, seemed like a requirement. Urine-soaked rags saved many a life in a pinch, and since morale is going to be a huge part of the game, choosing between popping down stink nuggets where you sleep or moving to a trench latrine and risk getting caught in a raid, charge, or bombardment with your pants quite literally down seemed like one of the many, many decisions to include that would provide the proper feeling of being stuck in the shit (by which I mean the warzone, not literal crap) for the players.
Watching how DF has developed since I found it in mid-2010, and following the development of URR since the near beginning, I know we'll need a grand goal to strive for. In this case, a mostly accurate simulation of living, fighting, and dying in the trenches. There's a metric asston of features we want to include, and it's understood that it'll have to be broken down into chunks, with BattlefieldGen being first, and working out from there. Admittedly, watching your past and planned progression has given me plenty of insight, and I won't be surprised if the kind of features we work on go in the same general order.
One idea we had that I'd like to fire out for opinion has to do with BattlefieldGen. When a character is created they get deployed to a newly-generated battlefield. As they progress the battle is going to sway one way or the other, not necessarily due to their actions. When one side achieves some to-be-determined victory condition, the player will get the option to Advance (on Victory), Pull Back (if the PC survives defeat) or Retire. The first two options will generate a new battlefield for the player to continue playing in. I think this would allow us to reduce map size without sacrificing longevity or playability as well as allow the PC to continuously develop until they meet their likely inevitable end, as well as give the player some diversity in environment. While the trenches are going to be the main focus, I'd like to include cities and fortifications in combat zones as well.
I hit preview post to see how long my post was going to be (I realized I was going on and on. It doesn't help that I was being distracted by the last two episodes of Black Jesus and a leopard gecko), and lo and behold, another update! Oddly enough, I was just contemplating terrain types and went into daydreaming about night operations through marshland. I can't wait to see those districts full of life. Have you thought about various types of burial grounds? Perhaps unique religion-related constructions to house the dead? Specifically, I'm thinking along the lines of the Catacombs of Paris. I saw how crowded the lower-class district was and thought how awesome it'd be to have 'combs beneath it. Maybe it'd be frequented by cults, or less than savory individuals.
Post by: Retropunch on September 28, 2014, 11:35:18 am
My one issue is that I'm unsure why cultism would be a civilization type. Is this more of a 'religion is banned' civ (which obviously causes cultism to spring up)?
World War 1 extremely interesting stuffThat sounds like a great project! I've been programming in Python with Libtcod and it's really great - you can use tiles (easily) as well if you feel the need. I taught a friend how to use it and although I've had some past experience in programming, it was my first big project and Py+Libtcod was easy enough to get my head around.
As far as your ideas so far, I'd definitely shoot for something more fluid than how your BattlefieldGen is shaping up - for a truly epic game, I want to feel as though I'm going through an entire campaign rather than just endless individual skirmishes. Even if this was just that once the battle was over, you just had to march across some fields until you got to the next set of trenches, or get to a point where you could be flown/shipped off to another area in the campaign, that'd give the player a real feeling of progression. It could become a point of pride amongst gamers if they'd managed to get through the entire war in Entrenched!
Remember that with ascii, modern PCs can cope with a really, really big lot of stuff going on. I had 200 NPCs on the screen at once (all with pathfinding, making choices and so on) and didn't see any slow down.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 01, 2014, 06:25:32 pm
Lots of interesting words
Sorry for the slow reply, I've been in total no-life maximum-work mode the past few days. So:
What awesome ideas. I am instantly excited! Some bullet pointy thoughts. Firstly, devlog/twitter/B12 seems like a good combo - if you are really committed to the project, and it sounds as if you are, I would think about investing in a domain name as I did. It seemed like quite an investment when I was first getting started and nobody read anything I posted, but now the blog has reached the level of popularity it has reached, I'm very glad I bought it three years ago and worked steadily to turn it into quite a nice little community (in my case, both for game updates and general games criticism stuff).
Random little-known fact: when I started URR, I tried to enlist someone else. This person was my closest friend from when I was around 6 until I went to University, at which point (though I didn't see it at the time) our paths started to diverge. I tried to enlist him into making "a game" (the specifics were unknown) as a way to rekindle the friendship, though I now realize it was already beyond saving at that point. In hindsight I'm very glad he said no! But, there's no doubt that things would speed up immensely with a second person. I do have an ideas-bouncer, who I'm moving in with (again) in a month to start my full-time year - she thinks the exact same way as I do about game design and has a lot of historical knowledge in areas I don't, and it's invaluable to be able to say "Is this genius or idiocy?" to someone who knows your game's design well, but isn't actually the one coding it. That distance is incredibly useful.
Agreed on WW1. I think your bodily functions idea is interesting, and actually, I quite like it. I agree that it could produce a lot of interesting time/turn decisions (is this intended to be grid-based, RL-ish? I assume so). Breaking down into chunks is the thing - for my part, world gen is the only logical place to start. It is the basis for everything, really, and I have found that generating the world I want has influenced the future gameplay I want in that world. Glad to hear re: insight! Although the first year was a fair bit of flapping around, since then I think I've gone about things in a fairly logical order, especially in URR's case the next three releases - settlement exteriors, building interiors, NPCs - which could only really come in in that order.
I've a lot of ideas for how the "strategy" layer of a game like you're describing could work, i.e. the movement between different battlefields. I love the idea of a campaign (I'm thinking something like, er, the Sturmovik (sp?) games - I know little about them, but I know you basically play a permadeath "career" through battles). However, one issue is the battle swaying or not due to their actions - I'm sure you have thought of this, but that brings with it a major possibility that players feel like they have no control. Of course, if you emphasize that your objective is SURVIVAL, not VICTORY, then this could actually be very interesting. Perhaps you can risk looting soldiers to sell their stuff to buy yourself better kit for the next battle, or you have ample options to retreat, flee, abandon the battlefield but then try to join back up with the army, etc. Or, possibly, you can influence victory but in subtle ways, rather than command. Maybe you know there's going to be approximately x turns until the battle resolves, but you know that in a locked safe in the other trench is a piece of information that would hugely aid your side in the next battle; is it worth going after it? Some risk/reward stuff in battle n that influences battle n+1 could introduce some interesting strategy, and could work well with a purely "survival" outlook - you're navigating the battlefields to enhance your own chance of survival, which sometimes may be through helping your side, but sometimes through retreating or otherwise. Let me know when you start the devlog etc, I'll give you a shout out on my blog/twitter/etc! I really enjoy talking over ideas for new games, there's something very exciting about someone else embarking on a huge project. I have a blog entry written about this I intend to post in the near future, but I can honestly say working on URR is pretty much the best decision I think I've ever made for my own happiness and creative/intellectual fulfillment.
Ah, yes, burial grounds (to rewind the clock by three centuries). For the time being I'm sticking with graveyards, but that's partly only to keep this release to a manageable level - there's a huge amount of detail in the cities/settlements/towns etc and more on the list to finish off, but I have put different burial grounds on a future list. Ah, now as for cults, well, hmm... I can't really speak to that...
I really love how the cities are shaping up - they're better than I could have ever imagined!
My one issue is that I'm unsure why cultism would be a civilization type. Is this more of a 'religion is banned' civ (which obviously causes cultism to spring up)?
Hmm, I see your point. The cultism policy is meant to be something more akin to an idea of a civilization that would actively encourage things like Mithraism; they might lack an official religion, or if they have one, many of the highest-ranking members of society are in the cult, and there's maybe little legal oversight to prevent cults arising, or cults are accepted and tolerated. I see your point though, maybe I should reword it. Hmm...
^ Also, yes, entirely re: ASCII and CPU usage. I ran a test of URR with a hundred or so reasonably brainless NPCs a little while ago, and they used up a couple of milliseconds to do all their combined computing each turn, which is welllllll within acceptable limits.
Post by: Retropunch on October 02, 2014, 02:15:59 am
As far as Entrenchment goes, perhaps you could become promoted as you survive battles (or your superiors get killed?) early on you'd start off being able to influence very little, but perhaps later on you'd be able to do a lot more to influence outcomes.
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 02, 2014, 06:52:27 am
Edit: The last sentence is idiotic.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 03, 2014, 01:56:16 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 03, 2014, 02:51:48 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 04, 2014, 12:03:13 am
I'd just like to reiterate on what's been said about 'not giving the player enough control'. It's very easy to think that just dropping the player down in a simulated world and letting them find there own path is enough (the 'emergent gameplay' approach) but even early on in my cyberRogue project (which tried to emulate a cyberpunk city) it was easy to see that the player needed clear objectives and ways of influencing things.
Agreed. When I was younger I really loved sandbox/simulation games, but as I've got older I have (with the exception of DF) come to, generally, strongly dislike them - I don't like the lack of objective, the lack of outcome, the lack of challenge (again, DF being an exception). For my own personal preference, I think a good balance between simulationism, but still being able to impact upon the game world, would be great for something like this!
Man of paper, worry about making it emotionally impactful and then about the rest. If that means dwelling on your life before the war (because come on, who of your audience knows much about life in 1895), examining the home front, using real stories from the soldiers themselves, do it. WW1 shouldn't be "a hardcore mode". Hell, tell the players at the end that all the personalities (preferably everyone :P) in the game, including who they shot, were based off real people, and show their memorials.
This is an interesting and pretty cool idea, I think. There's a balance in there between being heavy-handed with it and getting some actual emotional impact, but I think it could be done well.
Shovel Buddies
No need to feel guilty - I appreciate you sharing the ideas with me/us here! Especially as I'm only in part-time development at the moment (though tomorrow's update is pretty big), I don't mind other games-related discussions at all. Do you have a timeframe for starting early development yet?
Good thinking re: WWI era, not WWI (potentially). I'm doing the same - URR is slightly different from the real scientific revolution, as I'm including some things from "after" and some from "before", for instance. I like rank as leveling up - very clear to the player (and lets you have some nice rank graphics if you want them). Ha, I'm glad you're going with the encoded messages idea potentially! I still have some crypto in URR, but not the sort as before. Cool ideas re: morale, though I agree with Scoops' thoughts on displaying morale. It's something I've pondered for allies - the player will not have "forced" morale, though NPCs will, and there will be some attacks that are specifically for damaging morale, not physical damage. Shovel Buddies is a neat name, and I like the juxtaposition of title/content a lot. Hmmmm, real-time vs turn. As you say, even with ASCII (or a tileset) real-time can be demanding, especially with huge numbers of factors, and from my own experiments it is (or at least it seems) much harder to code, especially in terms of avoiding bottlenecks that you can't afford when you have to maintain a good FPS at all times. In my experience of starting with no coding experience whatsoever, I think real-time would be a lot trickier - it's very easy to just alter a line of code and suddenly you're at 100% CPU usage or some crap like that. It shouldn't be a dealbreaker if you want real-time - every daunting technical hurdle I've had, I've so far overcome - but I think it's worth thinking about.
Post by: Neonivek on October 04, 2014, 02:19:03 am
Quote
the lack of outcome
To me that is probably what kills sandbox games pretty much every time.
Post by: Retropunch on October 04, 2014, 07:27:09 am
Quotethe lack of outcome
To me that is probably what kills sandbox games pretty much every time.
Yeah, I think DF manages it because there are objectives (survive sieges, kill megabeats, delve deeper) and you can influence the world pretty heavily. Still, the one reason I do get bored of DF is because occasionally you do become a bit objective-less.
If survival by itself is a big enough goal, this can work out ok just on it's own. For instance, and I know it's a strange comparison, but a lot of zombie games (like dead island/rising) have you completing objectives, but it's not about actually wiping out all the zombies - they're the survival backdrop to your own quests. This could work well in a WW1 setting - the war is really just a dangerous 'living' backdrop to your own story.
Really, I just think it's important to put time into what the actual objectives/game play for the player is, rather than just hoping that an incredibly detailed simulation will keep people interested (although I'm sure it will to a point!).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 05, 2014, 12:10:23 pm
If survival by itself is a big enough goal, this can work out ok just on it's own. For instance, and I know it's a strange comparison, but a lot of zombie games (like dead island/rising) have you completing objectives, but it's not about actually wiping out all the zombies - they're the survival backdrop to your own quests. This could work well in a WW1 setting - the war is really just a dangerous 'living' backdrop to your own story.
Yeah, I like this model. The original Dead Rising was such an underrated game! It was highly challenging to complete any reasonably decent number of the quests aside from the main story, there was loads of secret/hidden stuff, and it was generally damned entertaining.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 05, 2014, 02:36:19 pm
Firstly, I added a lot of variation to religions based on the discussions in the previous blog post. Religions now have four special factors, and some religions will have none, one, or all four of these factors. These are a unique feature (festival, pilgrimage, animal sacrifice, etc), an exclusion (a particular type of weapon they consider heretical and cannot be used if you worship them), the punishment for leaving that religion (none, excommunication, open hostility), and then a list of other religions, if any, that they consider heretical, and whose believers they are hostile to. Here’s an example from the in-game encyclopedia:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/Transit3.png)
Aside from that, the major thing I’ve worked on this week is the city exploration screen. If you’re on the world map and you move into a city, the screen changes from this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/Transit1.png)
…into this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/Transit2.png)
…which is quite a complex screen when you first see it, but there’s a lot of information that needs to be stuffed in there without compromising on clarity (as much as possible). It displays the nature of each district (the characters in the corners, [, $, 1, etc), whether you are currently in it (displayed by a lighter shading, the @ symbol, and the arrows on the edge of the screen), and most importantly, the cost for entering that district. This is the first aspect of the strategy layer of the game and the use of the player’s time and resources. The cost is shown in this picture in the nation’s currency – some nations only have a single currency, whilst others have two levels of currency like most real-world coinages. The “this city is not populated” message will only be there until coinage and NPCs are implemented, of course, but I thought it was important to be clear for 0.6 on this point.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/Transit4.png)
The sidebar display a load of information about the city. The top text will describe your relationship with that nation, and therefore whether you are given discounts or charged extra for movement, and below that how much of the appropriate currency you have. Movement within your capital is totally free, however, as is any nation you are closely allied with. Then it tells you what district you’re in, and lists all the buildings you know of within that district. All districts within your home city will start explored, whilst you will be able to purchase maps to other cities, or ask for directions to specific buildings when exploring abroad. For the next release or two currencies are not implemented so your movement will be free, but in either 0.8 or 0.9 currencies, and currency exchanges, will appear. I’m looking forward to generating the images for the currencies too, as there’s a very cool selection of possible coins in there.
Other stuff:
- All castles, graveyards, crypts (below either graveyards or cathedrals in theocratic nations), taverns, arenas, jails, theatres and asylums now have full (and pretty awesome) name generators. Fancy visiting Blackwish Bastion, Whispering Orchard Necropolis, the Sepulcher of the Golden Bones, the Tankard and Dragon, Boneblade Fighting Pit, Slate Palisade Lockup, the Theatre of the Choleric Faces, or the Tranquil Gate Sanitarium?
- Some cities which don’t have enough roads going into them now gain extra gates so that you can always access them from various directions, and these are shown on the world map.
- Player stats have been updated to reflect the upcoming combat mechanics – you now possess strength, dexterity, endurance, perception, finesse, and marksmanship, two of which will determine your skill with each of the six types of weapon (slashing, long, heavy, short, bows/crossbows, and gunpowder).
- Marshland is fully implemented and hunter-gatherer settlements, towns and city districts all generate correctly on them, allowing for pools of marsh water without jeopardizing pathfinding.
- An early draft of religion-spread mechanics has been implemented; any civ that believes in “Religious Freedom” as their policy will have the religions from all neighbouring civilizations reflected, including those they neighbour with a colony, rather than their main body of land. This then determines which buildings spawn in religious districts, and they are described in the city view screen appropriately – “a Stupa of the Six of the Leaves”, “a Church of Her of the Mountain”, “a Chapel of The Thousand Divines”, etc etc.
- I fixed a bug causing towns to generate large circles of road in the middle of the ocean.
Post by: Retropunch on October 06, 2014, 01:54:06 am
As usual, a critical comment:
I love the special factors of religions, but I feel that exclusions feel a bit game-y. All the other factors are quite deep and in fitting with their real world counterparts, but weapon exclusions seem a bit too 'rpg' and so sort of out of place. Obviously religions should have their conducts and related sins, but perhaps exclusions could be widened?
It's difficult for me to make suggestions as I'm unsure what gameplay mechanics are going in which could then be made into conducts (and weapons could be one of them), but I can imagine things like not allowing the player to wear types of fabric, or using wooden items. Secondly, I'd like to think some religions have tiered levels of 'sin', so some may dislike the use of wooden items, but HATE the use of wooden weapons.
Post by: Nighthawk on October 06, 2014, 08:29:00 am
I like it a lot.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 06, 2014, 10:38:10 am
Post by: Retropunch on October 06, 2014, 12:16:22 pm
There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?
Post by: Neonivek on October 06, 2014, 12:40:22 pm
Which I have to say as far as "religions" are concerned is probably one of the worst in fiction. The mythologies in dnd are interesting but the religions are cartoony or non-existent most of the time.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 08, 2014, 03:17:02 am
Fantastic! I love the city exploration screen. I was wondering how you'd make it manageable for the player to get round these huge cities, and that should certainly help!
As usual, a critical comment:
I love the special factors of religions, but I feel that exclusions feel a bit game-y. All the other factors are quite deep and in fitting with their real world counterparts, but weapon exclusions seem a bit too 'rpg' and so sort of out of place. Obviously religions should have their conducts and related sins, but perhaps exclusions could be widened?
It's difficult for me to make suggestions as I'm unsure what gameplay mechanics are going in which could then be made into conducts (and weapons could be one of them), but I can imagine things like not allowing the player to wear types of fabric, or using wooden items. Secondly, I'd like to think some religions have tiered levels of 'sin', so some may dislike the use of wooden items, but HATE the use of wooden weapons.
Ha, yeah. So was I...
I mean, cities are deliberately massive. The Skyrim nonsense of "this is the capital city of ten thousand km2 of land, and it has TEN UNIQUE NPCS yet a thousand guards" just won't do. I love the Assassin's Creed cities which are bustling with life, but I need a sensible way for you to negotiate these. That screen is part of it, but there are many other parts - NPCs will give you detailed directions, you can buy maps, and only certain parts of any given city will be relevant to you at any given point. I'm also working on adding some significant clarity to some districts, especially market districts. I like how they looked in the images I showed a while back, but walking around them is a little unclear. It needs to be more apparent what the shops are and where they are.
Anyway. I take your point re: game-y-ness (and I always appreciate critique), but in this instance I think it works ok. I agree that there could be more exclusions though - currently there are slashing/long/heavy/short/bows/crossbows/archery/pistols/rifles/gunpowder/grenades, I think, is the entire set. However, tiered issues (or tiered punishments?) is a very interesting idea, and I quite like it. X-strikes-and-you're-out. More thoughts on this in my reply to your latter message!
I like all of it. Even the weapon exclusions. While I do agree it feels game-y, when it comes down to it, URR is a game. Implementing religions with limitations attached opens up some really interesting playstyle options and even challenges that yield rewards. Think about it: if you want an awesome sword, join a religion like the one in the screenie up there. Do the stuff that makes them happy, avoid using bows, and eventually some high priest fellow may hand you an epic weapon. From there, you're free to leave the religion and join another, since there is no serious penalty for doing so.
I like it a lot.
^ this is very much my thinking. Do you want to worship a religion that wants you to kill their foes and rewards you with maps but won't let you use heavy weapons, or one that wants you to bring back maps of foreign lands, bars the use of gunpowder weapons, but will reward you with valuable healing items? Etc etc. Your latter sentences about "using" and then discarding religions is exactly my idea, especially since they integrate with other aspects of the game. Say you find a religion like that - a reward you want and some objective that will be simple to achieve. But - is there a religious building nearby that you can visit? Are there other religions which will hate you if you worship them? Does the thing they ban seriously affect you? Even religions with no penalties cannot be rejoined after leaving, I've decided, so you want to ponder how long you want to hang around in one before leaving for another (if that's what you decide to do). As ever, playtesting balancing is needed for severity of punishments, ease of changing, etc etc.
I dunno about the no serious penalty thing. Apostates and heretics are often seen as worse than non-believers. To the point of getting executed for it. I wouldn't want to run into a group from a religion I became a fixture for then turned my back on.
Hmm, that's a good point. As below, maybe I need a broader range of punishments? Perhaps another could be that if you leave the religion, that civ's homeland will charge you more for district movement, maybe? But yeah, if you leave a religion that doesn't like those who leave, you should be aiming to avoid them in the future. I like the idea that as a playthrough progresses, everyone starts broadly neutral, but the more you play, the more allies you build and the stronger your character becomes, but the more enemies you also rack up...
I do think weapon exclusions have a place, I just don't like the idea of all/most religions having weapon exclusions as a major factor in religion, as that just seems a bit flat somehow. I can imagine other exclusions like 'humble travellers - not allowing the player to travel by lavish means' or certain materials being banned or whatever which could add a lot more flavour. Some could have no hard exclusions/conducts, and instead just be about following general rules.
There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?
I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!
More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...
You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.
1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.
2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."
3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.
I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.
That whole "religions are all the same" aspect comes pretty much exclusively from Dungeons and Dragons.
Which I have to say as far as "religions" are concerned is probably one of the worst in fiction. The mythologies in dnd are interesting but the religions are cartoony or non-existent most of the time.
Interesting - can you say a bit more about this? I know little-to-nothing about how religions are depicted in DnD, and I had no idea they were so simplistic!
Post by: Putnam on October 08, 2014, 03:27:26 am
Then again, given that this game doesn't really technically have graphics, that's really damn impressive.
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 08, 2014, 05:17:07 am
Post by: Retropunch on October 08, 2014, 10:55:34 am
I do think weapon exclusions have a place, I just don't like the idea of all/most religions having weapon exclusions as a major factor in religion, as that just seems a bit flat somehow. I can imagine other exclusions like 'humble travellers - not allowing the player to travel by lavish means' or certain materials being banned or whatever which could add a lot more flavour. Some could have no hard exclusions/conducts, and instead just be about following general rules.
There should definitely be huge penalties for leaving - I think that's what makes religions such a choice in games (like DCSS) - I would like to see more of a gradient though. More than this though, I wonder how you're going to deal with religious infractions being reported? I mean, is it going to be an omnipotent thing, or will it need someone to actually report it?
I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!
More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...
You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.
1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.
2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."
3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.
I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.
The 'No omnipotence' one sounds pretty much impossible to make work in a meaningful way - best case scenario you'd be encouraging the player to do massive amounts of inventory swapping.
I can imagine a version of the second one where using the item/committing the infraction whilst in 'civilized spheres' may lead to you losing favour with your religion (again, I think a gradient system is a must). Defining 'civilized' spheres may be difficult, but I imagine that at some point you'll want to show (or at least have behind the scenes) the spheres of influence of different ruling groups/religions, so it could be tied to that.
This might lead to interesting gameplay if there were different gradients of civilization. You could have a good chance of avoiding losing favour with a religion in a semi-uncivilized area so you might risk committing an infraction, but you'd probably not dare do anything in very civilized areas. This could alternatively (and more excitingly) be tied to areas of religious influence - committing infractions far outside your religions (and possibly similar religions (think CoE<->Catholic)) influence would be a lot less risky.
Post by: Sergius on October 10, 2014, 10:22:28 pm
I really like the banning method of travel idea! That could be very interesting, some forbid mountain/desert/ocean travel. That would be a major exclusion though, I think, compared to weapons, but it could still be good. Maybe some poverty/wealth ones - some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!
More of a gradient is certainly possible. Atm it's just nothing/excommunication (i.e. no help from worshippers, won't sell to you, etc) and active hostility. I could break hostility and excomm down, perhaps - won't talk, won't trade, won't do either, will attack you if provoked, will attack you on sight...
You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.
1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.
2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."
3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.
I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.
Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.
Post by: coolio678 on October 11, 2014, 10:57:55 am
The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.
Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.
Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.
Post by: Leatra on October 11, 2014, 09:41:31 pm
Hmm, that's a good point. As below, maybe I need a broader range of punishments?Different religions should have different ways to deal with heretics. At least for the sake of variety, just throwing some brainstorming ideas:
I think killing on sight is the most apparent one.
Ignoring: Believers of the religion are not supposed to interact with you. They'll treat you like a ghost without any sings of active aggression, but they'll defend themselves if you attack them. Ignored tend to try to make living in the slums part of the city. Since they usually turn to stealing to get by (and caught easily) their numbers are low.
Confession: Believers of the religion will try to capture you, and after they got you imprisoned, they'll try to get a confession out of you and unless you say how sinful your act was and plead for mercy from one true God (or true many gods), they'll torture you until you die from your wounds. After you confess, they'll hang you/burn you alive/bring out the firing squad/force you to hara-kiri/slit your neck so your heretical-but-confessed soul will reach the merciful God.
Marking: If the heretic is captured, he/she will face the punishment of marking. This can be something as small as a tattoo on the face, or a removed body part. Those who are marked are treated as the lowest social circle in the hierarchy, worse than slaves. Those who are marked should have trouble with hiding their identities depending on the mark.
Exile: You won't be allowed to enter settlements where this religion is the state religion.
Removal of the tongue: You will spread your heretical lies no more.
Some religions might have a combination of punishments. Like ignoring and marking, so people will know who to ignore, rather than being omnipotent about it.
some religions bar you from wearing armour above a certain value (poverty is great!), whilst others ban you wearing armour below a certain value (don't make our religion look poor/unimportant!). Actually, having typed those out, I really like them. They're going in!Awesome idea, and it reflects reality too. One of Islam's virtues is (or used to be?) modesty. Being flashy, wearing too many jewelries, making big donations without hiding your name, and building giant mosques which are so richly decorated that could buy an entire city is (was?) very frowned upon.
You've hit upon a core question I haven't settled in my head yet re: omnipotence. I see several options.
1) Your player cannot commit an infraction. You try to wield a knife, it says "You cannot wield this whilst worshipping X, are you sure you want to?", pressing yes destroys relationship with religion. Slightly gamey.
2) As above, you aren't prevented, but religions auto-know. Something like "Rumours have reached the [Religion Leader] about your infractions, and you have been excommunicated."
3) No omnipotence. Who sees your actions matters. I'm... not sure about this one. It seems easy enough to code, but I'm worried it will make it too easy to avoid the exclusions.
I haven't reached a conclusion on this one in the slightest, and I think there is something to be said for all three options. I'm guessing most people think #3 is the best option? I'm leaning towards #2, honestly, especially since the game has no "stealth" mechanics, and 3 might encourage a kind of make-shift "stealth", and... I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Number 3 might be difficult to code. Not that I know anything about coding.
If anybody saw your heretical act and got away with that. He could report it to a priest, but then you'd have to deal with several variables. Maybe the player wants to bribe the witness, send assassins after him, try to locate him, try to convince the witness to shut up as soon as the witness sees him, etc. Or maybe the witness wouldn't want to report the player because of good relations with the player, or maybe he isn't that religious himself to care about it. It would open up a lot of possibilities, none of them sound easy to code. If you place to many limitations to keep things under control, it will still feel gamey.
The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.Hmm, I wonder how noble families will be implemented. Will we see Game of Thrones style politics and intrigue?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 12, 2014, 04:38:43 am
I'm gonna be frank and say that I mostly still follow this topic for the pretty pictures.
Then again, given that this game doesn't really technically have graphics, that's really damn impressive.
I am very comfortable with this :).
The more ridiculous religions should be treated as such in game. If a poor island nation has a religion that bans ocean travel and swords, they shouldn't be much more then a cult if that. It would just be incredibly gamey if i saw many people signing on for the "lolwut" religions. I also second option 3.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. This is an interesting thought, but I feel that make things a little too deterministic, and reduce some decisions. If the only popular religions are those which are "good", it seems like that would seriously limit the decision-making of choosing what religion to sign on with. I mean, I can think of some real-world religions with some very restrictive of very "extreme" beliefs (from an outside perspective) that have massive uptake, so I actually don't think it would be all that realistic, either!
The 'No omnipotence' one sounds pretty much impossible to make work in a meaningful way - best case scenario you'd be encouraging the player to do massive amounts of inventory swapping.
I can imagine a version of the second one where using the item/committing the infraction whilst in 'civilized spheres' may lead to you losing favour with your religion (again, I think a gradient system is a must). Defining 'civilized' spheres may be difficult, but I imagine that at some point you'll want to show (or at least have behind the scenes) the spheres of influence of different ruling groups/religions, so it could be tied to that.
This might lead to interesting gameplay if there were different gradients of civilization. You could have a good chance of avoiding losing favour with a religion in a semi-uncivilized area so you might risk committing an infraction, but you'd probably not dare do anything in very civilized areas. This could alternatively (and more excitingly) be tied to areas of religious influence - committing infractions far outside your religions (and possibly similar religions (think CoE<->Catholic)) influence would be a lot less risky.
Agreed: re: No Omni, I'm definitely leaning heavily away from that one - I hadn't considered the inventory repercussions, but that's definitely true. Now, this gradient idea - that I really like a lot. Civs with that religion could count as ominpotent over errors, civs which border a civ with the religion could be partly omin, and other civs you can do whatever the heck you want and nobody would know. That could be a very clear/explicit three-level thing for the player to understand, I think. I need to add a religion overlay to the world map, so maybe something like "Religious Presence", "Religion Spreading" and "No Religious Presence"? I realize a three-part tiering of this isn't very nuanced, but could work really well with making clear when your infractions will/won't be known. So in the spreading areas, would it be something like "Wielding a forbidden weapon is a 50% chance of discovery"? Or maybe for each X turns you spend in that territory, you have a Y% chance of your religion hearing about it? Or some other method?
Hmm. And maybe each infraction loses one rank whilst doing stuff your religion wants gains a rank. I quite like this idea - the higher up a rank you've gone, the more you can do unacceptable things before your religion kicks you out. There are probably going to be around 5-6 ranks for a religion, so each of those could tolerate one infracton?
Give the player psychological reasons, like getting terrible guilt about violating the tenets of his religion, which causes penalties. The higher his piety/rank/whatever in the religion the worse the guilt/penalties. Let them cleanse that guilt by dunno, donating or sacrificing or whatevs.
Also make the social consequences higher the more notoriety or something the character has. So, anyone who belongs to a religion (and doesn't get killed before being able to tell someone) can tell on the player, but if the player is just some nobody then no one is going to remember his actions anyway.
This is an interesting idea, though I think I may go with the infractions and rejection one, rather than "internalizing" the player's issues. Especially since I expect the player to switch between religions throughout the game (much more so than DCSS, for instance). As for renown/notoriety, I've been thinking for a long while about how exactly this should work, and there's a hundred different models going through my head at the moment. Global, national, individuals, I'm not sure what "scale" I should model who knows about who, and so forth. Of course, there are other "extremes" I could go with that - maybe everyone instantly knows who you are, or only NPCs you've met before know who you are. Those would be very clear to the player, though as with all the others, I need to think through all the repercussions.
The player is a member of a noble family in their starting civ, so it would be a little hard to be a nobody, except if you're far from home or something.
^ ja. For that reason your civ will start out fully-explored, for example. But yeah, it may be hard to be a nobody, which might lean towards a system akin to the religion thing - further from your civ, the fewer people know you. I'll have settled on something once we get to NPCs (0.8, I'm finishing up 0.6 now), but I think all these models have definite strengths and weaknesses.
Lots
Hello Leatra! Welcome back to the thread, as it were. Glad you like how things are progressing, and thanks, I *really* appreciate that re: PhD. As I mentioned somewhere (here? blog? I forget) I'm doing > 50% of my time on URR at the moment, since I'm at the stage of PhD of just sending my work back and forth between me and my supervisors and waiting for feedback, which always leaves breaks of 4/5/6/7 days, vs. only 1/2/3 days of work each time I get some comments back.
Anyway, thanks for this list of other punishments. It's awesome. I think ignoring/excommunication could be two levels, one where they will rarely talk to you, will trade but give high prices, and one where they refuse any contact (and as you say, defend themselves). Confession, I like it, so they actively try to capture you, not kill you. Marking is also very cool (and... ties into something I have planned very, VERY well), but might overlap with ideas I have for denoting slaves. I could have some other punishments - for instance, branding is down as something a civ might choose for marking slaves, but I could use maybe cutting off an ear, or similar, if that religion gets a hold of you. Exile: I like it. Removal of tongue: wooooooooooooooooooooah. If that happened to the player... that would certainly be a very extreme change. No conversations allowed, but you could still trade by holding up coins. That's crazy, but I'm a big fan of very bold, game-changing things in game design, so I'm not going to rule it out, actually. Could also have punishments to remove an eye (smaller FOV?), remove a hand (can only wield one thing)... those would be extreme, but they'd be damned interesting, and things that you'd want to *seriously* avoid, as there's no way to undo 'em.
Ah, good call re: modesty, that could be another way to express that one if I can't think of a good wording for "poverty is a virtue". Agreed re: #3, I'm leaning towards #2 even more so currently, but some model as I mentioned in one of these other replies, where there are regions where you are guaranteed to have your infraction known, regions where your chance of being known rises the longer you infract (or each time? Again, want to prevent exploitable behaviour), and regions where you can do whatever you want and your home religion won't know.
I hope so! Right now each family has a mansion in the upper-class housing district of their capital civ, and you (this release) will start just outside your manor. In 0.7 (probably) you'll start within your manor!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 12, 2014, 04:42:46 am
Post by: Leatra on October 12, 2014, 04:52:53 pm
Post by: Retropunch on October 13, 2014, 01:39:13 am
QuoteThis might lead to interesting gameplay if there were different gradients of civilization. You could have a good chance of avoiding losing favour with a religion in a semi-uncivilized area so you might risk committing an infraction, but you'd probably not dare do anything in very civilized areas. This could alternatively (and more excitingly) be tied to areas of religious influence - committing infractions far outside your religions (and possibly similar religions (think CoE<->Catholic)) influence would be a lot less risky.
Agreed: re: No Omni, I'm definitely leaning heavily away from that one - I hadn't considered the inventory repercussions, but that's definitely true. Now, this gradient idea - that I really like a lot. Civs with that religion could count as ominpotent over errors, civs which border a civ with the religion could be partly omin, and other civs you can do whatever the heck you want and nobody would know. That could be a very clear/explicit three-level thing for the player to understand, I think. I need to add a religion overlay to the world map, so maybe something like "Religious Presence", "Religion Spreading" and "No Religious Presence"? I realize a three-part tiering of this isn't very nuanced, but could work really well with making clear when your infractions will/won't be known. So in the spreading areas, would it be something like "Wielding a forbidden weapon is a 50% chance of discovery"? Or maybe for each X turns you spend in that territory, you have a Y% chance of your religion hearing about it? Or some other method?
Hmm. And maybe each infraction loses one rank whilst doing stuff your religion wants gains a rank. I quite like this idea - the higher up a rank you've gone, the more you can do unacceptable things before your religion kicks you out. There are probably going to be around 5-6 ranks for a religion, so each of those could tolerate one infracton?
I think a three-part tiering is fine, and a lot more sensible than a full 1-100 style gradient. However, in terms of infractions being known I feel it should be rather more obfuscated/random. I don't feel the player should be 'playing the numbers' with their religion, and should instead just be thinking a bit more naturally. This may just come down to percentages, but I feel they should be some flexibility. I also don't think it should be on wield, but rather on use (or the 'active' version of whatever conduct).
I'd also suggest giving some religions traits that increase/decrease their ability to catch your indiscretions and also the level of punishment.
As far as losing ranks that's exactly what I had in mind! As I said before, I believe some religions should be absolutely zero-tolerance (or perhaps only allow 2 discretions at the highest level), I'd also suggest that the punishment for committing an infraction at the first rank be somewhat lower/gives you a free pass the first time (as long as you're still at the first rank). This would stop the player from being punished when they haven't got much invested in the religion. Probably at worst you'd just get kicked out of the religion and be banned from re-joining.
Lastly, I think it's really important that the player not know if they've committed an infraction until they go back to a main religious building. It'd mean that the player wouldn't make a gamble and then just think 'nope, I've been found out - game over' and just quit/save scum. It'd also cut down on the 'god messages' which I find a bit jarring.
Post by: BlindKitty on October 14, 2014, 01:08:41 am
Update after 5 minute consideration: I'm putting in the hand/eye/tongue punishments. Hell yes.
In India, and - if I am not mistaken - Persia, it was a long standing tradition to cut off noses for particularly serious crimes. While less extreme than tongue removal, it is still pretty painful and leaves a clearly visible (and allegedly really ugly) mark, so aside from being a mark, it could reduce your conversational abilities.
As for trading by holding up coins etc. - Chinese have a system where they are able to count up to 100 000 on fingers of one hand (it is hard to describe easily, but I'm sure you could look it up in the Internet, if you are interested), allowing for negotiations to be conducted in silence and without visibility (by touching other party's hand). Civilizations that know this (or similar) technique might not care if you have no tongue during bargaining, while those - like Arabs - who generally consider bargaining a vocal matter might be unhappy that you try to conduct your business silently. This can be interesting also with characters who still have tongue; Chinese developed their systems to avoid publicly stating the prices on goods when trading in the open market, to avoid giving leverage to other trade partners, who could try and get lower price on basis that somebody else already did. And at the very least, it would make for a very different feel of markets - some extremely chaotic and loud, like Arab suk markets, some more peaceful, but still buzzing with constant negotiations, like European ones, and some almost silent, like Chinese, with completely silent bargaining.
Post by: Majestic7 on October 14, 2014, 06:08:00 am
For example, one huge attractor to go on a Crusade was originally the promise of all sins being forgiven. That attracted many religious veterans who had been involved in questionable actions in wars and were now worried about the afterlife. "Do what you do best, but for the True Faith and you'll get to Heaven!" and all that. Pretty good recruiting speech in a religious mindset.
As another example, when a HRE emperor eventually failed in his power struggle against the pope, he had to do penance by walking to Rome covered in ashes and wearing only a horsehair shirt. According to legend, that is.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 14, 2014, 08:21:00 am
My inner dwarf is satisfied! I'm just throwing out ideas so you can modify them to fit into the game design. I don't expect any the ideas to be implemented %100 the way we described here. I didn't really expect you to go all "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED" when I talked about tongue removal :D There is a dev who isn't afraid of anything!
Haha, excellent! Yeah, I really love the ideas. The friend I always bounce bold ideas off before implementing also thought it was an awesome idea, so they've passed The Test. Those punishments will be in the next release, even if we don't yet have NPCs to do the actual arm-chopping :)
I think a three-part tiering is fine, and a lot more sensible than a full 1-100 style gradient. However, in terms of infractions being known I feel it should be rather more obfuscated/random. I don't feel the player should be 'playing the numbers' with their religion, and should instead just be thinking a bit more naturally. This may just come down to percentages, but I feel they should be some flexibility. I also don't think it should be on wield, but rather on use (or the 'active' version of whatever conduct).
I'd also suggest giving some religions traits that increase/decrease their ability to catch your indiscretions and also the level of punishment.
As far as losing ranks that's exactly what I had in mind! As I said before, I believe some religions should be absolutely zero-tolerance (or perhaps only allow 2 discretions at the highest level), I'd also suggest that the punishment for committing an infraction at the first rank be somewhat lower/gives you a free pass the first time (as long as you're still at the first rank). This would stop the player from being punished when they haven't got much invested in the religion. Probably at worst you'd just get kicked out of the religion and be banned from re-joining.
Lastly, I think it's really important that the player not know if they've committed an infraction until they go back to a main religious building. It'd mean that the player wouldn't make a gamble and then just think 'nope, I've been found out - game over' and just quit/save scum. It'd also cut down on the 'god messages' which I find a bit jarring.
All good thoughts, I'll definitely have to think about the exact mechanic by which infractions are recorded. I agree though, "use" is more logical than "wield". Interesting re: traits that enhance/decrease observation. I think I'll have to know how exactly infractions work before knowing whether I can implement something of that sort or not!
Nice ideas re: zero tolerance and low-level tolerance. As for finding out when you reach a building only... hmm. The issue with that one would be that once you've reached a high enough level in the religion, you could just infract constantly and never return to a building. At the same time, though, I understand your concern over a god message. Perhaps a compromise could be the next person of that religion you encounter, or the next high-ranking official, or if you've broken the rules someone is dispatched to tell you, or the next time you enter a religion-majority nation, or...
There's a bunch of options, though I'm not sure which works best. On the save scumming, though, I recognize there's nothing I can do to prevent that any more than any other RL, so I'm actually not too concerned about that. Those who want to play properly will, and those who don't, won't, and that's that. HOWEVER, I have ideas for mitigating the severity of this, especially by having some secrets and solutions requiring the input of more than one individual player to solve/deduce.
Update after 5 minute consideration: I'm putting in the hand/eye/tongue punishments. Hell yes.
In India, and - if I am not mistaken - Persia, it was a long standing tradition to cut off noses for particularly serious crimes. While less extreme than tongue removal, it is still pretty painful and leaves a clearly visible (and allegedly really ugly) mark, so aside from being a mark, it could reduce your conversational abilities.
As for trading by holding up coins etc. - Chinese have a system where they are able to count up to 100 000 on fingers of one hand (it is hard to describe easily, but I'm sure you could look it up in the Internet, if you are interested), allowing for negotiations to be conducted in silence and without visibility (by touching other party's hand). Civilizations that know this (or similar) technique might not care if you have no tongue during bargaining, while those - like Arabs - who generally consider bargaining a vocal matter might be unhappy that you try to conduct your business silently. This can be interesting also with characters who still have tongue; Chinese developed their systems to avoid publicly stating the prices on goods when trading in the open market, to avoid giving leverage to other trade partners, who could try and get lower price on basis that somebody else already did. And at the very least, it would make for a very different feel of markets - some extremely chaotic and loud, like Arab suk markets, some more peaceful, but still buzzing with constant negotiations, like European ones, and some almost silent, like Chinese, with completely silent bargaining.
These are very cool ideas for methods by which silent bargaining could take place! At the same time, I see your point about being vocal in markets, bartering, etc. Perhaps you can directly buy without a tongue, but you aren't allowed to barter? Though... I think losing the ability to converse would be a huge enough downside. Probably.
Re: religious punishments. Don't forget punitive missions bestowed upon those breaking the rules who still wish to return to the fold. Plus extreme mission options for those who want to return to the fold after the most hideous deeds and punishments.
For example, one huge attractor to go on a Crusade was originally the promise of all sins being forgiven. That attracted many religious veterans who had been involved in questionable actions in wars and were now worried about the afterlife. "Do what you do best, but for the True Faith and you'll get to Heaven!" and all that. Pretty good recruiting speech in a religious mindset.
As another example, when a HRE emperor eventually failed in his power struggle against the pope, he had to do penance by walking to Rome covered in ashes and wearing only a horsehair shirt. According to legend, that is.
Now that is an interesting idea. I confess, the notion that once you've left a religion you're done does appeal to me - as the game progresses, there's a clear risk/reward there as you exploit more factions but more factions come to dislike you, or you can play it safer and just stick with your starting religion and take your rank in that one as far as you can go (or some middleground). On the other hand, I quite like the idea you threw out of being able to rejoin with a greater offering than before. I'll have to think on it. I'm leaning towards keeping things as I have planned now, but I do like the penance/crusade idea...
Post by: Retropunch on October 14, 2014, 10:53:37 am
I think a three-part tiering is fine,
All good thoughts, I'll definitely have to think about the exact mechanic by which infractions are recorded. I agree though, "use" is more logical than "wield". Interesting re: traits that enhance/decrease observation. I think I'll have to know how exactly infractions work before knowing whether I can implement something of that sort or not!
Nice ideas re: zero tolerance and low-level tolerance. As for finding out when you reach a building only... hmm. The issue with that one would be that once you've reached a high enough level in the religion, you could just infract constantly and never return to a building. At the same time, though, I understand your concern over a god message. Perhaps a compromise could be the next person of that religion you encounter, or the next high-ranking official, or if you've broken the rules someone is dispatched to tell you, or the next time you enter a religion-majority nation, or...
There's a bunch of options, though I'm not sure which works best. On the save scumming, though, I recognize there's nothing I can do to prevent that any more than any other RL, so I'm actually not too concerned about that. Those who want to play properly will, and those who don't, won't, and that's that. HOWEVER, I have ideas for mitigating the severity of this, especially by having some secrets and solutions requiring the input of more than one individual player to solve/deduce.
Re finding out at building: It definitely makes sense for it to be anyone from your religion you talk to. I had envisaged that as there would be no 'magic powers' conferred on you from following a religion, the only place you'd really be able to 'use' your religion would be in religious buildings, but having it as the first person from the religion makes sense. Similarly, a dispatch is probably a good idea, or just when you reach a religion-majority (all good ideas!).
My feeling on save scumming is that whilst you certainly can't stop it, it should not be so trivial that it becomes almost routine. Stopping save scumming was the wrong way of putting it though, I mainly meant in terms of the punishment not being so immediate that it'd cause you to immediate know if it's succeeded or not. I feel reward/punishment that is delayed from the action is something sorely missing in games - usually you do something and you get a star or a slap, whereas it gives choices a lot more gravity if you don't know how they're going to play out further down the line.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 15, 2014, 05:24:13 am
Re finding out at building: It definitely makes sense for it to be anyone from your religion you talk to. I had envisaged that as there would be no 'magic powers' conferred on you from following a religion, the only place you'd really be able to 'use' your religion would be in religious buildings, but having it as the first person from the religion makes sense. Similarly, a dispatch is probably a good idea, or just when you reach a religion-majority (all good ideas!).
My feeling on save scumming is that whilst you certainly can't stop it, it should not be so trivial that it becomes almost routine. Stopping save scumming was the wrong way of putting it though, I mainly meant in terms of the punishment not being so immediate that it'd cause you to immediate know if it's succeeded or not. I feel reward/punishment that is delayed from the action is something sorely missing in games - usually you do something and you get a star or a slap, whereas it gives choices a lot more gravity if you don't know how they're going to play out further down the line.
Excellent! Yeah, I think something along those lines will work well. Probably a more generalized dispatch system too for NPC from factions finding you, any who want to hunt you down, etc, and this would just be one of those.
Ah, that makes more sense, I think I misinterpreted your comment! You've got me thinking though, about the delayed reward thing as a way to stop savescumming. I've never really considered that, but it makes a lot of sense - the higher the number of choices that are strategic, rather than tactical, the bigger the "unit" of a savescum becomes. Very interesting, especially given the role I do want the strategic layer to play, and the *big* "decision" you'll be making at the end of each "dungeon". I may consider emphasizing those even more as a method to prevent scumming...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 16, 2014, 02:14:38 am
Until today three districts remained without generators: docks, military districts, and city centers. I knew how I wanted the centers to generate but hadn’t worked on them yet, whilst docks I’m leaving until I actually implement ships and naval travel, but military districts needed to be done this releae and were proving very challenging. I didn’t just want to have huge regions of endless barracks – I wanted something much more varied – but at the same time I wanted to try to only add things that would have gameplay valuable if/when you gained access to a military district. I’ve settled on a middle-ground between the two – some areas are just for decorative purposes and to make the world feel consistent, coherent and real (akin to farms, for example), whilst other parts have clear gameplay goals, will contain important NPCs, etc.
So, military districts (like upper-class housing districts) are split into four parts. Each of these has a number of features which slot together in a fairly complex manner, and in a range of different orientations. These can be: Barracks, Parade Grounds, Archery Ranges, Siege Weapons, Armouries, Officer Quarters, Hospitals, and Stables. These combine in a range of different permutations to produce military districts. Each military district is also guaranteed to include two special combat NPCs – these may be able to raise a stat, or train you to use some of the more complex moves for a weapon. More on this in a few versions time when we’re doing weapons and combat. Here’s a labelled example:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS4.png)
Archery Ranges and Siege Weapons are self-explanatory, and (currently) for decoration only (you can’t raise stats by using the ranges or anything like that). All the others, however, will have gameplay use. Barracks contain troops, their beds, possessions, etc, and therefore may contain important NPCs. Parade Grounds are self-explanatory, and once we have NPCs in two versions time, you may be able to see soldiers marching around there in times of peace, or actively drilling in times of war (not sure how much variation it’s worth thinking about here). Armouries are most certainly not decoration and will contain huge numbers of weapons if you can gain access to them, but will be well-guarded. Officer Quarters will contain high-ranking military officials, and possibly some expensive items too. Hospitals will contain a range of healing items and those able/willing to heal you for a price (or if you are a close ally of the civilization), and Stables, funnily enough, will contain lots of horses (though I am still working out how exactly riding is going to integrate with the rest of the game). There will also presumably be patrols moving around the outside ring road of the district in the future.
I tried hard to make each building recognizable by shape, which is something I’ve already been putting a lot of emphasis on with the different kinds of special building that spawn in housing districts (banks, theaters, arenas, etc). In this case stables are all right-angled shapes, barracks are a 9×7 grid, hospitals are more uneven, organic-looking lines and branches of building, officers quarters are a loop than encloses an area within it (or sometimes two areas), armouries are either octagonal or a number of octagons with a large gate at the front, while catapults and archery targets have distinct characters by which they can be recognized. The circular buildings – there is one in the top-left near the central fort, and one within a loop of road in the bottom-right – are the buildings that house training NPCs.
However, military districts have two restrictions on your entry – they are expensive to enter, and you must be very friendly with the civilization in order to gain access (or be playing as the player class which allows you to try sneaking into districts, though I am still figuring out the exact mechanics there). Starting in a civilization with a military district will therefore be a significant early-game boost, though I will try to balance this by giving significant value to non-militaristic civilizations too. I’m currently working on the lookup images for these new items. We already have archery targets:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/Target.png)
And I’ll get siege weapons done soon enough. Along with city centers and upper-class housing districts, I want entering military districts to be a significant investment that makes you think about whether it’s worth it for what you may find inside. However, these – along with markets – will be arguably the most valuable districts to explore, although market districts are deliberately free to enter. If you’re low on money you can always check out a market district (assuming you can get to it within the city), but you’ll have to think harder about entering those other districts. So, all that remains to be done here is siege weapon lookup images which I’ll probably draw this week, and then as everything else we need some appropriate door graphics, but otherwise they’re done for this release. Once I’ve got them finished off I’ll be working on city centers, at long last. I’m anticipating a 0.6 release somewhere around mid November, which is also when I hope to finally start my full-time development year. In the real world I’m currently house-hunting (at last!) and hoping to move at the start of November, and once I am settled in the new place, that’s when the full-time year starts. Updates as and when…
Post by: Retropunch on October 16, 2014, 02:00:39 pm
Excellent! Yeah, I think something along those lines will work well. Probably a more generalized dispatch system too for NPC from factions finding you, any who want to hunt you down, etc, and this would just be one of those.
Ah, that makes more sense, I think I misinterpreted your comment! You've got me thinking though, about the delayed reward thing as a way to stop savescumming. I've never really considered that, but it makes a lot of sense - the higher the number of choices that are strategic, rather than tactical, the bigger the "unit" of a savescum becomes. Very interesting, especially given the role I do want the strategic layer to play, and the *big* "decision" you'll be making at the end of each "dungeon". I may consider emphasizing those even more as a method to prevent scumming...
Yeah an NPC dispatch system would be great, and could allow for a lot of interesting dispatches to keep you up to date with the rest of the world. However, I would suggest a careful think over how to introduce the NPCs arrival - there's nothing worse than an NPC randomly appearing whilst you're in the middle of combat/something interesting. As before, I believe separating the map into 'civilized areas' (where NPCs can find you) and varying levels of wild-ness would help again here, as it'd stop you encountering NPCs randomly out in the wilderness. Obviously this would depend on how determined they were to find you (assassins would travel nearly anywhere for instance).
This might even lead to interesting strategies, where you might stay in the wilderness to stop certain NPCs catching up to you!
Post by: Leatra on October 17, 2014, 01:58:53 am
In most instances, player should be afraid of the pursuers. If a faction isn't powerful enough or relevant enough (as in geographical distance) to the player, they would probably break off the chase or hire some stronger outside party (like a faction of assassins) to pursue you.
Love the way how the district looks varied btw. All kinds of buildings that should be in a military district seems to be in there.
Post by: Retropunch on October 17, 2014, 05:35:54 am
And those kind of encounters should be difficult. In Fallout: New Vegas, when Regulators caught up with me, my first reaction was "wow, how awesome. NPCs are responding to my actions!" then after I killed them without breaking a sweat, I was like "Walking EXP bags!" whenever I saw them later on.
In most instances, player should be afraid of the pursuers. If a faction isn't powerful enough or relevant enough (as in geographical distance) to the player, they would probably break off the chase or hire some stronger outside party (like a faction of assassins) to pursue you.
Love the way how the district looks varied btw. All kinds of buildings that should be in a military district seems to be in there.
Agreed, I feel that npc dispatch should be a very important part of the game, as it's probably one of the key mechanisms that you see the results of your actions and get news from parts of the world you're not currently in.
I feel that a key to this would be to allow the player to avoid (or lessen the chance of) the interactions they didn't want by going on different routes/making sure to avoid certain areas. For instance, Unless you did something truly heinous, most religions would probably only dispatch in their area of influence, similarly, government dispatches would only go to within the city and near by areas of the city. My main point of this is that sometimes these sorts of dispatches can get really annoying if you're just trying to do a quest or wanting to get on with another part of the game. This is just because I imagine you'd eventually rack up quite a number of npcs being dispatched towards you, so they should be relevant to the area you're in.
I'd like to think that you'd only get assassins after you if you did something really awful, and they'd obviously need to be incredibly tough (as otherwise why pay for them!?) and that they would instead use more subtle measures to disrupt you. Though perhaps acolytes of certain religions might try to gain favour by taking you on themselves.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 19, 2014, 04:58:58 am
Yeah an NPC dispatch system would be great, and could allow for a lot of interesting dispatches to keep you up to date with the rest of the world. However, I would suggest a careful think over how to introduce the NPCs arrival - there's nothing worse than an NPC randomly appearing whilst you're in the middle of combat/something interesting. As before, I believe separating the map into 'civilized areas' (where NPCs can find you) and varying levels of wild-ness would help again here, as it'd stop you encountering NPCs randomly out in the wilderness. Obviously this would depend on how determined they were to find you (assassins would travel nearly anywhere for instance).
This might even lead to interesting strategies, where you might stay in the wilderness to stop certain NPCs catching up to you!
Agreed; I think some metric for how much influence the dispatcher has in your area would make sense, and also some restrictions so they cannot appear in certain circumstances, or they are far more likely to appear in others (within settlements?), etc!
And those kind of encounters should be difficult. In Fallout: New Vegas, when Regulators caught up with me, my first reaction was "wow, how awesome. NPCs are responding to my actions!" then after I killed them without breaking a sweat, I was like "Walking EXP bags!" whenever I saw them later on.
In most instances, player should be afraid of the pursuers. If a faction isn't powerful enough or relevant enough (as in geographical distance) to the player, they would probably break off the chase or hire some stronger outside party (like a faction of assassins) to pursue you.
Love the way how the district looks varied btw. All kinds of buildings that should be in a military district seems to be in there.
Ha, I had the exact same experience with the Regulators. Yeah, I want combat to be rare and very significant, so that should tie quite nicely in to making dispatches who are hostile to you more relevant than they perhaps are in other games. Excellent! Today's very short update will probably be about the early starts to city centres...
Agreed, I feel that npc dispatch should be a very important part of the game, as it's probably one of the key mechanisms that you see the results of your actions and get news from parts of the world you're not currently in.
I feel that a key to this would be to allow the player to avoid (or lessen the chance of) the interactions they didn't want by going on different routes/making sure to avoid certain areas. For instance, Unless you did something truly heinous, most religions would probably only dispatch in their area of influence, similarly, government dispatches would only go to within the city and near by areas of the city. My main point of this is that sometimes these sorts of dispatches can get really annoying if you're just trying to do a quest or wanting to get on with another part of the game. This is just because I imagine you'd eventually rack up quite a number of npcs being dispatched towards you, so they should be relevant to the area you're in.
I'd like to think that you'd only get assassins after you if you did something really awful, and they'd obviously need to be incredibly tough (as otherwise why pay for them!?) and that they would instead use more subtle measures to disrupt you. Though perhaps acolytes of certain religions might try to gain favour by taking you on themselves.
In a similar vein I've been thinking about how a news/current event system could/should work, especially with the core mechanic of fiddling with the historical record. I have a bunch of ideas for how this could work, though none of these ideas have thus managed to defeat the others in my head, so we'll see how that goes...
Agreed, it should definitely influence the strategic level of the player's movement around the map. I cannot abide games with constant random encounters so nothing like that will happen, and maybe there will be some hidden timer to prevent too many dispatches, or.... as ever, there's so many ways I could work it. I like the hopeful acolyte idea! I also need to think about how dispatches work if you're on the travel map or the human-scale map, too.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 19, 2014, 11:54:47 am
I’ve been struggling with city centres. What you see in this entry is already the third iteration, and I’m not sure how much I like this one. There isn’t much to show yet. This is partly because most of this week has been spent looking around flats and investigating a possible academic post that might be coming my way, and because much of what I’ve been doing is under-the-hood stuff. There are ten possible layouts for city centres, as aptly illustrated by this lovely MS Paint infographic:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/City-centres-centers1.png)
I am sure you can see why each is named the way it is, and the number notes how many things may spawn in it (large buildings discussed in this paragraph count as 2). There’s a key difference between the last three designs – star, fat X, and cross – and the other seven. There are two types of building that are very large and need extra space in a city centre to spawn: these are religious cathedrals (the hub for each religion), and parliaments. Cathedrals only spawn in nations designated as the home nation for that belief, whilst parliaments only spawn in civs that have the Representation policy as their choice of leadership. In the first seven, the cathedral will spawn within the square – these can be of almost any shape and having this shape adjust the spawning of the rest of the district causes things to spiral into revolting complexity, so they are contained within this area and some interesting patterns of grass, road and fountains on the ground around. If there is a parliamentary building, meanwhile, it will cut across the other larger sections. However, if there is no religious building, the last three designs can be used, since these have no room for cathedrals.
City centres also contain other buildings – currently each contains a mint, a number of embassies for nearby nations, and at least one garden. However, I think this is a little sparse. Below is a very early example of how a city centre currently looks: this one contains a cathedral in the centre and various buildings around it (gardens do not yet spawn).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS6.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS5.png)
The Mint is the building in the bottom-left corner (after posting this entry I intend to change its design significantly, but I always want to upload at the weekend, so it is staying that way for now since I don’t have time to add new designs and upload this in time) and the rest are embassies. However, I want fewer embassies – we must maintain some mystery! – and more other buildings, but I’m not really sure WHAT. There are a small number of unique structures that can generate within city centres which I’m not going to give too much away on right now, but I need more. I’m happy for the overall structure to be very careful and regulated like in the above example, but more variety is clearly needed. I considered libraries/universities, but having so many books in the same location would damage the game balance of how I want books to work. So, bearing in mind that gardens are not yet present, nor the other thing unique to each centre, I still think they need more variety, but I’m not really sure what else could be included – thoughts? I never finish or release anything until I’m entirely happy with it, and centres are definitely lacking some interest at the moment, and this needs fixing. Throw me your ideas!
Edit for clarification: monarchic and stratocratic rulers rule from the city castle; theocratic rulers from the cathedral; representation leaders from the parliamentary building.
Post by: Retropunch on October 19, 2014, 04:21:21 pm
I'd say some would have a major market (perhaps if they had the 'mercantile' policy) or the headquarters of something akin to the East Africa Trading Company.
Ones with some sort of artistic policy might have an opera/playhouse/gallery of some sort.
Ones with a 'law' policy might have a courthouse/gallows.
Ones with 'aristocracy' policy might have the big houses of nobles.
Ones with a 'medical' policy might have a big hospital/apothecary.
Really, each city needs to have a 'focus' I feel, even if historically most cities in history haven't really had such divisions. I always liked this in the elder scrolls series, where you could go to say a mages guild hall in each city for minor magic stuff, but if you wanted to get REALLY good stuff you needed to go to the imperial college. Basically, to give you a reason to go to each city if you want to focus on something or need something particular. I could imagine that if you might be badly injured or get uniquely poisoned - you'd perhaps want to go to a medical city. If you want to do some heavy trading, you'd want to go to a mercantile one (but might be happy to do normal trading in any city).
Also, I'd imagine big statues/monuments might be in there. It'd be really awesome to be able to see a big monument to a historical war in the centre of the winners, and a memorial to the fallen in the centre of the losers.
Lastly, whilst I know you're trying to keep this quite historical/grounded, I feel city centres are the one place where you can add a bit of flair. I was thinking that some sort of 'seven wonders of the world' kinda thing could be scattered around the world, with these marvels mainly being in the city centre.
Post by: Man of Paper on October 20, 2014, 06:13:11 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: BlindKitty on October 20, 2014, 07:40:38 am
I might come to some other ideas later, too. :)
Post by: Willfor on October 20, 2014, 12:32:43 pm
Also, some form of high - end sleeping place, like modern five-star hotels, for foreign dignitaries and diplomats, for example? Not everyone is going to sleep in a tavern in some run-down merchant district!In the context of history (which could, of course, turn out differently in URR), diplomats and dignitaries would stay at the castle/palace of the place they visited as official guests, or if they were there for a long duration they would buy a manor of their own to manage while they stayed to petition for their causes. It was the responsibility of the people they guested with to ensure their safety, and it looked bad for you if you couldn't ensure the accommodations of your friends who visited you in your own home.
Politics was more akin to family relations. When the distant cousins come over, you put them up.
Hotels were not really a thing. Though as I said, they could definitely change depending on how things developed in the world.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 25, 2014, 04:41:33 am
Very interesting. In terms of other centre buildings I think this is absolutely the most important time to strongly differentiate the cities on policy and really give each one a distinct feel. This would also help differentiate cities that belonged to the same empire (as each empire should probably only have one type of each city).
I'd say some would have a major market (perhaps if they had the 'mercantile' policy) or the headquarters of something akin to the East Africa Trading Company.
Ones with some sort of artistic policy might have an opera/playhouse/gallery of some sort.
Ones with a 'law' policy might have a courthouse/gallows.
Ones with 'aristocracy' policy might have the big houses of nobles.
Ones with a 'medical' policy might have a big hospital/apothecary.
Really, each city needs to have a 'focus' I feel, even if historically most cities in history haven't really had such divisions. I always liked this in the elder scrolls series, where you could go to say a mages guild hall in each city for minor magic stuff, but if you wanted to get REALLY good stuff you needed to go to the imperial college. Basically, to give you a reason to go to each city if you want to focus on something or need something particular. I could imagine that if you might be badly injured or get uniquely poisoned - you'd perhaps want to go to a medical city. If you want to do some heavy trading, you'd want to go to a mercantile one (but might be happy to do normal trading in any city).
Also, I'd imagine big statues/monuments might be in there. It'd be really awesome to be able to see a big monument to a historical war in the centre of the winners, and a memorial to the fallen in the centre of the losers.
Lastly, whilst I know you're trying to keep this quite historical/grounded, I feel city centres are the one place where you can add a bit of flair. I was thinking that some sort of 'seven wonders of the world' kinda thing could be scattered around the world, with these marvels mainly being in the city centre.
I agree on differentiation, though as I say I still want to maintain a focus on buildings that can/will have gameplay value - I could produce an "office of X", but unless that's going to have value from the NPCs/items within, I'm... reluctant. However, I think I've found a good selection of valuable buildings. There will be some gardens in city centres, but there will also be Parliaments, Mints, Mercenary Guilds (a higher "class" of recruited ally than you'd find in taverns/slave markets), Slave Markets (if a slaving civ), Courts (if a civ has a Penitentiary/Ordeal/Frontier justice policy), embassies (which will have the brick colour of their home nation, just a small but quite nice detail), a Memorial (this will be to a historical event relevant to that civ), and also an art gallery (more on this in some later version, but it'll tie to the history-changing mechanics), and, of course, the cathedral for a religion if that civ is the home civ for that religion. I do actually like the idea of there being a major market in addition to the market district, but I'm thinking maybe a single, huge shop of one type, that has nothing but high-quality items of that type. So the market district has 10 markets of 10 types, some city centres have a single shop (say a Swordsmith, or a Chemist, or an Apothecary) but it will have a large number of high-quality items for just that shop type. Also thinking about gallows etc, but not sure how to display them yet, but working on it.
Seven wonders of the world - I am pleased to say I love the idea and have something like this planned! Not for this version though, but there will be one unique building for each of the "dungeons" that can spawn in one city in the world and give you some information/items/preparation relevant, so finding one of those in your home civ or a nearby civ could potentially influence your order of completion (unlike Crawl which has a fairly "fixed" order of dungeons unless you do the extended and do/don't find rMut early, I'd like to have some factors which will influence the order you plan to attempt them). These wonders include the Institute for Anomalous Flora, the Panopticon, the Ruins of the Ninth Court, the Sanguine Hall... which will all be connected, Dark-Souls-style, to the story.
Dude, your MS Paint Infographics get to me every time. It might be the lead-in that does it. Should make a tileset using your mastery of paintsmithing.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ha, glad you like them. I think that is where my real talent lies.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
. I've made progress this week but not as much as I wanted, had to do a lot of house-hunting, get a bunch of injections, blah blah.I would say that courthouse and opera/gallery/theater/amphitheater/circus/arena/something like that would be a very good idea for a city center. Some guilds could have guildhouses/HQs in the city centers too, especially the more elite ones. I don't know - lawyers or something? I could imagine a bank spawning in the city center sometimes, especially bank HQ, if not the normal branch (I'm not sure how are banks working in the URR, really). Some kind of monument/memorial also seems like a good idea. In places that unified measurements and scales you could have a place where you can calibrate your yardstick for a fee, and check whether the merchant is trying to screw you over on the stuff he is selling with a weighted scales (it probably won't see much use, but it would be nice touch). A place of general knowledge might not be a bad idea too - some form of school, maybe not full of books, but with a teacher or two, especially in more advanced civilizations. It might even be a school on level too low for most players to use - some form of elementary school, perhaps? It should not throw the game too much off-balance. Also, some form of high - end sleeping place, like modern five-star hotels, for foreign dignitaries and diplomats, for example? Not everyone is going to sleep in a tavern in some run-down merchant district!
I might come to some other ideas later, too. :)
Agreed, a bunch of those have now gone in! (See my earlier reply). I've decided to add Mercenary Guilds (maybe other types of guild later, we'll see) - these will have more expensive but more skilled allies than you can find anywhere else, and particularly types of allies, i.e. some guilds will prefer heavy armour and long weapons, some light armour and slashing weapons, etc etc. Yeah, mints spawn in the city centres now, and banks spawn in middle-class housing districts throughout the nation (though you can use a Mint for the same purpose as a branch of the bank). Heh, school is an interesting idea - for now, food and children are both magically not present in the world, and I probably intend to keep it that way. That is straying a little far towards the path of simulation vs game right now (and I dislike the idea of a food clock, I have something much more interesting in mind), but I'll definitely keep the option in mind!
In the context of history (which could, of course, turn out differently in URR), diplomats and dignitaries would stay at the castle/palace of the place they visited as official guests, or if they were there for a long duration they would buy a manor of their own to manage while they stayed to petition for their causes. It was the responsibility of the people they guested with to ensure their safety, and it looked bad for you if you couldn't ensure the accommodations of your friends who visited you in your own home.
Politics was more akin to family relations. When the distant cousins come over, you put them up.
Hotels were not really a thing. Though as I said, they could definitely change depending on how things developed in the world.
Yeah, castles are being left until 0.7 (the version after this one). They are going to count as large "interiors" in cities, so they go in the next version, and also because I want them to be very detailed and have a lot of variation, so that will need time and thought. Good thought re: rooms for diplomats, guest rooms, etc, this makes a lot of sense to me.
Post by: Leatra on October 25, 2014, 05:39:23 pm
Post by: guessingo on October 25, 2014, 06:06:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 25, 2014, 07:16:58 pm
How will you handle castles? Castles were crowded places and as a result, a lot of intrigue took place. It sounds difficult to create that atmosphere.
HMMMMMM. I hadn't considered that kind of atmospheric issue. I'm honestly not sure yet - I've started some research into layouts, and as they count as interiors they'll be in the next release, but I haven't thought yet about what kinds of NPCs we'll find there and what role they'll all play. There is also as ever a question about displaying different types of NPC - all the capital letters are used up with combat NPCs, and some of the lower-case are too, but I've worked out quite a good system for displaying different NPC types. Nevertheless, you've raised an interesting question, and I'm not really sure. I'll need to think first about "what kinds of people would be in the castle?" and go from there...
when will the next version be released?
0.6 has been in development for around six months (longer than anticipated due to external issues, severe illness, biting off too much for one release, etc) but its going to be released in November :). It is the 6th of the 7/8 worldbuilding releases, depending on your definition. 0.7 will handle building interiors and a major overhaul of saving/loading to further maximize speed and memory usage, and 0.8 will be NPCs (much excitement).
Post by: Leatra on October 25, 2014, 11:46:46 pm
How will you handle castles? Castles were crowded places and as a result, a lot of intrigue took place. It sounds difficult to create that atmosphere.
HMMMMMM. I hadn't considered that kind of atmospheric issue. I'm honestly not sure yet - I've started some research into layouts, and as they count as interiors they'll be in the next release, but I haven't thought yet about what kinds of NPCs we'll find there and what role they'll all play. There is also as ever a question about displaying different types of NPC - all the capital letters are used up with combat NPCs, and some of the lower-case are too, but I've worked out quite a good system for displaying different NPC types. Nevertheless, you've raised an interesting question, and I'm not really sure. I'll need to think first about "what kinds of people would be in the castle?" and go from there...
Well, my information would be limited to playing Crusader Kings 2 and watching Game of Thrones I suppose :D Learning European Medieval history by watching a fictional one created by Americans! I'm in one of my mindless brainstorming moods, so I'll just start blabbing.
We have the generic council from CK 2. 5 Councillors; diplomatic, religious, economic, military and finally, the spymaster. CK is more focused on characters than actually running the holdings, so it simplifies things with 5 council members. I'm sure you can build on that just by logic. Like, if a country isn't landlocked, it's ought to have a ministry of navy or something like that, with a luxurious room in the royal palace to go with it, if the country places value on the navy. And policies of a country would definitely affect what kind of people would live in a castle. A secular country (as secular as one can get in Medieval times) may not have a representative of the religion living in the castle, and it might have a councillorship of technology if we are talking about a technocratic one.
Usually, those important Councillors people resided in the castle. Even those who are noble and have a land could end up with living with living beside the King if their task is important. Think of Hand of The King in A Song of Ice and Fire. Both Ed and Tywin had to leave their lands despite being a ruler themselves because their liege appointed them to the position of the Hand, and they went because they had their own council in their capital castle to run day-to-day things. This is another point. Every dynasty that rules is ought to have a capital.
Here is the fun and interesting part. I'm not gonna give a suggestion, just giving historical examples. Listen up people, a story of intrigue and history incoming! Or more like a boring history lesson. Need a better entrance... Ahem. Did you know a concubine could rule Ottoman Empire?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I don't know what any of this means gameplay-wise, but I'm sure you can take something out of it. The difficult atmosphere thing I mentioned was partly this.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2014, 06:59:54 am
Perhaps.... hmm... I've just come up with an interesting idea. Perhaps the upper floors of a castle are entirely determined by the policies or that civ? So for each policy there's a room or a branch of a castle, so there's thousands of possible castles depending on the combinations of policies. That could make for some interesting variation, and also another way to connect the world you walk around to the information in the Encyclopedia, the history books etc. If it's a zealotry civ, that's reflected in religious presence in the castle; if an organized religion, maybe they have a lot of records there; if collective faith, perhaps they have shrines or altars within the castle; if cultism, perhaps there's a hidden room relating to one of the cults; and if it's free religion, perhaps a range of different worship rooms? There's eight policies, so maybe four on a ground floor, four on the floor above... or maybe four floors, with two unique parts on each floor, and two parts general to all castles (stores etc). The more I type this, the more I like this idea! Clear segments related to each policy. You've also made me wonder if maybe there should be smaller manors and things spawning in towns for individuals lords to appear... though if so, I'd want to think about making it very clear who controls each "county"/duchy/whatever. Still a possibility, though with that said, I'm very happy with how towns are looking already.
Also, awesome story.
Post by: rumpel on October 27, 2014, 07:57:02 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2014, 09:23:09 am
I don't know why I didn't start to follow your blog earlier, but count me in now. :3
An excellent choice! Check the homepage for recent highlights :)
Post by: rumpel on October 27, 2014, 10:31:04 am
Post by: Retropunch on October 27, 2014, 12:48:14 pm
Just a few quick thoughts:
-I feel 'exhibitions' would be better than art galleries. Art galleries seem a bit...small for a major thing in a city somehow, but throughout history many major cities have had exhibitions. These could be even things like exhibitions of previous wars, with the loot and captured prisoners on show (possibly a 'gloating' policy?)
-In a country, are there going to be capitals and then the head city of a barony (or whatever sub division you are using), followed by lesser cities/towns? If so, a small castle (fort/manor) might be in each of the barony cities, followed by an administrative centre in each town? There could then be some sort of homage to the next highest level, so perhaps portraits of the baron for towns, and of the king for in baronies, or possibly just in terms of having a few rooms dedicated to the main policies of the governance?
-
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2014, 12:49:26 pm
I read them all at 'work' today. 8)
Hope you enjoyed them (if you read them all, I assume you did). Let me know if there's anything you'd be interested in reading about there, I'm always open to ideas for posts both on URR and on game design more generally.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2014, 01:44:06 pm
I very much like anything that distinguishes cities (or buildings inside them, like castles) by policies. I think this will be key to making places feel unique and different, especially when you you're using ASCII (even as expertly as you do!).
Just a few quick thoughts:
-I feel 'exhibitions' would be better than art galleries. Art galleries seem a bit...small for a major thing in a city somehow, but throughout history many major cities have had exhibitions. These could be even things like exhibitions of previous wars, with the loot and captured prisoners on show (possibly a 'gloating' policy?)
-In a country, are there going to be capitals and then the head city of a barony (or whatever sub division you are using), followed by lesser cities/towns? If so, a small castle (fort/manor) might be in each of the barony cities, followed by an administrative centre in each town? There could then be some sort of homage to the next highest level, so perhaps portraits of the baron for towns, and of the king for in baronies, or possibly just in terms of having a few rooms dedicated to the main policies of the governance?
Ah, this appeared whilst posting the other reply! Cool idea re: exhibitions, I will definitely widen the possible items within a gallery. In each feudal nation there's a capital city, and towns. Each town currently does not have an assigned leader/mayor/baron/whatever, though I increasingly think something to help identify this leader might be useful. Maybe a larger building, or a special mayor's house, or possibly that person lives in the town hall (above?), though... I guess I probably should add some "Baron" buildings. I'll have to think about what term I want to use, but I think Baron or Mayor would be the most appropriate. Perhaps a building with some walls and a gate would be nice, and would certainly make it very explicit who ruled over that town. I like this idea, unless I think of an issue I'll chuck it in. More variation is (almost) always good, and these could be an interesting addition to towns.
Post by: Retropunch on October 27, 2014, 03:08:29 pm
In each feudal nation there's a capital city, and towns. Each town currently does not have an assigned leader/mayor/baron/whatever, though I increasingly think something to help identify this leader might be useful. Maybe a larger building, or a special mayor's house, or possibly that person lives in the town hall (above?), though... I guess I probably should add some "Baron" buildings. I'll have to think about what term I want to use, but I think Baron or Mayor would be the most appropriate. Perhaps a building with some walls and a gate would be nice, and would certainly make it very explicit who ruled over that town. I like this idea, unless I think of an issue I'll chuck it in. More variation is (almost) always good, and these could be an interesting addition to towns.
I'd definitely go for Baron (or Count, or Duke) rather than Mayor, as Mayor sounds a bit of an administrative title rather than a ruling one. I think them having their own building (or sort of mini castle) would be great, especially as then you would immediately know where to go if you needed to talk to the person in charge. This special house/building would also allow minor nobles from other nations/ people of importance (and possibly the player!) to have a sensible place to congregate and stay, which would again help in being able to locate interesting people naturally.
Also, have you thought about national items? Many nations have something physical that is associated with them (The Scottish bagpipes, the Irish clover) and giving each nation something like that might allow you to decorate interiors/show things internally that keep harking back to the nationality.
Similarly, and perhaps more easily, this could be something like a national colour or building material instead. So one nation could prefer wood crafts, which would mean that a large proportion of items/furniture would be crafted out of wood (especially in the richer house holds).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 28, 2014, 09:37:17 am
In each feudal nation there's a capital city, and towns. Each town currently does not have an assigned leader/mayor/baron/whatever, though I increasingly think something to help identify this leader might be useful. Maybe a larger building, or a special mayor's house, or possibly that person lives in the town hall (above?), though... I guess I probably should add some "Baron" buildings. I'll have to think about what term I want to use, but I think Baron or Mayor would be the most appropriate. Perhaps a building with some walls and a gate would be nice, and would certainly make it very explicit who ruled over that town. I like this idea, unless I think of an issue I'll chuck it in. More variation is (almost) always good, and these could be an interesting addition to towns.
I'd definitely go for Baron (or Count, or Duke) rather than Mayor, as Mayor sounds a bit of an administrative title rather than a ruling one. I think them having their own building (or sort of mini castle) would be great, especially as then you would immediately know where to go if you needed to talk to the person in charge. This special house/building would also allow minor nobles from other nations/ people of importance (and possibly the player!) to have a sensible place to congregate and stay, which would again help in being able to locate interesting people naturally.
Also, have you thought about national items? Many nations have something physical that is associated with them (The Scottish bagpipes, the Irish clover) and giving each nation something like that might allow you to decorate interiors/show things internally that keep harking back to the nationality.
Similarly, and perhaps more easily, this could be something like a national colour or building material instead. So one nation could prefer wood crafts, which would mean that a large proportion of items/furniture would be crafted out of wood (especially in the richer house holds).
Agreed on all counts re: Baron etc. I'll chuck those buildings in!
National items is interesting. I hadn't given that any consideration. They do have brick styles and brick colours, whilst hunter-gatherer civilizations each have a unique building material (logs, wood, compacted snow, stone, drystone walls, thatch, interwoven rope, etc), but I'm not sure how much variation I could actually get for interiors, though I'm certainly going to try to vary interior items (though I'm not sure how yet). Of course, there's a balance between detail/feature creep, but I definitely want interiors of buildings to look different for each civ.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 28, 2014, 09:58:02 am
Y’know, looking at city centres now, I’m almost embarrassed by how plain and downright uninteresting they looked last week. Nevertheless, I suppose this serves as a good indication of how much can be done with a week of time, some thought, and some excellent suggestions from my fans (even if a lot of that week was spent house-hunting and a wide range of exciting vaccinations). So, here’s how centres currently look. Those that have a cathedral (a Vatican-esque building, only one exists for each religion, in the home civilization of that religion, and if the religion is a theocracy, then the civilization is ruled from there) look like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS9.png)
…whilst those without a cathedral look something like this (the core “wall”/structure is the same shape, you will note, as the corner towers and the gatehouses in each district, which is different for each civ):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS7.png)
There’s a range of buildings here, and each of them I tried to make look visually distinct in order to both add variety, but also add in identification when you may encounter a number of these potentially quite large structures exploring a city centre.
Embassies
City centres contain a few embassies to other civilizations. These are the only buildings with walls around them – I reasoned other civs would want to have some sense of security for their footholds abroad. They also have a pair of flags outside (the white symbols) which will show you what nation that embassy belongs to. I also decided it would be interesting if they used the brick style/colour of that nation, not the nation of the city centre – as you can see in these pictures, this combination and the flags make embassies very easy to identify. At the same time, I had to make sure there were never too many in any one city, so you can’t learn about too many other civilizations at once. There will never be more than three embassies in a city centre, and two is around the average. They also have their own gates leading into the embassy grounds.
Courts
For courts, I found myself thinking about the shape of courts in the real world, and I came across the Star Chamber (mentioned in the Baroque Cycle, a secondary inspiration for the game). From these I decided to have courts roughly follow variations on the shape of a star, some more circular than others, some more pointed than others (though truly circular buildings are generally arenas in lower-class districts). In the first picture the court is the second building in the last column, and in the second picture it is the top-left-most building. These only appear in civs with certain justice policies, and they may be hubs for information like the wanted level of certain NPCs, bounties, and might play a role in any future legal systems that the player can fall foul of.
Guilds
I’ve added guilds. Currently these are mercenary guilds, from which you’ll be able to acquire the most expensive and best allies (vs taverns, slave markets, etc). Fancy recruiting from the Legion of the Black Flame or the Chapter of the Bloody Fist? For these I drew inspiration from real-world guild halls which often consist of several buildings over several layers (there are many where I live in York) – guild halls are thus buildings with many “layers”, and you can see one in the top-left of the first picture, and the second across on the top row in the second picture.
Slave Markets
These will crop up (as you might expect) in slaving civs – they will be closer to the open-air markets in nomadic fortresses than the enclosed shops that predominate in feudal nations. There aren’t any visible here, but they consist of a small number of thick, straight lines, with clear “market areas” at their intersections where you’ll find vendors in 0.8. Where guilds offer skilled and well-trained allies, slave markets will generally offer somewhat less competent allies, but cheap… though that’s not to say some skilled allies might not have been trapped into slavery here and there.
Galleries
Art galleries. These are generally either an L shape (start of third row in picture 2) or a U shape (third down in third column in picture 1). These are similar-ish shapes to stables, but you’ll never find a stable and a gallery in the same district (and galleries, like most other buildings, have signs outside to denote their function). They are going to contain paintings. These are going to be awesome.
Memorials
Several people suggested these, and it fits in very well with the future history-changing mechanics. These were inspired some of the larger real-world memorials which are more like something you walk around, though these also have a “statue” in the middle which will be related to a historical event. In the top picture you can see one third in the top row, and in the second picture one is third on the bottom row. Statue generation will not be fully present in this version, in the interests of actually getting it released before the end of November.
Mints
All city centres have a mint for the bank of that nation – these are similar to banks in that they are built around “blocks” and a square-zigzag pattern. The bottom-right in the first picture and the bottom-right in the second picture give some examples.
Parliaments
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/10/NewS10-140x300.png)
For those nations with a democratic preference, they are ruled from Parliaments. They’re based primarily on the UK Parliament building, and have “corrugated” walls, and often clock/bell towers and multiple entrances. Here’s an example from another city on the left. Like many buildings in city centres I would think Parliaments will have some guards patrolling outside them, and might have vaults underneath containing something. This is around a fifth of all civilizations, so parliament buildings are relatively rare buildings to crop up in city centres. Parliaments, like Mints, take up two “blocks” of a city centre, whereas all the other buildings listed here only take up a single block. There are also gardens and lakes around most city centres too, though those particularly packed with buildings may have little room for the greener things in life.
Wonders of the World
There will also be fifteen super-special buildings, approximately one in each city. In a few worlds one or two might not generate, or one or two cities might be without a wonder. These will be buildings that are sometimes in the centre, sometimes elsewhere, which are special and unique (the Panopticon in a previous post) and are to do with the story. More on these as and when.
IN SUMMARY
City centres are now actually interesting to walk around. I need to work on flag generation, but that should be a pretty snappy task. Otherwise they’re pretty much finished. Hopefully next week (or at worst, the week after) I should be able to unveil an image of a complete city, which should look bloody amazing.
A final note. Development is now about… 80% of my activity? I’m not really full-timing it yet, but I’m not far off. There isn’t much more doctorate that needs doing, most of my time is spent waiting for feedback and then sending in more edits. Moving house is, as things always do, proving trickier than expected, but we’re still hoping to move in November. Lincoln (where we’re moving to) seems to be a town inundated with flats with low ceilings, and for someone of my elevation, that is sadly not workable, not to mention that almost every flat seems to come with damned tiny bedrooms. Development is going to stay rapid until then, though, so don’t think the fact I’m not full-timing yet doesn’t mean we aren’t back to weekly URRpdates (I remain oddly proud of that term), because we are!
(Lastly, yes, I do know I switch between the UK/US spellings of centre/center constantly in these entries. FORGIVE ME)
Post by: rumpel on October 31, 2014, 05:17:06 am
Anyways, looks real cool!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 31, 2014, 03:49:54 pm
Didn't realize I already read that on your blog until I saw the last sentence. :x
Anyways, looks real cool!
Haha, sorry for the accidental trick! I always cross-post the URRpdates here and a couple of others places; general game design/criticism entries I just leave on the blog, though.
Post by: Man of Paper on November 01, 2014, 06:12:57 am
Post by: rumpel on November 01, 2014, 06:38:59 am
Didn't realize I already read that on your blog until I saw the last sentence. :x
Anyways, looks real cool!
Haha, sorry for the accidental trick! I always cross-post the URRpdates here and a couple of others places; general game design/criticism entries I just leave on the blog, though.
Heh. Don't worry. It gave me another good read. 8)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 01, 2014, 10:14:36 am
Will it be possible to undermine walls? And would that extend to being able to dig under and collapse buildings as well? Nothing sends a divine message like a chapel being swallowed by the earth itself.
Er...................... probably not :(. Neat idea, but likely not!
Heh. Don't worry. It gave me another good read. 8)
Excellent! This week's blog entry is coming probably tomorrow, as I've got a busy day today...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2014, 02:57:43 am
Anyway, this week I've finished off the remaining procedural graphics for 0.6, which basically means doors. This took me about two days of graphical design. There's now over two dozen different designs for doors when you look them up - the rest of this brief entry is four different screenshots. Two are from feudal cities, one from a polar hunter-gatherer settlement, and one from a graveyard. Some buildings share the same door patterns, though most are distinct and varied. I've also put some finishing touches to city centers, fixed a couple of the easier bugs and some typos, written up a new guidebook entry on "Buildings" for this release, and also done a lot of lore writing/planning which will begin to slowly seep into the game in the coming few releases. Additionally this week I've been submitting a vast number of abstracts to game studies conferences in the coming year, so that's taken up a fair helping of my time too. Without further ado, here's the four screenshots - hope you like 'em, and see you next week.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Door2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Door1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Door11.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Door3.png)
Post by: Retropunch on November 02, 2014, 05:53:10 am
Post by: Zireael on November 02, 2014, 08:35:34 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2014, 01:45:40 pm
If yesterday someone had said that I'd be able to get this excited about doors, I'd have called them a fool.
Hahaha. This pleases me immensely.
Those doors are made of AWESOME!
Thanks! I think that's almost every graphic that needs doing for this release apart from a few remaining shop signs. There's a few which are going to be blank (like the statues/memorials) for a later release, but otherwise everything else should be in place.
Post by: rumpel on November 02, 2014, 05:19:39 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 03, 2014, 12:44:47 pm
Beautiful!
Cheers :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 07, 2014, 06:44:09 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 09, 2014, 11:44:04 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/11/09/procjam-and-london-trip-report/
Post by: Robsoie on November 09, 2014, 11:53:22 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 11, 2014, 07:36:58 am
Seeing those nice doors leading into buildings, and so many different buildings in all those screenshots, how are you going to handle interiors with so many diverses architecture ? some kind of random corridors/rooms or hand made interiors ?
Long story short: a combination of the two. Once 0.6 is out (hopefully before the end of Nov!) I'll be moving onto 0.7 which is all about interiors. Most of them will have a huge range of segments from which to build interiors, and also interior decoration and layouts will be determined by civilization, so you should be able to get a general sense of cohesiveness and aesthetic similarity from exploring each nation. Dungeons and non-settlement regions to explore will be handled differently and uniquely when we get to them, but yeah, a large database of rooms and corridors, and a large database of decoration, and then the combination of the two!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2014, 06:47:09 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Brew.png)
Post by: BlindKitty on November 13, 2014, 08:03:36 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 13, 2014, 09:16:37 am
I must say that it looks absolutely amazing. And rather inspiring, too, so I think the development won't suffer too much. ;)
My thoughts exactly - I have a thing for nice architecture and I think there could be serious inspirational value here!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 15, 2014, 08:59:46 am
More immediately, I’ve redone market districts. The playtesting I’ve been doing has shown a serious issue in the navigation of market districts above all others – it was very unclear what the boundaries of the district were, it took a long time to find all the shops, there wasn’t much else to look at within the districts, and (quite simply) there were just too many damned shops. Here’s what they used to look like:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Markold1.png)
As you can see, there’s a huge number of shops (the normal buildings) and warehouses (the enclosed/walled buildings), but it’s not clear if you’d have missed one or not without exploring the entire district because they are so spread out. That means optimal gameplay within a market district is uncovering the entire thing rather than having some idea where to go for the shop you wanted, and that’s just not on. Instead, I decided to blend market districts with some of the housing districts, to create something like the version below. In this model (there’s naturally a large number of variations) the markets and warehouses that service them are placed in a pattern in the middle of the district. All the patterns make it very clear when you walk around them when you have “exhausted” the shops that district has, and also, this new contained version allows me to simply have fewer shops in a market district. They can now spawn with 7-10 shops (towns have only 1-3 shops, heavily biased towards 1 or 2), and always spawn with a currency exchange (the diamond building) and an auction house (the flattened cross building).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Markold2.png)
These both look a lot better, and more importantly, play a lot better. As above, there’s never uncertainty once you’ve seen every shop there is to see, and the smaller number will make the variations in shops between market districts much more significant, as in the past most districts contained most shops, which doesn’t really fit the scarcity gameplay mechanics one is used to from roguelikes. Alas, that’s everything for this week, but we’re only about a fortnight to the release of the colossal 0.6. There’s a couple more graphics I need to make, and then it’s just onto bug fixing. Stay tuned!
Post by: Retropunch on November 15, 2014, 10:12:51 am
As far as market districts, I think it's a really good design and very insightful planning on your part. One thing I've always worried about with URR is the difficulty in actually finding everything in such a vast world. Regardless of how amazing your ascii is (and it's incredible) there's still only a limited amount you can do compared to full 3d in terms of making things easy to navigate (you can't see things 'on the horizon' for instance).
However, at the risk of market districts looking a bit bare, I think they'd be better without housing (or just with a few as trader households) and perhaps more warehouses to fill the gaps. This would be a bit more realistic as cities do need large warehouse districts as well, and it'd make it a bit more focussed on just trading. Secondly, I find the warehouse designs a lot more striking and obvious than the shop designs. The shops just look like big houses (and could be mistaken as such), whereas the warehouses are quite unique. I really feel it'd be an improvement to design the shops slightly different, or perhaps just swapping them round might be enough?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 15, 2014, 02:41:15 pm
Great to hear the move has gone well!
As far as market districts, I think it's a really good design and very insightful planning on your part. One thing I've always worried about with URR is the difficulty in actually finding everything in such a vast world. Regardless of how amazing your ascii is (and it's incredible) there's still only a limited amount you can do compared to full 3d in terms of making things easy to navigate (you can't see things 'on the horizon' for instance).
However, at the risk of market districts looking a bit bare, I think they'd be better without housing (or just with a few as trader households) and perhaps more warehouses to fill the gaps. This would be a bit more realistic as cities do need large warehouse districts as well, and it'd make it a bit more focussed on just trading. Secondly, I find the warehouse designs a lot more striking and obvious than the shop designs. The shops just look like big houses (and could be mistaken as such), whereas the warehouses are quite unique. I really feel it'd be an improvement to design the shops slightly different, or perhaps just swapping them round might be enough?
Excellent! Yeah, re: finding stuff, of course some of the methods - maps, talking to people, etc - are not in place yet, but i do want a high level of visual recognition and logical placement on buildings to aid with that. You raise a very interesting thought on shops though: I'll try a few different designs for the buildings, probably shaving off the corners. It would be a huge deal now to change the design of the shops due to how the patterns for the "market centers" are made, but I can certainly "reduce" the design by, say, hacking off the corners (though shops do have signs outside, the '?' symbol). I agree about enlarging warehouses though, I will enact this, though I think some housing is necessary - there aren't enough shops to merit enough warehouses to fill everything. Equally... I hope the containment of shops "within" the central patterns (there's several dozen) should help with distinguishing, and size. Hmm. Experimentation will begin!
Post by: varsovie on November 15, 2014, 03:19:41 pm
Good news, everyone: Ultima Ratio Regum's *full-time* development year starts December 5 (ish)! And it will be coded from this building.
A: You're an aristocrat and own a castle
B: You're an hobo living in a terminal
;D
Post by: Retropunch on November 15, 2014, 03:54:46 pm
I'll try a few different designs for the buildings, probably shaving off the corners. It would be a huge deal now to change the design of the shops due to how the patterns for the "market centers" are made, but I can certainly "reduce" the design by, say, hacking off the corners (though shops do have signs outside, the '?' symbol).I think this would be fine, just something to differentiate them from regular housing.
Quote
I agree about enlarging warehouses though, I will enact this, though I think some housing is necessary - there aren't enough shops to merit enough warehouses to fill everything. Equally... I hope the containment of shops "within" the central patterns (there's several dozen) should help with distinguishing, and size. Hmm. Experimentation will begin!I agree that there wouldn't be enough shops to fill all those warehouses themselves, but I was thinking that other buildings/entities around the city might also use those warehouses (sort of wholesale warehouses if you like). Maybe you'd need to rename it a 'trading district' but this could make it a more distinct area, and also allow for future mechanics involving warehouses and shipping; say if you wanted to ship something to another city, or store some items.
It just seems as though you'll have a lot of housing elsewhere and so there's no need to have another district full of housing when it could be made more distinct.
Just an idea anyway.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 16, 2014, 02:33:19 pm
A: You're an aristocrat and own a castle
B: You're an hobo living in a terminal
;D
Somewhere in the middle!
I agree that there wouldn't be enough shops to fill all those warehouses themselves, but I was thinking that other buildings/entities around the city might also use those warehouses (sort of wholesale warehouses if you like). Maybe you'd need to rename it a 'trading district' but this could make it a more distinct area, and also allow for future mechanics involving warehouses and shipping; say if you wanted to ship something to another city, or store some items.
It just seems as though you'll have a lot of housing elsewhere and so there's no need to have another district full of housing when it could be made more distinct.
Just an idea anyway.
Chopped off the corners, definitely makes them distinct enough (though had to fiddle with a few of the possible districts to ensure there was enough room for the interior algorithm to place items correctly inside). Anyway, I quite like the idea of extra warehouses for non-essential items (food, clothing, whatever) that aren't direc-... heh, in the process of typing that sentence, I think I should add a possible clothing shop as well as armour shop, since distinct clothing styles are going to be A Thing. Anyway, to finish that sentence, warehouses for "general goods" does seem like a very logical addition, I'll throw them in around the edges, maybe. HOWEVER, your idea for being able to ship things around... raises some interesting questions about how inventory size/space/weight is going to work. And I don't know the answers yet. But I will this year!
Meanwhile, I'm finishing off the final few graphics - adapted the algorithm for generating hanging wooden shop signs to also make snazzy metal signs, such as for this mercenary guild:
(http://s29.postimg.org/gfz0p2avb/Metal2.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 17, 2014, 05:03:06 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/11/Draftapult.png)
Post by: Nighthawk on November 17, 2014, 11:54:32 pm
At first I didn't believe that was ascii art. Crazy awesome.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 18, 2014, 05:57:57 am
Woah.
At first I didn't believe that was ascii art. Crazy awesome.
Ha, thanks :).
Post by: Reyn on November 18, 2014, 01:24:32 pm
The weird shading seems to be because the right part is mirroring the left part(probably). If I'm correct, and if you haven't thought of a workaround(and in case this is easily done), you could put the shading on another layer(which won't be mirrored, but copied instead).
Pretty cool.
Post by: puke on November 18, 2014, 02:07:07 pm
you could put the shading on another layer(which won't be mirrored, but copied instead).
If you are going to add extra info to each ascii 'block' (character, color, shadow) you might as well use that info to apply height instead of shading. Then you'd have bump-mapped ascii and could apply dynamic lighting.
and then, Pinky, we could RULE THE WORLD.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 18, 2014, 02:38:00 pm
With some minor modifications it can turn into a battering ram.
The weird shading seems to be because the right part is mirroring the left part(probably). If I'm correct, and if you haven't thought of a workaround(and in case this is easily done), you could put the shading on another layer(which won't be mirrored, but copied instead).
Pretty cool.
Heh, correct, that is why, and that's just because I made that image in Paint! The shading is always the same direction when you actually view it in game, having since sorted that out.
you could put the shading on another layer(which won't be mirrored, but copied instead).
If you are going to add extra info to each ascii 'block' (character, color, shadow) you might as well use that info to apply height instead of shading. Then you'd have bump-mapped ascii and could apply dynamic lighting.
and then, Pinky, we could RULE THE WORLD.
Ha! Well, as you say, that would be the first step to world domination, but not totally necessary; there are a few things later in the game that are going to need more data stored on them graphically, but they don't exist just yet...
(And when I say "a few", I mean less than a dozen objects)
Post by: Simon on November 19, 2014, 07:47:12 am
Nowadays I don't play PC games as often as years ago, but I'll be sure to try this out.
I'm currently reading a book on Ancient Rome and your game sure radiates atmosphere similiar to experiencing civilizations first hand.
If I ever figure a way I could contribute at least a tiny bit, I'll do so.
Keep on the fantastic work. Hats off to you!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 19, 2014, 02:45:09 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 22, 2014, 07:40:04 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/11/22/the-kirov-metagame/ (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/11/22/the-kirov-metagame/)
Post by: gomez on November 22, 2014, 09:50:05 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Gote_and_Sente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Gote_and_Sente)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 23, 2014, 09:08:06 am
Just like in the game of Go, the player who has Sente most of the time is the player who is most likely to win.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Gote_and_Sente (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Go_terms#Gote_and_Sente)
^ *very* interesting, and I agree, that's a similar concept; forcing your opponent to always be the one responding rather than being the respondee.
In other news, I gave myself a day off from work yesterday and did some 0.6 bugfixing. Purged at least 30 bugs if not more, and hacked the bug list down by nearly 50%. 0.6 is nearly there!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 25, 2014, 06:38:06 pm
Post by: Mephansteras on November 25, 2014, 08:52:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 29, 2014, 08:50:48 am
It's cool, we understand.
And this is why you are all excellent :).
This week's update:
This week I have been getting about six hours sleep a night (I’m an eight-hour person normally) and working like mad to both finish my doctorate, move house, and try to get 0.6 released. I’ve only been able to devote a single day to 0.6 whilst I was waiting for feedback on a chapter, but I managed to get a ton done. I don’t normally post long reports of bug fixes – though I will in future gameplay releases to denote balance changes and additions/removals and the like – but for this week’s entry I thought I’d put up a list of everything fixed this week. Some of these terms may be cryptic, but this is a direct copy-and-paste from my list. Obviously most days this blog is generally focused on what I’ve coded each week rather than how I’ve coded it, but I thought a little look into one of the URR text files that helps me keep track of everything might be amusing. Some are descriptions of the issue, some are descriptions of the solution, whilst others are just reminders to me, but here’s how I write the bugs that need fixing. In the mean time I’m aiming to release 0.6 on the 13th of December, assuming we actually have internet set up at the new place by then – if not, it’ll be a holiday present on the 19th!
Quote
Shops cannot spawn in one-religion exclusion places
Lakes cannot end in cities
Prechoose military stuff
Force a gate next to a market if possible
Redo markets
Force a gate by a graveyard, IF they can path to a road
Floodfill from graveyards, ensure you can access them!
Place special combat NPCs, one per fortress no matter what
Cannot exclude desert if desert, water if colonies? (religion!)
When adding extra embassies, lines to other capitals, choose closest
Tundra/ice plants are lighter
Shops in towns are fixed beforehand, markets gen right
Towns are not spaced well enough in world gen
Lava on town doors
CROSS + ROADS AND DOORS (+ road on map, doesn't align with gates)
River markets
River religious
River centres
*ONE DOOR* manor house, save 1
Some weird shit with torches, walls...
No infinite district knowledge, no 'S', no prints
Dead family, not always ornate
Stick can be placed on water... (no sticks)
Some one-road towns are tiny
Graveyards, gates, like road teats
STILL the bloody shift bug when i press space bar
Travel through cities is showing thre X
Roads are slighlty going over city wall corners in farms
Coast, delta ocean is too high!! IT's not going down the HILL!
Lookups for catapults
Flags of nomads double-size
Some issue in military with a large parade ground???
Tried to enter mil district, loading issue (because i'd S before?)
Viewing gate bricks are on your level
Darken ice
Loading ontop of city causes loading failure
Finding entrance door MUST be a gate, and height z level
Sometimes wall blurs bottom/top, sometimes not
Space & Tab whilst in city brings up wrong thing
Those tiny edge fronds of road on city centers
Saved next to city, moved, was able to break through wall?
The blue from city roads doesn't vanish on the left when you travel
Roof of uilding in town only 2 over highest terrain, walked up!
Going south into centre failed to find an entrace
Officer flags
Double doors vary based on which SIDE of the building they are on (vert only)
No door on barracks special?
Snowtrees, plants in tundra/ice for cities... (centers only?)
City, travel, tab, @ and X
Right side of stable door on bottom,no doorpicture (hard to recreate...)
Archery targets (should be like trees)
Catapults (should be like trees)
A corner wall when otuside a city and corners should be city tower (failed)
Cannot move into docks/castles *on foot*
Move into district via travel, then diag, then enter, places you corner
Barley colour
Rye colour/lookup don't really match
HUNTER GATHERER SHRINES
Graveyard, remove some ice near the core, add snow within walls + frozen soil?
Upper class gates
Moving diagonally into non-city tile will spawn you on wall edge
Plants are "on top" of trees on farms, odd
If a graveyard, limit up/down hills around graveyard on map grid
WE ARE HISTORY (ignore for now?)
Shrine issue
Print_Districts, "you are currently in" vs "this is a"; foreigner detail
Serious relig issue .png
Roads in religious districts reset to the proper height going through walls
Embassy gate
Military gate
Archery lookup
All signs for courts/galleries/etc
Correct door wood
Single water edge, city, save 9
Pgup On player lookuyp 1/4 goes to blank when 'l' at player
Lookup message does not repeat
Wheat doesn't show
Block off docks
This is not a courtroom, it only PRETENDS
I will attempt to access the internet on the 6th via mobile and have an entry already written, so hopefully we won’t go a week without a post, though it might be a very short one, or a non-URR one. We’ll have to see what I have the time to throw together. We’re so damned close to full-time development it’s agonizing, but thank you all for sticking with me through the past couple of months (I know I’ve been saying this a lot recently but I mean it, and my PhD has dragged on beyond all sanity) and the slow development pace I’ve been forced into. The places URR will go in 2015 will be amazing.
Post by: teoleo on November 29, 2014, 09:02:25 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 29, 2014, 10:33:58 am
how much is playable in this version?
Assuming you mean the version I'm working on now to be released in under a fortnight, you'll be able to walk around every city, fortress and hunter-gatherer settlement, with enough size to support populations of around ~300,000 NPCs per city, and are pretty damned large, varied, and detailed. If you want more info about the game, try here: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/info/
Post by: Zireael on November 29, 2014, 11:14:20 am
Quote
released in under a fortnight,
Wheee!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 29, 2014, 12:19:59 pm
Quotereleased in under a fortnight,
Wheee!
I know! It'll be about damned time, too. My hope is 13th of December, but if I lack internet access at that point at my new place, it'll be December 20th. We'll have to see. By then, though, I'll pretty much be able to focus full-time on development, and making up for the last few lackluster months :)
Post by: Simon on November 29, 2014, 04:10:46 pm
Anyway, it's looking great as always.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 04, 2014, 05:32:43 am
Take your time. Other issues are more important, the audience can wait and it's a fine way to build up anticipation.
Anyway, it's looking great as always.
Thanks :). Here's a cross-post of this week's update from my blog:
So folks, I’m moving house today and the internet might not be up for the best part of a week, so I’m probably going to miss the update this weekend. Therefore, I’m going to do a very brief update now, and then seek to update on the 13th. The plan at this point is:
December 13th - release 0.6 or announce the start of the full-time development year! For 0.6 two major issues remain, and approximately twenty small issues, none of which should be too significant. I estimate two to three days of bugfixing to conclude. As for full-time development, I am technically considering it to be tomorrow onwards, but I still want to officially talk about it on the blog!
December 20th - Whichever of the above two things I didn’t do on the 13th.
December 27th - A summary of URR development of the last year, followed by…
January 3rd - … detailed plans for the coming year of URR development, and a few other projects too, which will also be a slightly more personal entry that I’ve been wanting to write for a while about my longer-term goals for the game, games academia, the next few years, blah blah.
January 10th – regular, weekly, dense and detailed URR updates resume, working on the great palaces and humble houses of 0.7!
I will have vague phone internet access from today until our internet is connected (hopefully the 11th) so I’ll check blog comments and emails as ever, but I might not be able to reply for at least a week. See you all, hopefully, for release on the 13th! In the mean time, here’s a very zoomed-out image of city for you, approximate population ~300,000. Pretty nice, right?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/A-City.png)
City FAQ:
Q: Why so square?
A: A deliberate choice – districts in foreign cities cost cash to enter, and the selection of which districts to explore and which to ignore is part of the strategy-layer gameplay.
Q: What are the districts?
A: The dense districts are lower-class housing; the less dense are middle-class housing; the special district near the top-right corner is the city centre, containing embassies, a mint, a parliamentary building, etc; then the row of three special districts in the middle are upper-class housing (where the player will begin), a military district, and a market; the district near the bottom-left corner is a religious district with a range of religions represented, and the blank district is the castle, which is effectively an “interior”, so that is coming in 0.7.
Q: How big actually is this?
A: Each district is a single character on the world map, and 200×200 tiles, so the city is around 1000×1000 tiles across, and has enough housing to support approximately ~300,000 NPCs (coming in 0.8)!
Q: Will I be able to enter every single building?
A: In 0.6, no, in 0.7, yes, from 0.8 onwards, only if you have the right key.
Post by: Retropunch on December 04, 2014, 06:27:14 am
The one issue I have is that farming districts look a bit jarring. I think it'd be great (for another time!) to have sort of 'lightly farmed areas' or 'farming villages'. These would surround farming districts and give a natural flow between those and general forest/whatever. These could have a few farming houses, some lightly farmed areas (vegetable patches and things), woodcutting shacks as well as possibly small shops.
There would be no need for these to be anything fancy (and the opposite is probably better!) but I think the key to having a really 'lived in' world is to have these sort of run-off areas which smooth areas together. To this end, other areas outside of main cities (like slums that you showed earlier) could have run-off districts next to them. I'd imagine therefore that when one of these other districts is placed, the 5 squares surrounding it would have these run off districts. For ease of generation, they could just be the same as the parent area with just significantly less buildings/plots/whatever. If this was tied to the actual cities you could have cities modifiers like 'sprawling slums' which would double the squares of these outlying areas.
Obviously something for another time, but just thought I'd weigh in before I become too light headed looking at that city. phwoar.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 05, 2014, 05:40:21 am
Hmmm, good thought re: farming. Like everything else it looks way more organic when walking around it and therefore cannot see the "big picture", but at the same time, I get your point. I do have a concern though, and this ties into the kind of "clarity of gameplay" idea I've rambled about a little bit before. In a game of this size/scope it can become easy for optimal gameplay to become "explore every inch of every square", and I want to avoid that, since it is (obviously) not very exciting. By extending the clear square delimitation to everything else I manage to dodge that - it should always be clear what map tile you want to explore, then from other methods (prior exploration, talking to people, maps, district layouts, etc) it should then never be too tricky to find where you want to go. I don't want "blur" the lines too much. The run-off issue is the same thing - if I put markets anywhere except markets, you'll think "but what if there is a market in the surrounding places?", spend ages exploring, and find nothing (though I am considering the possibility of having some city centres spawn with a rare, huge, shop of one particular type). I just think in this case realism will have to take second place to gameplay, and ensuring a level of distinction/clarity to each area. That said, I'm sure I will iterate upon cities over the coming years, so that might change, but for now I'm not convinced by the blurring-areas idea (though I could try and get larger farms that spread across two map grids?)...
However - sparser farming patches makes a lot of sense and would make some totally trivial extra variety, so I'll implement that. I'll also be adding areas for farm animals along with NPCs in 0.8 (purely just for detail). As for slums, I really like that idea a lot - have a whole scale of slums from just the one up to slums hugging almost every wall! That could be very interesting, and as you say, really emphasize some more city difference. Makes me wonder if I could add some more "macro" things like that which affect the entire city as well as the ones currently there (brick colour, religious buildings, tower shapes, etc, and ones I have planned in the future like NPC clothing, the type of weapon guards wield, etc, which will vary each city). Hmmmm. Anyway, yeah, I'll definitely put in sprawling slums for this release, and maybe force graveyards into cities as well, or add the possibility of lots of small graveyards on the interior if there's no graveyard on the exterior. When reading your message I just realized if there's no exterior graveyard then there are basically no graves, and that should be fixed. Unless they eat their dead, of course.
Post by: Retropunch on December 05, 2014, 06:52:05 am
Thank you sir! This is excellent.
Definitely agree that clarity of gameplay is absolutely paramount. My idea for things spreading/run-off were mainly for areas where the player wouldn't have any cause to really go there for quests, other than just to explore the scenery/immersion, and not make it such a sharp transition from wilderness to heavy farmland/slums.
As far as 'macro' things, I'd say absolutely the more the better. If you're going to wander around 5-10 cities per game (for example) then they need to be sufficiently different so that you can mentally tell them apart by their features ('oh, this is the garden city' or 'oh, this is the city with the huge slums'). I'd also suggest that each of the 'macros' be taken off the list once allocated, so you don't get 3 cities with sprawling slums or 5 garden cities just out of random-gen. Even though this might be a bit 'gamey' as many cities could have sprawling slums, it would help the player distinguish cities more easily.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2014, 06:29:49 am
Post by: Retropunch on December 07, 2014, 07:04:35 am
Well that certainly does make sense. I shall ponder it, though I don't think it will make it into 0.6 at this point regardless. In the mean time I've thought of several city variations to throw into the mix - many slums, many gardens (all districts have some gardens areas, inc. military), all lower-class (poor city, no middle-class districts, and maybe make even the upper-class district less impressive), all middle (i.e. wealthy city, no lowers), three or four military districts (pick one civ at random, sometimes, from all imperial civs, say?), many markets (so maybe 2/3), a moat around the entire city as well as just around the castle, and a large number of internal graveyards instead of an external one. That's the six so far, each could only gen once if at all in each world gen. Trying to think of some others too. And, also, there's a set of sixteen unique buildings that'll spawn in cities too, only one city ever, which are all plot related, but they'll be coming later, and not all of them will spawn each time you play (maybe 50% on average?). So with the above, I could add a "nickname" for some cities - the many slums might be "City of the Downtrodden", many military markets "City of Ten Thousand Swords", many markets "City of the Flowing Gold", etc (have the nicknames generated, obviously, but with a particular algorithm for each unique city aspect)
I love the idea of city nicknames, that'll definitely help to keep things memorable. I personally think it'd be a good idea to have all cities being variations/unique in the ways you described, as even though this might be slightly historically unrealistic, its much better to be on the side of uniqueness. This also pushes the player further in terms of decision making. If they want the top military resources they're best off going out of their way to the City of Ten Thousand Swords, but that might add on a substantial amount of time.
A few ideas I've thought up:
Slave cities - massive slums/poor housing next to walled off upper class districts.
Water cities - ala Venice.
Equality cities - all middle class housing (with a few exceptions), little opulence on display.
Industrial cities - many warehouses and workshops.
Religious cities - this has been mentioned before.
Desert cities - placed around a central oasis or river.
That brings you up to 12 variations, and then there could be capital cities for each religion which would vary it further. I think it just all boils down to making each city something you actually want to explore even if you've already played 20 games of URR and seen 10 cities in each game already. I imagine you're very close to that though, as these are by far the most impressive cities in gaming history I think (that's not just an idle compliment - think about how many games have had such detail in their cities?!).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 08, 2014, 06:48:47 am
As you say, it's about ensuring constant variety, and that means no more than a few of these should crop up every game - as ever, weighting things unevenly leads to a far better outcome than weighting everything equally, so that when you come across something rare it actually registers as being rare. I won't do these in this release, but I've put them on the 0.7 list. And my thanks for such praise! I do appreciate it. Now we just need even more variety! (Though, of course, a lot of variety will also come from inside buildings, the NPCs who wander around, etc). I think 13th *should* happen for release, the past two days I've been doing a lot of bug fixing, getting the list down to a very few now, but I keep finding more ridiculous and strange edge cases that demand my attention (and most of the remaining bugs are going to be a pain)...
Post by: Retropunch on December 08, 2014, 03:20:50 pm
As you say, it's about ensuring constant variety, and that means no more than a few of these should crop up every game - as ever, weighting things unevenly leads to a far better outcome than weighting everything equally, so that when you come across something rare it actually registers as being rare.
Whilst I definitely agree with that, I think as far as cities go, each one needs to be unique in as many ways as possible and as significantly as possible. Obviously, a lot of this will be down to NPCs and the cultures/religions that inhabit these cities, but I can't help but think that each city should be unique in some way.
An idea I had last night was to allow some cities (and this would only be a number) to be based around a 'theme'.
So for instance you could have the 'city of snakes' which may have winding streets, statues of snakes and a lot of other snake-themed motifs. Similarly, you could have the 'city of silver', which would be a great producer of silver goods, have many silver statues and so on.
These would have to have a reason for it, like the 'city of silver' being built on great silver mines, or a city of snakes being due to the great assassins guild which was founded there, otherwise it'd become a bit strange. However, these sort of things wouldn't need to be overbearing (and would probably do well for being treated tactfully) but would allow for a really unique city and history without the need for massive city-design changes.
Post by: Man of Paper on December 10, 2014, 01:25:54 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 12, 2014, 06:41:51 am
Now, to replies:
Whilst I definitely agree with that, I think as far as cities go, each one needs to be unique in as many ways as possible and as significantly as possible. Obviously, a lot of this will be down to NPCs and the cultures/religions that inhabit these cities, but I can't help but think that each city should be unique in some way.
An idea I had last night was to allow some cities (and this would only be a number) to be based around a 'theme'.
So for instance you could have the 'city of snakes' which may have winding streets, statues of snakes and a lot of other snake-themed motifs. Similarly, you could have the 'city of silver', which would be a great producer of silver goods, have many silver statues and so on.
These would have to have a reason for it, like the 'city of silver' being built on great silver mines, or a city of snakes being due to the great assassins guild which was founded there, otherwise it'd become a bit strange. However, these sort of things wouldn't need to be overbearing (and would probably do well for being treated tactfully) but would allow for a really unique city and history without the need for massive city-design changes.
I agree with emphasizing city variation, but I think these unique themes/nicknames/etc have a risk of "running out" very quickly if there are too many of them - the fewer there are, the more special they'll seem and the more they'll stick in the mind (not to mention that I don't think there's more than 20 or 30 themes I could conceivably come up with!). It's what I've done with coins - there's a lot of mundane/logical materials for coins, but very rarely (once or twice) per world a much more unusual material is chosen. I personally think that's the better way to go about it, but have enough systems that each city should have one unique thing, rather than making sure they all have a theme, all have an unusual coin material, etc. I realize that means cities will have fewer unique things than otherwise, but it'll keep the library of unique things going for longer and make it more noteworthy when these things are identified, and although it's not perfect, I'd say that's a good tradeoff. I like the statues idea a lot, I've thought of a few ways I can integrate that, and also some nicknames based on some of the very very rare coin types. I've added this nickname-ing/theme-ing to the list of stuff to do for 0.7, which despite the fact that 0.6 isn't actually out yet, is already twenty items long, and none of those are even to do with the core aspect of building interiors. Still, none are too massive. Today is just going to be a frenzy of finishing everything off, enrolling a few people on my super-secret bug-testing team (which I am potentially looking to expand...), disabling all the wizard-mode powers and that kind of thing, updating the welcome message, version number, etc etc!
The book you suggested was Cryptonomicon!! And so far I very much enjoy it.
Ah, excellent! It is pretty damned great. Whereabouts are you up to?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 13, 2014, 08:21:51 am
This is the sixth of seven planned worldbuilding releases, which will conclude in March with 0.7′s creation of the interiors of every single building you see in this release, after which core gameplay will begin with 0.8′s NPC generation. Until then, look around the vast world, be sure to ‘l’ook at everything, consult the ‘E’ncyclopedia for information on the planet you’re exploring, and generally get an idea of the scale and complexity of the generated civilizations the game features.
- Explore massive and varied feudal cities (each able to support a population of ~300,000+), each with its own range of districts, architectural styles, and buildings influenced by the political and religious choices of its civilization.
- Discover nomadic fortresses in the desert, enclosed by walls and with an emphasis on strong defence and open-air markets.
- Farms and towns now also generate within the countryside, which in the future will be important stops on your travels, and sources of occasional markets and information.
- Hunter-gatherer civilizations now have settlements, laid out in complex geometric patterns, built from a range of materials, and containing cryptic shrines…
- A huge range of new ‘l’ook graphics for almost everything new in the game, and for a range of items/features/terrains which did not possess graphics in the past.
- Improved world map generation – now includes rare marshland areas, and a significantly overhauled polar biome, now featuring ice as well as snow.
- Introduction of strategic-layer movement around cities, a note on the pricing of city districts, and the unique coinage of each civilization, which will be activated in version 0.9.
- Significant expansion of variety of religion and civilization generation.
- A range of bug-fixes and optimizations on roads, settlement generation, coats of arms, line of sight, generating certain aspects of rivers, and more.
From this point onwards, developing URR will be my full-time occupation for approximately the next twelve months, and I will post in more detail about this next week. Until then, I hope you enjoy exploring this huge world, please report any bugs you might encounter and the crash log (either on this post or emailed to mark @ my domain) and here are some screenshots of the kind of variation you’ll find in an average generation:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_4.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_5.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/06_6.png)
Post by: dennislp3 on December 13, 2014, 12:09:46 pm
Post by: Retropunch on December 13, 2014, 12:46:39 pm
So, so good. Literally fantastic - I've been too glued to it to post anything.
The cities are incredible, and extremely fun to walk around. It really feels like a fully fleshed out world now, and I can't even imagine what it'll be like with interiors and NPCs
Whilst I hate to critique it after such a short time, I've a few ideas/things to report:
-The big issue for me was that there are a lot of streets/roads that just lead into walls. I feel like each road should lead to somewhere, as it's really confusing/annoying trying to find your way out of the district by following roads and constantly coming to a dead end - it also breaks immersion, as that wouldn't really happen in real life. Sorry to come down so hard on that, but it's been a big issue.
-Whilst wandering around, I really got the feeling that the players field of vision should be bigger. It's fine in the wilderness, but in a city it feels like you need a bit more situational awareness.
-I think it'd be great if the player could press escape to get out of any 'screen' (like the travel screen) and only go to the menu once back on the main wandering around screen. The guy who did sub-commander did a bit of a poll on this and it was overwhelmingly favoured by players.
-Small issue, you can't 'l'ook behind you/outside your field of vision - whilst this makes logical sense, it's a pain having to line your vision up sometimes.
-As the player starts in their home city, it's sort of strange that it's unexplored. I'd suggest for it to be all 'explored' or at least the district that you start in. This would also help new players orient themselves better.
-letters with umlauts/accents seem to be in a smaller font - this looks a bit strange in my opinion.
Sorry to come up with criticisms so early, I just felt that as you're probably wanting to move on to the next version it'd be best to flag these up soon.
Seriously, very amazing though - I've spent hours just wandering around!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 13, 2014, 01:46:43 pm
Thank you very much for the awesome release! Checking it out now
Excellent! Let me know what you think.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!
So, so good. Literally fantastic - I've been too glued to it to post anything.
The cities are incredible, and extremely fun to walk around. It really feels like a fully fleshed out world now, and I can't even imagine what it'll be like with interiors and NPCs
Whilst I hate to critique it after such a short time, I've a few ideas/things to report:
Haha, thank you, this is excellent. Now, to your very good critiques:
-The big issue for me was that there are a lot of streets/roads that just lead into walls. I feel like each road should lead to somewhere, as it's really confusing/annoying trying to find your way out of the district by following roads and constantly coming to a dead end - it also breaks immersion, as that wouldn't really happen in real life. Sorry to come down so hard on that, but it's been a big issue.
Which districts? I assume you mean middle-class housing primarily? I had this pointed out to me by one of my super-secret playtesters (a cult which may be recruiting, if you're interested); they are definitely the trickiest districts to meaningfully navigate at this time, by a *big* margin (in my opinion). No other districts should really dump you into dead-ends, but MC districts can be quite misleading. I have several ideas for solving this which I've already put on the to-do list for 0.7! I guess they might make it onto a 0.6.1 release if people report some serious bugs that need fixing before then and I'll add in a few improvements into the mix, but if not, it'll be 0.7.
-Whilst wandering around, I really got the feeling that the players field of vision should be bigger. It's fine in the wilderness, but in a city it feels like you need a bit more situational awareness.
100% agree, it's way too small. Going to improve that once I improve the rendering function and it isn't computer-destroying to see more. Probably 0.7 also.
-I think it'd be great if the player could press escape to get out of any 'screen' (like the travel screen) and only go to the menu once back on the main wandering around screen. The guy who did sub-commander did a bit of a poll on this and it was overwhelmingly favoured by players.
Hmm, can you be slightly more specific about the screens? Do you mean returning to the main menu for the entire game? If you press Esc on the travel screen it should give you the Main Menu Y/N prompt? Perhaps this is just a question of "screen terminology" and I'm not sure which screens you mean!
-Small issue, you can't 'l'ook behind you/outside your field of vision - whilst this makes logical sense, it's a pain having to line your vision up sometimes.
I get that, but the facing-direction thing is going to be quite important once combat starts going, so I'm disinclined to do anything about the facing-vision per se, BUT I could do something like - if you try to look at something behind you which you could see if you turned around, pressing Enter to look also turns you around? That would be instead of doing nothing and having you leave 'l'ook, turn, and then look again.
-As the player starts in their home city, it's sort of strange that it's unexplored. I'd suggest for it to be all 'explored' or at least the district that you start in. This would also help new players orient themselves better.
Agreed, in 0.7 onwards all districts in your home city will start 100% autoexplored - it was on the list, but I just didn't have the time :(.
-letters with umlauts/accents seem to be in a smaller font - this looks a bit strange in my opinion.
Ah, really? I thought I'd fixed all those. I'll check the font files again.
Sorry to come up with criticisms so early, I just felt that as you're probably wanting to move on to the next version it'd be best to flag these up soon.
*Not at all*, best to figure out what needs changing early before I commit to 0.7 in any kind of meaningful fashion. I'll be starting development in the next week or two on 0.7, though probably not in any serious way until close to New Year, other stuff demands my attention for a week or two (I have a thesis submission deadline now, finally, for January, and I have a bunch of conference abstracts and other stuff to send off). I'm so glad you like it though! I tried a little "playthrough" this morning with all the wizard mode stuff disabled and just using the .zip file on the site, and trying to put myself in the mind of someone who isn't me and doesn't know all the ins-and-outs, and I feel it's the first release I am happy to stand on its own - even if it's a world of "ghost towns" - without feeling the need to keep saying "just wait until the NEXT release!!!" and stressing all the cool stuff that's coming. Purely as a world to explore, whilst I 100% agree with your dead-end road issue (I hope it is only MC districts, right?) I'm super-happy with how it plays as just a world simulator, right now.
Seriously, very amazing though - I've spent hours just wandering around!
Post by: Retropunch on December 14, 2014, 02:54:27 pm
It's mainly Middle-class housing districts that are the big problem. As there isn't much to do in the districts other than explore it's not a big problem, but it does mean trying to get out of the district quite a problem.
Which districts? I assume you mean middle-class housing primarily? I had this pointed out to me by one of my super-secret playtesters (a cult which may be recruiting, if you're interested); they are definitely the trickiest districts to meaningfully navigate at this time, by a *big* margin (in my opinion). No other districts should really dump you into dead-ends, but MC districts can be quite misleading. I have several ideas for solving this which I've already put on the to-do list for 0.7! I guess they might make it onto a 0.6.1 release if people report some serious bugs that need fixing before then and I'll add in a few improvements into the mix, but if not, it'll be 0.7.
I mainly have made such a big deal out of it as I think it has a wider impact on design. Firstly, whilst fast travel is great I think most players want to explore on foot (both me and a few friends feel the same) - you want to feel like you're inhabiting the world rather than just teleporting from place to place. Therefore it should be very easy to get out of each district - either regular signposts or some other more artificial (in terms of mechanics) way of finding the gates.
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-Whilst wandering around, I really got the feeling that the players field of vision should be bigger. It's fine in the wilderness, but in a city it feels like you need a bit more situational awareness.Great to hear!
100% agree, it's way too small. Going to improve that once I improve the rendering function and it isn't computer-destroying to see more. Probably 0.7 also.
Quote
-I think it'd be great if the player could press escape to get out of any 'screen' (like the travel screen) and only go to the menu once back on the main wandering around screen. The guy who did sub-commander did a bit of a poll on this and it was overwhelmingly favoured by players.With this, I meant that you wouldn't get the main menu prompt by pressing escape unless you were at the 'main screen' (as in, the one where you wander around/play the game). If you were at any other screen - like the Encyclopaedia or travel screen - pressing escape would just exit you back to the main (wandering around/playing) screen. I feel this is the way that most modern games play these days, and the way that people are most comfortable with.
Hmm, can you be slightly more specific about the screens? Do you mean returning to the main menu for the entire game? If you press Esc on the travel screen it should give you the Main Menu Y/N prompt? Perhaps this is just a question of "screen terminology" and I'm not sure which screens you mean!
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-Small issue, you can't 'l'ook behind you/outside your field of vision - whilst this makes logical sense, it's a pain having to line your vision up sometimes.That would be a good solution. At the moment, I can't see any issues with it and I don't think it'd need a prompt or anything.
I get that, but the facing-direction thing is going to be quite important once combat starts going, so I'm disinclined to do anything about the facing-vision per se, BUT I could do something like - if you try to look at something behind you which you could see if you turned around, pressing Enter to look also turns you around? That would be instead of doing nothing and having you leave 'l'ook, turn, and then look again.
However, part of me feels that as 'l'ooking is something that only helps the player (the character knows what they can see - they don't need to LOOK at the tree to know it's a tree most of the time) then it should be a free action - you're basically just describing something to a player which they can't see themselves due to the limitations of ASCII. However, if looking does become/is planned to become more important later on, then I can see why you'd want it to be tied to movement/turns. Obviously, you can't look at anything you the character hasn't already seen, and when you're looking behind you, the player is basically saying to the character 'what was over there 5 paces ago?'.
Again, if you feel it's necessary to have it tied to turns/movement then by all means - I'm just not a fan of having to 'pay' for an action just due to graphical limitation (even if you do absolutely destroy those limitations!).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2014, 08:51:40 am
Main menu prompt, ah, I see. So you'd prefer if you press Space to look around the world map, you can only leave that screen by pressing space again, and Esc brings up the Main Menu Y/N? I... am not sure I agree. I think there's a certain logic in pressing Esc to return to the "core" screen, and then Esc gives you the Y/N, especially since you're never more than one or two Escs away from it. On the other hand, I reflexively recognize that maybe I'm just saying that because I coded the damned thing and I've become too used to it! I'll certainly keep it in mind as an option. Tbh, I think the big question is how 'l'ooking in combat in the future will play out, and how using a turn to look behind you will "matter". So... I think I'll keep it as it is now, but reevaluate in 0.10.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Only two bugs have been repeated from 500+ downloads in the first two days, and neither of these can I recreate, or has reported by anyone else. One was a crash in worldgen around line 119086 (anyone else?) and the other is the ability to climb city walls (anyone else?), a task which should be totally impossible and I am finding absolutely impossible to make happen on my own system. Otherwise, this has been a damned stable release. Since only one person has reported either of these, it is unlikely that I will release a 0.6.1 unless a significant number of others report either of these, or I can recreate them in the near future, so onwards to 0.7!
Post by: dennislp3 on December 15, 2014, 01:00:31 pm
Post by: Retropunch on December 15, 2014, 02:14:37 pm
Signposts... interesting. Right now the gates can spawn at the top/left, middle, or bottom/right of each wall. Those are the only three locations. If there is a river going through the district, then the gate will always be at the top/left or bottom/right of an edge with that river, and never in the middle (as that's where the river will be). From my own testing, I felt that three-part gate option was sufficiently unambiguous, but - I could move it so that you *always* have gates in the middle of the walls, except in gates of rivers? I hope this problem is MC districts mainly, as most other districts have much clearer roads towards the gates, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Forcing gates into the middle would ever-so-slightly reduce variety, but if you think it would *significantly* improve the readability of districts, then I'd 100% consider it!I think as far as gates go, having them in the middle would be a good idea. Gate position isn't something I feel would significantly hurt variety and the gain in ease of navigation would be sizeable. It's such an issue because of how big the districts are - I had no idea how big they'd be until I walked around them around!!
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Main menu prompt, ah, I see. So you'd prefer if you press Space to look around the world map, you can only leave that screen by pressing space again, and Esc brings up the Main Menu Y/N? I... am not sure I agree. I think there's a certain logic in pressing Esc to return to the "core" screen, and then Esc gives you the Y/N, especially since you're never more than one or two Escs away from it. On the other hand, I reflexively recognize that maybe I'm just saying that because I coded the damned thing and I've become too used to it! I'll certainly keep it in mind as an option.Something strange seems to have happened! How it is now (with esc leaving the current screen until the core) is EXACTLY how I wanted it, but for some reason it wasn't doing that earlier. I really don't know what to say, as I was definitely just showing a menu prompt no matter what screen I was on (i tested it a few times!). I dread to say it was a bug (and can't see why it would be), but maybe keep an eye out!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 16, 2014, 11:24:02 am
Just a quick note; you may wish to update the OP and the title of the thread as it still stats 0.5 as being released
Whoops! I'd updated the OP but not the title, thanks for the heads-up.
I think as far as gates go, having them in the middle would be a good idea. Gate position isn't something I feel would significantly hurt variety and the gain in ease of navigation would be sizeable. It's such an issue because of how big the districts are - I had no idea how big they'd be until I walked around them around!!
Heh, ok, I'll definitely see how things work out with middle-gates as the default.
Something strange seems to have happened! How it is now (with esc leaving the current screen until the core) is EXACTLY how I wanted it, but for some reason it wasn't doing that earlier. I really don't know what to say, as I was definitely just showing a menu prompt no matter what screen I was on (i tested it a few times!). I dread to say it was a bug (and can't see why it would be), but maybe keep an eye out!
How confusing! There is a minor bug in there somewhere involving the shift key very, very, very rarely becoming "stuck" in the game (I think it has something to do with changing focus to another window whilst holding shift, or pressing shift, or moving focus onto the URR window when you press shift, or something) but that's the only thing even remotely like what you've just described (i.e. a key issue) and that's a totally different problem. Hmm. Anyway, let me know if any more weirdness occurs...
Post by: Retropunch on December 16, 2014, 05:16:33 pm
Heh, ok, I'll definitely see how things work out with middle-gates as the default.It'll be good to see how they turn out - if not, I believe another measure - like signposts or even a more 'interface' based addition (something on the minimap/arrows) - would help. It's just that the districts are big, and while I can enjoy wandering around them aimlessly now - I don't know how I'd feel if I actually had a mission to carry out.
Quote
How confusing! There is a minor bug in there somewhere involving the shift key very, very, very rarely becoming "stuck" in the game (I think it has something to do with changing focus to another window whilst holding shift, or pressing shift, or moving focus onto the URR window when you press shift, or something) but that's the only thing even remotely like what you've just described (i.e. a key issue) and that's a totally different problem. Hmm. Anyway, let me know if any more weirdness occurs...Really confused by it - I've tried to replicate it and can't, but it definitely wasn't doing this behaviour before. I had a game open whilst I was writing both posts and it brought up the menu prompt no matter where I pressed Esc. I really can't imagine what it is - it seems strange for it to be a bug, but I can't imagine a computer error causing that. I'll keep watching whilst I keep playing, but my apologies for not testing it more fully before mentioning.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2014, 03:02:38 pm
As for the weirdness, well, that is weirdness, but let me know if it reappears. I haven't had a similar report from elsewhere, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything - only one person reported being able to climb onto city walls, and that bug - which I have now found! - is so insanely rare I'm not shocked only a single person noticed it (though I'm surprised the person in question didn't report that there was a road running vertically-up a twenty-floor wall as part of it!). So we'll see. Should be starting the technical side of 0.7 around a week from now, hopefully!
Post by: cheesemcmuffin88 on December 19, 2014, 08:12:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 20, 2014, 07:45:09 am
This game seems awesome ptw
Excellent choice!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 20, 2014, 09:42:57 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/Newpic2.png)
So, what does this mean in practical terms? Well, it should mean four releases this year. My plan is to release 0.7 (building interiors and major code optimization) in March, followed by 0.8 (NPCs!!) in July, 0.9 (strategy, coinage, travel) in September, and 0.10 (combat!) hopefully in December 2015, or just after the start of 2016 if not. It will mean the weekly blog updates will continue with the usual mix of URR updates (90%?) and general game design/history/criticism posts (10%?), and I’ll simply be able to spend significantly more time on coding the game and get through what I want to get through far, far faster than I have over the last three years.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/Newpic1.png)
However, there are some contingencies. There are currently several potential academic positions in the works for me, and if/when one of my applications is successful, and when that research project starts, will obviously influence the full length of this full-time development period. As much as I’d like to “guarantee” a full year, the academic jobs market – especially when one is trying to very suddenly change field! – is not to be trifled with, and I cannot with any degree of sanity consider extending to a full year and sacrificing a promising position I would otherwise had taken, if one comes up. As ever I’ll keep you all posted. The other contingency, of course, is that I cannot devote 100% of my time to URR – a significant portion of my time (roughly what I’ve spent on URR in the past few years) will obviously remain on my academic work, for there are a wealth of papers I intend to publish this year and close to a dozen conferences I hope to present at (including hopefully GDC Europe, if all goes well). Regardless, this is a major increase in the time I can commit, and the speed of development should reflect this!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/Newpic3.png)
So there we go. Coding development on 0.7 will begin in the next few days once I’ve finished planning out the technical improvements/optimizations, and March is the target for major coding optimization and the generation and storage of every single interior within the current game world (or at least the overwhelming majority, if some turn out to need other releases in place first before they can be designed). I have a few other end-of-year updates lined up for this blog, then regular updates will resume in a couple of weeks.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/12/Newpic4.png)
Last but not least, I just wanted to put up a brief summary of the last week’s 0.6 release. The download rate has been pleasingly rapid, and thus far I’ve had two very, very rare bugs identified, each only by a single person. Given that we hit 1000 downloads within just a little over the first two days (thank you all!) and they haven’t been reported more than once, I feel confident saying these are highly unusual rare bugs. One is in world generation and appears to take place when the game attempts to give a feudal civilization a hunter-gatherer religion (which should be impossible); and the second was a crash at a particular point of worldgen, but with no more information, so that one is sadly just too vague to pursue unless I can get an error log for it. If the person who reported the crash after the “C” and “F” of the worldgen screen is reading this, I need more information! There are a million different functions going on there and an error log is pretty much essential to hunt that crash down. As such, I’ve decided it’s not worth the effort to release a 0.6.1 (unless some major game-breaking bug appears or many more people report these same issues) and to simply push onto 0.7.0 and fix these bugs in the process.
Next week I’ll be posting an end-of-2014 summary of URR’s development (and a couple of other things), and then the entry afterwards I’ll be posting about where we go from here and the plans for 0.7! See you all then.
Post by: Deon on December 20, 2014, 10:34:46 am
To be honest, it looked like an awesome concept, but I did not really expect you to actually do it until such point and to go even further.
It looked like such a massive endavour, not a lot of people can deal with it.
Also, that's something that I wanted to say a long time ago: this is the ONLY roguelike for me which I cannot imagine with a tileset. Your usage of symbols is such amazing, I think you may be a very popular graphics designer in dusguise.
Post by: Alev on December 20, 2014, 07:26:25 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 20, 2014, 09:29:32 pm
I've lost this project from my field of view for a while, and it's extremely awesome to see it being developed with such rate.
To be honest, it looked like an awesome concept, but I did not really expect you to actually do it until such point and to go even further.
It looked like such a massive endavour, not a lot of people can deal with it.
Also, that's something that I wanted to say a long time ago: this is the ONLY roguelike for me which I cannot imagine with a tileset. Your usage of symbols is such amazing, I think you may be a very popular graphics designer in dusguise.
Well, thanks! Glad you see you back. You weren't the only one, believe me, but I think the doubt over my commitment/effort has faded by this point. It's totally understandable though, both in the climate of Kickstarters that go nowhere, and particularly in the RL community - I won't name names, but we've had our share of uber-projects that just fizzle out and go nowhere, so I always expected a little cynicism when I announced similar intentions a few years ago. Anyway, that's awesome about the tileset, I'm glad you like the use of the slightly-extended-ANSI set. And as for your final question, well, maybe I am...
Thanks for the release. I'll be sure to try it out soon.
You're welcome, let me know what you think :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 25, 2014, 08:49:29 am
Post by: aristabulus on December 25, 2014, 08:54:07 am
Today just makes me realize I should add some more procedurally-generated festivals to religious beliefs...
I'm sure Yule get around to it... ;)
Post by: Alev on December 25, 2014, 12:54:19 pm
whyyyyToday just makes me realize I should add some more procedurally-generated festivals to religious beliefs...
I'm sure Yule get around to it... ;)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 25, 2014, 01:26:16 pm
I'm sure Yule get around to it... ;)
Actually outstanding
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2014, 10:36:21 am
And thus, 2014 draws to an end. What did 2014 mean for URR, for my experience of making URR and everything that happened this year, and where does this mean this game and blog and all the rest of it will be going from here?
2014 began immediately after 0.4, my unwise attempt to introduce gameplay before the game was ready for it. Although I was reasonably happy with what you could do in Ziggurats, it lacked any real spark when the world was otherwise so empty, and I realized that it was time to finish off the worldbuilding before actually trying to add any more gameplay (only one release to go!). At this point I turned to fleshing out the detail of the world, and creating a space to interact with that should be every bit as dense, nuanced, and sometimes idiosyncratic, as the real world of a couple of hundred years ago.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2013/12/Flags051.png)
From this work I released 0.5 in April, which gave us history generation, a vastly improved world map, religions, coats of arms and families, religion and civilization detail, and was the first release that took place after I finally figured out what the game was actually going to be about! I was very happy with this release, and a lot of people who had previously been sitting on the fence about whether or not I was ‘committed’ to finishing the game were persuaded at this point. Success!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/01/Situ3.png)
This also pointed the way to the next release: making all these cities, towns, farms, settlements, fortresses and so on actually explorable, rather than just icons on the world map which told you “You can explore these in the next release!”. So, 0.6 began, and ended up being the longest release I’ve ever done, but also by far the largest. The amount of content in 0.6 is probably equal to, if not more than, all the other releases put before it (especially since 0.1/2/3, back in the day, were basically my attempts to figure out how to program a game whilst also programming a game, an approach which may have been a tad unwise). I committed to making every district unique, every fortress generate according to its own algorithm, and basically maximizing as best I could the length of time until players could/would become “used to” what they were seeing. This process isn’t finished yet, and 0.7 and 0.8 will both contribute heavily to this, but it’s a major development along the path of making URR as dense and varied a world as I want it to be.
Released a couple of weeks ago, 0.6 is the first release that I feel stands on its own, even as just a detailed ‘world simulator’ at this point. Although naturally the four planned releases for 2015 should be great and introduce some gameplay, I don’t feel the need right now to keep telling people “but just wait until the next version!” when they look at 0.6. It gives a good impression of the kind of world we’re dealing with, and something about the kind of game that’ll take place within it, and I’m very happy with that.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/02/CGSA.png)
It was also during this year that I finally realized that Science and Technology Studies (STS), the field of my doctoral research of the last few years, was not where I wanted to be, and that game studies most definitely was. The first thing I ever did in this field was a presentation on the semiotics of roguelikes (which I am currently writing up into a full journal paper) which I gave at the Canadian Game Studies Association Conference, and the response to this (and my overall experience there) cemented for good my shift to game studies. As such, although right now I’m putting the final touches to my doctorate (submission mid-January, at long bloody last), all my other academic work is now on games. I’m incredibly happy that I’ve made this shift, that my early work has got such a positive response, and indeed that a number of people within game studies have shown an interest in URR themselves. I love the possibility of academic/creative crossover in my work, and we’ll have to see where this goes from here.
Lastly, you may notice a NEW BUTTON (www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/support) on the menu at the top of the blog. This is the first step towards redoing/reworking this website over the course of 2015, and is a response to the very generous comments from lots of people who want a way to directly support the game. That contains a link to a donation button, but more importantly, I note on that page that I would actually much prefer that people support the game by ‘spreading the word’ than direct monetary support (though I certainly do appreciate that immensely). So, if you like what’s going on at the moment, and what I’ve got planned for my year (roughly) of full-time development over 2015, please give it a look and see if you’d like to give me a hand spreading the word of this glorious Scientific Revolution world to every corner of the internet.
In the mean time, I hope everyone has a great new year – I’ll be back next weekend with a post about my plans for the coming year and, indeed, the coming five years, and then regular URRpdates and the odd game analysis piece will return to normal the week after that. See you then!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 01, 2015, 07:33:16 am
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/01/01/best-pc-games-of-2015/14/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 03, 2015, 02:43:42 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/01/03/on-being-a-workaholic/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 11, 2015, 08:58:09 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Herringbone2.png)
As well as these I've also done tables and beds, and various designs on those too, bearing in mind furniture items are not "to scale" (i.e. they are designed to take up the entire size of the lookup window regardless of their actual relative size). The more up-market the location the item spawns, the more elaborate the decoration, and the choice of wood colour is naturally based on the biome the furniture is found in:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/SOme-tables1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Some-beds1.png)
I also want to take this entry to point out a certain... hidden aesthetic consistency within cities. I don't know if anyone will have spotted this - and it is becoming more pronounced in the next version - but I rather like this. If you've ever looked at the gatehouses in cities, you might notice that there are several different shapes:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Doorways.png)
In total there are five - squares, octagons, diamonds, circles (as best as possible with a tiled square grid), and crosses. Each civilization picks one at random. It's a minor additional detail, but then if you look at shop signs, you'll notice that those also have different shapes:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2014/06/Market-early1.png)
The observant player would then perhaps also notice that the floor tiles in cathedrals, parliaments or castles have a range of different patterns based on various shapes (and also their colouring is dependent on the flag of the nation in question):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Flarg.png)
Therefore, in each civilization, the shapes throughout the civilization are consistent throughout! In this case, octagonal:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Consitency.png)
That's just a minor thing, but I think helps with just a little extra distinguishing between civilizations. Now I've done a very good portion of the new graphics for this release already in just the first week of serious coding (perhaps a third of new graphics?), my next task is the challenging technical task of hacking down saving/loading times, and changing the game to saving the map in chunked sections within a folder on one's computer, rather than in chunked sections within a single massive file. It's a hefty change, and one of those which will either be weirdly trivial and only take me a day, or drag on for the week. We'll see. Coupled with this is creating the new infrastructure for building interiors which is going to be handled in the same way, and from 0.7 onwards saving/loading times are going to be reduced to a fraction of what they are now, and they will no longer rise the more of the world you've saved (which it currently does - a serious oversight). Either way, next week I'll be talking about these technical changes in a (rare) semi-technical blog entry - see you then!
And... some strange altars have been popping up.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Strangeness.png)
Post by: Scoops Novel on January 11, 2015, 10:15:52 am
Post by: ventuswings on January 12, 2015, 10:25:20 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 13, 2015, 12:00:56 am
I... did not expect tables :D
There's a lot of lovely indoors stuff coming, of which tables are but a taster!
Any plans for secrets within furnitures? Victorian furnitures came to my mind almost immediately.
I've actually been thinking a lot about this, and I'll probably make a longer post on this in the near future. I want to move further away from traditional RL hack-and-slash gameplay and add more "mystery"/detective-work gameplay - discovering the world's civilizations/religions/cultures/cults/cities/etc, and having to deduce things to get ahead, rather than just stab things - and I think building that into objects would be an interesting way to make the images more than just decoration, but there's obvious concerns. If, for instance, any object could have something hidden, then optimal gameplay becomes looking at everything, which would immediately get agonizing. I think the best balance is that only features which are already rare - religious altars, thrones, that kind of thing - can ever have secrets in them. This, I guess, ties into some slightly broader thoughts I've been having (again, a longer post when appropriate) but I 100% intend to integrate the graphics into the gameplay with information "hidden" in objects, but I'm just working out the exact best way to do it...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 15, 2015, 08:34:20 am
Post by: Nighthawk on January 15, 2015, 11:13:52 pm
Reduced file size sounds nice, though with (awesome) roguelike graphic assets size isn't exactly a huge concern. :P
An 80% loading/saving boost, however, sounds fantastic.
I'm sure any issue that pops up won't be nearly as catastrophic as your computer catching fire.
... If it does, though, make sure you get a video of it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 16, 2015, 04:13:48 pm
I think you mean combusting slinky. It doesn't quite explode.
Reduced file size sounds nice, though with (awesome) roguelike graphic assets size isn't exactly a huge concern. :P
An 80% loading/saving boost, however, sounds fantastic.
I'm sure any issue that pops up won't be nearly as catastrophic as your computer catching fire.
... If it does, though, make sure you get a video of it.
Ah, yes, THAT'S TRUE! Amazingly few issues actually popped up; what I thought was going to be the hardest part of the thing turned out easy, then what I expected to be reasonably mundane stuff is taking longer than expected...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 16, 2015, 06:56:58 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2015, 01:56:17 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/New_folder.png)
Each file is for the coordinates shown (obviously) and contains both the outside map grid, and any buildings that have been generated within that grid. Therefore, that is all that needs loading and saving each time you move between grids, rather than adding something to the massive older file. This has made the initial loading times for the game low, but as more and more areas are generated, it never gets slower! There’s also a code in each of these files to ensure it relates to the correct game instance, to ensure no crafty people switch around the save files to advantage themselves…
This is the first of three stages to the game’s optimization. The second stage involves changing how each individual tile is stored. Currently, every tile has its full set of colours – dawn, dusk, night, in player’s sight, out of player’s sight, etc – stored in every instance. This is horrifyingly inefficient. Instead, it needs changing to numbers that refers to where in the colour database the appropriate colours are found, and which doesn’t save/load them every time. In turn, the third stage is to adapt the rendering code to reflect this. I’ll probably be working on that in the next week alongside more general interior work. As with this first optimization, I expect this to take some time, but if we’re lucky it’ll be just as simple as the file/folder change was! And should hack the size of each save file down by… 40%? Maybe more? We’ll see.
SECONDLY, I’ve started work on interiors. Naturally I want interiors to be as complex and as varied as the external world; you should have to walk around for a long time before you see things “repeating”, and the interiors should be heavily dependent upon civilizations, religions, factions, geography, etc. I decided to start with religious buildings. Just as each one is distinct on the outside and the layout is procedurally generated… so too (as I’m sure you’ve come to expect from me by now) is the inside. The inside is naturally broadly consistent across all religious buildings from a certain religion, but each interior across religions is highly distinct. Some may contain statues, some may not; they’ll have different layouts of things like tables and chairs, *very* different altars (see next week’s update, maybe?), different places for offerings, naturally different NPCs, and also different secrets (if any). So, a religious building from the outside:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Interior1.png)
And on the inside (early days, don’t be too judgemental!) with some chairs (the backwards ‘t’), tables (the tall ‘pi’ symbols), doors within the building and leading outside, statues (in each of the ‘wings’), an altar (purple in this casee) and a staircase leading to the second floor…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Interior2.png)
…where we find a corridor running around the outside of the building, and two more stairs leading up to the top floor… but we’ll have to keep that one secret for now.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Interior3.png)
My intention for the remainder of this week is to finish off all possible variations of religious building interiors, which should yield something in the high tens of thousands of possible interior layouts! I’m also having to plan ahead to think about what kinds of secrets should be potentially spawning in these buildings, and how they should be accessed if so, so that’s also influencing the development process. I might also try to finish off all the altar graphics this week; the variation I have so far is amazing, and I think you guys will love them when I unveil them (either next week, or the week after). And that’s all for now!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 18, 2015, 07:40:10 pm
"Church of the Common Canonization", who believe worthy peasants should be elevated to sainthood.
"The Aron Dualism Heresy", who believe the god "Aron" is actually two gods, one good, one evil.
"Preachers from the Poor", who believe that the Theocracy of Hijjim has become bloated with wealth, and should distribute its money to those in slums and lower-class districts.
...and so on and so forth...
Post by: Nighthawk on January 18, 2015, 08:00:28 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 18, 2015, 10:04:14 pm
I do hope there is the possibility of generating an "Armok" deity in game...
I have a few easter eggs planned, and on that topic I shall say no more :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 19, 2015, 08:02:03 am
Post by: Muz on January 19, 2015, 08:52:17 am
Post by: Zireael on January 19, 2015, 09:55:54 am
For those of you in the UK (and US? Maybe?) the February issue of PC Gamer has a two-page spread on ProcJam, where URR is described as a 'giga-roguelike'. I am very, very comfortable with this definition.
I love the definition :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 19, 2015, 09:06:05 pm
Haven't kept up to date with URR for a while. It scares me now :P
EXCELLENT
I love the definition :D
Likewise! I may try to integrate it into the site somewhere...
Post by: pedrousz on January 20, 2015, 07:06:41 pm
I tried maybe even some years ago and found it a little... empty, not much to do or read
there is more to explore on this version or I should I hold my hype to future versions?
also, this game is so beautiful omfggggggggg
can i ask what is your Eco influences? I can't understand were Eco might enter into a roguelike (I can totally see Borges in a random generated history bizzare world though!)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 23, 2015, 06:18:11 am
Ha, thanks :). Just wait until you see all the graphical beauty I'm working on now! My goodness.
Re: Eco, oh boy, you're asking the big questions, aren't you? Well, primarily from The Name of the Rose. I like some of the debates over science and the scientific method and different forms of knowledge in Baudolino, and the underlying absurdity in Foucault's Pendulum and the acknowledgement that one can only understand a certain amount about the past (or extrapolate about that past) from the data you have, but it's mostly from TNotR that I'm drawing inspiration. I'm particularly interested in a lot of ideas from TNotR, particularly the layout of the Aedificium and the idea of the terrestrial/thematic labyrinth that organizes the books; the debates over religious interpretation and all the different interests aligned with them (and indeed the detail of religious doctrine described in the book), the idea of deducing information based on the signs the lead characters have access to (hence URR's intention for "qualitative" gameplay, rather than stats/dungeons/monsters etc), the general discussion of books and the knowledge they can impart and how flawed/partial this knowledge can be, the overall setting (though clearly pre-scientific-revolution), and the idea of books being things of such significant importance that people would be willing to (spoilers!...... spoilers.) kill for them, hide them away, use a library as a thing to hide books rather than disseminate knowledge, etc. URR will, a few versions hence, have its own highly important library...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 23, 2015, 01:52:34 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2015, 08:16:34 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Religfloors.png)
Religious buildings have become highly complex and varied in a huge number of ways, but one of these ways which I’ve focused on this week has been in terms of statues within the religious buildings. Originally statues were going to be a binary either/or – either religious buildings had statues of appropriate important figures/deities, or they didn’t. However, I decided it would be much more interesting to add more possible details to this list as a way to both further enhance the variation of religious buildings, and give NPCs and information in the game more to talk about. Therefore: instead of statues, religious buildings may contain ceremonial gongs, vases, and incense stands. Rather than always hearing “The church with the statues that look like X”, you’ll get “The church with the brass gongs”, “The church with the vases that depict two dragons fighting”, and so on and so forth. These are all, naturally, procedurally generated. I’ve created all the graphics for the gongs and also worked on some more graphics for the rest of the ordinary furniture, and my intention is to next work on the vases and the incense stands whilst I move onto programming other building interiors in the coming days.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/GONG1.png)
I’ve also implemented HERESIES. The average game will have between 3 and 6 of these generated in the game world, and they draw upon the data stored for existing religions to propose heretical notions “logical” (as it were) to the religion in question. Religion worships an animal-headed god? Maybe this sect believes that eating animal flesh insults the god. Religion consists of a pantheon of eight gods? Maybe the sect believes there is a ninth. Religion proposes a kind, benevolent god? Maybe the sect believes this god is actually evil, or at least inimical to human well-being. And so on. Just like all the flags and coats of arms and so forth, heresies have their own algorithm for symbol generation (there’s about 40 or so possible, so it’ll be many games until you see them all) and now show up in the Encyclopedia, where you can read a little information about the nature of that heresy, though this will be added to significantly in the future. Each heresy also has one of three statues – it may be TOLERATED by the dominant religion, SHUNNED, or be the subject of an INQUISITION, in which case that belief will be entirely hidden underground. Inquisitions will be worked on later, maybe this release, maybe next. We’ll see. As you can see, the screenshot below is very much an in-progress screenshot (information is not lined up nicely, there’s no leader data, some of the names don’t fit into the window, there’s an unusually large number of heresies in order to make sure they all generate correctly, etc), but you can see how these are coming along. Once I implement the leader information, there will also be a list on the left side of the information screen showing what settlements this heresy has been found in.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Inprog.png)
Lastly I’ve also fixed a bunch of smaller issues this week – there were some unusual edge cases with entering/leaving buildings I’ve sorted out, and some residual minor problems with coats of arms and a few tiny other things which nobody except me seems to have noticed (since I know what things should look like!), but those have been fixed. This next week might be a lesser coding week – my intention is to submit my PhD no later than the 30th, and probably on the 27th/28th, so I need to devote time to getting it formatted correctly, having it bound, handing it in, blah blah. Either way, whatever coding does happen will be focused on moving interior generation into other buildings (I think I’ll go for something simple like slum housing next after this religious complexity), and adding in the rest of the graphics for the vases, gongs, etc (statues, being highly complex, might have to wait for now). See you all next week!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2015, 09:15:38 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Religfloors2.png)
Post by: BlindKitty on January 26, 2015, 02:34:40 am
Post by: Kaje on January 26, 2015, 05:52:20 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2015, 09:30:44 am
You probably have 'tau' in mind, if we are thinking about the same symbol. ;)
Of course! Clearly my Sixth Form physics knowledge has escaped me, I should have known that :(
My god, this looks like the kind of game that I'd become addicted to. What is its current state? Is it playable? Can I begin to wreck the final semester of my law degree?
Haha, thanks. It is currently basically a colossal and detailed scientific revolution world generator; you can explore the vast world, and it's history/cultures/religions/politics, but there's no gameplay as of yet. I'm currently working on adding interiors to every single building, and then it's onto gameplay!
Post by: Kaje on January 26, 2015, 09:33:26 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2015, 10:14:14 am
Keep up the good work! Is there a rough estimate on when the 'gameplay' will be added? If you say May, I may have to kill you, as that'll be when my finals are...
Erm... maybe. Probably a little later though, as going from "no NPCs" to "a world full of NPCs who all behave correctly" is a big release, so probably more like June/July? Rest assured, your finals shall not be interrupted! Probably.
Post by: Kaje on January 26, 2015, 10:30:38 am
I shall totally keep a keen eye on this one, awesome work so far!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 28, 2015, 12:42:05 pm
That sounds awesome to me, I'll have graduated by then and be *cough* working *cough*, so my weekends will be my own to get lost in this!
I shall totally keep a keen eye on this one, awesome work so far!
Excellent plan, and good luck - and thanks! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 29, 2015, 05:01:58 am
http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2015/01/episode-96-ultima-ratio-regum.html
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2015, 06:52:36 am
… but this comparative lack of speedy development is because I submitted my PhD! After three-and-a-third years of work, one serious illness that left me pretty much out of commission for about six months, and another far more serious illness that actually threatened my life, I’ve got the damned thing in (if anyone is interested, I have updated my academic profile (http://www.york.ac.uk/sociology/our-staff/students/mark-johnson/) on the York site). I was expecting to feel profoundly nervous, but I feel oddly calm about the whole thing. I have a copy of the softbound thesis lying on my desk in front of me so that I can “revise” from it when the time comes to defend, but I’m having to make sure I’m not tempted into opening it and checking for typos or anything like that (though a pretty thorough typo search was conducted by both myself and two others). The next month or two have just opened up in front of me as wonderful blocks of time where no more thesis work is required (and it’s looking increasingly likely I’m going to have a game studies academic job on the horizon, but more on that as and when). I’m also going to start trying to write some more general games criticism stuff for some of the many games commentary sites out on the web, and when that actually starts happening I’ll naturally link to them here.
Anyway, this coming week, I’m therefore expecting major progress with a full seven days of coding – my intention is to finish off all the altar graphics, work on some more interior graphics, conclude everything to do with religious building interiors, and then move onto generating the interiors for some other, simpler buildings (maybe slums, lower-class housing, etc). I’m also going to submit the full 8500-word version of my roguelike semiotics paper (which I presented at a conference last year) to an academic journal at last, and I’m extremely happy with how it’s looking (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/02/22/the-semiotics-of-the-roguelike/).
Lastly, I was also on Roguelike Radio again! I got interviewed for an episode specifically about URR, and it was pretty excellent (I think). I recommend giving it a listen (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2015/01/episode-96-ultima-ratio-regum.html). See you next week, folks.
Post by: Kaje on January 31, 2015, 12:42:17 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2015, 06:09:00 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2015, 04:18:18 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Damn.png)
Edit: I know it gifts/bans the same thing, making those exclusions is just one item on the list of 8475719 things to do...
Post by: PTTG?? on February 02, 2015, 03:48:55 am
Post by: Kaje on February 02, 2015, 08:40:33 am
Bone?
Post by: Zireael on February 02, 2015, 09:05:58 am
Post by: Kaje on February 02, 2015, 03:54:43 pm
Bone bows are a thing :)
I know, I was listing the only other possible material I could think of that would work! ;)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 03, 2015, 10:46:26 am
Post by: Kaje on February 03, 2015, 11:54:39 am
Post by: BlindKitty on February 04, 2015, 03:44:01 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 04, 2015, 07:50:15 am
That, too! :o Though is it odd that I could totally imagine the being as described?
I think it is a good sign of impeccable mental stability!
I figured that was a thing that you had in mind when posting this effect, but really, this is only a Janus^2 (which an added touch of serpentine tongue), isn't it? ;) Not at all that strange. At least, not on B12 forum...
Ha, well, maybe that's the case. I'm going to have to ramp up the weirdness...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 06, 2015, 05:45:27 am
Post by: Urist_McGamer on February 06, 2015, 05:08:30 pm
Post by: Baijiu on February 07, 2015, 03:16:02 am
That, too! :o Though is it odd that I could totally imagine the being as described?Yeah I totally just pictured it too. Ugh. I actually got goose bumps from the creepiness.
Now I'm curious... Are we going to be able to wipe out religions, or at least try and suppress them? Because I want to wipe these eyeball thieving tree-huggers from the face of the Earth.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 07, 2015, 07:43:59 am
This game looks amazing! Posting to watch.
Thank you! :)
Yeah I totally just pictured it too. Ugh. I actually got goose bumps from the creepiness.
Now I'm curious... Are we going to be able to wipe out religions, or at least try and suppress them? Because I want to wipe these eyeball thieving tree-huggers from the face of the Earth.
Yes, absolutely - the intention is for all factions to be support-able, or destroy-able, depending on one's preference! It'll be tying into the history-altering mechanic of the game in the coming year :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 07, 2015, 08:26:28 am
LEVEL DESIGN
I’ve been working a lot on many of the building interiors this week that still need doing. First off I’ve finished off religious building interiors, and handled a pretty wide range of strange goings-on and errors with their generation, such as the ability to walk outside them through cracks in the walls, or staircases which don’t correctly match up with their partners on other floors. They can have 1/2/3 floors, and have a massive range of variation in pretty much every way. Here are some examples, drawn from a religious district in one of the world I was recently testing things in (these imagines display the outside, the ground floor, then other higher floors, going left to right):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Ch1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Ch2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Ch3.png)
I’ve also thrown together the generation code for the most basic of houses, those in slums and their slightly-better equivalents in lower-class housing districts. These, naturally, are tremendously simple, and it will be extremely rare for a player to have any need to enter one, but they’re there now, and on the off-chance that one will be housing something secret in a basement, the code is in place to allow that to be the case in the future. It generates an appropriately-sized space, places a bed against a wall, and then places a table against a wall, and some chairs around the table; slum housing, by contrast, will only have a bed (and a very simple bed at that) and sometimes a chair.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Outside-Lower.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Lowe-inside.png)
I then went to work on taverns, which always spawn in every single lower-class district. There are there basic sizes of tavern (all are a simple rectangular shape, and in keeping with my intention to make buildings broadly understandable from only the outside, no other buildings share this basic shape in the sizes that taverns occupy). There’s several dozen possible interiors, each with various sub-sets of generation and different angles they can be oriented in, tables/chairs which do/don’t spawn, etc, and all contain a staircase up to the bedroom where the innkeeper lives, and a small number contain a down staircase towards a wine/ale cellar, and perhaps something secret down there too? Pretty much all building interiors are being generated with the possibility of secret content – or rather, with areas that the game will use to hide a secret if necessary – so that if you’re told in the future that the innkeep of The Mask and Flagon is hiding something behind a locked door in the basement, it’ll be there.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Outside-Lower1.png)
After that I worked on shops, creating the algorithm by which they decide where to put the ‘stall’ inside the shop (i.e. where the items will be laid out, somewhat akin to how shops work on NetHack), but since these currently lack items or shopkeepers, they aren’t especially fascinating yet, and don’t really merit a screenshot. I then moved onto military hospitals, which contain naturally lots of beds which will, in 0.8, have people in various states of decay/injury in them; chapels and areas where those religiously-involved with the military or with healthcare are stationed; and also naturally stores of healing items, herbs, etc. There aren’t going to be any non-military hospitals in the game: this is one of those gameplay > realism things, and I wanted to really focus the source of health items in one single place, and other districts were sufficiently busy whilst military districts were not, and thus, they ended up there. Hospitals vary in the layouts of their wings, how the beds are positioned along the walls and the quantity of the beds; and also the large stack of tables one can see in the top room of the first image, for example, will all contain various herbs, medical items, etc, in the future, whilst the lower room opposite it will contain quarters for the doctors, and potentially holy books as well if the civilization is particularly religious. There are equivalent rooms in the lower picture, and in other hospitals too.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Hosp-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Hosp-2.png)
Lastly, I’ve started on cathedrals. Each religion has one in the city centre of their home nation. These are actually going to be a massive task; I would expect at least two more days of solid work to finish them off, if not three, as they are huge, and require a lot of variation, but also need to appear broadly consistent with the ordinary churches of that same religion. As you can see from the screenshot below they’re pretty big (and that screenshot doesn’t show the entire thing), and very varied, and contain the majority of the relics for a religion, as well as obviously being a central holy place. Additionally, you may notice that the stone on the ground is slightly shaded; that’s because it is tiles rather than stone flooring, and the slight shading is in line with the colours on that nation’s flag, and this will be the case for all important/wealthy buildings (castles, cathedrals, manors, etc). Naturally the pattern for the ‘wings’ of the cathedral is a larger version of the same pattern for churches, and the inside is designed to show a level of consistency with the smaller churches in that variant:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Cathedral.png)
PROCEDURAL GRAPHICS
I’ve pushed ahead on a lot of the new graphics for this week, and also done some more “background” work on creating infrastructures to allow these graphics to be used as clues and information that NPCs will give you in the next few months – which is to say, if a particular religion worships at a fiery altar, then written information on that religion might say “those who worship at the altar of flame” rather than “those who worship [God name]”, and so forth. Firstly I did some more work on finishing off the massive variation in religious altars we’re going to see in 0.7 – there are many archetypes, many variations, and something in the range of several tens of thousands of possible different religious altars. I’m working up to producing a detailed blog entry on these altars, maybe next week if they’re all done by then, but in the mean time, here’s another for your perusal:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Kingofspire.png)
I’ve also, having finished off gongs last week, been working on some of the other general objects you’re going to find around the place. I spent a little over a day working on generating vases, some of which spawn for certain religions, and some of which will spawn in the castles and upper-class housing for particular civilizations. There’s several dozen designs, several dozen colours and about a dozen different shapes, so (especially once the entire world is no longer pre-explored!) it’ll be a long time until anyone comes close to seeing all the variations. Again, these will in the future be tied to information the player gets, and to my desire to focus gameplay on discovering the world, understanding the world, and figuring out data the player possesses. Say you hear about a chamber in a distant castle which contains “four fragile dragons” – find the room with four vases, and if those all depict a dragon, then you’re in the right place. Here are some examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/3Vas.png)
OTHER STUFF
A few other things. Firstly, doors have been simplified down to two types – locked and unlocked (I was previously thinking about adding “closed” and “open” as sub-variables of both, but that was quickly getting too confusing, and distinctly difficult to represent). Locked doors have a “full” door symbol, whilst unlocked doors have an open archway. Some buildings in various civs will of course be unlocked by default, like religious buildings, other public buildings, etc. If you’re trying to go through a locked door, you’ll need the appropriate key, though for this release, all doors will be open. I’ve also been doing some general figuring-stuff-out work on NPCs, NPC schedules, how they should be handled by the game, how they should be abstracted out when you’re far away from them, which NPCs the game should track and how it should track them, etc. Nothing visible to report on that front, but it’ll be important in the future.
Thanks to everyone for reading this monster entry. Next time: something else!
Post by: Zireael on February 08, 2015, 12:30:22 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 09, 2015, 05:49:21 am
This is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!
Thanks! It's hard to put together updates of this size, so no matter what I get done this week I doubt next week's will be quite as massive, but it has been awesome to see the positive response to this one :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 09, 2015, 09:38:36 am
http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/2vag54/potentially_hosting_irdc_europe_at_university_of/
Post by: Kaje on February 09, 2015, 10:46:42 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 10, 2015, 05:40:58 am
Some beautiful work there, dude.
Much appreciated :)
Post by: mendonca on February 10, 2015, 08:33:41 am
Good luck in organising it nevertheless.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 10, 2015, 02:29:32 pm
Sorry about the offtopic (don't use reddit) but Lincoln is about 20 miles from my hometown. Diary notwithstanding (family things on some of those dates) , I would love to attend.
Good luck in organising it nevertheless.
Well that's awesome! I'm currently based in Newark, so my intention is just to take the 30 min train in for each day.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 13, 2015, 06:59:43 am
http://www.pcgamer.com/special-report-procjam-and-the-future-of-procedural-generation/
Post by: Nighthawk on February 13, 2015, 12:32:24 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 14, 2015, 05:29:54 am
As a Trekkie, the phrase, "the birth of a real-life Holodeck" makes me absurdly excited.
Alas, URR doesn't have holodecks, I'm afraid :(. Or... does it...?
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 14, 2015, 10:23:21 am
Also, thought you'd like this: it will be a series discussing the role of academia in games amongst other things. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-part-1-the-lost-future-of-ai/#more-270717
Post by: Retropunch on February 14, 2015, 11:13:59 am
What would you like players to gain by the end of the game? You've got cryptography, detailed renaissance style history, i feel we could easily come away with something useful if you're so inclined.That's actually a really good idea - with a world this detailed, you could actually put in stuff for people to learn. EDUCATIONAL GAMING WHICH IS FUN!? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!
I'm not thinking so much of historical things (like how olde style coins were minted), but rather things like algebra which are still very useful today. Whilst I know you're not doing this for profit, doing something which could actually be useful for schools/colleges would be an incredible service. I have a friend who works with disabled kids (mostly very autistic) and he says that minecraft has literally revolutionised teaching with them - they can actually learn stuff which before they would never have had the patience or inclination to do.
URR could be the next step, gaming with a strong mathematical, scientific and literary focus - sort of like college level educational gaming.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 14, 2015, 07:26:43 pm
What would you like players to gain by the end of the game? You've got cryptography, detailed renaissance style history, i feel we could easily come away with something useful if you're so inclined.
Also, thought you'd like this: it will be a series discussing the role of academia in games amongst other things. http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/02/13/electric-dreams-part-1-the-lost-future-of-ai/#more-270717
Quote from: Retropunch link=topic=94550.msg6034808#msg6034808
That's actually a really good idea - with a world this detailed, you could actually put in stuff for people to learn. EDUCATIONAL GAMING WHICH IS FUN!? WHAT IS THIS MADNESS!
I'm not thinking so much of historical things (like how olde style coins were minted), but rather things like algebra which are still very useful today. Whilst I know you're not doing this for profit, doing something which could actually be useful for schools/colleges would be an incredible service. I have a friend who works with disabled kids (mostly very autistic) and he says that minecraft has literally revolutionised teaching with them - they can actually learn stuff which before they would never have had the patience or inclination to do.
URR could be the next step, gaming with a strong mathematical, scientific and literary focus - sort of like college level educational gaming.
Very interesting question (and thanks for the article!).
Well... I have very mixed feelings about "educational games". The fundamental issue is to me is that 99% of educational games are not games - they are just... I don't know. Simulated environments. Virtual environments. Interactive simulations. Whatever. People are misusing the term "game" for "something with normally 3D graphics on a computer which you interact with", but something designed to teach people nuclear powerplant safety, say, or designed *specifically* to teach people about urban planning, or whatever else, aren't games; they're just interactive learning tools. And that's fine, I'm sure there's a place for that, but - whilst there are many academic definitions of "game" out there, several of which I think are very worthwhile and have a lot to offer - I don't think by any definition these are "games". At the most, you might "play" them (as I think one does engage with programs like that with a ludic/game-playing attitude, but no more than one might approach things like religious ritual, musical rehearsal, etc, with the same), but they are certainly not "games".
What I do think is interesting, though, is "games which happen to teach" (GWHOT) (a catchy title, I know) - that includes things like the Civ/EU/CK games for history, things like EVE Online for how economies function, and so forth. Now that does actually interest me, particularly since (in both examples) what you're learning is integrated into the gameplay, rather than background lore/interest/whatever (like in some games), and rather than not actually being a game at all (a la educational games). I really want URR to basically teach historiography, first and foremost; the vagueness of historical data, the inaccuracies in writing the historical record, the difficulties in reconstructing past events, and so forth. At the same time, some more general exploration of religions, heresies, cultures, race, and so forth would be nice too.
Now - I'm at around the 50% mark on URR, give or take. I have a clear plan for completion, and I also know what the game I make next will be after URR (though no telling until URR is a good 90% done!). I do want to create what one might term "scholarly games" or "intellectual games" (though I think I prefer SG, of those two). Civ/EU/CK/Eve are these, no doubt, but there's only a small bunch of topics they've explored, and it's other topics I'd like to explore. I am actually in touch with some academics working in historiography, teaching via games and similar topics, so there's definite potential there too...
So, basically: yes, I hope it will make people really, really think - especially in ways you don't normally think in games - and about topics that games don't ordinarily touch, *without* being heavy-handed, and whilst still being A GAME, and one where the themes and the gameplay are connected.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 15, 2015, 06:16:52 am
In the mean time:
Cathedrals:
Cathedrals, at last, are finished. They took the best part of the week to make as varied and interesting as I wanted – and to put in place features that will be needed in 0.8, such as quarters for the priests, potential for a cathedral to lead to a crypt, etc – but now they’re done, and I think there’s around 20,000,000 possible variations, give or take. Whereas the smaller religious buildings for each religion have names chosen from a large set, so you might get churches, pagodas, stupas, parsonages, etc, the largest building for each religion is known as a “cathedral” always – this is not out of an attempt to be christian-focused, but simply because there aren’t enough specific words for “a larger than normal religious building” to allow every religion to have its own! Whilst there may be dozens of lesser religious buildings around towns, cities, monasteries, etc, there will only be one cathedral, always positioned (as those who have explored 0.6 may have seen) in the city center of that religion’s home nation.
Here’s the cathedral I unveiled last week (just repeated here for the sake of comparison) and two of the others that have been generated this week, to give some idea of the variety. I spent around two hours just generating cathedrals over and over – it worked through pretty much every archetype and highlighted a small number of bugs, but with those fixed, I’m pretty confident they’re all generating correctly and cathedrals, finally, are DONE.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Cathedral.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Cath-21.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Cath-1.png)
Altars:
I’ve finished off the remaining religious altar graphic generation this week, and next week’s blog entry probably is going to be a detailed update about how I went about generating them, the variety across altars, the relationships between altars and the particular kinds of deities they represent (different deities have different archetypes), and so on and so forth. The last set of altars that needed coding were what I (perhaps harshly) call the “standard altars” – these are for the more “ordinary” gods who do not fit into one of the rare archetypes, and are therefore given this set of altars. However, there is still significant variation in this altar archetype – here’s a couple of examples. There are twenty bases, twenty materials the base of the altar can be made from, seven altar shapes, thirty “edge” patterns, thirty “inner” patterns, around fifty possible items that can be placed on top, and twenty colour schemes:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Swan-candles.png)
(Just to remind everyone, what you see above is only one of the five current “archetypes” for altar generation; there are four others, and one more planned, though that might have to wait until 0.8)
Crypts (Planning):
I have begun design work on crypts, and these will be one of the next things I’ll show on the blog. At this point I’ve figured out how I want them to generate, and the differences between the two locations they can appear – crypts can be found in graveyards, in which case it will be a broadly “secular” crypt for important figures from that nation’s leading family, particularly important/noble knights/etc; and they can also be found under cathedrals, in which case it will be a “religious” crypt containing past religious rulers, saints, etc. Of course, some of these bodies might be missing if they died far from the home nation, and if you happen to read in a book somewhere that they died carrying a particular relic…
Anyway. I’ve been planning this out, and also the far less likely things that will generate in each crypt to add variation, and also how the graphics for the specific cadaver tombs and sarcophagi in crypts should be generated, and also just the technical stuff of making sure this ties correctly to figures in world history. This week has only been planning, but in the coming week crypts are one of the things I’ll be working on. Since that might be quite a big task, I’m also aiming to generate a whole bunch of the smaller/lesser buildings out there as well – I’m thinking military barracks, slave quarters, prisons and asylums, and maybe some hunter-gatherer buildings should all be done this week, but we’ll see what takes my fancy.
In Conclusion:
See you all next week for either the detailed examination of religious altars, or a more general update on crypts and other buildings, depending on whether I get Google Analytics sorted out on the blog before then, since the latest update I downloaded completely broke it. Sigh.
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 15, 2015, 10:27:12 am
Post by: Retropunch on February 15, 2015, 04:28:54 pm
RE: educational games.
I definitely agree that games which set out from the start to be educational tend to not be great fun - or the fun is very secondary. I was definitely thinking more along the lines of 'Games which happen to teach' but I feel that URR, being a very detailed simulated environment, would allow for the 'learning of skills' to fit in without being heavy handed.
Something like cryptography or algebra could be worked in through puzzles, and the game could provide enough information (with ingame books/NPCs!) for you to learn how to do it even if you don't know anything about them.
These could be mostly optional (perhaps to unlock ziggurats or vaults), but would allow players to learn a new skill through gaming, which I think would be a very exciting thing to bring to the gaming world. Other things could be taught through simple testing - for instance, to get to the top of the merchants guild, you might be tested on your knowledge of economics.
The main reason I'm for this though, is that games tend to hand things to you based on twitch based skill, in game stats or RNG. Few games - if any - reward you having actual skills and knowledge. I feel that it would add a feeling of achievement that finding a 'magic ring of ice blast' would never be able to match. This would be doubled if you had actually learnt something that was useful outside the game.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 17, 2015, 06:24:56 am
Great! *high 5's all round and a fist-bump for retropunch!*
It was a good question! I should write up a full blog entry some time on "pedagogical goals" or something similar...
Cathedrals look amazing!! I can't wait to wander round them!!
RE: educational games.
I definitely agree that games which set out from the start to be educational tend to not be great fun - or the fun is very secondary. I was definitely thinking more along the lines of 'Games which happen to teach' but I feel that URR, being a very detailed simulated environment, would allow for the 'learning of skills' to fit in without being heavy handed.
Something like cryptography or algebra could be worked in through puzzles, and the game could provide enough information (with ingame books/NPCs!) for you to learn how to do it even if you don't know anything about them.
These could be mostly optional (perhaps to unlock ziggurats or vaults), but would allow players to learn a new skill through gaming, which I think would be a very exciting thing to bring to the gaming world. Other things could be taught through simple testing - for instance, to get to the top of the merchants guild, you might be tested on your knowledge of economics.
The main reason I'm for this though, is that games tend to hand things to you based on twitch based skill, in game stats or RNG. Few games - if any - reward you having actual skills and knowledge. I feel that it would add a feeling of achievement that finding a 'magic ring of ice blast' would never be able to match. This would be doubled if you had actually learnt something that was useful outside the game.
Excellent! I'm taking a little break from "big" generation for a day or two currently, working on small things like barracks, stables, some hunter-gatherer buildings, town halls, etc, then I'll be going onto crypts, which should be finished by the time of next weekend's blog update.
I think "unlock a new skill via gaming" is a nice way to express it - as I say, the main one I'm interested in "developing" is... I guess "critical thinking" about history, but also cryptography is an interesting one that I think can be integrated well into gameplay (as you say, "optional"/"additional" gameplay). As you say, games mostly develop twitch skill (and, indeed, two nights ago I actually got the world record in a twitch-based game! I'll be posting that on the blog in the next few weeks) but I really like the idea of rewarding people for developing *knowledge*, and also of course doing the same within the game - the more knowledge you gather of the in-game world, the more intelligently you should be able to make your decisions and pursue your objectives (which, at last, will begin to emerge in 2015!).
Post by: Neonivek on February 17, 2015, 08:46:51 am
Quote
I definitely agree that games which set out from the start to be educational tend to not be great fun - or the fun is very secondary.
You have to play the right one... The major issue with "educational games" is that they are either made for incredibly young children and prescribe to the lowest common denominator.
Or they are "Learning tools" meant for you to attempt to beat your head in over and over again and not meant to be fun at all (Mavis beacon for example)
There are reasons why I wish people would make educational games for adults.
But if you have such trouble finding an educational game that approaches fun try... Super Solvers Outnumbered... Or try out one of the Magic School Bus games which is more "Interactive storybook" then actual games but it should get the point across. Or "Where in the World is Carmen Santiago" which can be insanely tough even for an adult.
Or rather... Them attempting to be "Educational" isn't what is making them "not fun" in the same way that Educational television isn't "unfun" because of the education aspect (just watch Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy for a rebuttal that educational means boring). They are "Not fun" because they are just poorly made games for an audience who "doesn't know any better" or marketed towards parents.
---
Critical thinking when fostered in a game is good all around anyhow.
So long as you are creating a cohesive world with patterns of logic.
Post by: Kaje on February 17, 2015, 04:39:24 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 19, 2015, 08:35:55 am
Critical thinking when fostered in a game is good all around anyhow.
So long as you are creating a cohesive world with patterns of logic.
Agreed re: the profound un-fun-ness of most "educational games" - and that, really, is the plan! I was once more toying last night with the idea of totally removing combat from URR's plan. I don't think that'll happen, but I still want to make it profoundly rare and consequential...
This is so damn pretty, and I normally detest ASCII games.
Ha, thanks! Funnily enough, although quite the roguelike fan, I normally play NetHack, DoomRL and DCSS (my three main RLs) with tiles (but don't tell anyone...)
Post by: Neonivek on February 19, 2015, 08:44:16 am
Quote
I was once more toying last night with the idea of totally removing combat from URR's plan
That, would certainly be interesting. But it would entirely change the scope, themes, and really the essence of your game fundamentally.
The way I'd see it, if you did do that, is that it is actually an archeology game that first generates the locations, then generates the "modern day" so to speak.
You should probably finish the game as it currently is before you do spin offs.
Though you should be happy that you made a game that has such a scope of ideas that you could make many great and interesting games from it.
Post by: Robsoie on February 19, 2015, 10:59:04 am
Cathedrals:
[...]
but simply because there aren’t enough specific words for “a larger than normal religious building” to allow every religion to have its own! Whilst there may be dozens of lesser religious buildings around towns, cities, monasteries, etc, there will only be one cathedral, always positioned (as those who have explored 0.6 may have seen) in the city center of that religion’s home nation.
If the building is really unique , why not give it an unique name (randomly generated with various keywords, a bit like dwarven fortress are named), so instead of calling all those buildings named the Cathedral, you could have it named the Altar of Splendor , the Celestial Spark, the Eternal Office , the Cradle of Titans ... or whatever random generation may create as an unique name.
Possibly some prefix/suffix being picked from a list of keywords that are linked to the generated religion theme/characteristic/etc...
About removal of combat, if this happens there will be a need for something else that replace it so something happens at gameplay time for the player to keep people willing to go on with exploring their generated world.
Post by: Zireael on February 19, 2015, 11:08:30 am
Post by: Retropunch on February 20, 2015, 11:07:39 am
If the building is really unique , why not give it an unique name (randomly generated with various keywords, a bit like dwarven fortress are named), so instead of calling all those buildings named the Cathedral, you could have it named the Altar of Splendor , the Celestial Spark, the Eternal Office , the Cradle of Titans ... or whatever random generation may create as an unique name.That's a great idea! Whilst I agree that it's difficult to think up loads of different names for religious buildings, the 'main' building/cathedral could be called something that would let the player know it was the main building.
About removal of combat, if this happens there will be a need for something else that replace it so something happens at gameplay time for the player to keep people willing to go on with exploring their generated world.
For instance, lets say you have a god called 'Ixhia'.
This could lead to 'The grand altar of Ixhia', 'The high chamber of Ixhia', 'The seat of Ixhia', 'The holy temple of Ixhia' and so on. I think as long as you include the god name in it and make it sound regal enough there should be no problem using that instead of Cathedral, as I think that's a little bit dull when everything else is so excitingly named.
Re: Combat. This is something I would not like to see go. Even though games without combat can be fun (Portal) I think it takes away a lot of the character building people expect/want from an RL. Whilst I understand not wanting to make it into a hack'n'slash, you've got to give the player something to worry about/work towards on a more micro level or you get disengagement. It's also a realistic element of the game - medieval times were a lot more brutal, and travelling throughout the world always carried great risk from bandits and so on.
Post by: Robsoie on February 20, 2015, 06:09:31 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 20, 2015, 06:56:11 pm
Re: special cathedral names, I'll certainly consider it. I'm going to implement alternate names for some things (like titles for important figures and the like, and nicknames for cities as we'd discussed before) but I will probably still keep "cathedral" as an overall title for such buildings (like castles are all "castles" even if they have their own unique names), just for the sake of new-player clarity! Not yet sure what this weekend's blog post will be - it'll either be a general update (I've almost finished crypts, and they're looking very exciting; I've also worked on barracks and some other smaller buildings), a massive update on specifically altars and how I generate them, or a mysterious Something Else. Not sure yet.
But damn, crypts are looking good. Wildly varied, not too big, not too small, some distinct "themes", big differences between crypts under graveyards and under cathedrals...
Re: game freezing, oh, it'll still be updated! Changing the world is an absolute core of URR's gameplay, starting as of this year (finally!)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2015, 10:06:19 am
First off: I am organizing the International Roguelike Development Conference (Europe) at either the University of Lincoln, or the National Videogame Arcade in Nottingham (both in the UK), probably at the end of June (27-28). If you are interested in attending, please let me know. I’m also giving the “keynote” talk at the North American IRDC (more information at http://irdc2015usa.tumblr.com/) but the fellow organizing it really needs to know about numbers and those interested as soon as possible. John Harris, writer of the long-running @Play column, is also likely to attend, and I’m in the process of trying to get in touch with some interested North American games academics. Again, if you’re in NA and interested in attending, please get in touch with either me, or the organizer via the Google form on the tumblr link I posted above. It is hugely important that we get some idea of numbers, especially for the NA IRDC, since one has never been successfully hosted in North America before.
Now, onto URR (though I’m afraid the above message will likely pop up every few weeks on this blog, since I want to get as many people attending both as possible!).
Crypts
My main focus this week has been on generating crypts. These appear below cathedrals and graveyards, and are quite rare – probably around half a dozen or so will be generated in the entire world. Those below a cathedral are home to religious leaders, saints, holy warriors and the like (assuming their bodies were recovered), and may also contain things like altars, religious archives, and various other things you’ll have to seek out for yourself. On the other hand, crypts beneath graveyards are “secular” and focused on the ruling family/house of that nation, so contain past rulers, important figures from that house, and the like, and since that crypt is more public than one directly beneath a cathedral, you may (in 0.8 ) find some other individuals lurking around there as well. The “segments” that make up a crypt are, like so much else, dependent on the shapes preferred by the civilization, so you’ll find crypts with lots of squares, circles, octagons, and various other shapes; they also vary massively in their layouts (I used a modular node-based generation system for these), and their “themes” – for instance, the top crypt of these two has a “desert theme” and sand has begun to flood in; the second crypt has an “overgrown” theme being found in a jungle; and there are several other, rarer, and pretty interesting themes which can affect the entire crypt. I’ll probably have these themes spread into other underground areas as well in the future.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Desert-Crypt.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Temperate-Crypt.png)
One interesting feature of crypts (and from this point onwards this will apply to all underground areas) is the lighting system. You see those yellow/orange/red symbols in the pictures above? These are candle stands or braziers, and in-game they flicker between the three colours, and provide light, even if you haven’t explored what is between them. This means that you can sometimes spot areas distant in the dungeon which are lit as long as you have a clear line of sight to them, even if you cannot see what lies in-between. Experientially this makes for a very intriguing experience exploring an underground area which is quite distinct from other regions – as you explore you sometimes “catch a glimpse” of a part of the crypt you haven’t yet explored, and it makes it feel more like “discovery” than some above-ground areas. Also, in 0.8 onwards unless you have your own source of light your FOV will be significantly reduced, so other lights in the crypt act as “waypoints” to guide you from location to location. The grey ohm symbols, meanwhile, are sarcophagi/cadaver tombs themselves, and I’ll be working on the generation of the graphics for those (and their connection to family histories) soon.
Barracks
One of the “small” buildings I worked on this week was the barracks, which spawn in huge numbers in the military districts of feudal nations, and can also spawn in much smaller numbers (but larger buildings) in the rare desert fortresses of nomads. The fortress barracks are on the left, the feudal fortresses on the right. Currently they only spawn beds, but in 0.8 or 0.9 you will also have piles of items for that particularly soldier – armour, weapons, clothing, etc – next to their bed. Doors sometimes spawn and sometimes down; some rare barracks will spawn with chairs or tables in as well as beds; but they’re generally pretty compact, though they do have a decent number of different possible layouts (which are always consistent throughout a civilization). I’ve also (as per an excellent suggestion) made the glyphs for basic floorings (wooden and soil, in this case wooden) much simpler, and darker, to accentuate the contrast with the walls.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Barracks.png)
Stables
Not much to show here. They’re stables, aren’t they? And stables without horses. What is a stable without a horse? Who knows?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Le-stablee.png)
Parliaments
I’ve also got to work on parliament buildings for feudal nations that have “Representation” as their leadership policy. In this case they are ruled by a President/Prime Minister/First Minister/etc, and this person exists within structures like the Red Senate, the Wise Congress, etc. In 0.8 this person should therefore have a “schedule” of movement between the castle (which will obviously be different for a Representation nation than, say, a Stratocracy ruled by the military) along with an appropriately protective retinue. There are meanwhile four basic layouts for parliaments, and each one then has a wide range of interiors, which also vary according to a number of other civilizational policies (and just general preferences in other ways). They have several floors, and sometimes a bell tower, and as with everything/everywhere else in the game, I’ve implemented appropriate code to allow them to contain some intriguing hidden secrets. Parliaments will also contain significant histories on the nation in question, lots of important people, and probably also some information on criminals, new laws to be enacted, etc, but we’ll figure that out later! As ever, I’m working hard to make sure every type of building looks distinct – admittedly Parliament buildings are pretty damned table/chair-heavy compared to others, but I still think it works (here are horizontal and vertical parliamentary buildings):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Parl1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Parl2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Parl3.png)
And you see those white diamonds? Those are PAINTINGS. Obviously those will be focused in galleries, but you might also find a couple in upper-class houses, parliaments, castles etc, and once I get around to those they will all be procedurally-generated and yield hints about the world. They will serve the same function as statues, but those are both big procedural jobs, so probably… 0.9? Maybe 0.8, but I doubt it, given that NPCs is a pretty colossal/massive thing to work on for 0.8.
(Also, I am aware the middle image looks like the Parliament of Mordor – was just a fluke from a civilization with a dark brick colour, and it was in the tropics, so dark woods are going to be used for the furniture!)
Next Couple of Weeks
Despite the well-documented folly of attempting to predict future blog posts, I’m going to try it again here. The next two weeks (though I’m not sure which order) will consist of two posts. Firstly, I’ve written a very detailed analysis of how the graphics for religious altars are generated (I have thus far own shown a very small fraction of these on the blog), and that’s one partly written for an audience not yet au fait with URR, so I’ll be advertising that post quite heavily; the other entry is an analysis of the danmaku world record I just got this week (!), which comes with a pretty amazing video (if I do say so myself). So one of these should be next week, and one the week after, but I’m not sure about the order just yet. See you then!
Post by: Retropunch on February 22, 2015, 10:56:58 am
One thing that came to mind when you mentioned the 'Red Senate', was if colours are closely connected to civilizations. I know there are civilization colour schemes, but I didn't know if they were connected to wording as well? It might make it interesting to have red as the Civ colour, and then names, places, organizations going off that (The Red Senate, The Maroon Hold, The Burgundy Inn and so on).
All this amazing work and I'm still agonising over the dashes and colons on the floor! I noticed that the barracks didn't have any dashes, and I think it looks clearer, although the colons do still look like something solid in my mind. I decided to do a mockup in paint of a part of the crypt without dashes or colons, as I don't know how difficult it would be for you to just rip them out:
(http://s7.postimg.org/l40wuayaj/dots.png)
I do think it looks cleaner, although with a better distribution of fullstops and commas it would look a lot better. I'm sure this is just due to playing many years of RLs with just fullstops as ground, but I think in a game so tightly packed with stuff it needs to be as clear as humanly possible.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2015, 02:23:43 pm
The crypts look incredible! Will some be trap filled?
Maaaaaybe. Honestly, for now, actually no, but ziggurats have also been removed, and I need to seriously think about the interaction between different maps/areas, NPCs, traps, and the player, before I were to add any back in!
They almost look too exciting to just have dead people in them. I love the idea about torches and lighting, it'll allow you to find interesting things (which I imagine there would mostly be torches around) more quickly, as well as add all sorts of tension when combat is in.
Agreed! I'm also putting in the background code I can use in 0.8 for spawning some rare NPCs in graveyards; for instance one might find a hermit hiding in a graveyard crypt, or possibly a religious archivist in a cathedral crypt, and a bunch of other rare possibilities...
One thing that came to mind when you mentioned the 'Red Senate', was if colours are closely connected to civilizations. I know there are civilization colour schemes, but I didn't know if they were connected to wording as well? It might make it interesting to have red as the Civ colour, and then names, places, organizations going off that (The Red Senate, The Maroon Hold, The Burgundy Inn and so on).
Colours are sort of associated. Flag colours affect the colours of snazzy floor tiling (on the floor of the Parliament buildings, not on the floors of the crypts), and will also affect a few other things. For instance, when we get onto book generation I'm going to have the most expensive/valuable of books have proc-genned leading letters (like http://world4.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/letter.jpg ) and the colours on those letters will be dependent on the civilization that spawned them! There's also a few other ways in which colours "matter", but actually places and things aren't, currently, linked into that system. It would take... a decent amount of reworking to add that at this point, so I'm not sure if that'll happen...
All this amazing work and I'm still agonising over the dashes and colons on the floor! I noticed that the barracks didn't have any dashes, and I think it looks clearer, although the colons do still look like something solid in my mind. I decided to do a mockup in paint of a part of the crypt without dashes or colons, as I don't know how difficult it would be for you to just rip them out:
(http://s7.postimg.org/l40wuayaj/dots.png)
THEY'RE GONE, THE DASHES ARE GONE
I do think it looks cleaner, although with a better distribution of fullstops and commas it would look a lot better. I'm sure this is just due to playing many years of RLs with just fullstops as ground, but I think in a game so tightly packed with stuff it needs to be as clear as humanly possible.
THE DASHES ARE NO MORE
Btw, are you coming to the IRDC? You really should if you can!
Post by: Retropunch on February 22, 2015, 05:18:43 pm
I can well imagine that traps might conflict with NPC areas (you don't want them all dying to traps) but perhaps keeping all traps behind locked doors would be good. Are ziggurats removed completely? Will they be coming back?
I'm not sure if I'll be able to make IRDC, I'm currently out of the country and may not be back in time - I'd love to go if I could. I'm actually thinking up a presentation on crime in games for some sort of game dev conference sometime - I'll let you know nearer the time!
Post by: Pencil_Art on February 22, 2015, 11:38:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 25, 2015, 12:54:35 pm
Horray!!! I'm very excited to see the areas without dashes!!
I can well imagine that traps might conflict with NPC areas (you don't want them all dying to traps) but perhaps keeping all traps behind locked doors would be good. Are ziggurats removed completely? Will they be coming back?
I'm not sure if I'll be able to make IRDC, I'm currently out of the country and may not be back in time - I'd love to go if I could. I'm actually thinking up a presentation on crime in games for some sort of game dev conference sometime - I'll let you know nearer the time!
Zigs... are probably gone for good. I just can't see a way to integrate them with the density of civilizations now produced, and the gameplay around that kind of qualitative density/detail which interests me so much. Hopefully I'll find a way to reuse the nice block graphics though! This removal isn't certain, but is highly likely.
Ooh, that sounds very interesting, I've actually never seen a talk on that in all the games conferences I've attended. The IRDC might be something more like the middle weekend in July rather than the last in June; dates are still in flux, and I'm in discussions with both the University of Lincoln and the National Videogame Arcade. I shall keep you/this thread/the internet updated!
Looks great. Will definitely look at it when it's released.
Thanks!
Post by: Retropunch on February 25, 2015, 03:31:50 pm
Zigs... are probably gone for good. I just can't see a way to integrate them with the density of civilizations now produced, and the gameplay around that kind of qualitative density/detail which interests me so much. Hopefully I'll find a way to reuse the nice block graphics though! This removal isn't certain, but is highly likely.
Noooooo!! I think they're a great and very interesting feature. Whilst I know the civilization gameplay is a big part of it, there's something very special about wandering around the wilderness and coming upon a ziggurat. They're also a great mechanism for giving the player history/quests, as well as a sort of 'one off challenge'.
Having some ancient civilizations (perhaps ziggurats could have ruins around them?) would allow more history exploration, and give the player something to search round when they tire of the hustle and bustle of the civilized world. This is one of the things I love about the elder scroll games - the dense cities are contrasted by quiet ruins, which allows the player to pick what they feel like getting immersed in at that particular time.
Perhaps they could be very, very rare - maybe one or two every world gen, or maybe none at all. You could also possibly repurpose them as a type of crypt if you felt that you just couldn't work them in otherwise.
Post by: xaritscin on February 25, 2015, 05:46:38 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 26, 2015, 07:47:14 am
Noooooo!!
These options are all very possible! Extremely rare, add more to them, or possibly integrate them into other areas (as you say, crypts might be a logical place). If they're just a tangent I'm disinclined, but if I can find some way to integrate them well, I will think about it. One major problem, for me, is that "solving the puzzle" is not the same as "inputting the solution" - you have to blather around actually moving the solution into place once you've figured it out, and that's not particularly intriguing. I've come up with a few ideas for solving this, but it's still low-down the priority list atm (i.e. next year onwards, after this year's interiors/NPCs/travel/combat etc).
now that you mention crypts and that stuff, will heretics and cults get interactions with them?...
Yes!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 01, 2015, 06:34:37 am
In URR, meanwhile, I haven't had much time to work on it this week, being out the house for three days and having a bunch of academic job applications to send off; nevertheless, I'm currently pushing ahead with generating building interiors for hunter-gatherer and nomadic civilizations, and I'm hoping to have the latter finished by the end of tonight!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 07, 2015, 09:11:16 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 08, 2015, 06:50:46 am
I’ve set up the venue, the time, the dates, and the format, of this year’s IRDC! I’m trying something a little different this year and I invite everyone to come along. You can read about it here on my website (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/irdc-2015/), on Reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/2ybus8/european_irdc_at_the_uk_national_videogame_arcade/), or on Roguetemple (http://forums.roguetemple.com/index.php?topic=4467.0), and please get in touch if you’re planning on coming along! The more the merrier, and this year’s will be something really different and, hopefully, something really awesome.
URR Development
The past two weeks I haven’t been able to get as much coding done as anticipated – partly from spending a lot of time travelling, partly from some truly baffling real-life events, and partly from other commitments – but I’ve been turning my attention to the other civilizations in the world of URR (primarily the nomads, but I’ve also put together some early work on hunter-gatherer building interiors) and also the generation for some of the other buildings in cities, like mansions and jails. So, here we go:
Mansions
Manors come in four sizes – small, medium, large, and “massive” (one of which the player will begin in, as a lesser noble). The images below show one medium and three large (the massive are not yet finished). The smallest manors can be found in upper class districts, potentially sometimes in middle-class districts once I rewrite middle-class district generation (but there would only be one in the district), and in the future will also be found in towns if the civilization has the Vassalage policy (I’m continuing to work on making the variation from policy choices more and more explicit). The medium size, then, can only be found around the edges in upper-class districts, where the “second tier” of families live (I might call these “lesser houses”?); the next size up can be found in upper-class districts only, where they are also for lesser houses, but those with real aspirations to becoming a major family in that nation; and the largest can only be found in upper-class districts; each district contains three, which house the most important families in that nation, one of which will be the ruling family. Manors contain living and dining rooms, at least one “special” thing – which might be a portrait, an ancient book, a valuable piece of armour, and the like, and which will likely be mentioned in books and other NPCs as a valuable family heirloom – and also store rooms, and quarters for servants (or, if the nation is a slaving nation, that room will be less pleasant and for slaves). The storage room is the only current “empty” room on the pictures below, simply because I haven’t yet implemented the various item types that will soon spawn there.
You’ll also notice a little visual difference in the floor – since all of these buildings have the “ornate flooring” terrain type as their default, I decided I wanted this to be very visually clear and explicit, and I really like how this looks. Cathedrals also had the same floor type, but I found they would be slightly too visually busy if they were displayed in the same way since cathedrals generally have more stuff, so I decided to only make this change here. Personally, I think they look bloody gorgeous. Be sure to click on them to really appreciate the colouring used in these! In the first picture, the floors are the upper floor, the ground floor, and the cellar, in that order from left -> right.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Small222.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/manorrrr.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/manorrrr2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Anotherman.png)
Citadels
In the centre of every nomadic fortress is a “citadel”, a last retreat for that nomadic people in case of disaster, war, and so forth (within which the nomadic rulers will dwell, along with various other unusual and rare rooms). I wanted to model these on a lot of palaces from northern Africa and southern Spain, so they have a certain “oasis” feel to them as well as being places of fortification; one will often find extensive gardens within the walls of the fortress, and within these gardens you’ll find things which spawn nowhere else on the map – intriguing stone stele, nomadic graveyards (a rare thing indeed), and if in the “capital” fortress of the nomadic nation, you’ll find some other intriguing stuff on the upper floor, according to the policies the “government” of that particular nomadic people pursue. I tried to make these citadels quite “oasis-like” – they have open areas, trees, and fountains and water, and with some interior/exterior areas, and with appropriate areas that the game can use to place slaves, servants, weapons, guards, etc, in future releases. There are two different floor types here – both are “ornate” floors, but they are displayed differently; which do people prefer for citadels? I’m definitely going to keep the “minimalist” ornate flooring for cathedrals, though.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Starfortground1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Arrgrh.png)
I’ve also put in the code for the game to create gates inside the fortress, which will then form balconies you can walk over on the higher floors, although I haven’t yet got around to generating the upper floors:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Two-Floors.png)
Jails
The first picture is from one jail “shape” showing how the stairs link, and then the other two show the player actually wandering around two variations of the “sideways pyramid” jail archetype, and in the latter case, I didn’t explore many of the cells (which, after this release, will of course be locked and require the jailer’s key) but just opened up a couple. As you can see, each floor is always similar, but with a slightly different layout of pillars, corridors, etc, and the empty room on the ground floor will be the jailer’s office:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Jail-3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Jail1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Jail2.png)
Barrels, Candles, Miscellany
Also just threw together some of the new lookup graphics required for this release. Have a procedurally-generated ale barrel, and candle stands:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Barrel.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Candles.png)
What’s Next?
Well, next week we’ll probably have a very in-depth and detailed entry about altar generation, the one I mentioned a little while ago. As for this release, I’ve definitely crossed the 50% point in these past two fortnights. By the update in a fortnight’s time, I’ll also have the massive mansions done, and most of the remainder of this release (I hope). I’m still aiming to release 0.7 in March. It’s… a stretch, as I have two academic papers I need to finish and submit this month, as well as beginning the preparation for my thesis defense, but it’s the target. Meanwhile, go and sign up to this year’s European IRDC and help us bring roguelikes to a wider audience than ever before!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 14, 2015, 07:30:45 am
This blog entry is a detailed post about generating the ANSI (ish) graphics for the altars (or “shrines” in some cases) for all religions.
There are three “classes” of religion – monotheistic, polytheistic, and what I’ve termed in the game’s code as “spirits”. Feudal civilizations can have either monotheistic or polytheistic religions (but are slightly statistically biased towards monotheistic, because there is more procedural variation within that type) whilst “spirits” religions are used for hunter-gatherer civilizations, who have a range of animistic of shamanistic beliefs, totemism, ancestor worship, etc. Nomadic civilizations, reflecting their role as melting pots of varied cultures and beliefs from across the globe, never have an official state religion (inasmuch as there is even a clear concept of “the state” in these civilizations). Each of these three kinds of religion has a wide set of different possible altars or shrines, based upon a significant number of archetypes which each contain within them a massive amount of variation.
Monotheistic
Within monotheistic religions there are four possible archetypes for deities – to use the terms used in-game (though these are not seen by the player), religions can be “demonic”, “eldritch”, “egyptian”, or “general”. Each of these has its own algorithm for generating and selecting the depiction of the altars at which their devotees worship.
The first of these we’ll look at are what I’ve been calling the “egyptian” god type. These are gods that adhere to names of the sort “The ____-headed God” or “The ____-headed Deity”, and so forth. The heads of these deities, so to speak, are generated according to the climate within which that religion was first found. A religion founded in a cold, polar region might have a “bear-headed” god or a “wolf-headed” deity, whereas in the desert regions you may find those worshiping their “scorpion-headed” or “scarab-headed” equivalents. The altars, in turn, are generated with a central image, a colour, a selection of candles, and an altar shape. Here are two examples: on the left is the rather more ‘abstract’ symbol for a deer-headed god (with a particular randomly-chosen shape and colour), and on the right we have an altar for its bear-headed cousin. There’s over thirty different animals, a wide range of colours and shapes for the altars, and therefore a massive potential variation in the altars of the animal-headed gods.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Animal-Altars.png)
The second are the “eldritch” gods. These are loosely based on Lovecraftian ideas, but also upon some of the more unusual gods in real-world pantheons (though generally ones no longer actively worshipped, or at least not by large numbers) which are not just “a person” of some description, and either have an unusual depiction, or are entirely animalistic. For instance, Chinnamasta is a Hindu goddess who holds her own severed head in her hands; the Rainbow Serpent in aboriginal myth (though these gods in URR are somewhat less benevolent); Lei Gong in Chinese myth; the Gnostic god Abraxas, and a few inspirations from voodoo, central American myth (primarily Aztec), and some of the truly bizarre demons from christian demonology (especially ones like Buer). This gives rise to gods like Uur Quog, the White Wolf of the Pit and Guardian of the Gate; or Fallin’thopar, the Transient Vulture of the Mountains and Taker of Souls. Those who like their Lovecraft can clearly see the procedural naming convention here, even if the descriptions and depictions of these deities draw from elsewhere as well. Their altars have a wide range of designs, “inscriptions”/patterns upon the altars, colours, bases, and patterns upon the basic, again yielding several thousand possibilities, of which two examples can be seen here:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Eldr.png)
The third are the “demonic” gods. These altars are the least procedurally-generated of the bunch, though still exhibit some variation in colour, and association with different forms of “demonic” gods. These are not gods which are worshipped secretly, or underground – these are clear, visible religions just like all the others in the game, but these deities are just not the most pleasant of sorts. In part my inspiration here was from the classic understanding one has of the “Old Testament” christian god – all fury, hatred, vengeance, wrath. I wanted to introduce some gods which were perhaps worshiped out of fear rather than out of the love and gentleness generally associated with the judeo-christian god in the present day, but at the same time deities who might have beliefs associated with them that state that although these deities are brutal and bloody, they are perhaps fair, or just, or expect a lot from their worshipers, or might give their worshipers great power in return for their loyalty:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/01/Demonos.png)
The last class of monotheistic god is the “general” god, though that hides the significant level of variation within those gods, and their altars. In this case an altar for these other gods – such as the Cold King of the Moon, or the Lord of the Tall Grasses – consists of two components. The bottom half is a block of stone, wood or other material, over which is draped a cloth (all procedurally generated) which bears the symbol of that religion and some other general decorative patterns down the side. On top of that is placed one of roughly forty different items, ranging from candelabra to bowls, statues to bones, and plants to statues of various animals. Here are some examples of this last type, which generally makes up around 60-70% of monotheistic religions in a game world, whilst the rest are of the above “rarer” types.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Raven.png)
Polytheistic
Polytheistic religions also use three different altar archetypes, which are selected at random for each polytheistic religion. Around 80% of the time they will use the “general” altars described and shown above – a block of stone or carved wood, with a banner, and with a symbol either appropriate to some aspect of the deities or chosen at random from a much larger set of “general” religious symbols – but the other half of the time they will use altars that fall into another category. These are for gods of a pantheon centred around ‘elemental’ concepts or other groups like metals or stones (such as the Deities of the Five-Fold Firmament, or the Divines of the Six Elements). All those names are, of course, also procedurally generated from large and varied libraries of names/words. We’ve seen the “general” altars, so let’s look at these elemental ones.
I’m academically quite interested in alchemy, pre-modern interpretations of “elements”, and the interactions between the two, and this archetype draws on alchemical concepts and also a few of my own which are related, but not quite drawn directly from real-world history. There are several different “sets” of “elements” that might be chosen for a religion of this sort – they might be the traditional fire/water/earth/air/etc, or slightly more unusual. In the picture below, these are for two different elemental pantheons. The altar on the right has been generated for a pantheon of five gods, in this case gods of the sun, the moon, the earth, comets, and stars; the right pantheon has seven gods, in this case gods of gold, silver, bronze, platinum, tin, copper, and iron. As above, these are rare “religion types” and will not crop up often, in keeping with good procedural generation where all possibilities are not equally weighted. As with all the other altars here, there will be clues towards these altars scattered around the world, and the nature of the altars will be referenced in a thousand different places and integrated into the world’s cultural fabric.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Eldr1.png)
Gameplay
As with everything in the game, these are designed to be integrated into the clues and hints the player pick sup. Perhaps the player will be suggested that a priest who worships at the altar of the three candles is harbouring a secret, and only one altar has three candles at the top? Similarly, if you come across an unknown altar, the experienced player should be able to make a reasonable guess about what kind of deity it “belongs” to, and if they have uncovered a range of deities that are worshiped but haven’t encountered their altars, they should be able to piece together this kind of information. Equally, as with all the other graphics in the game, these graphics are designed not just to aid in the kind of discovery/exploration/information gameplay that really interests me, but also just to aid in constructing a densely detailed procedurally-generated world. Several people have said they think URR stands already as the most detailed proc-gen world ever crafted; although I appreciate the appreciation (as it were), I think that’s a little premature, but the details in the interior of buildings (such as altars) this release (March, hopefully) should certainly move URR much closer to meriting such praise.
In Conclusion
What I’ve shown here is only the slightest fraction of the religious altars that might be generated in a single game world of Ultima Ratio Regum. The majority are the “standard” archetype, which gives far more impact to the discovery of one of the more unusual ones. The five different altar types all draw on very different traditions, either aesthetically, thematically or both, and offer similarity within an archetype whilst still remaining highly distinct, and having enough noteworthy features to allow their descriptions or nature to be disseminated by information throughout the game world. Lastly, if you liked this entry, please share it on your social media outlet of choice! To conclude, here’s an in-game screenshot of the player exploring a (procedurally generated) church, and finding the altar, and giving it a look (this being one of the ones shown in the examples above, in this case for a demonic deity called the King of the Spire):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Kingofspire.png)
And, a Reminder:
International Roguelike Development Conference (Europe)
I’m hosting this year’s IRDC! I’m trying something a little different this year and I invite everyone to come along. You can read about it here (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/irdc-2015/), and please get in touch if you’re planning on coming along! The more the merrier, and this year’s will be something really different and, hopefully, something really awesome.
Post by: xaritscin on March 14, 2015, 12:24:23 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on March 14, 2015, 02:11:53 pm
Post by: Pencil_Art on March 14, 2015, 06:07:38 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 15, 2015, 05:25:28 am
those altars looks so good its a shame you cant summon stuff from them :P
Haha! But perhaps some religions will believe that you can...?
Have you got much feedback between the religions? Actually, is there much borrowing or reaction by one proc gen creation to another point blank?
Interesting question. In some cases, yes, religions will hate each other, and I'm also working on a religion archetype where you have two religions who both believe in the same two gods, but worship different ones (e.g. gods of winter/summer, light/dark, etc). I hope to make this more detailed in the future, too, so have some deeper political interactions between religions beyond Religion A thinking Religion B are heretics/infidels/etc (though that's a good enough start for this release).
Looks amazing.
Thanks!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 16, 2015, 08:30:58 am
http://norwichgamingfestival.com/talks-events/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 19, 2015, 02:43:03 pm
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/19/dwarf-fortress-poetry-generation-matters/
Post by: pondicherry on March 19, 2015, 04:41:39 pm
Post by: Servant Corps on March 20, 2015, 10:10:10 am
I need to get this program done by the end of October so that it can be used for NaNo. (NaNo wants a blank manuscript in November 1st but you can do prep work before that time.)
I already downloaded a computer program that can create a functioning story outline for me, and already got some ideas for how to get it working. However, I need to know what I have to worry about when doing procedural generation. And since you are in the process of securing a PhD, you may be the best person to give me some pointers.
Right now, I think that procedural generation can help in arranging content but not actually creating new content unless you create a complex simulation (think Crusader Kings 2). So this means I have to create all the characters, write out different ways of interaction, create all the quotes, etc. Is there any way to reduce the workload, considering that I may write way too much content that may not actually appear in the final novel?
Any help would be greatly appericated.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 21, 2015, 04:55:17 am
this... is... so.... pretty and awesome and ... ahhhhh i love it already.
Ha, thanks! Glad you like it :).
URR, I am planning to create a procedurally generated novel. I know this sounds stupid, but in High School, I remember reading a sci-fi story about a computer that ghostwritten novels. I thought it was cool. So that is what I want to do. Also, I may not have time to write a novel manually, so automating the process would be really neat.
I need to get this program done by the end of October so that it can be used for NaNo. (NaNo wants a blank manuscript in November 1st but you can do prep work before that time.)
I already downloaded a computer program that can create a functioning story outline for me, and already got some ideas for how to get it working. However, I need to know what I have to worry about when doing procedural generation. And since you are in the process of securing a PhD, you may be the best person to give me some pointers.
Right now, I think that procedural generation can help in arranging content but not actually creating new content unless you create a complex simulation (think Crusader Kings 2). So this means I have to create all the characters, write out different ways of interaction, create all the quotes, etc. Is there any way to reduce the workload, considering that I may write way too much content that may not actually appear in the final novel?
Any help would be greatly appericated.
Whewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Ok, a few thoughts. Firstly: I think this is an interesting field, and not at all mad/daft. There was a competition about this recently (NaNoGenMo, something like that?) though I am unaware what the outcomes were or whether any remotely interesting/sane novels were generated (though one has to assume the answer was "no").
Hmm, what you have to worry about... I think the #1 thing is crappy generations. There are a huge number of rules in URR which examine what has been generated, compare it to some "guidelines" I programmed in, and then reject it if it isn't good enough. This obviously has clear implications for level design - need to make sure the entire level can be traversed, there are no areas blocked off, all that obvious stuff - but I also use it everywhere else. Religions which don't have any internal consistency are rejected; nomadic civilizations which are too small are rejected; all kinds of graphics/images are rejected if they won't look good enough; some religion icons are rejected if they look too similar to those already generated; ditto flags; etc etc etc. I think it is hugely important to have a system which can look at the results, judge if the results are "good enough" for your liking, then reject them and roll the dice again if the answer is no.
Secondly... well, "arranging" content and "creating" content are, I would argue, in a manner of speaking the same thing, but it depends on what resolution you look at. If you look at the entire world, URR clearly creates content; if you look at a specific item's lookup image, then maybe less so, since there's only so many variations I can code which the game then produces a combination of. I think that's a false dichotomy - it is better to maximize "creating" content as much as possible, but I think there are currently some things which can only be created by having the game piece together hand-made content. I try to avoid this, but sometimes I can't - the mansions in this week's update (coming later today), for instance, have a huge amount of variation, but all that variation is from piecing together handmade components, because I just couldn't create an algorithm which I liked the output of. But the "lower" a level you can add the handmade content, and the more the game/program can come up, the better the outcome will be. If you're PCG-ing a novel, and you write anything close to the full 50k words of handmade, then I think something has gone seriously wrong! With that said, I'm not really sure where I'd begin if I wanted to carry out the same task; but with THAT said, I do intend for URR to generate very short stories in near-future versions, so I suppose I'll be figuring that out pretty soon myself. Although I think concepts like this are an insult to literature and laughably reductionist, I'd look at things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots (not to mention that Booker himself is basically a joke) - because let's be honest, it is going to be a long time until AI can (if ever) generate anything as remotely meaningful/deep as the great works of literature, so as one's aim when generating a novel is to create something which "isn't meaningless", I'd look here to begin with. Hope this rambling helps!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 21, 2015, 11:04:29 am
Mansions, Part II
Firstly, I’ve finished the final set of mansions – the largest ones, found only in upper-class districts, and from which the player will begin their quest from 0.7 (or possibly 0.8 ) onwards (since the player is a lesser noble). Mansions of all sizes are among the more hand-made elements of the world; there are still many, many variations, but the algorithm which constructs them is more about piecing together and differentiating between a range of hand-made chunks, rather than the algorithmic placement of items, rooms, etc, but that’s just a necessity of the detail (and more importantly, logic/realism) I wanted from these: I tried several algorithms which just weren’t given me outcomes of the sort I wanted, so I’ve gone this way instead. There are ten shapes for the largest mansions; each shape has three different upper level layouts, three ground floor, and three basements, and each of these varies in turn according to colour scheme, table/chair placement, what room is used for what, and also another difference. If the mansion is the one the player starts in, the room in the middle of the ground floor below – containing the nine statues, in three sets of three – will contain nine things, be they paintings, statues, books, or something else, each of which will give you a single initial clue towards the nine items you need to uncover the locations of in the world. For this release, all nine are placeholder statues, but that room will be where you want to start.
Here’s an example of a ground floor and a top floor, with four bedrooms:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Low-Massive.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Low-massive-22.png)
… and another (you simply must enlarge this one and look at it full-screen, just look at the flooring! The architecture! I am almost appalled by just how satisfied I am by how these mansions look):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/massive-low-2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/massive-low-2a.png)
… whilst the basements look much like they do for the smaller mansions, i.e. stone/wooden flooring (if servants’ quarters or slave quarters, respectively). On the upper floor, you will also be guaranteed to find one special item in all the upper bedrooms, which you may discover or be hinted towards by various means; however, although the player’s starting mansion will contain the nine initial clues (and other mansions won’t), it is other mansions which may contain special items in the chambers of the nobles in that family, whilst your “starting mansion” will not. Therefore, your starting mansion will get you going on the hunt, whilst other mansions – if you can find a way to gain access – may have things to aid you on your quest. You also see those empty rooms on the ground floor? A storage room, and an armoury, soon.
Officers’ Quarters
I’ve put in the generation algorithms for Officers’ Quarters, located in Military Districts in large cities. There will only ever be one per civilization, and will contain the highest-ranking military officials (and, next version, presumably a logically significant amount of protection); there’s always a decent number of 5×5 chambers, and then one larger chamber for the highest ranking military official in that army (whatever that may be). Here’s a reminder of how one of these buildings might look: flags and fountains for the nation in question will always be found outside, along with a reasonably ornate road pattern, and the OQ is generally either a “corner” shape, or a “trident” shape like the one below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Thrrppt.png)
For the interiors I decided to use the ornate floor type again here, but once more in a visually distinct way; Officers’ Quarters will always have a “strip” of ornate flooring in the middle, and use ornate flooring in the bedrooms of the actual officers, but then will use stone flooring (the “second tier” floor type for interiors) for the rest of the building. The game places one from a large number of possible patterns of tables/chairs, and then places one from a long list of patterns of pillars/walls on top (deleting any tables/chairs that need to be deleted in the process!), and voila – you have the ground floor. So here we have three possible lower floors from another civilization to the one above, and three upper floors, in one shape:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Officers-GRound.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/OffUpper.png)
The differences are small across a single “shape” of building, but across civilizations, building shapes, floor colours, we actually get a lot of variation, whilst (as ever) maintaining a clear visual style which denotes that these are Officers’ Quarters, and not anything else:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/OQ-many.png)
As above, in 0.8 you’ll be able to find the highest-ranking military officials here, but it will naturally be a location which is closely guarded. I’ve also worked on the generation of armouries in military districts, but since these are very “practical” buildings (i.e. not ornate in any way), and since weapons and armour and the like are not yet generating, they are not especially interesting! Likewise for warehouses in market districts; done, but currently empty. What is interesting, however, is arenas:
Arenas
Arena interiors now generate for arenas in feudal nations. The arena consists of three components; an overall building shape, of which there are several varieties; a shape for the central “arena” section (the section within the grey symbols, which can be seen through) and the location of various candle stands which keep the entire arena constantly lit, regardless of where the player is located; and then a pattern of chairs (of which there are many) which is then placed in any remaining tiles. The initial “lobby” leads to open doors that lead to the chairs, and also a locked door (which in 0.8 will be guarded) towards an interior area where contestants will get ready, and where you will be admitted to if you intend to fight within the arena. I also made a very rare alteration here: all the chairs have a randomized wood colour (based on woods in that climate zone, of course!) rather than just picking a single wood colour for the entire building, which I do for every other interior. I like the effect it produces. I have also added the code (currently unused) to sometimes spawn arenas which might have certain… environmental hazards. Here’s an example of one I explored:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Anrea1.png)
I thought this gif was especially neat: step through the arena, talk to those in charge, decide to throw yourself into the ring, step out, and suddenly the arena opens up, lit through day and night by candles, and surrounded by (in 0.8 onwards!) a host of NPCs keen to watch the combat…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Gif1.gif)
Also: want more gifs in future blog updates? I think you do, but let me know.
Galleries
Added gallery generation! These spawn in city centres and will always contain four procedurally-generated paintings (which will always contain tiny clues, cultural/historical information, etc). One issue was to distinguish this from the lower floors of Officers’ Quarters, so we can see four paintings (the white diamonds) and a pattern of chairs. I took the randomized chair colour idea from arenas and reapplied it here, and had the game place chairs in blocks or along diagonals at different distances from the walls. It’s very simple, but the main function of these buildings is simply to house paintings (and, in the future, relevant NPCs who can give you useful information) – they aren’t the most exciting, but they function. Painting generation coming soon.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Galleries.png)
Embassies
I’ve now developed the interiors for embassies. I wanted to make these very close-knit and very dense, so the game generates a number of closely-linked offices, picks a layout for tables/chairs within them, then generates. The ambassador’s office (the room with the upward staircase) will always contain a few items of note from their home nation, and the ambassador’s quarters can be found up the stairs.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Emb1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Emb11.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Emb12.png)
Mints and Banks
The interiors of Mints and Banks are now generating! I once again found another variation on ornate/stone flooring: in this case ornate flooring runs around the exterior of the bank. The code is in place to spawn guards on each vault and a teller on the chairs/table in the middle, and will be used in 0.8. Here’s a bank as you will normally see it, with the vaults un-explored, and then the same bank after the player has (in later versions) found a way inside:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Banko.png)
Mints, however, are rather more exciting now, though obviously also still lacking in actual, y’know, coinage. Whereas anyone will be able to enter banks, mints will obviously be under heavy guard, and some serious firepower or political might will be needed to gain entry. Here’s an example of a mint (with the same ornate-flooring-outline idea to aesthetically link them to banks) where none of the vaults have been opened:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Mint-1.png)
…and here’s another one in another nation where the vaults (which will soon contain that sweet, sweet money) have all been opened:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Mint-2.png)
The staircase in the middle leads down to an underground vault which will contain un-minted bars of gold/silver/whatever, and also probably some coin presses too. These areas will be much more lively come 0.8/0.9 once NPCs and trade are up and running (but also much harder to access!). I’ve also, lastly, temporarily removed currency exchanges from generating; I need to think very carefully about how those are going to work, and where they should be placed, and how that will interact with the player’s actions around the world, and how to avoid it becoming deeply annoying/grindy to switch currencies. I’m now thinking about a system where there are no currency exchange buildings, but rather individuals stationed at every city gate who can perform the service for you? I think that would be better.
Hunter Gatherers
All the interiors for hunter-gatherer civilizations now generate, though there really isn’t much to see here yet. I won’t be really focusing on these for a release or two, most likely. All the flooring in these buildings is the same as that outside, e.g. taiga, tundra, tropical, etc. You can wander in and look at the lovely doors, though:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Hporay.png)
Reliquaries, Incense Stands, Khachkars
This fortnight I’ve also created the procedurally-generated graphics for reliquaries. These are found in cathedrals only (i.e. only in one location per religion), and there will always be more reliquaries in a cathedral attached to a theocratic nation than one attached to any other kind of civilization. These all have a distinct symbol on the front which one might find elsewhere in the world. They’re quite ornate, and their graphics draw primarily on christian reliquary iconography, but also some sources from India, Japan, and Islamic art. They will naturally be locked by default, and – one assumes – well guarded, but will also contain things of either great use, or simply great value. Here are some examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Reliquaries.png)
I also did the graphics for incense stands in cathedrals and religious buildings – these can spawn instead of things like vases, gongs, statues, fountains, etc, and are just another kind of variation. Happy with the algorithm that puts these together: it’s fairly basic, but I think it looks good, and they’re very distinctive.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Incense.png)
I have also added some very, very rare graves to nomadic citadels where only the absolute elites are worthy of burial (the rest are presumably disposed of somewhere else in the desert). For now, all of these graves are Khachkars since I only have time to create one algorithm for those and not for other grave types, but in 0.8 each nomadic civilization will have a different form of burial (cairns, stele, various other ideas). Naturally, all the symbols on this Khachkar might be important…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Khack1.png)
Some General Screenshots
Here are some nice general screenshots, though they both happen to be in cathedrals. Enjoy!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Gerng.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Ofimig.png)
Next Week
There’s only really the remaining graphics left to do now. Things like reliquaries, finishing off all the tables/chairs/beds variations, and the like. There are also a few minor bugs that have arisen in 0.7’s development which I need to fix (primarily one involving external fixed sources of light), and I’m not really sure how long that one will take. I’m pushing for a release on the 4th – there are still a hefty number of small bugs and improvements I want to sort out, and I want a couple of days of playtesting beforehand to ensure I release the best possible version. My PhD defence is in the week starting the 6th, so depending on preparation, outcome, blah blah, the release might end a little after that. Hard to say. Either way, though, 0.7 is in its final stages! Which means the final worldbuilding release will be out in the next few weeks. Hype.
Post by: MDFification on March 21, 2015, 11:33:03 am
Have you given some thought as to how cultures mix and mutate? It's probably completely unfeasible to design such a complex system, but it'd be amazing if you could get hybrid faiths emerging like Manicheanism, dynamic heresies emerging and splitting of into their own faiths, or just loan words being introduced to languages. Heck, you could use this to make cultures change to the point that visiting old buildings or ruins actually has an archaeological feel to it (if only in my fantasies).
Keep up the good work!
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on March 21, 2015, 12:47:03 pm
Post by: xaritscin on March 21, 2015, 02:23:55 pm
I remember when this was still a roguelike pertaining to large-scale combats. :(it could be a future adition once all the cultural/historic stuff is finished
Post by: Servant Corps on March 21, 2015, 10:09:06 pm
Hope this rambling helps!It did, thanks. I will be sure to come up with tests to filter out gibberish, although I will wait until I create a generator that does produce gibberish. :P I will also try to reduce the amount of hand-crafted "creation" as possible, though I am less confident it would be possible (you did have to handcraft parts of that mansion, after all).
I admit taking a look at Booker and his reductionist ilk, but surpisingly, they are actually too vague! You still need to create characters, determine the setting, and figure out how to flow from one phase to another. Luckily, as I mentioned before, I already found a story outline generator that is specific enough for my tastes. This generator claims to have over 32,000 possibilities, so you could probably use it for a while without getting bored sick (you can only handle so many variations of the "Hero's Journey"). The name of the program is "Dramatica", by the way, if you are interested. It has a free demo which can allow you to try the program out and create your outline! You just cannot save, export, or print it out.
Edit: Even "Dramatica" has limitations (in terms of how to structure "scenes" in a novel), so I have to also use Dwight Swain’s ideas about Motiviation-Reaction Units and Scenes/Sequels (I am using this summary of Dwight Swain’s ideas (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/)). Anyway, if I actually get some useful progress with this generator, I will try to give an update somehow.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 22, 2015, 07:07:12 am
Oh man, URR. I love me some procedural generation! Definitely downloading 0.7 when it comes out. I'm also really interested in how you intend to implement Dark Souls-esque combat mechanics. I mean, Jesus, are you actively trying to make a game that caters to my every desire?
Have you given some thought as to how cultures mix and mutate? It's probably completely unfeasible to design such a complex system, but it'd be amazing if you could get hybrid faiths emerging like Manicheanism, dynamic heresies emerging and splitting of into their own faiths, or just loan words being introduced to languages. Heck, you could use this to make cultures change to the point that visiting old buildings or ruins actually has an archaeological feel to it (if only in my fantasies).
Keep up the good work!
Ha, yes, that is actually my exact goal! Re: DS, I'm focusing on the idea of movesets; on different moves taking different periods of time; and of different moves cutting across different tiles. So, for instance, let's say that with Sword X, you know Move Y will cover the following tiles:
Code: [Select]
. . . . .
. > + < .
. . @ . .
. . . . .
. . . . .where '>' means it'll hit an enemy on that tile on their right, a '+' means it'll be a torso hit, and '<' means it'll hit an enemy there on their left arm (and maybe 'S' means 2x damage to shield, v means hitting legs, ^ means hitting heads, and then imagine all the possible combinations of these moves and where they hit on different tiles and the complexity that creates). Extend that to dozens of weapons, dozens of different "patterns" of hits, and different timings for attacks, and you get the kind of system I intend to implement. No "bump to attack". I think this'll turn into a very interesting and very complex bit of decision-making to plan your attacks based on where foes are, where they're already damaged, what weapons/timings they have (and shields up/down will matter a lot), etc.
As for the other stuff: I am pleased to say heresies are already in this version! In a basic form, admittedly, and once things like holy books are generating I'll make them more complex, but they're there. I have plans for syncretic religions in the future (and also looser diasporic religions), and I think that archaeological feel would be bloody great if I can do it!
I remember when this was still a roguelike pertaining to large-scale combats. :(it could be a future adition once all the cultural/historic stuff is finished
Ehhhhhhhhhhh. A huge number of games do that, but no game does the kind of "cultural detective work" (??) gameplay I'm aiming at here. When it's a many, many-year project, you have to go with what interests you! Though it is possible wars and conflicts and things will appear much later, but I can't promise that.
It did, thanks. I will be sure to come up with tests to filter out gibberish, although I will wait until I create a generator that does produce gibberish. :P I will also try to reduce the amount of hand-crafted "creation" as possible, though I am less confident it would be possible (you did have to handcraft parts of that mansion, after all).
I admit taking a look at Booker and his reductionist ilk, but surpisingly, they are actually too vague! You still need to create characters, determine the setting, and figure out how to flow from one phase to another. Luckily, as I mentioned before, I already found a story outline generator that is specific enough for my tastes. This generator claims to have over 32,000 possibilities, so you could probably use it for a while without getting bored sick (you can only handle so many variations of the "Hero's Journey"). The name of the program is "Dramatica", by the way, if you are interested. It has a free demo which can allow you to try the program out and create your outline! You just cannot save, export, or print it out.
Edit: Even "Dramatica" has limitations (in terms of how to structure "scenes" in a novel), so I have to also use Dwight Swain’s ideas about Motiviation-Reaction Units and Scenes/Sequels (I am using this summary of Dwight Swain’s ideas (http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/writing-the-perfect-scene/)). Anyway, if I actually get some useful progress with this generator, I will try to give an update somehow.
Ha, well, indeed, a gibberish generator is always the first step! Yeah, I think there are some parts where you have to hand-make; I mean, I know I could have created a mansion generator, but a) it would have taken so long, and b) the results would have likely been barely different from a more hand-made generator, that it just didn't seem sensible.
I wasn't aware of that re: Booker, but that's actually quite amusing; interesting re: the others, though. When I come to do it I'll be writing it from scratch, though I'm sure I'll look at other generators to get an idea of what's possible, what they do right, where they go wrong, etc. I'd be very interested to see what you can come up with too!
Post by: Leatra on March 22, 2015, 01:14:34 pm
I remember when this was still a roguelike pertaining to large-scale combats. :(
To be honest, this is kind of putting me off too. URR is really passionate about the work he is doing so I have no doubt the final product will be nothing less of awesome. But the game changed too much for my taste. I remember a few pages ago where even totally scrapping combat was discussed briefly but thankfully that didn't go anywhere. I will definitely keep checking this topic and play the crap out of it though. I guess I'll forever search for that "roguelike(M&B: Warband+Crusader Kings 2)" kind of game. I guess DF will get there... after a couple of decades maybe.
I understand that feeling where you simply want to create a product you want to create. When you start creating something solely for others and lose your passion about it, that's when something you love doing becomes a torment for you and the quality of your work starts looking for a cliff to jump off of.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 23, 2015, 10:41:59 am
Post by: Kaje on March 23, 2015, 01:03:53 pm
Post by: Leatra on March 24, 2015, 06:06:20 am
Well, I appreciate you sticking around nevertheless :).
I'm tired of monster-slaying dungeon-crawling kind of roguelikes with no plot, and I love the originality of your work and ideas. Whatever road you may take, I'm still 100% interested :)
Post by: dennislp3 on March 24, 2015, 01:01:03 pm
This is rubbish and I protest...I feel lied to and demand you fix it
(Do I sound like I am doing it right? :P )
Post by: Retropunch on March 26, 2015, 02:15:40 pm
Combat is wrong actually - Danger is more apt. I think any game like this needs danger - you need to feel like the world that you've read so much into and become such a part of could be snatched away from you at any minute to make you really immersed and driven - even if it's relatively (or extremely) rare compared to other RLs.
Combat also gives the player a chance to grow themselves, either through equipment or skills to become something different than everyone else around them. I think this is critical to being a person in the game rather than a myst-like disembodied figure.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 26, 2015, 06:58:10 pm
I can't disagree enough, this looks fantastic and seems to be shaping up to be a welcome break from combat heavy roguelikes.
Woop!
I'm tired of monster-slaying dungeon-crawling kind of roguelikes with no plot, and I love the originality of your work and ideas. Whatever road you may take, I'm still 100% interested :)
Well this is excellent :). I know, and I really appreciate it. Rest assured, some combat will still exist - rare and deadly, not common and ordinary.
I want to disagree simply to be a dissenting voice
This is rubbish and I protest...I feel lied to and demand you fix it
(Do I sound like I am doing it right? :P )
Yes! I rate that a solid 8.5/10 protest.
While I'm not interested in large scale combat (I can't imagine how that would work well in an RL really), I do think combat needs to be a critical part and whilst I would still love the project, I'd definitely be less enthusiastic without combat.
Combat is wrong actually - Danger is more apt. I think any game like this needs danger - you need to feel like the world that you've read so much into and become such a part of could be snatched away from you at any minute to make you really immersed and driven - even if it's relatively (or extremely) rare compared to other RLs.
Combat also gives the player a chance to grow themselves, either through equipment or skills to become something different than everyone else around them. I think this is critical to being a person in the game rather than a myst-like disembodied figure.
Oh, definitely. I also want dangerous "regions" to develop as you get further and further into a particular game - some nations are no-go areas, some religions despise you, some trade routes are especially risky, etc etc. I totally agree of course about the world being snatched away; I think it'll be really something when you can die, when you do have that one life, when there are dangers out there, even if they are rare and few and far-between!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 29, 2015, 08:56:53 am
Mercenary Guilds
One of the last few buildings left to generate were mercenary guilds, which have now been implemented. These spawn in (most) city centers. Again, it is hard to make every building distinct, but for mercenary guilds I wanted the idea that one might be “browsing” for mercenaries – each room will be the home of a single person from the guild, who should differ significantly in abilities and equipment but still be roughly similar (I’m going to have guilds designed around a “theme”). Each room has its own randomly-chosen layout. The flooring is a square-tiled mix of wood (the brown) and stone (the grey) – it’s a small thing, but it’s hard to distinguish between all kinds of buildings when you’re only using ANSI! Which is to say: obviously you’re unlikely to go into a building with a sign outside without knowing what the building is, but I’m still trying to keep the interiors very distinct (or as distinct as possible). The woods for tables/chairs/beds are also cycled randomly for each chamber. The locked-door room will be the archives of that mercenary guild – lists of past contracts, etc, which will obviously be useful to your investigations – and may also contain a staircase down to a vault below, containing… well, who knows?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Guild11.png)
Middle-Class Districts
I’ve redone middle-class district generation. Here’s an old example – this is, admittedly, a full release out of date (0.6’s middle class districts had a few smaller gardens, more trees/plants, etc), but you get the idea; much like an “upgraded” lower-class district, random housing patterns, and sometimes roads which end in nothing (or start and end in nothing). I had a few critical comments about middle-class districts after 0.6 and how hard they were to navigate and make sense of, so I decided to do something about them, and to just integrate them slightly more firmly into the rest of the city rather than feeling like a random add-on. So, here’s an old version:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Mid2.png)
…and here are two new versions, for a “square”-aesthetic nation (with a religious building, a bank and a park), and a “circle”-aesthetic nation (with just a park)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/NewS3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/NewS5.png)
… and how it looks to explore and walk around:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/NewS4.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Interrrr1.png)
Some things to point out. Firstly, there are now three types of houses (although all are treated alike in terms of what one might find inside and how the house itself generates): houses will walls and gates, houses with gardens, and houses with neither. I felt these needed a lot more variation, so they’ve got it. Secondly, you’ll notice the thickest roads are of different shapes, and these layouts – like so much else – relate to the aesthetic preferences of that nation. A nation with octagonal floor tiles and octagonal furniture will also have an octagonal layout in their middle-class districts (and so on for the other shapes). Thirdly, you’ll also note that all the plants (in this particular biome) are currently green; in some later version I’m going to add more variety to climate plants, add in a large range of unusual plants, and also add that to the ever-growing “clue” database (such that maybe certain plants only grow in certain nations, or are only cultivated by a few monasteries, etc?). I’m also going to have the colours of plants tethered loosely to climate, so that as you move around the world, you’ll see different “palettes” of plants, which will be a lot more interesting. Fourthly, the buildings are positioned at the intersections of the major roads – I wanted the middle-class district to look more like a true middle-ground between the rigidity and order of the upper-class districts and the randomness of the lower-class districts, and I think that by placing the special buildings more specifically, and updating the road system, but still having the district fairly tight and crowded, I’ve made it into a much better balance than it was before (since I think it used to look like a “slightly nicer lower class district” rather than something really in the center). Theaters have also been temporarily removed due to my uncertainty over, frankly, how the hell they are going to work, and that needs to be left until I have NPCs wandering around the place.
Unlike the mansions of last week, these are the exact opposite of handmade – almost nothing about the district, nor the buildings themselves, is handmade, and is almost entirely algorithmic. The games tries to place an appropriate number of rooms, and then path between them, and it allows situations where multiple rooms can lead onto one another rather than back into a central “hallway”. Here are some examples of some two-floor interiors for middle-class housing:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Midclass1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Midclass21.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Midclass2.png)
… and for some more unusual shapes:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/M3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/M4.png)
Very happy with how these look now, and they’re the last housing type that needed finishing off. Everything from slums to the greater mansions can now be explored, and generate differently. Here’s a last shot, just because I really do like these doors:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Interrrr.png)
All Houses
So, we can now take a shot at all dwellings, from the slums to the grandest of mansions. Here’s a large picture you should take a look at the full size of by clicking on it:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Spectrum.png)
0.7 Release?
I accidentally reneged on my promise to never again promise release dates last week, and now I must pay for it. I am going to rescind all previous predictions and say: it’ll be out when it’s done. All my time not spent preparing for my PhD defence is spent on URR and there isn’t that much left to do, but it’s still going to be a very busy fortnight. I shall now once again swear to never make predictions of release dates again. Let us see how long that lasts…
Post by: Zireael on March 29, 2015, 11:18:18 am
Post by: Kaje on March 29, 2015, 04:29:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2015, 09:56:41 am
Those dwelling pics are amazing!
So. Much. Want.
Heh, thanks guys! Just finished off courts this morning, which are the final building for this release, as I've temporarily removed theaters for the duration. Getting clooooooose now...
Post by: Retropunch on March 30, 2015, 01:19:24 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2015, 04:23:42 pm
Just to confirm, are NPCs next release?!!?
After this one! This one will be in next fortnight. Some Super Secret starting programming has been done in the background/my spare time for 0.8, but NPCs won't be in 0.7 (even if decompiled!), but yes, 0.8 is NPCSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Post by: Pencil_Art on March 30, 2015, 10:01:10 pm
Post by: Retropunch on March 31, 2015, 12:17:12 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 02, 2015, 06:59:08 am
YYYYAAAAYYYY
YEEEEEEEEEES
Somebody hold me.
Soon there will be a many-million NPC population to do just that!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 02, 2015, 10:06:01 am
Post by: Retropunch on April 02, 2015, 01:19:01 pm
It's official: I will be releasing URR 0.7, the last worldbuilding release with uncountable tens of thousands of procedurally-generated buildings from crypts to cathedrals and townhouses to mansions, on Saturday 18th!
AHHHHH!!!! So excited - I know it's a big ask, but could you do a quite exhaustive change log for it? I know most of it is in the past blogs, but there's so much in it that it'll be hard to remember it all!
Also, I did have an idea which, whilst it may go against a lot of the principles of URR development, could be interesting.
Whilst every world is generated newly, perhaps certain threads could stay the same across multiple worlds. This could mainly be carried across through certain religions (or houses) which could crop up across a number of games in various guises - not the same, but perhaps with some aspects of the previous religions.
For instance, on FB you posted about 'Ahórim, The Grey Worm of the Nightmare' - perhaps in a new game, it could be 'Agonir, Spawn of the Everlasting Grey Worm' - this would also add another layer into the 'cultural detective work' gameplay, and also make the player feel less like each new world is completely disconnected from the last.
Just a thought!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 05, 2015, 05:45:55 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 05, 2015, 06:58:06 am
As mentioned on URR’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/UltimaRatioRegumRoguelike), 0.7 will be released on Saturday, April 18th. This is (for once!) a 100% confirmed/guaranteed/absolutely certain release date, unless I die before then, in which case I will empower someone to release it for me. To remind everyone: this is the last worldbuilding release. As you’ll find when you wander around it, the world is now madly detailed, and contains every imaginable building ranging from crypts to cathedrals, townhouses to mansions, and banks to parliaments and slums to shops, with procedural graphics for everything within those buildings, ranging from walls, floors, tables and chairs to altars, reliquaries, tombs and vases.
Norwich and IRDC
Another quick reminder: if you’re in the UK or Europe, you should come to the Roguelike Development Conference I’m hosting at the awesome National Videogame Arcade. Go here (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/irdc-2015/) for more information! If you’re in the UK, you should swing by Norwich on Saturday 11th to listen to my talk at Norwich Gaming Festival (http://www.norwichgamingfestival.com/talks-events/). Now, onto this week’s update:
Courts
Our last building algorithm is complete: for courts! These will only spawn in nations which follow the “Penitentiary” or “Ordeal” justice policies, and appear in city centers. Again, I wanted to make them aesthetically distinct from all other buildings, which remains tricky when one’s not using a tileset, but I think I’ve managed to find another clear visual style here. They use lots of chairs in the various hearing rooms/courts/chambers, but they are set out in coloured “stripes” according to the wood of the chairs and the shape of the room. There are also rooms with just tables in, which will later contain court records of criminals, important trials, etc. The overall shape was inspired by the “Star Chamber” in English history – although it is generally agreed that the name of the court was based on its decor, I realized that I hadn’t created any building shape which was based on either a star (or a cross), so I utilized both of these for the external court shapes. Here are some examples!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Courts.png)
Tombs (and Stairs)
I’ve finally done the last major graphical block in this release: the tombs. These are generated using a vaguely similar modular system to the nomadic khachkar graves discussed two weeks ago, and they vary in a number of ways. I debated at length whether or not they should ever have names on – given the extent to which that would give away the game! – and I decided that the answer was no. No matter how noteworthy the person who is buried there, the tombs will never have names, and will (as with much else) be understood/decoded according to their symbols and graphics, rather than text. As you can see, there’s also minor colour variation; tombs in flooded crypts will have a slight blue tint, those in desert crypts might have a fractional red tint, etc etc. There’s a huge range of pattern layouts – the ones below show three of the layouts (two lines, six squares, three columns) and a small portion of the possible designs that might be etched onto a sarcophagus; there’s also a whole bunch of different shapes/designs for the top of the sarcophagus, and a lot of pattern variation within that too, meaning that each sarcophagus consists of between 3 and 10 components each of which generally has between a dozen and several dozen variations. Each sarcophagus will, of course, be unique. So if you hear that Person X was buried “where the stars rise between the vines and the torch”, then…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Tomb23.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Tomb1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Tomb22.png)
Other Stuff
I also threw together stair graphics, and ensured that the downside stair graphics can integrate correctly with graphics for wooden, stone, and ornate flooring (yes, I am aware the perspectives on these two staircases is different; that’s fine, you’ll never see them “together” in-game, and they proved easier to draw in the two different perspectives anyway).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Stair2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Stairs1.png)
I’ve also worked on crypts, finishing them, and emphasizing the difference between under-cathedral crypts (in Theocratic nations) and under-graveyard crypts (in Monarchic nations). They each have a distinct set of rooms, though some of the rooms for the under-graveyard crypts won’t be fully “activated” until we have NPCs moving in 0.8. Also just done a host of other optimizations, slight changes, making sure the correct “quality” of tables/chairs/beds spawn in each building, blah blah blah.
Bug Hunting
I’m now onto the final bug-hunting phase of 0.7’s development. There are as ever a wide range of minor ones – things generating in slightly odd places, text that isn’t completely logical, incorrect grammar/typos, etc, but only a couple of major ones. As far as I can tell there are not any crash bugs, though, which is obviously a good point to proceed from. One of the major ones is an extremely rare but very annoying bug with external sources of light allowing the player to see “through” walls, but only at a distance; in all my playtesting it has only occurred twice, and whilst I would like to fix it this release, I’m not going to let the release drag on an extra week, say, if the only remaining issue is this bug.
Some Screenshots
Lastly, here are some nice screenshots: a nomadic citadel in the fortress of Khan’s Rest; an altar to Ahorim, The Grey Worm of the Nightmare in a crypt below a cathedral in the desert; wandering around in the Red Senate which rules over the Nation of Ghanari; in the upper-class district of the city of Mourning Sun.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Blue-loveliness.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Cryptorrr.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Parl1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Parl12.png)
Next Week
Who knows?! But hopefully a celebration of a successfully-passed thesis defense…
Post by: Neonivek on April 05, 2015, 07:01:48 am
Sorry I just smiled when I saw that.
I am having a hard time even finding if stair railing existed in this time period though. Though I'd have a hard time believing such a handy device only existed in the renaissance onward.
Ok actually it is bugging me because that Velvet rope is hitting my OCD... what is it?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 05, 2015, 07:35:53 am
Ancient Velvet Rope.
Sorry I just smiled when I saw that.
I am having a hard time even finding if stair railing existed in this time period though. Though I'd have a hard time believing such a handy device only existed in the renaissance onward.
Ok actually it is bugging me because that Velvet rope is hitting my OCD... what is it?
I must say, this post made me chuckle. That staircase is in a contemporary building though - that crypt was below a cathedral, so still very much "in use" (by contrast, stairs to crypts under graveyards have stone staircases without railings, no marble/rope). I have no idea when those were first implemented! But I am sure ornate staircases in the Renaissance would (or could) have had them...
Post by: Daggoth on April 06, 2015, 12:07:51 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 07, 2015, 05:43:43 am
Mmmm! Me likes! *wipes drool from his chin.* Keep on keepin on!
Haha, thanks! Just finished off all the tomb variation last night, so the game can now always spawn many hundreds if need be and ensure they're all unique. Just bugs left to go now...
Post by: puke on April 07, 2015, 06:57:26 am
a nomadic citadel in the fortress of Khan’s Rest
I had some really awesome snark for this, but then I read the 2015/03/08 blog post and all I can say is that this stuff looks well designed and amazing.
Looking forward to exploring it.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 07, 2015, 08:42:03 am
a nomadic citadel in the fortress of Khan’s Rest
I had some really awesome snark for this, but then I read the 2015/03/08 blog post and all I can say is that this stuff looks well designed and amazing.
Looking forward to exploring it.
Heh, I'm intrigued now - but glad you like them!
Post by: miauw62 on April 07, 2015, 11:06:10 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 07, 2015, 04:24:10 pm
I never did get around to playing this. I probably should.
Shocking! Give it to the 19th, then give it a look.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 08, 2015, 08:49:18 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Sarco.png)
Post by: MDFification on April 09, 2015, 01:23:31 pm
958 million variations
This pleases me.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 11, 2015, 04:27:58 am
958 million variations
This pleases me.
Excellent!
Meanwhile, this week's blog entry is the shortest ever, and consists of four words repeated twice, and a picture. http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/04/11/i-passed-my-phd/
Post by: Ant on April 11, 2015, 05:25:00 am
Post by: Retropunch on April 11, 2015, 05:57:34 am
Post by: Kyzrati on April 11, 2015, 09:11:02 am
Hm, maybe it's a prereq for developing an epic roguelike? :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 11, 2015, 06:53:12 pm
Congratulations!
Thanks!
Congratulations!!!!!! DR.MARK!!!! DR.MARK!!!!
There are parades in the street! Banners! Trumpets! Those things you get at parties which you blow into and unravel and make a PRFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT noise!
I was wondering if this makes you one of the only Drs to also be developing a roguelike, but then I checked Biskup and apparently he's got a PhD as well.
Hm, maybe it's a prereq for developing an epic roguelike? :P
Ha, no, actually a surprisingly large group - me, Biskup, Tarn Adams, David Ploog... though that might be everyone. I think it must be a prereq!
Post by: xaritscin on April 11, 2015, 11:52:11 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2015, 04:45:25 am
the pfffffft things are called "vuvuzelas" (vuvuzela is the singular)....
Na, not those bloody things! The things that *unravel*, you get at parties, and had in the UK long before the world cup where vuvuzelas became a thing. A quick Google suggests: "party blowers"!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 12, 2015, 04:54:41 am
Like this game is 'Bloody magnificent'
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2015, 09:12:38 am
I call them 'Bloody annoying'
Like this game is 'Bloody magnificent'
Shucks! And thanks. And yeah, they are bloody annoying, aren't they? I am glad to report URR will never contain any procedurally-generated trumpet-like instruments.
OR WILL IT
Post by: Arx on April 12, 2015, 09:37:21 am
the pfffffft things are called "vuvuzelas" (vuvuzela is the singular)....
I wouldn't describe a vuvuzela as making a 'pfffft' sound.
Anyway, posting to watch. This is bloody impressive.
Post by: Piotrhabera on April 12, 2015, 03:14:14 pm
#1: Is there a possibility to rise (or fall) in social classes to be a King/Queen or a Crime Lord?
#2: Does skills shall be intriduced? (For example: combat skills: gunnery archery swordplay and weapon skills. stealth skills: lockpicking sleight of hand legerdemain sneak & hide. common skills : first aid medical gunsmithing blacksmithing commanderring leadership persuasion )
#3: Since at character generation i notices you generate solar systems instead of one planet so is there a way to - using magic to teleport to other planets and magically sustain yourself?
#4: Question #3 said about magic and interstellar planet using magic so do you plan to introduce magic? (such as divine magic coming from the gods or occult magic used by the cults and even arcane magic illegeal in some places because it is a heresy according to religions they will be procedurally generated not just the same each world)? This question is VERY IMPORTMANT! thankyou!
Post by: Retropunch on April 12, 2015, 04:10:12 pm
#3: Since at character generation i notices you generate solar systems instead of one planet so is there a way to - using magic to teleport to other planets and magically sustain yourself?
#4: Question #3 said about magic and interstellar planet using magic so do you plan to introduce magic? (such as divine magic coming from the gods or occult magic used by the cults and even arcane magic illegeal in some places because it is a heresy according to religions they will be procedurally generated not just the same each world)? This question is VERY IMPORTMANT! thankyou!
I know this has been asked before and the answer was that there would be no actual magic. Things may have changed however, and I'd like to think that there could be some 'unexplainable phenomenon' even if there was no magic in the conventional sense.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2015, 04:40:15 pm
the pfffffft things are called "vuvuzelas" (vuvuzela is the singular)....
I wouldn't describe a vuvuzela as making a 'pfffft' sound.
Anyway, posting to watch. This is bloody impressive.
Thanks! Glad you like it (and I agree, I'm not sure that's a vuvuzelan (?) sound)...
I can say THAT'S A BLOODY GREAT GAME. (espescially when it is set in renissance times) SO i have some importmant questionz of importmance
#1: Is there a possibility to rise (or fall) in social classes to be a King/Queen or a Crime Lord?
#2: Does skills shall be intriduced? (For example: combat skills: gunnery archery swordplay and weapon skills. stealth skills: lockpicking sleight of hand legerdemain sneak & hide. common skills : first aid medical gunsmithing blacksmithing commanderring leadership persuasion )
#3: Since at character generation i notices you generate solar systems instead of one planet so is there a way to - using magic to teleport to other planets and magically sustain yourself?
#4: Question #3 said about magic and interstellar planet using magic so do you plan to introduce magic? (such as divine magic coming from the gods or occult magic used by the cults and even arcane magic illegeal in some places because it is a heresy according to religions they will be procedurally generated not just the same each world)? This question is VERY IMPORTMANT! thankyou!
Thanks! Though I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you, at least based on what I can infer from your questions, it sounds like you have quite a different game in mind from what i'm making :(.
1) Possibly, but unlikely.
2) Yes, but I'm not quite sure how as of yet. I've tried and rejected a few methods, so I'm still working on that, but expect to see some form of "skill" idea develop in the next ~12 months!
3) and 4) Absolutely not! There were no inter-space teleporters in the Renaissance! The game is 99.9% historically realistic; as Retropunch said, there will be, at most, a very small number of "anomalous" items with unusual powers, but nothing even remotely that severe, and nothing even approaching a magic system. Your objective, in essence, is to decipher where these few unusual items are hidden and acquire them; none will have combat powers, most likely, and the greatest effect they'll have... well, I'll talk about that another time. Equally, there may be a few slightly unusual areas on the world map where the laws of geometry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel) and reality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths) bend a little bit, but still no magic. Sorry!
Post by: Pencil_Art on April 12, 2015, 07:06:11 pm
..but still no magic. Sorry!Dang.
Post by: Piotrhabera on April 13, 2015, 12:32:54 am
Quote
... but still no magic. Sorry!And-i-hoped-magic-would-exist-but-no. HOW SAD :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( (But-i-still-hope-this-changes-soon-or-at-the-far-future)
Still-your-game-is-great.
Post by: puke on April 13, 2015, 03:19:04 am
Post by: Retropunch on April 13, 2015, 04:04:38 am
I think the trick with this is to make skills overlap quite significantly, so you don't end up with the 'training shields by letting a rat bite you 1000 times' thing. For instance, training any weapon could increase your skill mostly in that weapon, but also improve skills in all others of a similar type, as well as athletics and strength. Similarly, training lockpicking could also train (to a much lesser extent) other skills which require precision such as surgery and trap making. With enough overlap, character progression should become quite natural, but still allow the player to specialise.
Post by: Scoops Novel on April 13, 2015, 04:51:13 am
Post by: puke on April 13, 2015, 04:52:43 am
I was wanting to generate each book from a seed, but also to ensure that the generated books never overlap. I'm not sure where to start with that one, ensuring uniqueness. Most algorithms that generate keys and hashes rely on an extremely low probability of overlap, but the purpose of this is the absurd thought experiment, one would want to actually ensure that each book was unique and not just pseudo-unique.
oh well [/derail]
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 13, 2015, 05:10:26 am
Dang.
Quote... but still no magic. Sorry!And-i-hoped-magic-would-exist-but-no. HOW SAD :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( (But-i-still-hope-this-changes-soon-or-at-the-far-future)
Still-your-game-is-great.
Never happening, I'm afraid. There's a million other roguelikes with magic! Asking me to add magic, at this point, is like going up to Netflix half-way House of Cards, say, and saying "please add magic!". It just doesn't fit into the game's design *at all* and it just wouldn't make any sense to integrate it, and would clash strongly with both the gameplay and the narratological/thematic goals. Also, I must say, I don't feel adding magic inherently makes a game better, any more than adding survival mechanics inherently makes a game better (indeed, in many instances, it makes games worse)!
Haha, you could totally algorithmically generate the full text of every one of the 410 page books. It might be tricksey if you wanted to be able to turn to a random page in a book without generating the whole thing... but even now I'm thinking of ways you could solve that. This would be a cool little project...
Have you been reading my design document?! But I do very shortly intend to get the game generating books, both fiction and non-fiction, and as with everything else, tie that to world history; so maybe you have a particular cult that uses a particular symbol (an animal, say), then someone might have written a book which is a parable about that cult by using that animal symbol, then maybe a library somewhere else has acquired that book, but misinterpreted it as a historical treatise on a mythical creative which dwells in that far-off land... and thus the truth becomes obscured, but the player is still given a clue to point them in the right direction!
As far as skills go, I much, much prefer the method of skills increasing with use rather than any other method of point allocation. I think it's necessary to have clear skill progress and not to obfuscate the advancement process, but point allocation seems to take away from any sense of immersion. When I was working on CyberRogue (which I still am slowly!) I tried quite a number of systems and this seemed to work best, especially with a mix of combat and non-combat skills.
I think the trick with this is to make skills overlap quite significantly, so you don't end up with the 'training shields by letting a rat bite you 1000 times' thing. For instance, training any weapon could increase your skill mostly in that weapon, but also improve skills in all others of a similar type, as well as athletics and strength. Similarly, training lockpicking could also train (to a much lesser extent) other skills which require precision such as surgery and trap making. With enough overlap, character progression should become quite natural, but still allow the player to specialise.
This all makes a lot of sense to me: to be honest, though, there's a good chance I'll end up with an extremely minimalist skill system, or possibly even no skill system at all (!) having everything for combat etc dependent on base stats and the weapons/armour you're actually wielding, and have most other important skills reside in the *player* (i.e. deduction) rather than in the player *character*.
Will gambling be in?
Probably!
Post by: Piotrhabera on April 14, 2015, 01:23:08 pm
Anyways. Will be there multi-tile animals? (dragons in DF were as big as an tower and as long as a rather long chunk of stone walls and yet they are in one tile) And will be there a possibility to found your own cities & make a new kindgom? Select your religion, city types and city pattern...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2015, 01:50:19 pm
Well. There may be mods that may ACTUALLY add magic. but i am not into mods now. (almost all games can be modded.)
Anyways. Will be there multi-tile animals? (dragons in DF were as big as an tower and as long as a rather long chunk of stone walls and yet they are in one tile) And will be there a possibility to found your own cities & make a new kindgom? Select your religion, city types and city pattern...
I hate to continually disappoint... but I have no intention of enabling mods in the slightest, and if anything, I'm writing the code in such a way that making mods should be extremely challenging. There WILL, however, be multi-tile animals! Things like horses/camels/elephants as modes of transport should take up multiple tiles; as for founding cities... er... not as SUCH, but you'll certainly be able to toy with the fates of nations. Do you know the "Plots" system in Crusader Kings II? Well, something along those lines is being worked on whilst I also work on NPCs in general...
Post by: Retropunch on April 14, 2015, 03:04:21 pm
This all makes a lot of sense to me: to be honest, though, there's a good chance I'll end up with an extremely minimalist skill system, or possibly even no skill system at all (!) having everything for combat etc dependent on base stats and the weapons/armour you're actually wielding, and have most other important skills reside in the *player* (i.e. deduction) rather than in the player *character*.
I really like the idea of the players own skills being important, and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited for URR. However, I would caution against not having a skill system or, what I feel is worse, having it just dependant on base stats that leave the player possibly stuck with a character config they don't like for a whole play-through.
I feel quite strongly about this, as I believe that the advancement of the player character/avatar is integral to the gaming experience, especially in an open-world/RPG game where there is no linear story arc that develops your character. Without skills or some internal advancement, it's difficult for a character to really 'grow', which is important for the player to become more attached to and invested in the character and the game world. Or more simply, every character becomes completely the same, leaving no real replay value in that respect.
Furthermore, without skill advancement, the challenge becomes static - especially without magic, as it won't be like the player can get 'better' equipment. Sure, they might be able to find/buy more stuff to be of more use in a number of situations, but as soon as you find the 'best' armour/weapon in the game world, you automatically become the best fighter you can be.
I'm not saying you should stick to a traditional RPG style of skills, but I feel the character needs some 'internal' development to make the player feel that they're advancing - as you'd improve at skills in Real life(tm)! I could imagine this could be subtle, with no direct manipulation by the player. Perhaps skills could only be in a number of broader areas, such as 'seafaring, tracking, melee combat, ranged combat, speechcraft, athletics' etc. which would increase and decrease with time spent on activities associated with them (I'm sure you can think of more interesting systems!)
Post by: Piotrhabera on April 14, 2015, 03:42:31 pm
Post by: Servant Corps on April 14, 2015, 08:53:17 pm
I was wanting to generate each book from a seed, but also to ensure that the generated books never overlap. I'm not sure where to start with that one, ensuring uniqueness. Most algorithms that generate keys and hashes rely on an extremely low probability of overlap, but the purpose of this is the absurd thought experiment, one would want to actually ensure that each book was unique and not just pseudo-unique.
Step 1: Generate a book. Print it out to the public.
Step 2: Save that book in a file (call it "list of generated books").
Step 3: Generate a second book.
Step 4: Query the list of generated books to see if your second book has exactly the same text as the first book. If it does, then simply re-generate your book and then query your list again.
Step 5: If your newly generated book does not match any books on your list, then it's unique. Congrats! Save that book in your "list of generated books".
Step 6: Repeat steps 3 to 5 until your computer runs out of memory.
Also, somebody did end up creating a Library of Babel book generator (https://github.com/ikarth/nonogen/blob/master/src/nonogen/borges/babel.clj), so you could use that code as inspiration.
Quote
But I do very shortly intend to get the game generating booksDr. Mark, are you expecting them to generate good books? I looked up NaNoGenMo (National Novel Generator Month*), and actually, they ended up succeeding in producing loads of novel generators on out there, all of them "open source" and available on GitHub.
And, all of them equally terrible in their own special ways. The ones that make the most sense are the ones that have "templates", but they are the also the ones that require the most work to do. Other ways to generate a novel would be to scrape content from websites, write short stories and stick them so close to each other so that readers are tricked into thinking these short stories are somehow related, replace words in existing novels, use recursive patterns, and create a simulation of different characters interacting with each other and printing out the results (the CK2 approach). And there are probably more ways to write a novel out there but I don't want to get distracted looking at all these generators when I'm still trying to get my own "novel generator" functional.
Put it frankly, while it may still be possible to generate a full-fledged novel that people would want to read, it'll take a lot of effort, and you still have an actual game to ship as well! I'd recommend demoting your goal down to just generating short stories, or...quite possibly, creating a generator that produces a short story, and treat that short story as a synopsis for the novel in question, so that people can imagine the novel without you needing to come up with said novel. Think of how Tarn Adams handled poetry in Dwarf Fortress.
*2013 NaNoGenMo entries (https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo/issues)
*2014 NaNoGenMo entries (https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2014/issues)
Post by: puke on April 15, 2015, 08:10:22 am
Step 1: Generate a book. Print it out to the public.
Step 2: Save that book in a file (call it "list of generated books").
Step 3: Generate a second book.
Step 4: Query the list of generated books to see if your second book has exactly the same text as the first book. If it does, then simply re-generate your book and then query your list again.
Step 5: If your newly generated book does not match any books on your list, then it's unique. Congrats! Save that book in your "list of generated books".
Step 6: Repeat steps 3 to 5 until your computer runs out of memory.
Also, somebody did end up creating a Library of Babel book generator (https://github.com/ikarth/nonogen/blob/master/src/nonogen/borges/babel.clj), so you could use that code as inspiration.
Whoah, no, god no that would never work. I mean, it would work in that your computer would run out of memory, but you could never actually create the complete set of books. You'd run out of atoms in the galaxy. The set would have greater volume than the observable universe.
You have to generate them on demand, and not sequentially. You have to discard things volatily after generating them, and just be content that you can regenerate them with the same seeds if you ever need to observe them again.
That in its self isnt super hard, but making sure you cant produce a duplicate.. There might be a trick to it, I suspect someone well versed in fractal maths might have an idea.
On the other hand, I have an equal suspicion that writing an actual mathematical proof for a method of generating non-unique strings is the sort of thing that would keep academics busy for years.
Either way, far beyond my abilities.
Also, somebody did end up creating a Library of Babel book generator (https://github.com/ikarth/nonogen/blob/master/src/nonogen/borges/babel.clj), so you could use that code as inspiration.
This was exactly the kind of thing I was initially thinking about, but it is just generating random strings and random pages. There is no attempt at uniqueness. I also don't see any method of tracking the seed to regenerate the same book if needed. The whole 410 pages of garbage would need to be saved.
The odds of a repetition before someone gets board and stops generating books is pretty low, but if it was run to its theoretical limits... I'm not even sure how to figure out the odds of a repetition occurring, I suspect it is a combinitoric problem.
every possible way of writing a book would be a member of a set, "n" would be the length of the set, n! should be equal to the number of ways that they /dont/ overlap, and n^n are number of ways they /do/ overlap? so (n!):(n^n) are the odds of generating a duplicate book?
I think I screwed that up, I'm not a statistics guy.
Edit for context: there would be 2.5E13120000 books in this library. The upper estimate for atoms in the Observable Universe is 1E83. That is a difference of 13119917 Orders of Magnitude.
Post by: puke on April 15, 2015, 08:21:03 am
every possible way of writing a book would be a member of a set, "n" would be the length of the set, n! should be equal to the number of ways that they /dont/ overlap, and n^n are number of ways they /do/ overlap? so (n!):(n^n) are the odds of generating a duplicate book?
This is retarded. not only are my numbers wrong, but the premise is broken.
If "n" are the possible ways of writing a book, n is necessarily equal to the number of non overlapping books. n! and n^n are meaningless.
Obviously, not a statistics guy.
More edits for context:
If you make the problem more "manageable" by reducing it to 5 possible characters, 5 characters per line, 5 lines per page, and 5 pages per book.. You still end up with 2.4E87 possible books which is 4 orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe.
I mean, what kind of seed would you have to use for that? Would there need to be one unique seed for each unique book?
If so, you'd need a seed of length "z" for x=y^z where "x" is the number of unique items to produce and "y" are the number of legal characters for your seed.
So, for example, if you allow any of 255 possible bytes to be part of the seed and you are working with my reduced set size of 2.4E87, you'd need a 37 byte long seed (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.4e87%3D255%5Ex)
For the actual library, you seed would need to be 5.5E6 characters (bytes) long. You seed would need to be FIVE MEGABYTES in size.
I thought you could reduce this problem by breaking it down into more manageable chunks. having a unique seed for each room, and then for each bookshelf, and then finally each unique book on the shelf. But how would you guarantee that you dont generate the same book on multiple shelves or in multiple rooms? You'd have to use the room and shelf seeds as part of your book generating seed, which I think throws out any benefit there might have been from breaking the problem up into smaller chunks.
Post by: Retropunch on April 15, 2015, 11:53:48 am
Generating 'sensible books' is not a problem though. Think about the game history we already have in URR (and DF!!) if you expanded on that enough it would make a sensible - if slightly stiffly written - history book. Most books of that time were written in that style though, so it's not necessarily a problem. The whole problem with the NaNoGenMo thing is that it's trying to emulate current day fictional novels, rather than books that are already grounded in a world.
This is *much* easier. I've got a chatbot for CyberRogue which seems a lot more realistic (in my opinion) than internet chatbots, as you're talking about stuff in universe. It's situated in a 'physical' space, which makes it much more lifelike. Granted, it's not going to pass the Turing test, but as long as you stay in-universe, it can function well. It grabs bits of the news feed, it has preferences from the consumables available and knows a number of random people in the world that you also know. This definitely transfers to books, so I'm sure the Dr. will be able to turn out some pretty great stuff!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 17, 2015, 06:09:27 pm
I really like the idea of the players own skills being important, and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited for URR. However, I would caution against not having a skill system or, what I feel is worse, having it just dependant on base stats that leave the player possibly stuck with a character config they don't like for a whole play-through.
Hmmmm, interesting thoughts. Re: your third paragraph, I don't agree issues are quite that "inevitable" - "Sure, they might be able to find/buy more stuff to be of more use in a number of situations, but as soon as you find the 'best' armour/weapon in the game world, you automatically become the best fighter you can be. " - but why can I not extend that to be the entirety of development? Or, at least, say 50% of character development; 50% base stats, 50% items, so something very minimalist (one could reasonably argue that the Souls games do something along those lines, with few skills, no skill trees, etc). I think I could make that work: have enough variation/resolution in the best/worst items, make anything above the basics extremely rare and extremely hard to acquire, and I still think that could actually work really well! I'd actively like to experiment putting the sense of player development into primarily items, and knowledge, rather than stats (and I could go a bit extreme and make *everything* item/learning based... which I might) - I know it's crazy! But at the top of my design document is a sentence to the effect of "Don't do what everyone else has gone", and putting all player progression into items and knowledge would certainly be different. And I think it would be good, and fresh, and WOULD yield progression-feeling!
No-magic rougelikes are more interesting. but UnReal World has rituals. URR might too have, One can learn ancient tribal rituals if one either sees someone doing it or finds a book eplaining it or he/she is simply taught it. I would be very happy that URR includes rituals. But if no rituals you shall add in URR: Do not worry. I will not be dissapointed even a slightlest bit.
Agreed re: non-magic being more interesting! There will be "rituals", but not ones which truly have an effect, if you get what I mean; rituals that propagate and continue religious belief, but not which actually HAVE physical effect in the world.
Dr. Mark, are you expecting them to generate good books? I looked up NaNoGenMo (National Novel Generator Month*), and actually, they ended up succeeding in producing loads of novel generators on out there, all of them "open source" and available on GitHub.
And, all of them equally terrible in their own special ways. The ones that make the most sense are the ones that have "templates", but they are the also the ones that require the most work to do. Other ways to generate a novel would be to scrape content from websites, write short stories and stick them so close to each other so that readers are tricked into thinking these short stories are somehow related, replace words in existing novels, use recursive patterns, and create a simulation of different characters interacting with each other and printing out the results (the CK2 approach). And there are probably more ways to write a novel out there but I don't want to get distracted looking at all these generators when I'm still trying to get my own "novel generator" functional.
Put it frankly, while it may still be possible to generate a full-fledged novel that people would want to read, it'll take a lot of effort, and you still have an actual game to ship as well! I'd recommend demoting your goal down to just generating short stories, or...quite possibly, creating a generator that produces a short story, and treat that short story as a synopsis for the novel in question, so that people can imagine the novel without you needing to come up with said novel. Think of how Tarn Adams handled poetry in Dwarf Fortress.
Interesting discussion! Re: the specific above quote, my answer is: absolutely, but books will be extremely short. That's the trade-off - I want a book, or a piece of poetry, to be only a couple of scenes/paragraphs, but to be MEANINGFUL and relevant for the player's investigation; not a full book of dross. A book that just describes the relevant parts of a battle and gives you a hint as to where it took place, or a piece of poetry that describes a symbol meaningful to a particular culture, or whatever, rather than entire novels (since who wants to read the kind of bilge that a novel generator is going to spew out in this day and age?!). A blurb, as you suggest, is an interesting idea; but I think I'll go with the Skyrim model (as little as I like emulating anything Skyrimian) where "books" are extremely short, but have them generated in serious detail.
This definitely transfers to books, so I'm sure the Dr. will be able to turn out some pretty great stuff!
Yes! I think I can connect books to the other sources of information for symbols, ideas, histories, phrases, religions, the whole nine yards; I'm working on (and will be working on the background for the next couple of releases) the basic overall system for "information -> clues", meaning that, in one sentence:
The game needs to be able to take any piece of *data* - symbol for religion, name of nation, engravings on tomb, name of NPC, pattern on a vase - and transform it into any kind of *clue* - a book, a conversation, a painting, etc...
And obviously that will yield books!
Post by: Retropunch on April 18, 2015, 03:57:30 am
My problem is that keeping things item based and non-magical runs the risk of items becoming unrealistic within the game world. If the game keeps to actual period weapons, the enhancement of the 'next level up' of weapons/armours would have to be a huge leap - a steel sword becomes MUCH better than an iron sword, even though they are essentially the same thing.I really like the idea of the players own skills being important, and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited for URR. However, I would caution against not having a skill system or, what I feel is worse, having it just dependant on base stats that leave the player possibly stuck with a character config they don't like for a whole play-through.
Hmmmm, interesting thoughts. Re: your third paragraph, I don't agree issues are quite that "inevitable" - "Sure, they might be able to find/buy more stuff to be of more use in a number of situations, but as soon as you find the 'best' armour/weapon in the game world, you automatically become the best fighter you can be. " - but why can I not extend that to be the entirety of development? Or, at least, say 50% of character development; 50% base stats, 50% items, so something very minimalist (one could reasonably argue that the Souls games do something along those lines, with few skills, no skill trees, etc). I think I could make that work: have enough variation/resolution in the best/worst items, make anything above the basics extremely rare and extremely hard to acquire, and I still think that could actually work really well! I'd actively like to experiment putting the sense of player development into primarily items, and knowledge, rather than stats (and I could go a bit extreme and make *everything* item/learning based... which I might) - I know it's crazy! But at the top of my design document is a sentence to the effect of "Don't do what everyone else has gone", and putting all player progression into items and knowledge would certainly be different. And I think it would be good, and fresh, and WOULD yield progression-feeling!
Most importantly, in any renaissance/medieval setting there would have been tons of blacksmiths and armourers which would have been able to create weapons and armour, as unless you made items of ridiculous cost it'd be pretty easy to buy all the best stuff pretty much instantly (especially as you start off as a noble person).
I DO like the idea of progress through items (like the Souls games), but I just can't see it working as 50% in a purely 'realistic' setting without having to make items nearly magical in enhancement. Furthermore, the skill of the user would increase over time - not showing that seems to also be unrealistic. If you trained for 6 months with a sword, you'd get much, much better with it!
I have to say though, my biggest problem is base stats - being tied to a few stats that you chose at the start of the game without having a clear knowledge of mechanics/what is useful can be frustrating. Most games that don't allow you to progress those stats through levelling up (D&D CRPGs for instance) give you magical items/potions to enhance stats instead. Keeping the player frozen in time seems (as I pointed out in the last paragraph) slightly unrealistic, and punishes the player for making a poor choice at the beginning. Whilst this would be fine if it was a quick RL, I imagine many players will continue through one game for quite a while in comparison to other RLs, which means their ability to keep resetting their character as they learn more about what base stats are useful may be limited.
Lastly, and I certainly don't mean to come across as belligerent or that I don't believe in what you're doing - but I think that purposefully going out of your way to 'not do what everyone else has' can be dangerous. The reason that these mechanics have endured is not because other systems haven't been tried before (because they have!), but because they work! I'm not saying to follow their lead exactly, and CERTAINLY try new things, I just feel you should be cautious about dismissing these established systems out of hand. Most players like to progress their character, and they dislike being bound too much to luck/RNG.
Sorry for the length, I just feel it's important to give another viewpoint, as I really believe that good character progress (in whatever form it takes) makes or breaks an RPG.
Post by: Zireael on April 18, 2015, 04:14:27 am
This is *much* easier. I've got a chatbot for CyberRogue which seems a lot more realistic (in my opinion) than internet chatbots, as you're talking about stuff in universe. It's situated in a 'physical' space, which makes it much more lifelike. Granted, it's not going to pass the Turing test, but as long as you stay in-universe, it can function well. It grabs bits of the news feed, it has preferences from the consumables available and knows a number of random people in the world that you also know. This definitely transfers to books, so I'm sure the Dr. will be able to turn out some pretty great stuff!
I like that chatbot already - sounds like something I want to have in my game (a logical, if maybe not 100% realistic, universe that reacts to what the player does).
Post by: Retropunch on April 18, 2015, 04:40:27 am
This is *much* easier. I've got a chatbot for CyberRogue which seems a lot more realistic (in my opinion) than internet chatbots, as you're talking about stuff in universe. It's situated in a 'physical' space, which makes it much more lifelike. Granted, it's not going to pass the Turing test, but as long as you stay in-universe, it can function well. It grabs bits of the news feed, it has preferences from the consumables available and knows a number of random people in the world that you also know. This definitely transfers to books, so I'm sure the Dr. will be able to turn out some pretty great stuff!
I like that chatbot already - sounds like something I want to have in my game (a logical, if maybe not 100% realistic, universe that reacts to what the player does).
It's certainly not perfect, but it does work for the most part. The best way to do it (which I saw mentioned somewhere else) is to lead the player a little bit. For instance, have an autofiller (like Google) for phrases. So if they type 'Where' it comes up with a list of phrases that will elicit a good response (Where is the food shop, where is the bar, where is npc1...and so on) . This leads the player so they don't struggle to word things correctly, but still allows them a sort of free choice. I mixed this with noun-grabbing, so if they use a noun (any place, item or person really) the chatbot will use a response which references the noun if they know anything about it. Those two approaches combined, mixed with the usual 'I don't want to talk about that' phrases gives a pretty good impression of intelligence.
Post by: Robsoie on April 18, 2015, 05:09:36 am
While results can sometime be insane and hilarious, sometime you can get a small illusion of an actual ontopic conversation
In my opinion it's a much better idea to deal with conversation with all those generic NPC than having them constantly repeating the limited amount of pre-made answers that make trying to interact with those hundred of NPC completely pointless and uninteresting after you heard those 3 or 4 pre-made answers a dozen of time already from other guys.
So indeed, with a game of the scope of this one, a chatbot engine for the NPC would make it great, something Dwarf Fortress could have benefited too instead of those boring and uninteresting "it was inevitable" or "it's terrifying" repeated premade stuff.
Of course, in the middle some pre-made answers would still be required (pointing to a direction, starting the player on a quest, etc..etc..) but for the daily conversation, a chatbot would be the best choice to make the player believe the NPC he's discussing with is somewhat unique in his faked artificial opinions , making more immersion.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 18, 2015, 06:42:05 am
After a mere four months of development, I am proud to announce the release of Ultima Ratio Regum 0.7! This release procedurally generates the interiors of every single building in the world – from cathedrals and mansions to slum housing and shops, and everything in-between – and the graphics for a vast range of items and features within those, ranging from ordinary chairs and tables to rare altars and underground sarcophagi. You can download it here (http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/downloads/), and read more detail about the release notes below.
This is the last worldbuilding release! From this point onwards I’ll be pushing onto gameplay, starting with NPCs in 0.8. This release now establishes URR as one of the most detailed procedural worlds ever rendered – and one unparalleled in procedural cultural, aesthetic and religious detail – and marks the end of generating the immense world over which the player’s “quest” will play out.
Highlights:
- All buildings now have procedurally-generated interiors, where every single building has its own algorithms, archetypes, and items on the inside. This means everything, from cathedrals to slums, can now be fully explored, and in many cases span over many floors.
- All features within these buildings are also procedurally generated, from the most lowly of chairs, tables and candlestands to the rarest of altars, reliquaries and sarcophagi. All of each are dependent on the cultural norms for each nation.
Full Changelog:
- Procedural generation of cathedrals and religious buildings, distinct for each religion but consist across iterations.
- Generation of religious altars, religious reliquaries, and incense holders.
- Crypts now generate beneath graveyards in monarchies, and underneath cathedrals in theocracies.
- City centers how have all interiors generated for embassies, courts, galleries, mercenary guilds and mints.
- Generation of large family mansions in upper-class housing districts, for both dominant and “ascending” noble houses.
- Generation of middle-class housing and lower-class housing, as well as slum housing outside city walls.
- Taverns, arenas, jails and slave quarters spawn in lower-class districts in nations with the appropriate policies (taverns, however, are universal).
- Military hospitals, Officers’ Quarters, Stables, Barracks and Armouries can be explored in feudal military districts.
- Shops and warehouses can be explored in market districts, although they do of course currently lack any items!
- Banks spawn in middle-class districts.
- Parliamentary buildings spawn in city centers of democratic nations.
- Farmhouses can be explored in the farms outside cities and towns.
- All buildings in hunter-gatherer nations now generate – longhouses, chieftain huts, and general houses – although they remain currently sparse.
- In fortresses, the player can now explore barracks, housing, and most importantly the oasis-like citadels at their centers.
- Altars for all religions now generate, aesthetically varied according to the archetypes and beliefs of each religion.
- Cathedrals and lesser religious buildings contain procedurally-generated reliquaries, incense holders, ornate vases, and much more, each distinct to a given religion.
- Everyday items like chairs, tables and beds also generate, with shapes and wood types distinct to each nation.
- Several buildings now contain candle stands which offer external sources of lighting that can be seen, even if the tiles between you and them cannot.
- Crypts are filled with sarcophagi, each with a unique generated image, within which is buried a figure from the world’s history.
- Save files are no longer in a single monolithic file, but now spread out so that no matter how many map grids may have been generated in a given playthrough, saving/loading speed never slows down.
- Various bug fixes, improvements, optimizations, etc, and a whole host of under-the-hood things implemented in preparation for 0.8.
I’m now working on 0.8 – the introduction of NPCs, conversations, face generation, clothing, the works – with an approximate target of four/five months from now, give or take. To finish off, here are some nice illustrative screenshots of 0.7 as it currently stands. Enjoy!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Tomb22.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Parl1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Cryptorrr.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/massive-low-2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Gerng.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Desert-Crypt.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Kingofspire.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/02/Cathedral.png)
Post by: Robsoie on April 18, 2015, 07:12:32 am
I gave a quick try and i'm wondering if i am missing something : is the only way to move between district is to use the space bar navigation ?
I mean i entered my home town checked the buildings found a stair up and a stair down, explored it all but can't seem to find doors/gates/etc... to move to another district, i can only do by pressing space bar ?
EDIT : my bad, just found the gate, can't believe i missed it :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 18, 2015, 07:53:02 am
Very good !
I gave a quick try and i'm wondering if i am missing something : is the only way to move between district is to use the space bar navigation ?
I mean i entered my home town checked the buildings found a stair up and a stair down, explored it all but can't seem to find doors/gates/etc... to move to another district, i can only do by pressing space bar ?
EDIT : my bad, just found the gate, can't believe i missed it :D
And 'T' to travel!!!
Post by: Retropunch on April 18, 2015, 08:16:33 am
Post by: Zireael on April 18, 2015, 09:19:50 am
Post by: NullForceOmega on April 18, 2015, 09:34:16 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on April 19, 2015, 03:48:09 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 19, 2015, 04:22:15 am
Post by: The13thRonin on April 19, 2015, 06:12:30 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 19, 2015, 07:09:30 am
If this is not a combat game then what exactly will be the premise of the gameplay?
I always refer people to this answer!
http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/2xwl3y/are_there_any_unusual_roguelikes_there/cp47fsg
Post by: Witty on April 19, 2015, 01:44:19 pm
Regardless, what I've seen so far is extremely impressive. I do, however, hope this project doesn't go the way of Overgrowth, becoming just another technical marvel with little actual gameplay content. But I've got a good feeling you'll be smart enough to sidestep that pitfall. Best of luck!
Post by: Servant Corps on April 19, 2015, 03:06:53 pm
Last time I was reading up on the development posts, there were promises of leading armies, building up your influence, etc. I'm assuming that's no longer the development focus?Well, once you know where the item is, you still have to grab it right? That's where the armies and influence-building comes in. :)
EDIT: Or..at least, that's one way to answer it. Previous posts by URR said that he moved away from the armies/influence-building because 4X games has already been done before, while the "cultural-mystery" genre has not yet been made. Better to be unique than to copy the crowd.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 22, 2015, 06:20:50 am
Last time I was reading up on the development posts, there were promises of leading armies, building up your influence, etc. I'm assuming that's no longer the development focus?
Regardless, what I've seen so far is extremely impressive. I do, however, hope this project doesn't go the way of Overgrowth, becoming just another technical marvel with little actual gameplay content. But I've got a good feeling you'll be smart enough to sidestep that pitfall. Best of luck!
Correct! (That was a long, long time ago!). Rest assured, it will not :) - I think worldbuilding/technical marvels are interesting, but it's a game I'm after, not a proof-of-concept/sandbox/etc.
Well, once you know where the item is, you still have to grab it right? That's where the armies and influence-building comes in. :)
EDIT: Or..at least, that's one way to answer it. Previous posts by URR said that he moved away from the armies/influence-building because 4X games has already been done before, while the "cultural-mystery" genre has not yet been made. Better to be unique than to copy the crowd.
Couldn't have put it better myself!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 24, 2015, 01:36:24 pm
Post by: mete on April 24, 2015, 05:36:06 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 25, 2015, 05:38:11 am
Good job with your game! Looks like your game can also works has a very detailed engine for other games. If there is a possibility to mod the game anyway.
Thanks! Very glad you like where it's going. It could potentially be so re: an engine for other games, but I'm afraid I don't have any plans to open the game up to modding :(.
And now this week's update, cross-posted from my blog:
- I’ve just released version 0.7.0b: it contains several crash fixes, fixes for some smaller bugs, and then a bunch of truly minor stuff for typos, rare edge cases in a few generation algorithms, etc. If you’re exploring 0.7.0, I’d upgrade to the new version: rest assured, everything should be totally save-compatible since I don’t think a single new variable anywhere has been added – things have just been fixed, and as far as I know, it should be crash-stable now, but let me know if you upgrade to the new version and something goes wrong.
- This week I found myself giving two presentations, one at the AISB AI & Games Conference down in Kent, and then an invited guest lecture at the Psychology Department of the University of Bedfordshire kindly set up by an old friend; the slides for both, and a Youtube video of the latter, should be online soon! Also heading to this conference for another games talk this week, though I don’t know if this one will be recorded, but I’ll naturally add the slides for this one to the other bunch too once I’ve given the talk. Hoping to get some more “public” talks going this year (there could be a really exciting one in the works!) and I’ll post here whenever there’s another opportunity to meet some of you folks in person.
- Another reminder: I’m hosting IRDC UK 2015! We’ve got some big names talking: DarkGod (creator of TOME), the Curious Expedition guys, Darren Grey (of Roguelike Radio), me (if I may place myself in that illustrious company), Ido Yehieli (Cardinal Quest), Tommy Thompson (AI and PCG researcher) and many others, with also the potential for David Ploog (DCSS), Thomas Biskup (ADOM) and Kornel Kisielewicz (DoomRL)! You should click here to find out more, and come along!
- Work has begun on 0.8. I’ve actually been secretly working on the NPC face generation algorithm for some time and it is almost completed – I suspect I will unveil it either next week, or the week after, depending on how things go. It’s looking pretty glorious. I’m currently in the early stages of planning everything else and what order I should do everything; I think it’s actually pretty likely I’ll work on improving the rendering system for walking around outside first, and thereby extend the player’s line of sight, since a few people have rightly commented on that, and it really needs an upgrade now that I actually know how to code. Either way: I’m working on faces and improving the vision algorithm, and then I’ll probably be working on crowd/population mechanics, before storing specific NPCs. 0.8 is such a huge upgrade it’s hard to know where to begin!
- And that, I’m afraid, is all. See you next week for either some general games commentary or the first proper 0.8 update!
Post by: Scoops Novel on April 25, 2015, 02:43:27 pm
I’ve actually been secretly working on the NPC face generation algorithm
Mother of fucking god
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 25, 2015, 08:40:42 pm
I’ve actually been secretly working on the NPC face generation algorithm
Mother of fucking god
Aw yis 8). It's pretty frickin' sweet.
Post by: Zireael on April 26, 2015, 04:31:02 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 26, 2015, 04:47:47 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on April 26, 2015, 07:14:24 am
my game
?
Post by: Zireael on April 27, 2015, 01:53:12 am
my game
?
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137955.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137955.0)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 27, 2015, 06:26:57 am
Portrait generation is something I'm planning for my game, and I even have the base pics languishing on my HDD. But whatever I can cook up using the moddable tiles code will be far inferior to your work!
Ah, cool (but thanks!). It's obviously still totally ANSI/ASCII, and there's probably around a hundred million possible variations. Same system of many layers and shapes as much of the other procedural graphic stuff.
Wow, an adventurey game which finally gives NPCs their own faces, unlike DF's @/e/h/g ? I like it.
OH YES!
Post by: Leatra on April 28, 2015, 08:09:20 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Arx on April 28, 2015, 09:33:38 am
I’ve actually been secretly working on the NPC face generation algorithm
Mother of fucking god
Plus one.
Post by: Piotrhabera on April 28, 2015, 02:40:48 pm
Now gamelay! Dies the next release will feature items? (Of course they will) and if yes then what kind of items will be?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 29, 2015, 05:15:57 pm
Well. World-gen is completed and i can say YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Now gamelay! Dies the next release will feature items? (Of course they will) and if yes then what kind of items will be?
Oh yes! It does indeed. I'm not quite sure at this point: it'll depend on development speed, what mechanics around items emerge, etc etc, but I'm currently thinking of primary all types of clothing, and also almost certainly coinage (which I am *really* looking forward to generating the art for).
There are also currently two other concerns. Firstly, I obviously want to present URR at the IRDC UK at the end of June, so I need to make an "interim" version which is not the full 0.7, but which is stable, and playable by those who turn up, so that will slightly influence my development plans. Similarly, I'm one of the speakers at GDC Europe this year (!!!!) and when that happens (since I am talking about URR and procedural generation), I want to make sure I have lots of cool stuff to show on the slides. These are obviously small factors, but might slightly influence how 0.7 develops...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 02, 2015, 05:44:27 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/PCface1.png)
Ok, so a little about the system. I basically wanted a system which adhered to four (five) major objectives. Firstly, it should be massively varied, and even if you spend a decent length of time just looking at the ordinary people in the street, it should take some time and under you see any two people who are identical. Secondly, it should be demographic – which is to say, each nation can have a set of preferred hairstyles, likely skintones, other signifiers (like turbans, tattoos, jewelry, etc), and these should be distinct in each nation. Thirdly, and following on from the second point above, there should be enough of these that (much like everything else in URR) you should be able to gain visual information: when you meet someone you’ve never met before, you should be able to make a reasonable guess about their nation of birth. Fourthly, any combination should be possible, as a means of undermining the idea that only “primitive” peoples will be found with certain cultural signifiers – in one game perhaps the people in the most technologically and militarily powerful empire all have extensive facial tattoos, for examples. Fifthly (I suppose), the objective was to make them look visually and aesthetically interesting, and striking, and distinct: as with everything else in URR, if I wasn’t able to make face generation look enough to meet my standards, I’d have just cut it.
I’m not honestly sure how many variations there are (since some variants cancel out other variants in the generation process, making the simple solution of just multiplying everything together inaccurate). Roughly speaking there are nine skin tones, thirty hairstyles for women, thirty for men, a dozen different forehead/chin/nose shapes each, a dozen hair colours (which are genetically placed around the world and are toned appropriately to reduce contrast with skin tone), four eye colours (likewise, genetically varied around the world), several dozens beards (for the gents), and then a massive range of other visual identifers. There are five below: paint/dye markings, turbans, brands (sometimes consensual/cultural, sometimes as identifiers of slavery), facial tattooing, collars (always denotes slaves), scarification, and a bunch I haven’t shown here. There are also some rare additions like scars, eye patches (like the lady at the top of this entry), and some other neat and extremely rare properties as well. These will always tie to that NPC’s history, so someone with an eyepatch will have a distinct event in their past where it was lost – you can sometimes, therefore, get a bit of “personal” data from someone’s face, as well as cultural/national/etc.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/PCface11.png)
When you ‘l’ook at an NPC, you’ll get a new range of screens to cycle through in this coming release. If you’re currently in combat, it’ll automatically go to the screen showing their health; if you’re not (which will obviously be the case in this release) it will show you their face, and a little bit of data. There will then a list where you can scroll through everything they are wearing and bring up the appropriate attendant images for all of those (clothing, shoes, any holstered weapons, jewelry, etc). I’m going to remove anything you could not “physically” determine, until you know for sure: which is to say, an NPC’s lookup will never state their affiliations, unless you have explicitly talked to them and found out (though they might have lied…) or someone else has told you. Here’s a spectrum of the skin tones in the game, with a bunch of hairstyles and beard styles (where appropriate). Alpha Centauri players might also note the worrying but entirely unlpanned similarity of one of these nine women to a certain Sister Miriam Godwinson…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/Fine-folk.png)
And that glorious image pretty much concludes this entry. I’m currently working on a bunch of optimizations for the game – primarily in terms of how data is saved, and the efficiency of the rendering and line-of-sight algorithm, since this needs some serious improvement so that you can see further than a couple dozens tiles in front of you. Once that’s done (which hopefully won’t take too long) I’ll probably get working on clothing generation, and then doing some major work on families, family trees, and how NPCs should be stored for remaining still and/or moving around the map, as an important precursor to getting them actually spawning. See you all next week!
Post by: Piotrhabera on May 02, 2015, 10:27:08 am
Post by: TripJack on May 02, 2015, 10:45:11 am
Post by: puke on May 02, 2015, 12:54:37 pm
THE ABOVE SEVERAL IMAGES OF FACES, describes that URR IS AWESOME. Whoever thinks otherwise, "L"ook at the faces! If there was a kindgom of rougelikes (like the kindgom of MMORPG's where World of Warcraft is the leader) URR will be the king of kings.
they do procedurally emote and lipsynch, right?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2015, 05:19:40 am
THE ABOVE SEVERAL IMAGES OF FACES, describes that URR IS AWESOME. Whoever thinks otherwise, "L"ook at the faces! If there was a kindgom of rougelikes (like the kindgom of MMORPG's where World of Warcraft is the leader) URR will be the king of kings.
Haha, thank you! I'm definitely happy with how they came out. Probably no more than one more day of work to just finish off a few things, get brands for instance spawning correctly on both sides of the face, add scars (though these are proving surprisingly tricky to integrate with the rest of the facial layers), etc etc...
neat
Agreed.
they do procedurally emote and lipsynch, right?
Of course!!
(No :()
Post by: Pencil_Art on May 03, 2015, 05:31:14 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2015, 10:30:24 am
The faces are great, and I love the fact that they exist. :)
Thanks!
Post by: pondicherry on May 03, 2015, 10:37:49 am
Gj
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2015, 12:21:40 pm
I am stunned with your marvelous job.
Gj
Well thank you, pondicherry; very glad you like it.
Post by: Mipe on May 03, 2015, 12:49:07 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2015, 01:04:27 pm
It looks like they all follow the exact same diet.
Delicious Soylent Green!
Post by: Piotrhabera on May 03, 2015, 04:54:05 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 03, 2015, 06:45:31 pm
I want to have a goatee beard, I want a square chin, I DO NOT WANT to be a commoner. I want a slave that looks like me. I want a scar. I want red hair, I want long red hair. I want URR. URR IS THE BEST GAME EVER.
IT WILL ALL BE POSSIBLE! I've just been doing a lot of work today on finishing off what each policy is going to do in cities, and figuring how to display everyone, and I'm currently looking at something like this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/face1.png)
Post by: Neonivek on May 03, 2015, 07:13:32 pm
R for Acting Regent
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 07, 2015, 06:04:19 am
Let me see
R for Acting Regent
Regent is very possible!
In the mean time, another nice piece from RPS (though I think some people in the comments do not appreciate the challenges of procedural face generation within an ANSI grid...) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/06/ultima-ratio-regum-faces/
Post by: Piotrhabera on May 07, 2015, 10:32:59 am
Post by: dennislp3 on May 07, 2015, 10:51:01 am
Post by: Retropunch on May 07, 2015, 11:23:33 am
In the mean time, another nice piece from RPS (though I think some people in the comments do not appreciate the challenges of procedural face generation within an ANSI grid...) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/06/ultima-ratio-regum-faces/
Fantastic work with the faces!!! They look great and were much better than what I was expecting (on an ANSI grid!). I can't wait to walk around with NPCs!
One of the interesting points that a lot of people raised in the RPS article was how there has yet to be an 'engaging' procedurally generated game. Whilst I don't think that's strictly true, there certainly hasn't been one with both a good world AND story. They're all very much 'make your own fun' sort of things.
I'm very interested to see how you'll pull it off as I think this will be the thing that people remember - a game that was both massively procedural AND a fun game in and of itself. I suppose the test is can the player load up one world and enjoy that on it's own as a one off? As in, if you were stuck with the same world forever, would it be just as fun as knowing you can create endless new worlds.
NEW UPDATE NEW UPDATE NEW UPDATE!
Post by: Neonivek on May 07, 2015, 11:41:54 am
Regent is very possible!
Given the very possible existence of Kings and Queens who are... say... 1 year old.
I figured there were good chances.
Post by: puke on May 07, 2015, 01:51:35 pm
some people in the comments do not appreciate the challenges of procedural face generation within an ANSI grid...) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/05/06/ultima-ratio-regum-faces/
That face-age-alizer whatzit was a bit overly harsh, as well.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 08, 2015, 05:27:39 am
Ah, So in that particular update, clothing and coinz shall be introduced... Well when we should know how they will look like! (that will give us some hint how weapons in the future looks like espescially armour)And i am very sorry for the common typos i am making, i am a fast typer.
Yes! Since as I mentioned before I need to display an interim version at the IRDC in the UK at the end of June, i.e. a month and 2/3rds away, I've decided I'm going to focus on generating clothing and crowd mechanics (i.e. "standard" NPC citizens spawning/despawning out of sight) for that, as I think I can do that by then, and then leave special NPCs, coins, and conversations, until after the IRDC. Then re-evaluate what exactly 0.9 will be, but I anticipate a very short release (two months?) focusing on trade systems, travel, uncovering the map, that kind of mechanic.
I hate to ask again...but did you have a spot or a few posts somewhere about how you got started with procedural generation and/or more technical stuff?
I've never really posted about this! I basically just used the libtcod + Python tutorial (easily Googled), taught myself Python from there, and now we're suddenly here. Everything I've done I've done through trial and error and the rare posting on a site like StackOverflow; URR's the first game I've ever made. I recommend using a tutorial you like, then just fiddling with the values, trying new things, seeing what governs what, and then coming to understand what exactly each line in the code actually refers to, and how you can use that code to do interesting things.
Fantastic work with the faces!!! They look great and were much better than what I was expecting (on an ANSI grid!). I can't wait to walk around with NPCs!
One of the interesting points that a lot of people raised in the RPS article was how there has yet to be an 'engaging' procedurally generated game. Whilst I don't think that's strictly true, there certainly hasn't been one with both a good world AND story. They're all very much 'make your own fun' sort of things.
I'm very interested to see how you'll pull it off as I think this will be the thing that people remember - a game that was both massively procedural AND a fun game in and of itself. I suppose the test is can the player load up one world and enjoy that on it's own as a one off? As in, if you were stuck with the same world forever, would it be just as fun as knowing you can create endless new worlds.
NEW UPDATE NEW UPDATE NEW UPDATE!
Excellent! Glad you like 'em. I thought that comment about "I have yet to play a fun procedural game" was totally bizarre. I just thought "so you've never played a procedural generation game, then?". Literally any classic or modern roguelike fits the bill. Weird. But as you say, if one interprets that as meaning engaging in a story sense, I suppose it is kind of true (although the meta-story in Isaac of child abuse/religion really resonates with me). We shall see! I've sadly not been able to get much development done since I released 0.7 aside from NPC faces, as I've mostly just been putting a few little fixes to things I didn't have time to sort for 0.7, adding in a few new generators for things like city and encampment names, etc, but the major development of 0.8 will start once I'm back from a games conference in Germany on the 18th (as in, I'm back on the 18th). As above, I'm mentally splitting this release into two parts: making a "stable" build I can show off at the RL conference, then finishing it off and adding the rest of the stuff needed for public release.
That face-age-alizer whatzit was a bit overly harsh, as well.
Ha, yes, it was rather - it definitely interpreted the tattoo as being age lines...
Post by: dennislp3 on May 08, 2015, 05:46:59 am
I hate to ask again...but did you have a spot or a few posts somewhere about how you got started with procedural generation and/or more technical stuff?
I've never really posted about this! I basically just used the libtcod + Python tutorial (easily Googled), taught myself Python from there, and now we're suddenly here. Everything I've done I've done through trial and error and the rare posting on a site like StackOverflow; URR's the first game I've ever made. I recommend using a tutorial you like, then just fiddling with the values, trying new things, seeing what governs what, and then coming to understand what exactly each line in the code actually refers to, and how you can use that code to do interesting things.
Ahh yeah thats what I am working on now...unfortunately most tutorials and what not out there simply cover theory and rarely show the actual code from what I have found. I have a basic grasp of it all. Got some health issues that are causing serious issues focusing proper so I suppose I should clear that up first :P
Post by: Retropunch on May 08, 2015, 09:50:48 am
Excellent! Glad you like 'em. I thought that comment about "I have yet to play a fun procedural game" was totally bizarre. I just thought "so you've never played a procedural generation game, then?". Literally any classic or modern roguelike fits the bill. Weird. But as you say, if one interprets that as meaning engaging in a story sense, I suppose it is kind of true (although the meta-story in Isaac of child abuse/religion really resonates with me).
I do have to agree with them that a lot of procedural games sort of stop at the procedural content side of things. Take any of the procedural sidescrollers or minecraft clones - they're basically just 'Procedural Generation - the game' rather than using the procedural generation as the backdrop to a proper adventure. Partly it's because there's only so much fun that emergent gameplay can provide. Making your own story is all fine and good, but after a while most people feel some need for purpose. I'm excited to see how URR deals with this, as I'm sure it'll be awesome!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 10, 2015, 07:44:05 am
Ahh yeah thats what I am working on now...unfortunately most tutorials and what not out there simply cover theory and rarely show the actual code from what I have found. I have a basic grasp of it all. Got some health issues that are causing serious issues focusing proper so I suppose I should clear that up first :P
This is true, it's hard to find one that explains the absolute basics (again, I recommend the libtcod + Python one, there's no simpler/earlier tutorial out there). Sorry to hear that, hope things improve!
I do have to agree with them that a lot of procedural games sort of stop at the procedural content side of things. Take any of the procedural sidescrollers or minecraft clones - they're basically just 'Procedural Generation - the game' rather than using the procedural generation as the backdrop to a proper adventure. Partly it's because there's only so much fun that emergent gameplay can provide. Making your own story is all fine and good, but after a while most people feel some need for purpose. I'm excited to see how URR deals with this, as I'm sure it'll be awesome!
Oh, certainly true (I'm no fan of either of those genres) - it's like the horrifying mass of meaningless games on steam greenlight which are all just "SURVIVAL GAMES" and list things like "YOU HAVE TO FIND FOOD OTHERWISE YOU DIE" as *features*, with this absurd idea that that, somehow, makes a game. It's just laughable thinking "survival mechanics" instantly create a game any more than PCG does, I totally agree... but I still think that person's comment was rather weird. Anyway, as am I! And are you coming to IRDC this year?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Post by: Neonivek on May 10, 2015, 08:02:40 am
They never EVER think "How can this procedural system not only make new content, but how can this new content be worthwhile?"
Spelunky will always be one of the games I will herald as one of the ones that did procedural right... because the game's generator was well aware of the player's capabilities and had an idea of what a proper layout was... thus stages were designed in a rather fun way purely procedurally.
While Terraria 1.0 is the game I'd use as the example of how to do procedural outright wrong. With the world just being empty and bland to the point where in the end every cave was just a mound of dirt and rock with absolutely nothing interesting. (and THANK GOODNESS Terraria is at version 1.2... Fans are interesting. Criticize a game and they will jump down your throat, but wait for the better version or better game to come along and they will create a conga line behind you as if you were right all along)
But Indie games are as a whole like that. They all just take superficial elements like "Classic platformer" or "survivor horror" or "Roguelike" and treat those features like they are fun in it of themselves instead of trying to make them as fun as they can possibly be.
Whenever I see a indie classic platformer and I hear the excuses in my ear "But it is so classic" I instantly compare it to Super Mario where the entire game was expertly crafted to be as fun as possible with the little resources as they have. While they intentionally use less resources but instead of using that as a way to put in more polished gameplay they treat "we have less" as a feature.
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I do think I should hold off on playing your game URR xD
Because I think we both know I'd never give the game any mercy.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 10, 2015, 09:22:55 am
But Indie games are as a whole like that. They all just take superficial elements like "Classic platformer" or "survivor horror" or "Roguelike" and treat those features like they are fun in it of themselves instead of trying to make them as fun as they can possibly be.
Whenever I see a indie classic platformer and I hear the excuses in my ear "But it is so classic" I instantly compare it to Super Mario where the entire game was expertly crafted to be as fun as possible with the little resources as they have. While they intentionally use less resources but instead of using that as a way to put in more polished gameplay they treat "we have less" as a feature.
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I do think I should hold off on playing your game URR xD
Because I think we both know I'd never give the game any mercy.
This, sadly, is very true: using a definition doesn't immediately make a game! Pah. But then, it's much harder to make an actual game than to just copy a mechanic you saw somewhere and call it a game; honestly (and maybe this is an unpopular opinion) I think the massive expansion in the last ~10 years of the ability to make and distribute games hasn't been entirely positive. In pricinple a lowering of the barriers to entry to game design SHOULD be a good thing... and yet it has allowed so much nonsense to saturate the market and get in the way. Eh. It's probably good overall, but there have been major downsides.
THIS WEEK'S UPDATE:
This week I haven’t been able to get any coding done, and the same will sadly be the case for the next seven days – I’ve been finishing off an academic book chapter due in very shortly, as well as doing some writing for various online game publications (links will be posted here once my pieces are published), and also writing three different conference presentations for three talks I’m giving at DiGRA in Lüneburg next week (so once I upload that, and my previous set of talks, I’ll be uploading six sets of slides for your perusal! I’ll get around to it folks, I promise). So, this week and next week we’re going to talk about some of the more abstract intentions/plans for 0.8 onwards, then hopefully after that we’ll be back to specific updates once I get working on 0.8 again upon returning from Germany (week of the 18th onwards). Two big abstract/worldbuildy changes in this release alongside the development of NPCs (!!) are policies, and nicknames, so let’s talk about these.
Policies
During the development of 0.7, I found myself making a major change to how national policies work. Originally the idea was for them to give abstract benefits to the player – one policy might yield a player who belongs to that nation extra strength, for example – but I found this increasingly uninteresting. So much of the game’s mechanics are meant to be about figuring out and understanding the generated world, and I realized it would be a lot more interesting if policies directly affected what spawned in each nation – so the macro of a nation’s political ideologies and policies then determine what buildings appear (or not) in cities, towns, within buildings, etc.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/Policy-Table-08.png)
So, a pretty simple key. Green effects are policies which don’t relate to shops; yellow policies relate to types of shops which can spawn in that nation; which the red ?s, funnily enough, are policies I haven’t thought of a good effect for (any ideas?). Escort Cavalry is a nomadic-only policy, and Chiefdom is a hunter-gatherer only policy, but aside from those, any of these policies can spawn for any feudal nation (Monastic is in red because it is a new policy I haven’t yet added to the game or created an image for). At the bottom you’ll see two binary possibilities: from 0.8 onwards, nations will either be slaving nations or won’t be, and nations will either use gunpowder weapons, or won’t.
With this system policies will therefore seriously affect (I hope) a player’s path around the world and choosing which nations to visit, knowing that certain shops will only appear in certain nations, some will be more/less hostile to foreigners, some have different systems for payment (or not) when moving around cities, some nations will have different punishments if the player decides to commit a crime within their land, etc. Should add an interesting level of grand strategy to the player’s movement, and be a lot more interesting than “abstract policies” which affect the player, but fail to distinguish between nations.
City Nicknames
Credit for this idea must go to Retropunch. He suggested that I could add some distinguishing factors to cities which both make them stand out more from each other, and add the potential for nicknames. In this release I’m aiming to add this in over a dozen ways to make cities more distinct, and add in another “clue” – i.e. the nickname – by which cities might be identified. This means the generation algorithm for a small number of cities will be tweaked to ensure that something very noteworthy spawns in/around/throughout a given city, and then an appropriate nickname is generated. Some examples:
City with many slums: “City of the Downtrodden”, “The Evergrowing City”, etc
City with many gardens: “The Flowering City”, “The City of the Hundred Gardens”, etc
City near volcano: “The City of the Inferno”, “The City of the Red Mount”, etc
Slaving city: “The City of the Masters”, “The City of Shackles”, etc
City with many statues: “The City of Stone Watchers”, “The City of the Grey Men”, etc
And so on. I’ve got around fifteen ideas so far for feature/nickname combinations (you’ll be able to find the rest in 0.8!), so maybe five cities per playthrough will be granted some unique “overlay” (like lots of gardens, lots of statues, etc) and a nickname to go with it. So then the player will sometimes be told “Travel to [ City Name ]”, but will instead sometimes be told “Travel to [ City Nickname ]” – a small thing in gameplay terms, but something which’ll add some nice extra variety to the world’s cities and help the player remember which city is which. The idea of the nickname in general seems like something very promising, so I’ve also been working on adding nicknames to other things in the game, primarily rulers and important historical figures, and also noteworthy living figures the player will be engaging with, and it’s those I’ll be talking about next week!
Post by: dennislp3 on May 10, 2015, 02:21:00 pm
Militia - Perhaps some sort of "training yard"...essentially a small armory + exercise field...possibly near or connected to a blacksmith
Escort Cavalry - A special barn/horse pen connected to or near a training ground for riding. Essentially a course with dummies along the path to practice mounted archery and horse maneuvers
Interventionist - "foreign interventionism (a state's intervention in the affairs of another nation as part of its foreign policy)." Based on the definition I would think this sort of policy would give rise to spies or extra diplomats or perhaps even embassies in other cities. Perhaps there could be businesses that act as fronts for characters from a nation with this policy?
Imperialist - Imperialism would also be a good candidate for embassies in foreign towns. In the case of owned towns that are NOT the capital you would likely have the nobles, or at least governor of the city be in a pseudo Government owned mansions. Think of the Romans for instance. They would send out citizens that lived lavish lives usually at the expensive of the city they governed and often owned lots of farmland. As a governor they managed the economy and acted as the high judge in the land they governed
Tribal Knowledge - medicine man or "elder hut". This would likely serve as a low level mixture of a historian and a judge of sorts. If a medicine man they would of course serve as the primary medical doctor of the town.
Chiefdom - The chief, assuming it was primarily for tribal use, would likely have a large "mead hall" that served as his house for him and his personal guard and servants. Outside of this there would likely be burial mounds for nobles and heroes
Hegomony - "the term cultural hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulate the culture of that society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their ruling-class worldview becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm"
This would likely give way to certain schools/colleges or other amenities specifically for use by one racial or social group that would make them superior and able to hold power. Perhaps even outright bigotry. For example in the US in the past there would be restrooms/businesses/schools etc labeled "white only"
Vigilantism - public forms of punishment/execution. Public gallows, lashing posts, hanging people in cages til they die in open view, public punishment areas for stoning/beating/burning/murdering/mob justice. On a more individual level you are looking at a society of people that ALWAYS have at least a sword or dagger on every person so that they are able to punish a crime when it happens (cutting the hand/fingers off thieves, killing on the spot, marking people as criminals with cuts etc)
Post by: dennislp3 on May 10, 2015, 02:22:06 pm
Post by: Retropunch on May 11, 2015, 12:47:40 am
With this system policies will therefore seriously affect (I hope) a player’s path around the world and choosing which nations to visit, knowing that certain shops will only appear in certain nations, some will be more/less hostile to foreigners, some have different systems for payment (or not) when moving around cities, some nations will have different punishments if the player decides to commit a crime within their land, etc. Should add an interesting level of grand strategy to the player’s movement, and be a lot more interesting than “abstract policies” which affect the player, but fail to distinguish between nations.Just a thought with this - it would seem that there are some policies which would make a city undesirable to visit,especially with certain combinations (say if you got Mercantile, ordeal and pacifism). With a good 20-30 cities, it would probably mean these would be skipped over if possible, or at least not be very exciting to visit.
I know it's a big undertaking, but would it therefore be possible to have pros and cons on some policies? Mercantilism could then give you entry/exit costs, but guaranteed extra shops for instance. Penitentiary could have lots of prisons, but drastically lower crime (and so on).
I just feel that would make the policies mix in better to the grand tapestry of things rather than just being simply positives or negatives.
Post by: Neonivek on May 11, 2015, 06:43:09 am
You seem to want to turn them into the Ferengi Retropunch. "To use these stairs you must pay 10 dollars!"
Post by: MDFification on May 11, 2015, 10:09:26 am
The best model would probably be to use Diminishing Marginal Returns - it's the theory of societal collapse that applies to most known historical cases and has the benefit of being somewhat easy to model. Adding cataclysmic events on top of that to occasionally speed the process (and to confuse the player; I mean, if this is an anthropological mystery, you really have to bait players with dramatic theories that fit into some sort of biased narrative, i.e. the barbarians came down from the hills and laid waste to civilization when really the primary reason was economic) would be how I'd design it, personally.
If it is designed this way, that just gives you a lot more interesting archaeology to play around with! Civs can decline at variable rates (and if they have neighbors, just be assimilated instead of truly collapse), but the rate of decline can affect the wars they fight, the rate they construct monuments, and even be reflected in terms of subdividing earlier structures (as societies collapse, they tend towards subdividing earlier structures over constructing new ones).
Post by: Retropunch on May 11, 2015, 03:50:12 pm
Well a Merchantile civ historically tended to have a rather large military and a very strong assimilation drive.
You seem to want to turn them into the Ferengi Retropunch. "To use these stairs you must pay 10 dollars!"
That was already in the policy chart that URR posted (Mercantilism - Enter/exit city costs)! In case there was any confusion, I'm not suggesting adding more penalties, but instead making none of the policies inherently good or bad for the player. With a lot of cities in the game (and presumably a lot of ways of reaching the end goal) I can imagine the player just not bothering with a lot of cities due to their penalties. This is especially the case being an RL game: the player is much more adversed to risk, and is likely to try to min/max the situation to at least some degree.
Whilst I know there's other ways to balance things out, I just feel that policies are one of those things that are innately balanced. Having ones that are bad doesn't really add a lot to the game, and from a 'realism' standpoint I can't imagine many cities implementing a policy that has no good effects.
Post by: Servant Corps on May 13, 2015, 09:53:37 am
Populism: Move the Chemist guy elsewhere because I don't really associate "mob rule" with "knowledge of chemistry". I'd create a Demagogue position, somebody who is an expert at leading the masses (usually in favor of whatever ruling class you have). In the original RTS foundations of this game, the demagogue might be a good recruiter, but in this new Cultural Murder Mystery genre, he might just be useful as a source of rumors (being in touch with the masses).
Vigilantism: I view roving bands of self-appointed "enforcers of the laws" protecting the people. They would be less well-armed than a regular police officier, but there would be more of them. (Note that this is a Cultural Murder Mystery though, and I'm not sure how fleshed-out combat may be, so this idea can be jettisoned in favor of something else, like dennislp3's buildings and weaponry).
Free Trade - a Bazaar building that has lots of goods and services imported from outside the city. These goods and services are more expensive than if you have bought them "locally"
Hegemony - The Poet, a propagandist whose main purpose is writing poems glorifying the dominant groups and denouncing the "Others". After all, any hegemonic power needs propaganda.
Post by: Neonivek on May 13, 2015, 11:56:43 am
Post by: Retropunch on May 13, 2015, 01:03:29 pm
Suggestions That May Be Ignored By The Good Doctor
They're all great suggestions, and I hope they're not ignored!! I really like the vigilantism one. Depending on how you handle crime, it could be quite an interesting, especially from a cultural standpoint.
Whilst I do like how the policies are more direct, I do think that they should be expanded to be more than just 'city has x' if at all possible. I imagine this will be one of the central points for deciding whether or not to go to a city, so they could do with being quite far-reaching (but direct) if possible
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 17, 2015, 04:49:20 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 19, 2015, 03:55:20 am
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Well, I almost missed a weekend update for the first time in over a year, but in my current timezone (Germany) it is still Sunday, so here we are! Just a quick one this week, but I’ve got a few really long and interesting updates, and some more abstract discussions, scheduled for the coming weeks. However, since this entry is rather short, here are four of my most recent conference/lecture presentations, in no particular order. Enjoy!
Talk to AISB AI & Games conference on designing URR’s upcoming NPC AI:
Talk at a conference on literary dystopias about Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun
My main talk at DiGRA about Japanese arcade culture, danmaku games, high scores, and some other cool stuff (a full paper version is going to be published as a chapter in a book on Gaming and East Asia in 2016)!
My secondary talk at DiGRA about civilians in the original Command and Conquer
Remaining Policies
Thanks to everyone for their ideas on the remaining policies. I realized as I read through the suggestions that something had been a tad unclear: Tribal Knowledge, Chiefdom and Escort Cavalry are policies which can only appear in hunter-gatherer and nomadic societies, and are therefore rather like “placeholders”, so suggestions for those – although there were some great ones and I might integrate them as general buildings/NPCs/etc! – won’t be directly integrated into the policy system. So, without further ado, the Militia policy will result in citizens owning weapons in their homes; the Imperialist policy will allow that civilization to seize colonies (currently all feudal nations can do this, but this’ll therefore be changed); the Hegemony policy will mean that race (which is to say, skin tone) will directly affect citizens in that nation in some way, but I haven’t yet decided precisely how; and the Vigilantism policy will cause bounty offices to spawn, listing wanted individuals and the bounties on them. That means interventionist – by which I mean covert operations, spying, espionage – remains undecided.
Nicknames
So, as well as city nicknames, I’m working on nicknames for people. This means both historical figures, and living figures who the game considers important. Right now I’m splitting this into two categories: people from important noble families have a certain generation algorithm underlying their nicknames, whilst anyone else who isn’t high-born but has still become “important” will have a different generator. Firstly, if someone is from an important family, the game looks at the coat of arms for that family. If their coat of arms contains a “distinct” pattern, it will go to a unique generator for that pattern; if it doesn’t, then it will default to a more “general” generator. This generator can sometimes use words from the terrain of the homeland of this person as well.
So, for example, let’s say someone comes from an ice/tundra area, and their coat of arms contains the pattern of the dragon flying “upwards” (I’m sure many of you will have seen it). They might be nicknamed “The Roaring Breath of the Ice”, “The Adorned Wyvern”, “The Drake of the Hailstones” or “The Ennobled Dragon”. Alternatively, someone who hails from a temperate region and has a coat of arms containing a trident might be nicknamed “The Halberd of the Bluffs” or “The Invested Spear”; someone from a family with a harp on their coat of arms and who lives in the desert might be “The Singer of the Dust” or “The Sand Melodist”… and so on. Alternatively, if a coat of arms is generic or geometric enough to not merit any special words, it instead defaults to a name based on the policies of that person’s nation: “free trade” as a policy might yield “The Glorious Merchant”, “frontier” as a policy might yield “The Grand Marshall”, “theocracy” yields “The Sublime Conduit”, and so on. I still need to finish off some of the generation possibilities, but these are basically done.
And that, I’m afraid, is all for this week! I’ve been at a conference so haven’t been doing any programming this week, but there’s a lot of cool stuff on its way. See you all next week for probably a URR update, or a discussion of one of the many interesting game-related things this conference has got me thinking about!
Post by: Neonivek on May 19, 2015, 09:35:19 am
Suggestions That May Be Ignored By The Good Doctor
They're all great suggestions, and I hope they're not ignored!! I really like the vigilantism one. Depending on how you handle crime, it could be quite an interesting, especially from a cultural standpoint.
Oddly enough Japan has had this culture at one point or another. Where if you wanted justice because someone wrong you... You not only had to do it yourself, but no one could deny you. It was later SPECIFICALLY banned in about the Meijin Era.
Magistrate system is also something I like as well. Basically Judge Dred is a Magistrate. A police officer who can collect evidence and sentence you... themselves. Quebec is a place that still uses Magistrates today.
Then there is Tribunal Justice where basically the community, or select members of the community, pass down judgement... and yes mob mentality was quite common.
Lots of lovely justice systems.
It is why when I was writing about that game setting I was making for a game I was going to run... I was just perplexed by people constantly saying "Well if that is the case then there would be a lot of unrest" because well... Historically? No...
Post by: MDFification on May 19, 2015, 11:40:25 am
Suggestions That May Be Ignored By The Good Doctor
They're all great suggestions, and I hope they're not ignored!! I really like the vigilantism one. Depending on how you handle crime, it could be quite an interesting, especially from a cultural standpoint.
Oddly enough Japan has had this culture at one point or another. Where if you wanted justice because someone wrong you... You not only had to do it yourself, but no one could deny you. It was later SPECIFICALLY banned in about the Meijin Era.
Magistrate system is also something I like as well. Basically Judge Dred is a Magistrate. A police officer who can collect evidence and sentence you... themselves. Quebec is a place that still uses Magistrates today.
Then there is Tribunal Justice where basically the community, or select members of the community, pass down judgement... and yes mob mentality was quite common.
Lots of lovely justice systems.
It is why when I was writing about that game setting I was making for a game I was going to run... I was just perplexed by people constantly saying "Well if that is the case then there would be a lot of unrest" because well... Historically? No...
"People would revolt if a hierarchy existed to better people other than them. That's why we're all still hunter gatherers!"
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 20, 2015, 03:52:08 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 22, 2015, 04:34:17 am
Suggestions That May Be Ignored By The Good Doctor
Populism: Move the Chemist guy elsewhere because I don't really associate "mob rule" with "knowledge of chemistry". I'd create a Demagogue position, somebody who is an expert at leading the masses (usually in favor of whatever ruling class you have). In the original RTS foundations of this game, the demagogue might be a good recruiter, but in this new Cultural Murder Mystery genre, he might just be useful as a source of rumors (being in touch with the masses).
Vigilantism: I view roving bands of self-appointed "enforcers of the laws" protecting the people. They would be less well-armed than a regular police officier, but there would be more of them. (Note that this is a Cultural Murder Mystery though, and I'm not sure how fleshed-out combat may be, so this idea can be jettisoned in favor of something else, like dennislp3's buildings and weaponry).
Free Trade - a Bazaar building that has lots of goods and services imported from outside the city. These goods and services are more expensive than if you have bought them "locally"
Hegemony - The Poet, a propagandist whose main purpose is writing poems glorifying the dominant groups and denouncing the "Others". After all, any hegemonic power needs propaganda.
Populism, my thinking was along the lines of basically home-made explosives. I KNOW, this is a loose/vague connection, but I was thinking about populist uprising, black flag anarchism, etc. It's not a perfect link. Interesting idea though - I'll think it over! Hegemony, I really like the idea, but poets/poetry I intend to be slightly more widespread than that, and you should be able to find them in many places. Having the game generate (meaningful) poetry will be very exciting!
That was already in the policy chart that URR posted (Mercantilism - Enter/exit city costs)! In case there was any confusion, I'm not suggesting adding more penalties, but instead making none of the policies inherently good or bad for the player. With a lot of cities in the game (and presumably a lot of ways of reaching the end goal) I can imagine the player just not bothering with a lot of cities due to their penalties. This is especially the case being an RL game: the player is much more adversed to risk, and is likely to try to min/max the situation to at least some degree.
Whilst I know there's other ways to balance things out, I just feel that policies are one of those things that are innately balanced. Having ones that are bad doesn't really add a lot to the game, and from a 'realism' standpoint I can't imagine many cities implementing a policy that has no good effects.
So, the interesting thing about this is that it depends on how many cities the player will visit. If the "clock" is very strict, the player won't even visit every city, so will be "forced" to enter some more difficult/challenging cities, so policies don't need to be "balanced". If, only the other hand, the clock is very generous, then the player will have a lot of freedom and can, as you imply, just avoid the crappier cities or those which impose harsher penalties, so that promote some more policy balance. I suppose the ideal would be to position the game somewhere in the middle of those, whereby you have some freedom, but not a lot, so you have a meaningful choice but will still sometimes need to go to cities less friendly to your character/less friendly in general. It's just a gameplay balance/timing thing, and therefore something which will probably start to appear around the end of this year, but I do totally take your point. I'll think about potential negatives too...
Just wondering... how frequent is historical societal collapse in URR? Do you just generate ruins, or have you got some sort of model for civs declining?
Within the game the player plays: it should be able to happen. In the world's history: fairly common. As the history generates, there is a kind of hidden metric which tries to keep the number of civilizations "constant" within certain limits (though I intend to expand on this soon when I go into more detail with the world's history, and the connection of that history to the things the player finds). By which I mean, if more and more civs are collapsing, the game will encourage more civilizations into breaking in half, rebellions, uprisings, new nations, etc; if there are too many civs, the game encourages wars and collapse. It's fairly subtle and in the background, but ensures you don't wind up with a world map filled with tiny nations, nor just one massive ubernation.
It may be a lot of work :P, but practically anything of sufficient importance should have a chance of a nickname, from places to legions.
I agree!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 23, 2015, 09:39:22 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/05/23/the-problem-with-the-roguelike-metagame/
Post by: Servant Corps on May 23, 2015, 10:35:55 am
Quote
– Sense of Progress. The player dies in a permadeath game and feels angry or upset because nothing was achieved – unless, so the argument goes, they also unlocked something in the process, in which case that death no longer feels “meaningless”. Although making instinctive sense, this argument is the crux of the problem, and will be returned to later.You still need the sense of progress though, because "gathering skills and knowledge of the game" is an important part of death in non-roguelikes as well. In fact, the skills and knowledge is actually more useful in non-roguelikes, because there is no random events messing up your memorization and brute-forcing.
So keep the sense of progress. But instead of having pointless unlocking of content, which seems to be a trick to prolong gameplay, have players be able to significantly impact the game world. Maybe the new character is a heir to the dead player (and get some of their previous skills or maps), or maybe the new character has changed the dynamics between the various factions to an extent that it makes gameplay easier for the next time around.
Relying on abstract "acquisition of skills and knowledge" as a good reward system seems flat to me. If I wanted to learn, I would want to go to school to learn actually applicable skills. If, however, you do want to encourage players to appreciate meaningless acquisitions, just have players play in the exact same generated world, so that no matter how many times they die, they are always gaining more knowledge about the world, and that knowledge is more 'direct and meaningful' than the higher-level strategy that a more advanced player would be able to focus on. There's no reason whatsoever to re-generate a brand new world every time a player loses a game. That just sounds absurd, and only reduces my connection to each individual instance of the 'game world' proper.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 23, 2015, 01:54:39 pm
You still need the sense of progress though, because "gathering skills and knowledge of the game" is an important part of death in non-roguelikes as well. In fact, the skills and knowledge is actually more useful in non-roguelikes, because there is no random events messing up your memorization and brute-forcing.
Interesting point, but... I don't know if skills and knowledge are more important there. I'd say equally important, but obviously very different - in a roguelike you're learning "mastery" (i.e. the ability to deal with whatever the game throws at you, and learning what the game might throw at you) vs learning specifics. Both crucial, though.
Relying on abstract "acquisition of skills and knowledge" as a good reward system seems flat to me.
I suppose in this regard I am, inevitably, speaking from my own perspective here as someone who plays roguelikes specifically to master them and win them. I don't think it's flat, I think it's a very logical system and drives you towards improving; it doesn't mean you wasted the time in that playthrough, since every death you should learn something, and I've certainly enjoyed RL playthroughs I didn't win with in the end. I'm
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 24, 2015, 02:47:32 am
I care about this because of the educational potential. If there isn't honestly going to be any, please spell it out for me, creator.QuoteIf I wanted to learn, I would want to go to school to learn actually applicable skills.
Post by: Zireael on May 24, 2015, 05:39:24 am
Quote
There's no reason whatsoever to re-generate a brand new world every time a player loses a game
That's a good point, especially with a game with such a detailed world as URR. With the promised family trees, you could probably take my offspring idea (you keep playing as your kid in the same world) and run with it :)
Post by: Retropunch on May 24, 2015, 03:26:04 pm
For some, being the very best is certainly their main aim (and I'd heartily agree with you for multiplayer games) but as RLs are almost exclusively single player pursuits, the key is surely, with any game, to have the most fun possible. Regardless of how 'serious' the game is, by virtue of it being a game it is something that someone must do for enjoyment.
One of the very core parts of RLs - and what I believe most people enjoy - is 'unlocking' - be that by levelling up or finding items. Meta-unlocking is just unlocking on a grander scale. Furthermore, most games (Risk of Rain flying into view) tie these unlocks to specific challenges, not just how many times you die. This is important, because some of the Risk of Rain meta-unlock challenges are more difficult than actually beating the game and many meta-unlocks don't really affect the difficulty one way or another. All this to say, I don't think there is any problem with meta-unlocking unless it actively rewards the number of times you've died by throwing more stuff at you, and I can't think of many games that give you lots of stuff depending on how many times you've died. Even if this was the case, it only prolongs the inevitable that the player either learns from their mistakes or doesn't.
More than that though, dying IS demoralizing and keeping the player enjoying themselves should surely be the core principle of a good game. A game shouldn't be judged to be good just because it keeps to the oldschool laugh-in-your-face-as-you-cry method of handling player death, and rewarding the player for their tenacity could be seen as just as encouraging to building up RL skills as anything.
Post by: Neonivek on May 24, 2015, 03:41:59 pm
1) How many of these deaths are just random?
2) If it wasn't random was there a way I could have avoided it?
3) Do I know what was my mistake?
4) How long until I improve enough not to die in the same way?
5) How much do I have to play until I am allowed to pass that point?
Roguelikes tend to hold onto their permanent death mechanic like a crutch and unfortunately the genre is suffering as a result mostly because the vast majority of roguelikes play in a way where the player is expected to get to a certain point of the game, die, and replay it over and over, until he can get to the next road block... on and on until they beat the game.
Don't get me wrong the fact that you can easily die because you didn't think of a solution and need to play it a few times isn't a problem... But instead of thinking "How would a player think of a solution?" they think that players will want to beat their head into a wall and hope that when the wall crumbles will be a solution, but often no.
See a long time ago there were these games called Point and Click adventure games... and some of them included some really nasty traps like object that if you pick them up, will kill you half-way or even at the end of the entire game... Roguelikes have taken those and have inherited it.
I think Roguelikes are a great genre but I think that creators of roguelikes need to think about their games more critically rather then just flaunting features as if they were "good in it of themselves".
Post by: Robsoie on May 24, 2015, 05:59:09 pm
And a good way to check feedbacks from the stats regarding the new areas/classes/species they introduce/remove from time to time.
Those stats are least are useful in the way that they're provided directly by players gameplay, not only game theories.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 25, 2015, 04:46:27 am
QuoteThere's no reason whatsoever to re-generate a brand new world every time a player loses a game
That's a good point, especially with a game with such a detailed world as URR. With the promised family trees, you could probably take my offspring idea (you keep playing as your kid in the same world) and run with it :)
I have considered having worlds bleed into each other... but I'm not sure how yet!
An interesting analysis, and certainly an 'oldschool RL' one. I get what you're trying to say, but I think the hypothesis falls down in equating 'being a better player' with having any impact on your enjoyment of the game.
For some, being the very best is certainly their main aim (and I'd heartily agree with you for multiplayer games) but as RLs are almost exclusively single player pursuits, the key is surely, with any game, to have the most fun possible. Regardless of how 'serious' the game is, by virtue of it being a game it is something that someone must do for enjoyment.
Interesting thoughts! Now, I would draw a distinction between "fun" and "enjoyment" (or some other word) - I think Jon Blow has spoken a lot on this topic (my apologies for endlessly quoting him, but the man's design philosophy is extremely close to my own). To me, "fun" implies a level of irrelevance, of triviality, frivolity, and passing amusement (which there's obviously nothing wrong with), whereas "enjoyment" (though I personally prefer "engagement") implies something much deeper, much more meaningful, and significant to the player in some way. I don't think roguelikes are "fun", but I think they're incredibly engaging/enjoyable... but as you say, the core goal is to give the player a _______ experience (fun/enjoyable/whatever), but I remain confident in my hypothesis that, in the longer run, lacking the ability for a "true win" (whether or not a player considers an unlock to be a "minor win" or not) is detrimental to player ______.
I totally agree about unlocking! But I think it is great when that is reaching a new dungeon level, finding a new boss, acquiring a new Rune, entering Gehennom for the first time, going to the Far East in TOME, reaching the Chest in Isaac, whatever, because these "unlocks" are a) part of the game, not "on top" of the game, and b) they should yield massive satisfaction without changing future playthroughs in a game mechanics sense, but they should change future playthroughs in a gamer skill sense, since they've learned how to get that far.
More than that though, dying IS demoralizing and keeping the player enjoying themselves should surely be the core principle of a good game. A game shouldn't be judged to be good just because it keeps to the oldschool laugh-in-your-face-as-you-cry method of handling player death, and rewarding the player for their tenacity could be seen as just as encouraging to building up RL skills as anything.
I fully agree! But I think a player's longer-term enjoyment will be higher if "forced" to learn (even if that makes some players fall by the wayside) - or, rather, I think not having metagame unlocks polarizes players towards those who will grab the bull by the horns and run with it, and those who will drop out, and I think cultivating those amazing "I just beat NetHack for the first time after ten years and IT IS THE MOST AMAZING FEELING" posts is more important than ensuring *all players* get something.
Don't get me wrong the fact that you can easily die because you didn't think of a solution and need to play it a few times isn't a problem... But instead of thinking "How would a player think of a solution?" they think that players will want to beat their head into a wall and hope that when the wall crumbles will be a solution, but often no.
[...]
I think Roguelikes are a great genre but I think that creators of roguelikes need to think about their games more critically rather then just flaunting features as if they were "good in it of themselves".
Great analysis (both the bits I have/haven't quoted) and I agree with pretty much all of it. The issue you identify in the first line is a major one: I think it speaks to a condescending attitude towards players, assuming players can't think of a solution and would just rather level up/grind/keep trying the same thing over and over (I'm sure we've all seen people trying literally the same approach in a game a thousand times instead of adapting). Maybe the "fault" lies both with players and developers here.
And the last line I quoted, I am in complete agreement. Permadeath is not a glorious mechanic in its own right, but only when coupled with a lot of others.
The Crawl : Stone Soup tournaments are a good way for that game devs to observe what is going on with their game, and possibly modify things to get it better and/or more balanced in regards to specific situation.
And a good way to check feedbacks from the stats regarding the new areas/classes/species they introduce/remove from time to time.
Those stats are least are useful in the way that they're provided directly by players gameplay, not only game theories.
Agreed - that ties into a few of my minor "world blurring" ideas for URR... but let's get NPCs out first!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 25, 2015, 12:03:19 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/Snazzy.png)
Post by: Servant Corps on May 25, 2015, 12:07:31 pm
Quote
I have considered having worlds bleed into each other... but I'm not sure how yet!You probably already thought of this 'bleeding', but just in case...
The whole point of the game is to sneak your way into the final dungeon and start modifying history, right? So if you lose, somebody else was able to successfully modify history instead. Lower Iraq is renamed to Uqbar, the origin story of the Ejiop civilization changed, maybe the war-mongering Tribe of Narik started embracing pacifism instead, etc. But the winner decided to do only just minor changes and variations. Enough to keep the player off-balance, but still retaining enough familiarity for the player. I would suggest keeping the world name the same, though, to make it blatant the continuity. Eventually, after a few hundred deaths, the minor changes will add up and produce a world completely unfamiliar to the starting conditions.
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 27, 2015, 04:20:50 am
Ok now that's good.QuoteI have considered having worlds bleed into each other... but I'm not sure how yet!You probably already thought of this 'bleeding', but just in case...
The whole point of the game is to sneak your way into the final dungeon and start modifying history, right? So if you lose, somebody else was able to successfully modify history instead. Lower Iraq is renamed to Uqbar, the origin story of the Ejiop civilization changed, maybe the war-mongering Tribe of Narik started embracing pacifism instead, etc. But the winner decided to do only just minor changes and variations. Enough to keep the player off-balance, but still retaining enough familiarity for the player. I would suggest keeping the world name the same, though, to make it blatant the continuity. Eventually, after a few hundred deaths, the minor changes will add up and produce a world completely unfamiliar to the starting conditions.
Post by: Mipe on May 27, 2015, 04:29:35 am
Teaser for the next URRpdate:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/Snazzy.png)
Where can I order one? And please tell me you're shipping to Europe!
Post by: puke on May 27, 2015, 05:15:22 am
Do you have any blog posts that talk about your actual artistic techniques? These are some of the high level bullet points I'd love to see you expound upon a bit:
- which portions of a art are procedural rendered, and how
- I assume you do a lot of mixing-and-matching between a selection of "templates", how do you make them fit together? How do you decide what the parts will be and how they will interact?
- I assume things like color and pattern are overlays, what are the challenges of making an overlay fit on an image (especially one that gives an impression of depth). An example here is how the pattern rolls onto the sleeves in the images above. Another example is wood grain on some of the furniture you have
- How do you decide when to use diagonal tiles, and when not to? For example, you use them in the front of the robe, but not on the collar or sleeves or cuffs. It seems that the design is both practical (does not give the exact angle you might want) and also stylistic (use of tile types is consistent within various parts of the image)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 31, 2015, 06:13:55 am
The whole point of the game is to sneak your way into the final dungeon and start modifying history, right?
Ja! I was thinking about having this an ongoing thing, but actually I think it might be more interesting if it's *only* the final sequence in the game where you reshape the world? Still thinking over the specifics, but yeah, that's about right.
So if you lose, somebody else was able to successfully modify history instead. Lower Iraq is renamed to Uqbar, the origin story of the Ejiop civilization changed, maybe the war-mongering Tribe of Narik started embracing pacifism instead, etc. But the winner decided to do only just minor changes and variations. Enough to keep the player off-balance, but still retaining enough familiarity for the player. I would suggest keeping the world name the same, though, to make it blatant the continuity. Eventually, after a few hundred deaths, the minor changes will add up and produce a world completely unfamiliar to the starting conditions.
That's a cool idea! But it still means the *player* in the second playthrough has more knowledge than the player *character*, and a totally new world each time ensures this can't happen. So I haven't decided for sure, but I'm probably going to go with a much "milder" bleeding effect.
Where can I order one? And please tell me you're shipping to Europe!
Ha, soon, soon! Though I might actually make some merchandise if/when I finally put up a Patreon like lots of people have asked for.
Hey Mark,
Do you have any blog posts that talk about your actual artistic techniques? These are some of the high level bullet points I'd love to see you expound upon a bit:
- which portions of a art are procedural rendered, and how
- I assume you do a lot of mixing-and-matching between a selection of "templates", how do you make them fit together? How do you decide what the parts will be and how they will interact?
- I assume things like color and pattern are overlays, what are the challenges of making an overlay fit on an image (especially one that gives an impression of depth). An example here is how the pattern rolls onto the sleeves in the images above. Another example is wood grain on some of the furniture you have
- How do you decide when to use diagonal tiles, and when not to? For example, you use them in the front of the robe, but not on the collar or sleeves or cuffs. It seems that the design is both practical (does not give the exact angle you might want) and also stylistic (use of tile types is consistent within various parts of the image)
Hey! For the most part, I don't - the blog updates which are about URR are always design/creatives updates, not "technical" updates. This is basically because I don't particularly find writing about the technical details of the game to be especially interesting, and when one has written a blog every weekend for the last three and a half years, you need to keep writing stuff you find interesting! It's also partly because I don't want to "give away" stuff unique/distinct to the game. However, I will since you've asked I will see if I can put together an entry of that sort... but i have a lot of URRpdates coming in the next few months, and a backlog of at least half a dozen general games criticism entries which I haven't written yet and still need to upload, so I'm afraid I can't guarantee it'll be any time soon!
Post by: Robsoie on May 31, 2015, 10:19:10 am
I mean usually roguelikes and co are mostly silent, but there are some exception (recently replayed DoomRL and Infra Arcana) that feature a sound atmosphere that contribute a -lot- to the immersion in what is otherwise just terminal console coder stuff.
While DoomRL has to help itself the Doom franchise that put before even playing the player into the ambiance even if the monster/weapon sounds weren't there, Infra Arcana sound system is building the lovecraftian atmosphere and the tension all around fantastically.
Maybe this is something URR could benefit from, by example walking in a city street while hearing some medieval city sound, entering some temple and hearing some ... temple-related sound, walking in forest and hearing ... etc... would certainly make the game more immersive in my opinion.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 31, 2015, 01:06:17 pm
Are you considering a sound system for URR ?
I mean usually roguelikes and co are mostly silent, but there are some exception (recently replayed DoomRL and Infra Arcana) that feature a sound atmosphere that contribute a -lot- to the immersion in what is otherwise just terminal console coder stuff.
While DoomRL has to help itself the Doom franchise that put before even playing the player into the ambiance even if the monster/weapon sounds weren't there, Infra Arcana sound system is building the lovecraftian atmosphere and the tension all around fantastically.
Maybe this is something URR could benefit from, by example walking in a city street while hearing some medieval city sound, entering some temple and hearing some ... temple-related sound, walking in forest and hearing ... etc... would certainly make the game more immersive in my opinion.
A most intriguing question. I am, though it's not high on the priorities list. I totally agree with your logic though: it could lend a wonderful sense to it... particularly if I could somehow get some kind of system going which creates different ambient music for each nation?!?!
?!?!?!?!?!
At the same time, though... I know nothing about music, and I'm not sure if I could ever create such a system myself, which would necessitate some degree of outside help, so we'd have to see. I'm certainly not ruling it out though!
This week's update:
So, last week I posted an entry which generated a huge amount of discussion here, on Reddit, on Twitter, and (if past experience is anything to go by) probably a few other places I haven’t even noticed. To those who I still owe replies to – I’m getting to them! I’ll be posting a follow-up next week, but this week we’re onto another URRpdate, finally!
Clothing Generation
This week I’ve been working on both generating clothing styles for different civilizations. There are currently six “archetypal” clothing styles, each of which has three sub-styles within it, and each sub-style has its own variation between specific items of “identical” clothing (just small things like the width of clothing relating to the size of its owner, fractional colour differences, that kind of thing). As the maximum number of feudal civilizations the game allows at any one point is eighteen, this works out perfectly, so all/most of the styles will be reflected in each game (though I might add more later). I’ve so far worked entirely on upper-class clothing for rulers, aristocrats, military commanders, etc. There are several dozen colour combinations, and each nation will pick one for its upper-class clothing and then have those same colours reflected, to a lesser extent, in its middle/lower-class clothing. This week we’ll have the upper-class clothing, then next week the follow-up to the metagame post, then the week after that, probably the remainder of clothing and some early development of crowd mechanics, if we’re lucky?! So, here’s an illustrative sample of five of the six “archetypal” clothing styles (the last one is not yet finished):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/Snazzy2.png)
Going clockwise from the top left, these are inspired by “classic” Western medieval clothing of leather (or other material) waistcoats and a shirt underneath, though here I’m treating them as a single garment; the second is inspired by Japanese kimonos; the third is inspired primarily by older Chinese styles of dress, and also some more “tailored” Western styles; the fourth (i.e. the bottom-right corner) is inspired from a range of styles including far more ancient Babylonian and Hebrew dress; the fifth is based on a lot of Eastern European royalty, and the sixth will be based on Renaissance Western Europe (but is proving surprisingly tricky to realize). These then have the three sub-styles as described above – which consist of different patterns, different locations of buttons, lengths of sleeves, sizes of collar, colour schemes, etc. To take a closer look at the variation within one archetype, let’s go with the Hebrewlonian (???) archetype, of which I’ve included three below. (There are actually a dozen different possible patterns which can appear on the “clasps”, but just weirdly enough, all three I took for this picture happened to select the same one, and now I’ve only just noticed this and I’m severely disinclined to go and generate them again, so we’re just going to have to make do with these). The right is “average” size (which will include “muscular” or whatever other build definitions I wind up with), the middle for someone slim/athletic, and the right for someone much heavier-set. So these would be belong to three neighboring civilizations who might have experienced a level of cultural bleeding between each other’s society, but maintain their own styles of dress nevertheless:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/05/Robe-Variation.png)
So, each of these might be tethered to a different culture, but I’ll also be sure to place those cultures next to each other (think pre-modern China, Korea and Japan, for instance), so that you get some sense of “similarity” (sometimes) between clothing styles of nearby nations (though given that many nations might have complex territorial shapes, there is only so far this can be pushed). Naturally there will be coupled with appropriate lower-body garments, boots, gloves, etc, and then we’ll be done with clothing for this release (with armour and weapons… next release?). In the new NPC lookup (or the same for the player) you’ll be able to scroll through all the clothing on an NPC to let you examine what culture you think they might be from. Maybe a logical mechanic would be to have NPCs judge the player, at least in part, based on their clothing style (and many other factors) so that there might be some ability to attempt to pass “undercover” in nations unfriendly to your own. As with everything else: the game will never tell you “this is the clothing style of Nation X”, but once the player has that learned that, you should be able to come to recognize those you encounter in the street, or the origins of foreign merchants/travelers, etc.
I’m now working on two things simultaneously: crowd mechanics, and remaining items of clothing for middle-class and lower-class citizens, and then lower-body garments, boots/shoes, etc. I’m basically working to an “interim” deadline right now since I want to show off a stable build with crowd mechanics functioning (and all clothing items implemented) at the IRDC 2015 I’m hosting on 27-28 June, so all academic work is on hold now whilst I grind towards that goal. Metagame follow-up next week, then more delicious URRpdates!
Post by: Retropunch on June 01, 2015, 12:54:32 pm
A most intriguing question. I am, though it's not high on the priorities list. I totally agree with your logic though: it could lend a wonderful sense to it... particularly if I could somehow get some kind of system going which creates different ambient music for each nation?!?!
?!?!?!?!?!
At the same time, though... I know nothing about music, and I'm not sure if I could ever create such a system myself, which would necessitate some degree of outside help, so we'd have to see. I'm certainly not ruling it out though!
HNNGGGGG!!!! Procedurally generated music is fascinating and I long after it with a deeply depraved and barely contained lust. I've attempted it in the past and it is difficult to make good 'songs' but to make ambient/background music/sounds is a lot simpler.
Basically (and some of this you will no doubt know) - music revolves around scales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_%28music%29). however, on top of that there are broken chords and arpeggios which are sort of like rule sets. This is how jazz musicians are able to improvise for hours and hours at a time, as they just follow a scale and it all works - as long as you stick within a scale (and some other rules - circle of fifths and so on) you literally cannot 'clash'.
As you can see here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_scales_and_modes) there are LOADS of scales, so you could just stick to those (see caveat) - they all have a very different feeling. The 'Gypsy' scale produces a very 'gypsy' like tone for instance (thanks captain!). You could link a scale with each civilization along with certain instruments (from the basic MIDI list) and that'd give an incredible personality to each civilization.
Caveat: It's really, really hard to 'make' your own scales/rules - your made up ones just won't sound like music to how most people perceive music. Whilst this takes some of the 'whole new world' away from things, it's necessary to do that otherwise 98% of your players would find it excruciatingly painful to sit through.
I'd give it some serious thought as it could be incredible.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 04, 2015, 11:16:39 am
HNNGGGGG!!!!
[Further comments]
I'd give it some serious thought as it could be incredible.
HNGGG indeed! I will give it some thought, but it's inevitably not going to be anywhere near the top (or even the middle) of the priorities list :(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 06, 2015, 07:16:10 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/06/05/roguelike-metagames-the-sequel/
Post by: Piotrhabera on June 12, 2015, 01:28:08 pm
If there would be much more clasps that form something like this:
[][][][][]
[][][] [][][][][][][][] [][][]
[][] [][][][][][][][][] [][]
[][][][][][][][][][]
==========
[][][][][][][][][][]
[][][][][][][][][][][][]
[][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
[] - clasp of metal
=== - belt
It would look like this (or at least similar) to a splintmail!
Can't wait to play that update.
Question: Does clasped (and pretty much any) clothing code-wisely gives very basic protection?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 13, 2015, 05:03:46 am
(I like that image a lot)
No, all clothing gives the same amount of protection, i.e. basically zero. They're just visual differences, and therefore means for the player to note the potential wealth and cultural allegiance of an NPC at a glance.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 14, 2015, 06:17:48 am
Upper-Body Garments
There are currently seven “archetypes” for upper-body clothing, an example from each being shown below. I’m working on an eighth archetype but it is proving extremely challenging to make it look anything other than awful, so that one might not see the light of day. Regardless, each of these has three sub-archetypes, making for twenty-one high-level “clothing styles” at present, each of which then undergoes extensive randomness within that clothing style, meaning that even if the maximum number of feudal nations are present, there will still be several “unused” high-level clothing styles left over – so that’ll do for now.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Snazzy1.png)
Lower-Body Garments
It is very challenging to make “trousers” which look even vaguely as interesting as upper-body garments (or boots or gloves, for that matter!), but I’ve done my best. The “Japanese” and what I have taken to calling “Hebrewlonian” archetypes in the above picture (middle top, and third bottom) will count as both upper- and lower-body garments, whilst the lower-body garments shown here will be distributed to the rest of the clothing styles. Although in many nations there will be little sexual dimorphism (so to speak) between clothing styles for men and women, this will not be the case in some cultures, and a “dress” clothing archetype has yet to be worked on (I’ll get to it in the next few weeks). So some nations have the J/H archetypes above for both sexes; some nations will have the other above clothing for both sexes; some will have different clothing for the two sexes (and this will all, obviously, be chosen procedurally). So, some trousers/skirts etc (skirts are especially hard to make interesting, but I’ve done my best):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Trous.png)
Boots
Now onto the “paired” items of clothing – boots (and gloves). I decided for the time being to forego “shoes” and go with something of a Game of Thrones/TV-adaptation-of-Wolf-Hall logic, i.e. that even those at the very top of society have to give something towards practicality and pragmatism, and basically wear extremely nice boots, rather than wearing beautiful footwear which never comes anywhere near a bit of mud. Boots, like gloves, have a distinct item for each in a pair, so that we can handle things like losing limbs, damaged limbs, etc, later in the game. Gloves and boots use the same colour system – they take the established colours from the clothing above, and then blend it 70% into a generic “leather” colour, to give the impression of dyed leather. Boots are therefore deliberately a tad less “striking” in colour than other items, but still maintain a strong semblance of the same colour schemes. Remember, as always, that you’ll never see these next to each other in game!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/PBG.png)
Gloves
Gloves are coming soon… but possibly not before the end of June, since now that I have the three most essential items of clothing in place, I’m working solely on NPC mechanics in preparation for showing off an interim “0.8”-ish building at the UK IRDC at the end of the month.
Complete Generated Clothing Sets:
Here are some complete (aside from gloves) “sets” of clothing – note, of course, that the zoom level does vary across each item of clothing so that the player can see maximum detail, and you’ll obviously never see them all in-game “lined up” like this, but I think it’s quite nice to look at some of the aesthetic consistencies across different items of clothing belonging to the aristocratic echelons of a given civilization:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Clothes-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Clothes-2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Clothes-3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Clothes-4.png)
(Note that Set 4 contains no lower-body garment since the robe covers both the upper- and lower-body slots, and also in some of these examples, the underlying pattern – square, diamond, etc – varies, which it won’t in the actual game.)
I will be working on middle-class and lower-class/slum clothing soon, but that’s taking a back-seat now to work on some mechanics for the version I want to be able to show off at the UK IRDC. There will also, of course, be distinct clothing styles for nomadic civilizations and tribal civilizations, but those are going to come along later, although I do have some ideas for what types of generators I’m going to build for both of those.
Future Mechanics
Clothing generation is increasingly pointing towards an obvious but potentially very interesting and unusual mechanic: the ability to “fake” being a member of a given culture. Perhaps you can don clothes of other cultures (and perhaps lighten/darken your skin, as many real-world explorers and “adventurers” in the distant past did for exactly this reason?) and attempt to “pass yourself off” as a native in a distant land… which then yields potential gameplay around attempting to maintain the deception, say appropriate things in conversation, and give nothing away, whilst perhaps other NPCs are capable of noticing slightly unusual things about your character which suggest to them that all is not as it seems? I think this could be some really interesting territory to explore in the future…
What next?
Well, we now have heads, upper-body and lower-body clothing, and boots, so I’d say we’re about to ready to actually create URR’s NPCs. This week I’m going to be working on optimizing the field-of-view algorithm which needs some serious improvement for the next release, creating the new “character lookup” window which has room to include a face and to scroll through their clothing (and in 0.9 their armour and weaponry, if any), and continuing to work on crowd mechanics, spawning/de-spawning NPCs, etc. See you next time for an update on hopefully all of these things!
Post by: Antsan on June 14, 2015, 06:46:15 am
Quote
As such, I am putting a few small limitations on this variation to guarantee “plausibility” (in this one regard) according to the real world, which is to say “full dresses” will never be generated as a male clothing style.Aww, shucks. I was hoping for dresses for men. :-[ My big brother wears dresses and he really manages to look very manly with them.
Quote
BootsWill there be religious orders who have to go bare feet? I think I remember there where some Christian monk… order group thingies, I don't know what they're called in English… that always went barefooted. Maybe make this a possible religious restriction? It could have practical consequences, with all the hazards boots are supposed to protect you from.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 14, 2015, 07:24:15 am
QuoteAs such, I am putting a few small limitations on this variation to guarantee “plausibility” (in this one regard) according to the real world, which is to say “full dresses” will never be generated as a male clothing style.Aww, shucks. I was hoping for dresses for men. :-[ My big brother wears dresses and he really manages to look very manly with them.QuoteBootsWill there be religious orders who have to go bare feet? I think I remember there where some Christian monk… order group thingies, I don't know what they're called in English… that always went barefooted. Maybe make this a possible religious restriction? It could have practical consequences, with all the hazards boots are supposed to protect you from.
That's really interesting! Actually, in light of a lot of feedback (your's included), I've decided to change that - maybe it was a bit of a cop-out (for anyone wondering, my logic was entirely in the interests of preventing some players from being "amused" by having male NPCs wearing "dresses", i.e. the problematic history of transvestism being seen as inherently "comic", and a concern over unintentional humour, not one over any kind of desire to replicate the real world, since clearly playing out alternate histories is a big part of URR's intentions), and if someone chuckles... then they're probably not the kind of player I'm after! I've since updated the entry and the game's code; dresses for everyone! (Or whichever nations choose them).
Yes, definitely, and I like the idea a lot. There will definitely be some clothing things for certain religious orders, though I need to figure out how that is going to integrate with the rest of the clothing generation...
Post by: Antsan on June 14, 2015, 08:07:58 am
Oops, I think I mixed up dresses and skirts here. My big brother is wearing skirts, not dresses, a bit like this:
(http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/phpthumbnails/55/55150/55150_1_800.jpeg)
(http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/phpthumbnails/30/30688/30688_1_800.jpeg)
Source (http://www.trendhunter.com/slideshow/manly-skirts-and-dresses)
If you want, I might be able to get you a photo of him wearing a dress, if that is of interest in any way. I don't know. It's a bit different from these people.
Still, dresses for men, yay! :D
Post by: Retropunch on June 14, 2015, 08:56:28 am
These look fantastic and the variations are extremely interesting - I'm guessing peasants/non-aristocracy will wear a lot plainer/standard items, with perhaps a basic pattern or small identifier of caste/class?
Lastly, I wondered how easy it would be to add on some small defects/damages? I could imagine you might be able to quickly layer on some mud/sand on boots or some minor tears/scuffs in fabric, which would differentiate things more and give a more 'lived in' feel - especially for those from not in aristocratic classes.
Post by: varsovie on June 14, 2015, 10:31:37 am
QuoteAs such, I am putting a few small limitations on this variation to guarantee “plausibility” (in this one regard) according to the real world, which is to say “full dresses” will never be generated as a male clothing style.Aww, shucks. I was hoping for dresses for men. :-[ My big brother wears dresses and he really manages to look very manly with them.QuoteBootsWill there be religious orders who have to go bare feet? I think I remember there where some Christian monk… order group thingies, I don't know what they're called in English… that always went barefooted. Maybe make this a possible religious restriction? It could have practical consequences, with all the hazards boots are supposed to protect you from.
That's really interesting! Actually, in light of a lot of feedback (your's included), I've decided to change that - maybe it was a bit of a cop-out (for anyone wondering, my logic was entirely in the interests of preventing some players from being "amused" by having male NPCs wearing "dresses", i.e. the problematic history of transvestism being seen as inherently "comic", and a concern over unintentional humour, not one over any kind of desire to replicate the real world, since clearly playing out alternate histories is a big part of URR's intentions), and if someone chuckles... then they're probably not the kind of player I'm after! I've since updated the entry and the game's code; dresses for everyone! (Or whichever nations choose them).
Yes, definitely, and I like the idea a lot. There will definitely be some clothing things for certain religious orders, though I need to figure out how that is going to integrate with the rest of the clothing generation...
Meh the fact we associate dresses with females is a somewhat wide spread idea, but it is still a punctual idea that doesn't hold in all societies of the day and of the past...
I don't think you should censor URR to fits todays "western" ideas, except maybe for child trafficking because that would certainly make a lot of publicity. :P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)
Post by: Piotrhabera on June 14, 2015, 05:39:00 pm
QUESTION: Since these clothes are really beautifull does the player starts with a full set of this clothing? Or he just starts with peasant articles of clothing? or a bit of that and that?
Post by: Robsoie on June 14, 2015, 08:28:50 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 15, 2015, 06:58:33 am
That's cool! I'm happy dresses for men are back in again.
Oops, I think I mixed up dresses and skirts here.
[...]
Still, dresses for men, yay! :D
Oh, right! Yeah, those were always in (but
Historically, a lot of clothing (even togas for example) are a lot more dress like than today.
These look fantastic and the variations are extremely interesting - I'm guessing peasants/non-aristocracy will wear a lot plainer/standard items, with perhaps a basic pattern or small identifier of caste/class?
Lastly, I wondered how easy it would be to add on some small defects/damages? I could imagine you might be able to quickly layer on some mud/sand on boots or some minor tears/scuffs in fabric, which would differentiate things more and give a more 'lived in' feel - especially for those from not in aristocratic classes.
Very true! Yes indeed, plainer items, fewer identifiers of nationality, but still come broader aesthetic/spatial outlines, I hope. Still working on how exactly that'll look! For the UK IRDC everybody is basically going to be wearing super-swanky clothing, but that's just how it has worked out. Not for the actual 0.8 release though, of course. Defects/damage is a tricky one, and I'm trying to think about a nice "generic" system which can apply damage, but it's a bit of a nightmare...
Meh the fact we associate dresses with females is a somewhat wide spread idea, but it is still a punctual idea that doesn't hold in all societies of the day and of the past...
I don't think you should censor URR to fits todays "western" ideas, except maybe for child trafficking because that would certainly make a lot of publicity. :P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys)
I'm not! As I outlined in the entry, it was *not* in any way an "ideological" decision, purely a "pragmatic" one out of a fear of unintentional humour; but I now realize that was a rather cowardly cop-out, so I've acknowledged the mistake, and changed things appropriately :).
Seems you were able to supply us with MOAR clothing of noble class. More pieces of fine masterwork.
QUESTION: Since these clothes are really beautifull does the player starts with a full set of this clothing? Or he just starts with peasant articles of clothing? or a bit of that and that?
Thanks! Yes, the player will start with a full set of upper-class clothing for their nation of choice.
Rather impressive clothing pieces , are you planning to make headgear too (crown, hat, hood, rags, bonnet etc...) ?
Cheers! Yes indeed, headgear is coming; certainly crowns, of course, but hats... I'm not sure about those. I did a few experiments and they all looked abysmal, so I'll have to experiment/investigate further.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 21, 2015, 05:33:28 am
Before we start this week’s entry, I have some other stuff you might all like to read! This week I had a piece published at First Person Scholar about the intriguing player-AI dialogue which develops in the danmaku game “Warning Forever” (http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/warning-forever/), and a piece in Memory Insufficient about the alternate history aesthetics of the Red Alert series (http://meminsf.silverstringmedia.com/art/alternate-history-aesthetics-in-red-alert/). If you’re interested, do give them a read and support those other two sites!
Now, on to this week’s many attractions:
Clothes as Items, and Inventory Changes
Clothes have now been transported out of the file I use for working on the game’s graphics and added into the game itself, and turned into items (with a horrifyingly large number of variables – it took me much longer to integrate them than I expected). When you look at an item of clothing, it tells you nothing except the quality of the tailoring – “ornate”, “well-made” or “poorly made” – and what type of thing it is – “shirt”, “pair of trousers”, etc, and tells you nothing about the nation it is from, as that’s part of the learning/discovery process. Along side this implementation, the inventory system has been changed. Previously there were different keys for each action, so one would press ‘d’ to ‘drop’, ‘D’ to ‘drop several’, ‘t’ to throw’, and so forth; they’d then bring up your inventory, you’d select the item you wanted to perform the action with, and go ahead and do it. However, this meant you only saw the picture of the item when you pressed ‘i’ to simply look at your inventory, and that meant the images were (to an extent) being wasted. I’ve now changed it so that there are only two inventory functions: ‘i’ brings up your inventory, and ‘D’ allows you to drop many items at once (without looking at them). When you now press ‘i’, therefore, and choose an item, a line of text at the bottom of that item lists everything you can do with that item, so you always get to see the graphics, and the range of possibilities for each item is made a lot clearer (so things you can wear, or things you can use in some way, or eat, or whatever). I think this is a lot better, makes more use of the graphics, and tidies up the UI a little (given how many roguelikes use every damned letter on the keyboard). An example of a piece of clothing currently un-worn, and one being worn:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Options.png)
Character look-up
The look-up window for any character (player or NPC) has now been significantly changed and upgraded, and faces have also been moved out of the graphical-testing file and fully integrated into the game’s code. The first page currently shows the face of the NPC you’re looking at (or your own), and lists everything that person is currently wearing (which is visible; rings are “invisible” if they have gauntlets/gloves). The second page will soon show health, but I’m still working (yet again!) on thinking through how health is going to work, so we’ll have to see, and for now it has been removed (and will probably stay removed for 0.8 unless I finally figure out how health will work, even though I know how combat is going to work). So here’s a shot of me (without a first name, so the name up there is my family name), and this time I happened to be in the “scarification” civ. You’ll also notice I’ve made all eyes into a light grey instead of white! The reduced contrast is far less jarring.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Blue-man-shirt3.png)
Browsing clothes
The coolest thing about the new look-up? You can now hit Enter and browse through all the things a character is wearing, using the arrow keys. As you move around the “grid” of things the character has on them, each image then appears on the right-hand side (the first time the right side of the screen has ever been specially used!). For now, therefore, you can look over the upper- and lower-body garments, and boots, but I’ll be working on all non-armour garments in this release, meaning that we’ll be adding gloves, and probably cloaks too, but armour will come next time, and necklaces and rings will come… whenever. Either way, here are some nice illustrative screenshots of this! (With some placeholder first names and surnames…)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Blue-man-shirt.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Blue-man-shirt2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Blue-man-shirt1.png)
NPCs are now spawning
This speaks for itself, really, given the above screenshot. They don’t move, think, react, converse or do anything yet, but they are there, and the game can handle them and draw them correctly, and the player can ‘l’ook at them and browse what they’re wearing. My objective for this coming week before the IRDC is to really crunch and try to get crowd mechanics working to the point that NPCs will spawn and despawn out of the player’s line of sight. As for line of sight and field of view, there’s something cool on that point later down this entry…
Genetics, Culture, etc
I’m pleased to say (and one might extrapolate this from the integration of the facial images) that we’ve now got a model for genetics and cultures spreading around the globe. Genetically the game now chooses large chunks of land for eye and hair colours (they bleed out around the edge, but these screenshots show only the dominant colour in each region; equally, although these are very geometric and unsmooth, that doesn’t ultimately matter, since populations of NPCs in-game will always blend and travel). The first picture shows eye colour variation, the second hair colour, in a generated world:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Genetics-Banner2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Genetics-Banner3.png)
As for how these work for individual NPCs, basically, each nation has a “core” set of values for their skin tones, eye colour, etc, and that’s based on what values are present in their capital city specifically. Equally, they can also spawn NPCs who might have been born hundreds of miles from the capital, but are still within the same nation. The further you get from a nation’s capital, therefore, the more and more people you’ll see who are born according to the demographics of that particular area, and the closer you get to the capital, the more you’ll see people who look like the people of that capital city. Cultural norms will be maintained however far you go – so people in the capital and a distant colony have the same hairstyles – but visual/genetic markers (eyes, skin, hair colour, etc) will vary as you move around. So if you have a capital city on the far, far east, and a colony of that nation on the far west, and in that colony you might expect 25% to “look like” they came from the capital in terms of eyes/skin/hair colour, most to look “native” to that colony in eyes/skin/hair etc, but they will be visually unified according to their hair styles, other cultural markers, beard styles, clothing, etc etc. So we basically have two layers – the “genetic” and the “cultural” – and these blend and intertwine as you move around the world. Also, different types of civilization have different levels of cultural variety – the open and well-traveled nomads have the most variation within a nation, the small tribal societies have the least, and the feudal civilizations are somewhere in the middle.
Field of View Optimization (at last!)
People have been asking for this for years, so I have finally put some time into optimizing the field of view algorithm, and now you can see basically everything on-screen at one time. Buildings will still have a reduced field of view, and it’ll reduce at night, too, but here’s a screenshot and a gif of wandering outside in the daytime:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/Grenery1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/06/URR-fov.gif)
Next Week
Well, the IRDC is in a week’s time, and I’m crunching like mad to get some kind of NPC pathfinding/crowd mechanic simulation going there. It’s going reasonably well, and I think I’ll have something good to show off, but I’ve been running into some fundamental design questions – can NPCs push past each other, for instance, if one occupies a tile the other wants to get past – which have surprisingly far-reaching algorithmic implications for how pathfinding and gameplay will actually play out in the longer run.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2015, 03:27:09 am
Post by: PanH on June 27, 2015, 07:17:41 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2015, 04:24:13 pm
This looks really good !
Thanks!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 29, 2015, 11:28:09 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2015, 12:05:27 pm
We have two levels of resolution: the map grid the player is walking around on, and then every other map grid (in the 250×250 tile world map) which is not currently loaded. Therefore, any NPCs who are important but are not currently spawned must be tracked by the game when they’re on a non-loaded world map tile. This, of course, gets very complicated when you have an important NPC start on the loaded map tile the player is walking around, and then step off that map tile onto another… and then how do we track them over, say, 50 turns if the player THEN decided to follow this important NPC onto another map tile, spawning that tile (which the NPC has been walking in, even though it hasn’t been spawned)? Well – for the time being we aren’t worrying about that, although I think I have a good solution. What I’ve been doing this week is getting the standard crowd spawning and walking around sensibly in city districts, which means Lower-Class, Middle-Class, Upper-Class, Military, Market, City Centre, and Religious districts (docks and castles are still not spawning; castles will be coming 0.9, and docks either 0.9 or 0.10 depending on how development plays out).
I tried a few systems last week where NPCs could walk freely around the map without paying attention to the roads, and this ran into two issues. Firstly, having 100+ NPCs moving at once was necessary for the city districts to not feel like a ghost town (even if I made sure the game slyly spawned/de-spawned NPCs around the player to give a false impression of greater density) and this, on 200×200 maps, was beginning to cause minor performance issues; secondly, it just didn’t look very interesting, and there didn’t seem to be any real method or deliberate action to what NPCs were doing. If you trailed them until they hit their target location, they’d just then choose another location, and repeat.
So, this new method had three logics: firstly, to create a form of pathfinding which doesn’t actually need the game to calculate paths to reduce CPU usage; secondly to make NPC movement seem more deliberate; and thirdly to allow NPCs to “path” (or rather, fake-path) towards the gates at the edge of cities, and thereby withdraw themselves from the map if the player trails them long enough, rather than just continuing to identify new locations on one map which they are allowed to travel between. So, I got to work.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Layouts1.png)
The first step (above picture) was to identify areas of the map which a) any NPC could walk (light green), b) which any NPC could walk on and which were curves in the road which the NPCs would have to stop walking straight to traverse (yellow), and which only certain NPCs would be allowed on (dark green) for each of the seven current city districts. There are also some areas of the map which aren’t roads which are blocked to some NPCs (like the courtyard in a mansion, for example), but those aren’t integrated just yet. I created this secret road map, got NPCs spawning on roads, wrote a bit of code for them to be able to identify another road coming off the first road, and let it run.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Jerking.gif)
The first trials would up like the above picture. NPCs spawned on roads, and could sometimes path correctly… but they were always looking for other branches of the road networks they could move onto, but seeing parts of the road they were already on as being a “different” road, and therefore they kept flicking uncertainly back and forth between hundreds of subjective “roads” which, to a human player, would be obvious.The next step was to add a road_direction variable (basically the same as the player’s facing variable) where they keep track of what direction they have been moving, and they can’t read a “road” into their current direction, or their opposite direction, and thus will only detect new roads to explore if those roads are at right-angles. I then upgraded the code for the curves, creating hidden “lanes” for the NPCs to path along:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/New1.png)
Which can be usefully compared to the overall pathfinding map for the same district…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/New2.png)
…for when we come to NPCs moving off the roads.
Anyway. With that fixed, I upped the number of NPCs, and we got this wonderful image:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Humanity.gif)
This looked cool, but it was a bit too dense, and they looked too similar all sticking to the road paths rather than diverting. We’ll be coming to the “going off the road” issue later in this entry, but the next step was to try and balance their spawning, de-spawning, and the density of the crowd. I firstly needed to make sure an equal number were spawning in front of the player and behind the player, and that some NPCs would spawn directly at the gates, even if those gates are in full sight of the player, and that they would then cut back across the player’s movement. Once that was done, and people were likely to spawn in front of the player, and behind, and at all different locations – and a full complement of civilians was spawned before the player even set foot into a map grid – we had something which looked much better. Here’s a gif of watching a wide range of people wandering around (for now it is spawning them with a random culture, rather than spawning an appropriate population distribution for each nation), and then after they’ve walked around for a bit, I decided to have a closer ‘l’ook at one of them and browse their clothing:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Takealook.gif)
And here’s a comparable screenshot of “examining a passing NPC” in progress, which I have chosen simply because I really liked how this guy looked:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Coool.png)
Two stages now remain: to ensure this works for all city districts (and then extend it to tribal settlements, fortresses, towns, etc), and to also make sure that sometimes NPCs wander off the road and go exploring on their own. The first is still in progress, but the second seems to be going reasonably well. The objective is to get the NPCs very rarely “breaking off” from the road and heading to other places on the map, either a randomly-selected location (which they are allowed to walk on), or a door they are allowed to go through (so a random “human” (‘h’) can path towards a random house in a lower-class or middle-class district, and then if the player sees them go through, that NPC is then associated with that house). Equally, we should have a small number of NPCs spawn off roads out of the player’s line of sight, and then path towards the roads, and then move towards road properly. When working nicely, this gets the majority of NPCs keeping to the roads, whilst very rarely we see one of the NPCs break off and head elsewhere, and if you follow them, they will either carve a path through the terrain or make their way to a door and then pass through – I’m clearly going to need some flavour text for “You see a person go through a door”, “You hear a door open and shut” if you’re right next to it but don’t actually see them go through, etc (whilst making sure this doesn’t get obnoxious and it doesn’t fill up the message log). As was suggested in a previous thread, I’m also going to add lots of flavour text when you enter/exit buildings, but that’ll come later this release. I’m still finishing off the pathfinding to non-road areas, so that’ll probably come next week when I’ll likely have finished pathfinding (I hope) and have the remainder of that to show off, and possibly some other clothing too? See you then!
Post by: Retropunch on July 05, 2015, 12:17:23 pm
I'd suggest you designate some open spaces as meeting points and have some path to there and then just stand around for a few hundred turns (with a bit of shuffling). I'd then maybe make sure more people go into houses at night (I had some go to a bar, and most go home) and then just have one or two out on the street (martial law districts could have no one out?). I also had npcs path to other npcs on occasion - I never got this working 100%, but it started to look really good, especially when they then went to a bar/shop together - it really looked like they were meeting friends and going off with them.
Can't wait to see how this progresses!
Post by: Robsoie on July 05, 2015, 12:45:51 pm
Are you planning some smaller towns/villages, isolated groups of houses along those very big cities and then much smaller crowd too ?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2015, 10:17:30 am
Great entry and it looks really impressive!! From my own foray into this I had to add a few things in to make it look 'realistic'. Firstly a few random groups hanging around did wonders for 'realism', as did some very basic scheduling. People aren't always going somewhere, and having them always on the move just made it seem too much like a conveyor belt rather than proper walking.
I'd suggest you designate some open spaces as meeting points and have some path to there and then just stand around for a few hundred turns (with a bit of shuffling). I'd then maybe make sure more people go into houses at night (I had some go to a bar, and most go home) and then just have one or two out on the street (martial law districts could have no one out?). I also had npcs path to other npcs on occasion - I never got this working 100%, but it started to look really good, especially when they then went to a bar/shop together - it really looked like they were meeting friends and going off with them.
Can't wait to see how this progresses!
Excellent, and I love all of these ideas! I agree about the conveyor belt, which is why atm I'm working on having NPCs break off from the road sometimes to do their own things. I do intend to have some special groups who wander around, though I'm still working on the best way to code that (probably a "follow the leader" design), such as groups of merchants, foreign travelers, religious proselytizers, etc. However, I hadn't considered the idea of having people meet then walk off (a great one, I'll add it!) and also having people hang around in logical areas (parks, monuments, etc). I also need to handle loads of other stuff like people going in/out of buildings, etc, but that comes after the exterior crowd is completely finished.
Also, I was sad not to see you at the IRDC :( - it might be in Paris next year, and I *fully expect* your presence!
Very nice moving crowd .
Are you planning some smaller towns/villages, isolated groups of houses along those very big cities and then much smaller crowd too ?
Thanks! Oh yes, we have villages; next week's blog entry will talk a bit about this, but I need to finish this system off for all city districts (working on it now), and then expand it to slums, graveyards, villages, tribal settlements and fortresses, each of which will require a couple of tweaks to make it work correctly and get a crowd which behaves sensibly and logically within that context.
Post by: Retropunch on July 06, 2015, 11:26:44 am
Great entry and it looks really impressive!! From my own foray into this I had to add a few things in to make it look 'realistic'. Firstly a few random groups hanging around did wonders for 'realism', as did some very basic scheduling. People aren't always going somewhere, and having them always on the move just made it seem too much like a conveyor belt rather than proper walking.
I'd suggest you designate some open spaces as meeting points and have some path to there and then just stand around for a few hundred turns (with a bit of shuffling). I'd then maybe make sure more people go into houses at night (I had some go to a bar, and most go home) and then just have one or two out on the street (martial law districts could have no one out?). I also had npcs path to other npcs on occasion - I never got this working 100%, but it started to look really good, especially when they then went to a bar/shop together - it really looked like they were meeting friends and going off with them.
Can't wait to see how this progresses!
Excellent, and I love all of these ideas! I agree about the conveyor belt, which is why atm I'm working on having NPCs break off from the road sometimes to do their own things. I do intend to have some special groups who wander around, though I'm still working on the best way to code that (probably a "follow the leader" design), such as groups of merchants, foreign travelers, religious proselytizers, etc. However, I hadn't considered the idea of having people meet then walk off (a great one, I'll add it!) and also having people hang around in logical areas (parks, monuments, etc). I also need to handle loads of other stuff like people going in/out of buildings, etc, but that comes after the exterior crowd is completely finished.
Also, I was sad not to see you at the IRDC :( - it might be in Paris next year, and I *fully expect* your presence!
I was dying to get there but unfortunately work was unavoidable (I tried my best! apparently 'ascii-addiction' isn't quite in the DSM yet) next year though! next year!
I did follow the leader for groups, but I also had them do a check every so many turns (quite a few) to see if they still wanted to follow the leader - that led to some nice sort of 'breaking away from the group' actions. I also tried to make them stop in a group and then move on a bit later as well - I never got that right, but it seemed like a good thing to do. I eventually had nearly all npc's in groups (2-8), with only relative few on their own - that looked a lot better in my opinion and seemed more realistic.
The hardest thing for me to do was get 'standing around' to look realistic. It's surprisingly difficult to walk the line between static and mad-jittering!
Post by: Antsan on July 06, 2015, 05:13:45 pm
Could you maybe put your images into spoiler tags? Every time I jump to the latest unread message, my browser first calculates the position of that message and then starts loading the pictures, leading to me ending up somewhere far above the message that actually should be at the top of my screen.
Post by: Retropunch on July 06, 2015, 05:54:07 pm
I hate to interrupt this discussion, but…
Could you maybe put your images into spoiler tags? Every time I jump to the latest unread message, my browser first calculates the position of that message and then starts loading the pictures, leading to me ending up somewhere far above the message that actually should be at the top of my screen.
I'd also kinda like that just for keeping up on discussions. It'd be great if you could!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 11, 2015, 06:01:39 am
I was dying to get there but unfortunately work was unavoidable (I tried my best! apparently 'ascii-addiction' isn't quite in the DSM yet) next year though! next year!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAUOPHqx5Gs
I did follow the leader for groups, but I also had them do a check every so many turns (quite a few) to see if they still wanted to follow the leader - that led to some nice sort of 'breaking away from the group' actions. I also tried to make them stop in a group and then move on a bit later as well - I never got that right, but it seemed like a good thing to do. I eventually had nearly all npc's in groups (2-8), with only relative few on their own - that looked a lot better in my opinion and seemed more realistic.
The hardest thing for me to do was get 'standing around' to look realistic. It's surprisingly difficult to walk the line between static and mad-jittering!
Sounds very nice for groups; my groups don't yet "shatter" or move onto other things, but I've found they look better as a slightly more determined group of people walking around the map. However, I am having groups form/un-form in certain areas as you suggested, like parks, memorials, around taverns and markets, etc, and as you say there's a surprisingly tricky line between standing still and jittering like mad which I'm still refining (for the time being they come together, stand still, and then eventually dissipate, but I'm hoping to integrate a little bit of wandering in today's coding session!). There will be some screenshots coming later today in this week's URRpdate...
I hate to interrupt this discussion, but…
Could you maybe put your images into spoiler tags? Every time I jump to the latest unread message, my browser first calculates the position of that message and then starts loading the pictures, leading to me ending up somewhere far above the message that actually should be at the top of my screen.
Heh, thanks for the suggestion! Sure, will do (or at least, I'll try to remember to do so)...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 11, 2015, 08:32:03 am
Permissions (and Guards)
Each tile of the human-scale in the game now has a variable called only_allow – this lists the permissions required to enter that tile (if the list is empty, than anyone can enter it). For example, we might have (“Religion”, 25) which means that believers of the religion with the “25” id can enter it, (“Family”, 6), and so forth. Sometimes I’m sure these will overlap, though currently they do not. At the moment these restrictions exist on upper-class mansions (where only that family and its allies can enter), warehouses in shop districts (so that random citizens don’t path towards them for no reason), religious buildings in religious districts (where only believers will enter them, though I suppose very occasionally someone from another hostile religion will…?), embassies in city centres (which are heavily guarded), and military districts per se. I’m sure some others will appear in the near future, but those are the only permissions in the city so far. As well as the existing crowd mechanics, I’ve also begun to write the code for guards who are tethered to a given permission, and are alerted if/when that permission is violated, and will act accordingly – but this isn’t a crowd mechanic, and isn’t finished, so we’ll talk about it more later. Here’s a simple example of a permissions diagram for an upper class district along with the outside of that district, where the areas inside walls for each of the major families is blocked for any outside that family (I will be adding in “lesser families” this release and giving them appropriately less-impressive crests). It’s simple, but effective (the other houses around the edge are wealthy, but not wealthy enough to merit guards, “territory” in the district, etc).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Irrelevant and Branching Roads
The NPCs on roads now avoid (for the most part) roads which go nowhere, and if they do go down a road which goes nowhere, they know that and will generally branch off and move towards their own target outside the road system. Equally, NPCs will no longer run in circles sometimes (a major improvement, as I’m sure you’ll all agree) and won’t branch onto tiny pieces of road. They can also cross each other intelligently without losing their sense of direction – in an earlier version two NPCs walking around each other would sometimes get “diverted” by the act of stepping around each other and wind up changing direction. Many of these irrelevant roads are also connected to permission-based areas as in the above section, and this is obviously a system I’ll be developing in more depth in the future as NPC/player relationships and factions become more complex. So this is the district from the above diagrams, where the light green roads can be walked by anyone, and the dark green roads either cannot be walked, or will only be walked by those with appropriate permissions or pathfinding objectives:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Moving Off-Road and On-Road
As above, NPCs can now sometimes decide to move off the road to find their own targets. They’ll do this if they see themselves approaching a dead-end road, and they’ll sometimes do this anyway regardless of what kind of road they’re on. In these circumstances they either select a region of the map where there is nothing in particular and path to there, and then continue pathing from there to elsewhere if the player is still viewing them (or despawn if they’re out of sight), or they will choose to path towards a specific door (which they have permission to enter) and then go through that door. As the below gif hopefully shows, this makes the movement of NPCs appear far more organic and stops NPCs looking like creatures just being channeled down the road with no ability for doing their own thing. We’ll obviously see how this works once we introduce important NPCs who have their own non-crowd objectives, etc, but you can see it pretty well in the gif in the section below…
Crowd Generation
The game can now generate appropriate “crowds” who might move around. For example, a civilization with the “Theocracy” and “Vassalage” ideologies might decide to have priests moving around their city, escorted by priests. A civilization with the “Monastic” (new to this release) and “Conscription” ideologies might enlist conscripts to escort high-ranking monks safely. Equally, there are some more general groups – groups of clerks and diplomats in the city centre, groups of general humans in any area, etc – who can also spawn in any nation regardless of their ideological preferences. Here’s an example of a priest and a few general citizen followers moving around a district – one will also note that certain skin tones are surprisingly hard to see against the road’s background colour. On the one hand, all roguelikes which expand their colour schemes a little bit (e.g. DF, CoQ, etc) will sometimes have certain colours which can’t be combined well, and whilst it’s annoying I’m not sure if there’s a solution; but on the other hand, maybe there is some solution? Change the road colour to make it more grey so it always stands out against all skin tones? I’ll ponder it. Either way, this gif starts with a priest (‘p’) being escorted by a bunch of soldiers (‘5′) moving around the corner around this religious building. I then just let it play on a little longer to see the slaves (since this is a slaving nation) wandering about. Note also that the game ensures the priest is “leading” the little convoy, since i had some problems with the leader’s escorts dancing around in front of the leader due to a quirk in the pathfinding system. Enjoy!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
“Party” Generation
I’ve also implemented a system where “parties” (in the “group” sense of that word) can spawn more organically around certain areas – these include parks and gardens, around taverns, around markets, and in graveyards. In this case a number of NPCs from all over the map will path towards the area and then basically “hang around” for a while, before then making their way off. I’ve found around some places it gives an interesting feeling to these areas when you just sit and watch, and although I’m still working on exactly balancing the algorithm so that the ebb and flow of NPCs is exactly how I want it, this gif from a city centre garden is *fairly* illustrative, though it still needs some tweaking. And bear in mind, of course, one isn’t generally going to be waiting around to see the grounds form and un-form, but I’ve just stood here for this example so we could see groups forming, growing, and then disbanding.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
District Demographics
I’ve also implemented a system for spawning appropriate demographics of NPCs (and their clothes, items, etc) for each NPC who spawns in each district. This comes down to three things: NPC type, NPC wealth, and NPC “distance”. To explain this slightly better, let’s have a look at this diagram, newly added to the in-game Guidebook (‘?’ to access). This is (currently) the full set of possible NPC types which will be able to spawn in the game:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So, NPC type is the “class” of NPC – we might want general humans to be spawning in lower-class housing districts, classes of soldier to spawn in the military districts (who I intend to give patrol routes to, but that hasn’t been coded yet), clerks and diplomats might be spawning in the city centre, and so forth. Capital letter NPCs will be specially tracked by the game, whereas lower-case NPCs make up the crowd. Also, nations which keep slaves will spawn slaves in the appropriate districts, just as nations which have eunuchs will spawn a very small number of those unfortunate individuals around the place. NPC wealth, meanwhile, means currently the quality of their clothing (and, in the future, the quality of any armour, weapons, bodyguards, jewelry, etc) – this is obviously closely tied to the district that the crowd NPC is spawning in, but with some variation. Middle-class districts spawn mostly middle and a few lower wealth NPCs, lower-class districts do the reverse, markets spawn an even mix, and so on. NPC distance, lastly, relates to whether the NPC spawning is from that nation and from its capital; from that nation and from a distant town or colony; or from a different nation altogether. Currently everyone who walks around in a city is from that nation (though I will of course later add groups from other nations) but might be from different regions, so you’ll see people who are culturally similar – clothing, hair style, etc – but physically different (skin tone, hair colour, eye colour, etc) as they come from different areas of the same nation. The game picks all of these according to a range of factors, and then spawns a mix of NPCs appropriate for the crowd in a given nation.
Bugs and Issues
In this process I ran into a bunch of bugs and issues. Firstly, for some reason, saving and loading the game would cause the AI for each NPC in the crowd, and the NPC itself, to become disconnected so they no longer referred to each other, meaning that when I tried to delete “self” from the list of NPCs when a given NPC no longer needed to be around, it couldn’t find self, and crashed. Weird. I tried to find a proper solution to this issue, but in the end I just changed it so that the scheduler only referenced the .npcid of each NPC, rather than the NPC itself, and that meant that even if some byte somewhere in the AI changed itself in saving/loading for reasons I could not divine, the npcid was always remaining the same (being a variable, not an instance of the AI class attached to an instance of the NPC class), and so the game could always identify the correct NPC and AI to delete upon reloading. Similarly, moving on the human-scale from district to district made some weird errors like massive groups of NPC suddenly spawning and NPCs from the next map tile teleporting into another map tile, but those were all quickly fixed. Some maps were also coming up with extremely rare tiles which didn’t have a .roadmarker variable, which denotes what NPCs are/aren’t allowed on it and whether it is a road curve which should be treated specially, but that was due to another bug I hadn’t even noticed involving the types of terrain spawning under trees (we had some trees spawning on road tiles!). This has all been sorted, and it all runs extremely smoothly. Additionally I noticed some unnecessary variables were still stored on every tile in the human-scale maps, so those have been removed, and save files have been reduced by around 15% as a result, with an attendant (very minor) improvement in load times!
Next up?
Well, the next things to do are to extend this outside cities. I need to get NPCs behaving sensibly in slums, graveyards, villages, fortresses and tribal settlements, each of which is going to need some unique changes to the algorithms I’ve worked on for cities. After that, we’ll be moving onto handling NPCs within buildings (and entering/leaving buildings), which is obviously extremely imporant. Then we’ll be moving onto unique NPCs who are specially tracked by the game because they matter (merchants in shops, rulers, nobles, etc) and who therefore need to be able to move around the world. These three steps are my three primary goals for the rest of July (it’s a lot, but I think I can crunch it), then in August I’ll be moving onto finishing off clothing styles (we’ve got feudal clothing almost finished, but I need to add military clothing, religious clothing, nomadic clothing, and tribal clothing, so there’s still a ton to do on that front!) and adding in a conversation system to the game. This system is going to be essential, so I really need to think hard about how the conversation system should work, what the balance is between the hand-made and procedural, etc. Then I need to redo how families and allegiances/associations work, fix a bunch of minor bugs from the last few versions which continue to stack up, and then 0.8 will (amazingly) be pretty much done. Aiming for a September release currently, which is around the time I’ll be starting a new job I can’t yet formally announce, and probably starting work on the other secret project I also can’t yet announce (both game-related, though!). Exciting times! Let me know what you think of this week’s development, and I’ll see you all in seven days…
Post by: Man of Paper on July 11, 2015, 09:08:15 am
Question first though: What resources did you use to learn Python? I found a few helpful toot orioles but they covered the bare minimum and weren't great for someone with passion but no experience. I've put the learning on hiatus with a new demanding job as the only cashier that does his job properly and gives me the worst hours and, if you're familiar with the show Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Charlie Work as well, and balancing my social life between friends and ladyfriend. So without some sort of clear instruction other than "u make lists now, u kno if/then, figure out da rest", I've found it hard to dedicate time to trying to create a universe out of nothing.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
WHY DO YOU ALWAYS POST WHILE I TYPE THIS IS LIKE THE THIRD TIME. I don't pop into the thread for months and the ONE TIME I do and go to post...
So I take it defacing altars and the like will be something you and NPCs can do? Or am I reading too far into "though I suppose very occasionally someone from another hostile religion will…?"
In the NPC Types image it says "lower-class letters". Is that another one of those things different between 'Murica and the UK or is it supposed to be lower-case? I ask only because when I saw lower-class letters my brain automatically made the assumption that the people they were tied to were lower-class citizens.
Post by: Retropunch on July 11, 2015, 01:07:11 pm
My one thought about the difficulty of colours matching is that it's always better to prioritise clarity over aesthetics. Looking at ASCII for any length of time (and URR is going to be getting a lot of playing!) is already a difficulty, and if you're not easily able to pinpoint things without peering it'll become painful.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 14, 2015, 03:47:22 am
Thoughts!
Well thank you! That's awesome to hear. So glad you like the graphics! There's a few more to come this release once I start working on castle generation, which is long overdue, but I may start working on today or tomorrow. Resources for Python: I basically just used the Python+libtcod tutorial and experimented with it, and that was it, aside from very rarely going onto Stack Overflow and asking some
Shovel-related thoughts!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And as for more general discussion, go for it!
This all looks incredible as always. Very interesting and the thing with guards/permissions is a very good idea.
My one thought about the difficulty of colours matching is that it's always better to prioritise clarity over aesthetics. Looking at ASCII for any length of time (and URR is going to be getting a lot of playing!) is already a difficulty, and if you're not easily able to pinpoint things without peering it'll become painful.
Guards are actually temporarily being delayed to bring other things forward, since I think I want to implement them once there's a bit of a conversation system in place, so they can say "Oi, you!" and so forth. (Which I am told is what guards are wont to do). This week I want to get the crowd in towns, fortresses and villages finished tomorrow (today demanded other non-URR but still game-related priorities) then I might actually start working on castle generation. I was struggling to get to sleep last night, and in a blinding flash of clarity I realized how I wanted castle generation to work, and how bloody great it was going to look...
I totally agree re: clarity. I've done some experiments in shifting road colours towards grey a little more, and all skin tones towards red a little more, and it seems to be aiding in clarity, but I'm going to continue experimenting this week!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 19, 2015, 05:26:04 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/07/18/focus-syncself-and-gaming-feedback/
Post by: chooseusername on July 24, 2015, 06:32:07 pm
Resources for Python: I basically just used the Python+libtcod tutorial and experimented with it, and that was it, aside from very rarely going onto Stack Overflow and asking someIt sounds like you've avoided some of the pitfalls of development.idioticincisive questions now and then. I bought about half a dozen books but I never actually read any of them, andincinerateddonated them a few months ago when I had a big clear. I just found experimenting to be a far easier method to learn, along with asking the odd question; there was just so much in the "textbooks" that was simply unnecessary to my survival as a Python-based RL developer.
The pitfall that I wonder about, are the questions which are basically "what happens if I do this?" or "does this work that way?" The developer has implicitly stalled to ask something which they could likely have worked out by themselves in a few minutes, and lost whatever momentum they had. If they even get it back after a few hours, or whenever they eventually get an answer, is up for debate.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 27, 2015, 07:36:32 am
---------
Well, it has been another very busy week – I gave a talk on URR’s PCG and AI systems at nucl.ai in Vienna (and spent an afternoon sitting the sun outside a rather nice vegan cafe working on the secret project I’ve mentioned a few times, which continues to inch closer to the point where I can actually announce something) and I’ve also had a piece the 35th Anniversary of Rogue published in Paste Magazine (which you can read at http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/07/before-spelunky-and-ftl-there-was-only-ascii.html) and another on the role of text and characters in classic roguelikes published in Imaginary Realities (http://journal.imaginary-realities.com/volume-07/issue-03/how-integral-are-letters-and-text-to-ascii-gaming/index.html), but nevertheless significant progress has been made (though I anticipate this next week to be a full week of coding with nothing else, so we should have a major update in seven days).
Towns, Fortresses, Etc
NPCs can now pathfind sensibly around other places which aren’t city districts – they know where to spawn and how to behave in the crowd in fortresses, in towns, in slums, and also in hunter-gatherer encampments. In these cases they generally don’t use the roads, because having people pathfind on a road until they get close to their target, and then move off the road, magnifies pathfinding complexity immensely – what if they get near the target, but then the actual path from the end of the road to the target is long due to a wall (so they are physically proximate but the path to that proximate location is huge), and the complexity of the problem of making sure they take an efficient road path, followed by an efficient off-road path, is massive – so we’re ignoring it. Besides, particularly in towns I think this actually works quite effectively when roads look more like a form of aesthetic/spatial structuring of the town rather than literally what everyone uses to walk around, and fortresses tend not to have roads anyway unless there’s a river cutting through them. The right groups of NPCs now spawn in fortesses and elsewhere, of course, so we see lots of soldiers in fortresses, the poorest of the poor in slums, ordinary citizens in towns, and tribal peoples in hunter-gatherer territories. This is, however, making it clear that I need to return to clothing generation at some point soon and really get moving on the other algorithms for lower/middle class feudal clothing, and other clothing types too – it’s a huge job, and actually bigger than I thought, so I’m going to devote a solid week or two to that once I’m back from GDC Europe (if you’re there, come along to my talk!). Here’s a town brimming with activity:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Town-Wandering.gif)
Inside/Outside
The big one – NPCs now actually go inside buildings (they previously despawned at the door, in essence) and if you then go into the building, you can then see that same NPC inside the building. If the building has already been spawned and exists, then the NPC will go about their business inside the building. Alternatively, if the building hasn’t yet been spawned, they are temporarily placed in “limbo” until one of two things happens. If the building is spawned (i.e. by the player stepping inside), then that NPC is granted a number of turns to move around in the building as if they had been moving around inside the whole time. Alternatively, if an NPC has “entered” a building that the player doesn’t spawn, then after a random length of time they will the leave the building and continue on their way. In this method we are left with no pointless NPCs milling around in “limbo”, ensures that the crowd is always centered on the player, and means that if you see NPCs going into a building, they will be inside. In this gif, an NPC has previously entered this tavern; we’ll now enter, causing the building to spawn, and then the NPC spawns and we see them take a seat, and then if we go outside, they’ll exit again after a certain point (at the end we then see another NPC enter). This basically means that regardless of the player’s actions and which parts of the map actually exist, the crowd’s actions always appear to make sense. A similar system will be needed once I start tracking the important and non-spawned NPCs around the world (rulers, merchants, etc).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Tavern.gif)
Inside Behaviour
NPCs will now create a list of potential “targets” within a building and will hang around at those targets for sensible amounts of time, and then when those timers end, they’ll either leave or go to something else within the building. This process depends on the building and the nature of a given target. For example, someone who goes into a tavern and sits on a chair to drink for a while will not then get up and move to another chair – they’ll either just stay on the chair, or get up and leave. By contrast, somebody in a cathedral might spend a lot of time sitting at one chair worshipping in front of an altar, then move to study the holy texts at a desk, then talk to a priest, then leave, etc. I’m working at the moment on finishing off this list of targets, and then also adding a second layer whereby the list of targets is modulated by the time of day; so people will tend to leave as its gets near night, or people in this houses will head to bed, etc. Here’s a gif of some inside behaviour in a tavern:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Taverntime.gif)
As you can see, more people currently leave than enter; I’m working on balancing these two algorithms at the moment so we have a steady flow of entering/leaving whatever structure the player might happen to be in at the time.
Sorry also about the relative lack of images this week: a huge amount of this week’s work has just been improving pathfinding, improving how NPCs move and behave, a lot of technical improvement on saving/loading and managing buildings and floors and buildings which are/aren’t spawned, etc, so there aren’t that many pictures to show. I hope for more next time!
What now?
Making the interior behaviour sensible and interesting for all NPCs, giving buildings a “maximum” number of people they can hold, adding day/night differences, fixing the massive number of edge cases which are slowly building up… etc. More next week!
Post by: bluwolfie on July 27, 2015, 09:59:16 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 01, 2015, 02:25:24 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 01, 2015, 03:27:19 am
PTW
A wise choice you will not regret.
I like. Seeing as you've got all the pieces separately, do you plan on showing full-body images of NPC's bedecked in all their gear? As for crowds, what do you think of showing a band pic of a posse, or a random selection of city faces to get a feel for the place?
No - for reasons of size/scale, things are generated at different scales, ASCII/ANSI obviously can't then really be "scaled" well. What kind of thing do you have in mind for showing a selection of faces? My thinking is that upon encountering a new nation and looking at/talking to the people, the player should get a decent impression just from that (and from seeing the crowd move and noting what types of NPCs actually spawn in that crowd)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 01, 2015, 07:01:36 am
Prayer Mats
I took a moment this week to do some graphics, and decided to finally implement something I’ve been meaning to for ages: prayer mats. Some religions now use prayer mats in their religious buildings instead of chairs, and the design of these mats is dependent on both the religion, and the civilization the religious building is found within (so religions across many nations will have similar, and aesthetically comparable, but slightly different, prayer mats across nations). The colour scheme is based on the altar, as shown in the three examples here, and the shapes (squares, octagons, etc) are down to the nation, whilst the specific layout of shapes and symbols, and obviously the religious symbols, are down to the religion. Here are some rather nice examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Mas.png)
And some prayer mats in a religious building and a cathedral (note that the colour of the maps vary based on the actual mat colours, though now ‘=’ can’t be used for anything else!):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Matchurch.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/MC2.png)
Further Interior Behaviour
This week I’ve done a lot more NPC interior behaviour. There is still a little bit which needs doing, particularly with special cases – NPCs going into banks should talk to the clerks, for instance, just as NPCs in hospitals should go and sit by the bed-side of someone they know, etc, but a lot of these actions are now working very nicely. In a cathedral, for instance, I just sat by and watched as NPCs came in and prayed at the altars, sat on the chairs/prayer mats, looked at the relics, admired the cathedral’s decoration, talked to one another, sat down to study the holy texts, etc. Here is an awesome gif of this which is neat enough to watch to the end, I think, of various people in this cathedral (the one above) doing these types of activities:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/CathWorship.gif)
Next up was the gallery. As with all buildings, I’m leaving the “permanent” NPCs until last – so worshippers will wander around a cathedral, for example, but there are no priests there yet, as they will be tethered to that building and a particular routine – but here we now have people coming in, admiring the paintings, and showing themselves out again. Painting generation will happen when I swoop in and redo the history generation from the fairly simple system there is now, to something which truly encompasses every piece of information in the world, and begins to lay the foundations for sneaking in clues to the game’s central cultural cipher. Anyway, the gallery:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Gal.gif)
By the end of next week I hope to have more interior algorithms finished, and by the week after, they should all be done (this week is GDC Europe and Gamescom, and I’m attending 100% of the former and ~25% of the latter, so that’ll be taking up a bunch of time). At this point I’ve implemented some general code for all buildings, and now it’s a matter of going into every building and checking the code actually works there.
Middle-Class Rivers
I suddenly noticed that under the new generation algorithm for middle-class districts, when a river goes through them, they don’t look very impressive at all, and we end up with something like this (with the issues ringed in red where multiple “bridges” seem to overlap:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Middle1.png)
This wouldn’t do, and it just looks rather dull, so I rewrote this algorithm into producing something rather more interesting, so here’s the same district using this new algorithm which encourages the river to flow around/past major roads, avoid smaller ones, and to then design the rest of the roads differently and place buildings/parks a little differently in order to accommodate the river. Here are two examples with a “corner” river and a “long” river, from the same city (note that the shapes of the corners and the roads sometimes change – I set it to randomize that aesthetic choice each time I generated an area so I could make sure the new system always worked):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/oubleriv.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/neriv.png)
Other Small Changes
A number of other minor changes have also been implemented this week:
– Colonies can now only be established with nations with the “Imperialist” ideology, rather than all nations which are not “Isolationist” (which it was until now).
– An extremely unlikely edge case involving rivers and lower-class district generation has been fixed, ensuring you never end up with a part of a district that cannot be accessed without entering the district from another angle, due to the river’s location. See below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/neriv1.png)
– Each NPC’s face is now tinted fractionally to add further diversity within nations – everyone’s faces are tinted a tiny bit (between 0.03 and 0.06%) towards yellow, orange, red, white or black at random. That might sound tiny, but the difference is noticeable.
– Roads are now grey merged with just the tiniest bit of brown, and all skin-tones are now very easy to read on it. However, others do struggle on the “soil” terrain type, so I’ll fiddle with that too (probably make it a little more green, perhaps). Equally, chairs are made out of wood – with colours that range from light brown to dark brown – and therefore chairs, in some cities, do tend to blend a little with the populous. Again, considering solutions, but I might tint everyone’s skin tone a fraction to the red.
– Fixed a thrilling bug where chairs sometimes decided to spawn in the empty void of nothingness outside the map… and then NPCs wanted to sit on them.
Next Week
As above, I’m flying out tomorrow and returning in a week, and I’ll be doing lots of GDC stuff. So… expect either a shorter update, or a non-URR update, depending on how things go. See you then!
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 01, 2015, 10:53:35 am
What kind of thing do you have in mind for showing a selection of faces? My thinking is that upon encountering a new nation and looking at/talking to the people, the player should get a decent impression just from that (and from seeing the crowd move and noting what types of NPCs actually spawn in that crowd)
Sure. Still saves time to have a "faces in the crowd" popup vs "looking" at 4 or so people. Messages picking out trends (or the lack of them) in the crowd like "you notice a lot of boots covered in sea shells" could hint at wealth, religion, ghetto's, etc.
Post by: guessingo on August 01, 2015, 06:32:08 pm
Post by: High tyrol on August 01, 2015, 07:11:16 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 02, 2015, 01:45:24 am
What kind of thing do you have in mind for showing a selection of faces? My thinking is that upon encountering a new nation and looking at/talking to the people, the player should get a decent impression just from that (and from seeing the crowd move and noting what types of NPCs actually spawn in that crowd)
Sure. Still saves time to have a "faces in the crowd" popup vs "looking" at 4 or so people. Messages picking out trends (or the lack of them) in the crowd like "you notice a lot of boots covered in sea shells" could hint at wealth, religion, ghetto's, etc.
Ah, I understand. Hmm. I don't think I'll do the pop-up idea, but the ambient messages idea is something I've definitely been intending to do once inside buildings, and I may well apply that to "the crowd" at large.
It sounds like all the development is about building this incredible game world...what is the game going to be in the world?
By the end of the next 12 months this will be very clear, but the best answer I've given is this one, which I will now copy/paste in. Basically, the game is going to be about information. You are seeking to locate a very small number of items scattered around the world; to do so, the more the player understands the world, the easier this task will be. This means conversing with NPCs, examining books, coming to learn about the cultures/religions of that world, the history of various nations, exploring and gaining access to buildings, and plotting your path around the world map to "track down" these items. It's almost a... research game, one could call it? The world is insanely detailed (and only becoming more so with every release), and it's the close examination of the world and figuring out the paths these artefacts have taken, and who may possess them now, which will be key to success! But for this to work, the world must be in place first, hence the worldbuilding focus up to this point...
Ptw
:D
Post by: DwarfOfTheLand on August 02, 2015, 02:26:43 am
Post by: Retropunch on August 02, 2015, 07:28:58 am
Just a quick question - can you (l)ook or (e)xamine npc's to tell what they're doing? Such as viewing a painting or praying or whatever?
Post by: Azazass on August 02, 2015, 04:03:45 pm
Best of luck in your development of Ultima Ratio Regum.
Post by: Piotrhabera on August 03, 2015, 09:45:19 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 03, 2015, 02:39:48 pm
Wow, it's grown a lot since the early days. Keep it up man, I hope it turns out awesome!
Thank you!
As always - fantastic!
Just a quick question - can you (l)ook or (e)xamine npc's to tell what they're doing? Such as viewing a painting or praying or whatever?
Thanks! Yes, that is the plan; now quite sure how best to do it though, given the existing NPC look-up windows. Possibly it'll be a message at the bottom instead when you look at somebody, though I don't like splitting it up between lookup and the message. So I'll try and fit it in the lookup, maybe below the nickname list etc, and make sure that list can't be so long? Alternatively, if I decide to go the bold route and have no combat whatsoever, then I can remove all the "damage" counters for clothing, and that'll free up tons of room!
The level of details of this game, it's simply amazing.
Best of luck in your development of Ultima Ratio Regum.
Well thank you kindly :).
Will the super mega detailed and amazing prayer carpet be in my own home if I or my family are pious worshippers of a god? I'd like to have such an amazing prayer carpet besides my bed for foresleep prayers of dream safety
Ha, glad you like it - yes indeed, they will certainly spawn in appropriate houses instead of chairs (or as well as chairs if there's room for both)!
Post by: guessingo on August 03, 2015, 11:01:41 pm
It sounds like all the development is about building this incredible game world...what is the game going to be in the world?
By the end of the next 12 months this will be very clear, but the best answer I've given is this one, which I will now copy/paste in. Basically, the game is going to be about information. You are seeking to locate a very small number of items scattered around the world; to do so, the more the player understands the world, the easier this task will be. This means conversing with NPCs, examining books, coming to learn about the cultures/religions of that world, the history of various nations, exploring and gaining access to buildings, and plotting your path around the world map to "track down" these items. It's almost a... research game, one could call it? The world is insanely detailed (and only becoming more so with every release), and it's the close examination of the world and figuring out the paths these artefacts have taken, and who may possess them now, which will be key to success! But for this to work, the world must be in place first, hence the worldbuilding focus up to this point...
so its going to be an RPG and not a world simulator like Dwarf Fortress?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2015, 01:53:59 am
Post by: Retropunch on August 04, 2015, 11:42:38 am
Thanks! Yes, that is the plan; now quite sure how best to do it though, given the existing NPC look-up windows. Possibly it'll be a message at the bottom instead when you look at somebody, though I don't like splitting it up between lookup and the message. So I'll try and fit it in the lookup, maybe below the nickname list etc, and make sure that list can't be so long? Alternatively, if I decide to go the bold route and have no combat whatsoever, then I can remove all the "damage" counters for clothing, and that'll free up tons of room!
Good to hear! I think it'll be fine as a message though - 'you see xyz praying' is a good way of doing it.
*Please* don't go down the non-combat route. I know it seems appealing as it's sort of not been done before and its a challenge, but I think it'll lose a ton of appeal. Mainly though, I feel it would be a bit bizarre/less realistic because you couldn't attack anyone in a time where life was pretty violent. I mean, as everyone carried around swords or weapons, and there are guards/militia that are obviously armed - it'd be a bit odd. If you tried to force it by making the player a pacifist character it'd lock out a lot of roleplaying options and stop the open play style which URR is heading for.
I've just been playing 'The Long Dark' which is a survival game where there is pretty much no combat except for wolves which you button mash to get away from. Whilst the danger is supposed to be the elements/starvation (and that is very pronounced), it lacks the danger/thrill of getting into a tough fight. I knew this when I bought the game, but I was surprised at how quickly I grew bored of it now that I know that the only danger is environmental.
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on August 04, 2015, 04:15:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2015, 05:20:37 pm
I was eager to play a RL which is not only about battling against hordes of various monsters, insanely scouring through scary dungeons in hope to possess as much valuable loot as it possible, but also about kind exploring and immersive examining. Is Ultima Ratio Regum of this kind? Regardless of your remark, it does look amazing and tempting to try out, I'm really mesmerized and looking forward to play this as the development is finished.
*Entirely*!
Post by: Aquillion on August 05, 2015, 12:01:56 am
*Please* don't go down the non-combat route. I know it seems appealing as it's sort of not been done before and its a challenge, but I think it'll lose a ton of appeal. Mainly though, I feel it would be a bit bizarre/less realistic because you couldn't attack anyone in a time where life was pretty violent. I mean, as everyone carried around swords or weapons, and there are guards/militia that are obviously armed - it'd be a bit odd. If you tried to force it by making the player a pacifist character it'd lock out a lot of roleplaying options and stop the open play style which URR is heading for.I think that people tend to get a somewhat distorted idea of the past (since we tend to have movies, games, and books about it that fixate on the "exciting" parts, which usually means combat.) Most people in the era when Ultima Ratio Regum was set would not carry weapons. In fact, depending on exactly when and where it was set, most people might not even have been allowed to carry weapons. They might have had armed guards -- but then again, they might not have. Smaller settlements likely wouldn't have actually had any formal police or guards at all, they're a modern innovation. If you count police, you'd probably have a bigger "armed militia", per capita, in most cities in the modern US than in most cities in the ancient world.
The vast majority of people throughout history have gone through life without killing anyone. (There are a few exceptions -- Sparta systematized the murder of its underclass of slaves in order to keep them in line, say -- but even then it holds true, since most of the people there would have been helot slaves; and such societies continue to attract interest because they are unusual, that is to say, not normal, even in their own time period.) In the Middle Ages, the homicide rate was a bit higher than it was today, but emphasis on a bit -- in 14th century London, for example, the homicide rate was roughly 36 to 52 per 100,000 people per year, not that far off from what it was in the nastier parts of New York's recent history.
Anyway, I'm mostly indifferent to whether violence is in the game or not as long as it's not the main focus; the main question is whether it can make doing other things (diplomacy, exploration, and so on) fun, giving players ways to interact with the world in a way that makes the things they learn about it meaningful.
Post by: Retropunch on August 05, 2015, 01:25:15 pm
*Please* don't go down the non-combat route. I know it seems appealing as it's sort of not been done before and its a challenge, but I think it'll lose a ton of appeal. Mainly though, I feel it would be a bit bizarre/less realistic because you couldn't attack anyone in a time where life was pretty violent. I mean, as everyone carried around swords or weapons, and there are guards/militia that are obviously armed - it'd be a bit odd. If you tried to force it by making the player a pacifist character it'd lock out a lot of roleplaying options and stop the open play style which URR is heading for.I think that people tend to get a somewhat distorted idea of the past (since we tend to have movies, games, and books about it that fixate on the "exciting" parts, which usually means combat.) Most people in the era when Ultima Ratio Regum was set would not carry weapons. In fact, depending on exactly when and where it was set, most people might not even have been allowed to carry weapons. They might have had armed guards -- but then again, they might not have. Smaller settlements likely wouldn't have actually had any formal police or guards at all, they're a modern innovation. If you count police, you'd probably have a bigger "armed militia", per capita, in most cities in the modern US than in most cities in the ancient world.
The vast majority of people throughout history have gone through life without killing anyone. (There are a few exceptions -- Sparta systematized the murder of its underclass of slaves in order to keep them in line, say -- but even then it holds true, since most of the people there would have been helot slaves; and such societies continue to attract interest because they are unusual, that is to say, not normal, even in their own time period.) In the Middle Ages, the homicide rate was a bit higher than it was today, but emphasis on a bit -- in 14th century London, for example, the homicide rate was roughly 36 to 52 per 100,000 people per year, not that far off from what it was in the nastier parts of New York's recent history.
Anyway, I'm mostly indifferent to whether violence is in the game or not as long as it's not the main focus; the main question is whether it can make doing other things (diplomacy, exploration, and so on) fun, giving players ways to interact with the world in a way that makes the things they learn about it meaningful.
I definitely agree that it wasn't a continual bloodbath, but I have to disagree on a few points. Things like highwaymen were commonplace in many parts of the world (France and England especially), and as such people would often hire guards or at least have weaponry to defend themselves. Similarly, things like the Law of Winchester required nearly everyone (except the very poor) to own at least one sword and a bow/crossbow. Furthermore, there were things like big peasant rebellions and general unrest which also had a lot of violence. Obviously there are vast regional and time differences, and many cities did have laws banning the open carrying of swords in the late middle ages (with the exception of arming swords or 'status swords' by the nobility), but definitely people would be armed whilst travelling/going to unfamiliar places (like we will do a lot of in URR!).
Secondly, crime statistics from those times are pretty shaky. Many contradict each other, and even if you choose some of them there would have been chronic under-reporting. I mean, without the complex means we have of finding or identifying a dead body, how are you going to determine a murder? I don't imagine many acts of violence were brought to court as most places didn't even have laws like assault and battery.
I certainly wouldn't want it to be a focus, but I would hate for it to be washed out when it really was a part of life - even if not to the Game of Thrones level of bloodshed.
Post by: Piotrhabera on August 05, 2015, 02:07:23 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 07, 2015, 07:44:32 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2015, 05:08:46 am
Thoughts
This is a great and very thoughtful comment, and thanks for it. I entirely see what you're saying. The player in URR is a minor noble (hence why you currently start outside a mansion, though in the future I need to add more detail to this aspect and have some kind of actual "intro") in which case I would think it would be more logical for the player to reasonably be trained or expect to be trained in combat. Regardless, it's certainly never going to be ubiquitous, but you've given me a lot of historical/setting-related things to ponder.
I certainly wouldn't want it to be a focus, but I would hate for it to be washed out when it really was a part of life - even if not to the Game of Thrones level of bloodshed.
I see two options atm.
1) Player can choose to pursue a combat-oriented approach, but it is entirely optional, and never forced upon a player, and player can always "surrender" (to avoid issues like the Deus Ex:HR bosses where you were forced to fight).
2) Only NPCs can "fight", player cannot, and has to pursue other methods, though can recruit bodyguards etc. This would be really weird, but really different, so... maybe?
Right now, I'm leaning towards #1. Do nothing to encourage the player towards combat, but have it a system the player can engage with if they choose (think of something like the more obscure systems in NetHack, like polymorphing, demon summoning, etc). The issue is... *fundamentally*, I think I would like to go no-combat, but I just don't see how a realistic Renaissance world could be portrayed without the possibility of combat, and if the player can't fight but others can, then how do I portray/rationalize this?!
Will legendary weapons exist in the game? Legendary weapons are those who have a legend, unique design, and superior quality (along with respect and awe) (for example "Xaqunop Kelkor" is a tri-bladed sword made from steel which was wielded by Xaqunop who has killed many monarchs) I'd love to find such legends and wield them! And if yes then where would they be found?
If we have combat... then absolutely!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2015, 05:16:17 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/08/08/gdc-europe-and-gamescom/
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 08, 2015, 02:03:13 pm
Post by: Retropunch on August 09, 2015, 11:41:33 am
I see two options atm.
1) Player can choose to pursue a combat-oriented approach, but it is entirely optional, and never forced upon a player, and player can always "surrender" (to avoid issues like the Deus Ex:HR bosses where you were forced to fight).
2) Only NPCs can "fight", player cannot, and has to pursue other methods, though can recruit bodyguards etc. This would be really weird, but really different, so... maybe?
Right now, I'm leaning towards #1. Do nothing to encourage the player towards combat, but have it a system the player can engage with if they choose (think of something like the more obscure systems in NetHack, like polymorphing, demon summoning, etc). The issue is... *fundamentally*, I think I would like to go no-combat, but I just don't see how a realistic Renaissance world could be portrayed without the possibility of combat, and if the player can't fight but others can, then how do I portray/rationalize this?!
I think the first one sounds ideal. I certainly, certainly would not want it to be a focus, but just not having it or making the player unable to fight would seem purposefully obtuse. However, the one way around it would be to make combat very deadly no matter how skilled you are (or, possibly more interestingly, have a high chance at causing long term damage/disability). This would therefore push the player a lot more towards getting bodyguards and/or other security rather than making it feel like becoming a super warrior is a priority.
All that being said, some people are going to want to pursue that path, and I think it's a fine thing to let them. With such an open world it would be a shame to restrain the player choices with the type of character they can play.
Have you thought about how much the player will be able to purchase/own in the game? Will we be able to own houses? castles? cities?!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 10, 2015, 04:44:34 am
URR is my most-anticipated adventurer gamer of all time.
Thank y'very much :).
I think the first one sounds ideal. I certainly, certainly would not want it to be a focus, but just not having it or making the player unable to fight would seem purposefully obtuse. However, the one way around it would be to make combat very deadly no matter how skilled you are (or, possibly more interestingly, have a high chance at causing long term damage/disability). This would therefore push the player a lot more towards getting bodyguards and/or other security rather than making it feel like becoming a super warrior is a priority.
All that being said, some people are going to want to pursue that path, and I think it's a fine thing to let them. With such an open world it would be a shame to restrain the player choices with the type of character they can play.
Have you thought about how much the player will be able to purchase/own in the game? Will we be able to own houses? castles? cities?!
Yeah, I'm leaning this way. We'll see though! I do like the idea of having nothing in the game which indicates the possibility of combat, and the player has to "seek it out" - and perhaps the barrier to entry is fairly high in some way. I think it would be interesting to rather than have combat as the "norm", then other methods of play for more advanced players, do the opposite: combat is only really suitable for very advanced players and is tricky to access. As for purchase/own... I'm not sure. Probably the answers to the three are: possibly, no, no!
Post by: bluwolfie on August 14, 2015, 12:45:54 pm
URR is my most-anticipated adventurer gamer of all time.
Thank y'very much :).I think the first one sounds ideal. I certainly, certainly would not want it to be a focus, but just not having it or making the player unable to fight would seem purposefully obtuse. However, the one way around it would be to make combat very deadly no matter how skilled you are (or, possibly more interestingly, have a high chance at causing long term damage/disability). This would therefore push the player a lot more towards getting bodyguards and/or other security rather than making it feel like becoming a super warrior is a priority.
All that being said, some people are going to want to pursue that path, and I think it's a fine thing to let them. With such an open world it would be a shame to restrain the player choices with the type of character they can play.
Have you thought about how much the player will be able to purchase/own in the game? Will we be able to own houses? castles? cities?!
Yeah, I'm leaning this way. We'll see though! I do like the idea of having nothing in the game which indicates the possibility of combat, and the player has to "seek it out" - and perhaps the barrier to entry is fairly high in some way. I think it would be interesting to rather than have combat as the "norm", then other methods of play for more advanced players, do the opposite: combat is only really suitable for very advanced players and is tricky to access. As for purchase/own... I'm not sure. Probably the answers to the three are: possibly, no, no!
If combat is for advanced players only, I'd imagine there would be great rewards for being successful considering the difficulty involved.
Post by: Zireael on August 14, 2015, 02:02:08 pm
I see two options atm.
1) Player can choose to pursue a combat-oriented approach, but it is entirely optional, and never forced upon a player, and player can always "surrender" (to avoid issues like the Deus Ex:HR bosses where you were forced to fight).
2) Only NPCs can "fight", player cannot, and has to pursue other methods, though can recruit bodyguards etc. This would be really weird, but really different, so... maybe?
Right now, I'm leaning towards #1. Do nothing to encourage the player towards combat, but have it a system the player can engage with if they choose (think of something like the more obscure systems in NetHack, like polymorphing, demon summoning, etc). The issue is... *fundamentally*, I think I would like to go no-combat, but I just don't see how a realistic Renaissance world could be portrayed without the possibility of combat, and if the player can't fight but others can, then how do I portray/rationalize this?!
I am also leaning towards #1. Combat being (almost) optional in DX series was an amazing thing. On the other hand, those who want to fight, will be able to. Cue highwaymen Retropunch mentioned.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 14, 2015, 05:38:10 pm
If combat is for advanced players only, I'd imagine there would be great rewards for being successful considering the difficulty involved.
I quite like this model. I'm trying to consider what kinds of requirements there would be for players to move in that direction - this will probably be something coming very early 2016, so I'll think it over for a while...
I am also leaning towards #1. Combat being (almost) optional in DX series was an amazing thing. On the other hand, those who want to fight, will be able to. Cue highwaymen Retropunch mentioned.
Yeah, "combat optional" sounds good to me. That's the model I'm going to tentatively think about going forward!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 15, 2015, 05:43:03 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 15, 2015, 07:40:26 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 15, 2015, 09:12:23 am
Will you be sharing enough of the code that visualisers could be made? I love your work, but I'd still prefer stuff like rooms full of H's in isometric or first person.
Interesting question, but I'm afraid that's not the plan at the moment :(. I doubt any of the code will be opened up.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 22, 2015, 04:46:25 am
Priest Clothing
I decided to work last week on a second of the four high-level clothing archetypes (feudal, nomadic, hunter-gatherer, religious) – the religious clothing. For this I did a standard expansive image search, collated a range of religious dresses, and then attempted to break them down into commonalities, differences, and readily exchangeable parts. The colouring of each piece of religious clothing, much like the prayer mats we saw a few weeks ago, are connected to the altars they worship at. The highest-ranking priests in the religion will have slightly snazzier robes, whilst if the religion has any kind of poverty-is-holy ideology or similar, they might have duller robes. Here is a set of six possible robes all using a potential “demonic” colour scheme (just since that’s the one I was testing the systems with, but how nice do they look?!), and then some with their attendant altars alongside (one “Eldritch” archetype, one “Pantheon”, and two “Standard”), and lastly an example of the higher tier of religious clothing reserved for religious leaders (hence the lovely gold filigree):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Priest-Clothes4.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Altvest.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Popeclothes2.png)
Priests use the same shoes as the nation they’re in, and usually the lower-class variation (though in some religions priests will be barefoot). With these done, that means approximately half the clothing generation for 0.8 is done – feudal clothing is 99% finished (I just need to put in a few final touches to the lower-class variations) and religious clothing is now finished. I’ll probably work on nomadic clothing next, as I have a few ideas of what archetypes I want to generate those around, then I’ll do hunter-gatherer clothing probably last before this version’s release. Armour and things like that will come later (0.9?) so for the time being, all soldiers and other military personnel just have lower-class clothing, or upper/middle-class if they are officers (which in the future they’ll probably keep, but just wear beneath their armour).
Slums and Encampments
The last few areas which needed handling for NPCs have been dealt with. NPC crowds now spawn, move and despawn intelligently in slums outside major cities, and also in hunter-gatherer encampments. Pictures of slum, and encampment, and example crowds:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Slumgi.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/HGcrowd.gif)
Remaining Interior Behaviour
All buildings which can have crowds in them (e.g. a tavern can have randoms wander in. but a royal mint cannot) now have those crowds behaving intelligently at all times, and – as far as I can tell – this is entirely glitch/bug/crash free regardless of what building, what civilization, what demographics the NPCs in question are, etc. Here are some examples of an arena and a longhouse, since I thought these were both rather pleasing, especially in the longhouse as people gather around the table:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Arena.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Lonhouse.gif)
Pathfinding Problems
Some buildings and some parts of the external map were starting to produce a problem – if you had two NPCs (or an NPC and the player) trying to get through the same one-tile tunnel between walls, at the same time, then they couldn’t slip past each other. I implemented a temporary solution (whereby crowd NPCs will look for another objective if they find someone blocking the one-tile route down to their current objective) but this wasn’t good enough for the future, especially once we begin handling important NPCs whose paths cannot just be changed on a whim. So, now, if you have two NPCs who meet, and NPC 1 is trying to move onto the tile NPC 2 is on, and NPC 2 wants to move onto the tile NPC 1 is on, *and neither of them can find another way around* by stepping on a diagonal, and they would both allow the other to step past them (so they aren’t enemies), then the game will look at which one of them has the longest wait until their next turn, and then schedule a special “simultaneous” turn for them both to switch places at the same instant for that more distant turn (so that neither NPC can move “faster” than it should be able to). I’ve now implemented this to work indoors and work outdoors, so here’s an outdoor (filmed in “slow motion” to make it clear) example of this:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Switch2.gif)
However, this became trickier when I wanted to combine it with the player. Clearly the player should be able to do this as well, but it required writing quite a hefty new chunk of code, for handling if the player tries to move through an NPC, or an NPC tries to move through the player, because obviously I don’t want to remove agency from the player, or allow NPCs to shove the player around the place (as that would get quickly annoying), but nor should the player somehow be able to exploit this ability to move NPCs around the map (I’m not sure how this could be an issue in the future, but it seems better to just produce a robust system now rather than worrying about it later). Either way, we clearly needed a way for NPCs to walk past the player if the player is being an ass and standing in the way:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Stuck.gif)
So, there are two scenarios: what if the player wants to move onto another NPC, and what is another NPC wants to move onto the player. It would be deeply annoying to allow the player’s character to be “pushed around” by other NPCs, so that was something I knew I had to avoid, but at the same time I had to ensure that you cannot exploit the system by somehow pushing around NPCs yourself. If an NPC wants to move onto the player, therefore, they initiate a special two-turn move, where the NPC takes two turns instead of one and “squeezes” past the player, taking both moves on the second turn – so from the player’s perspective, the NPC moves next to them on Turn 0, remains there for Turn 1, and then moves to the other side of them on Turn 2. If the player moves in the interim, then normal pathfinding resumes and the two-turn move is cancelled. (Of course, the two turn move only works if the tile beyond the player is free, the player and the NPC’s relations are friendly enough that the player would let the NPC get past, etc). Here’s an example, where I start off looking at the approaching slave, then turn to the other side, and sure enough the slaves pass “through me” using this special two-turn move:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/flip.gif)
This also results in a message being printed, along the lines of “The [NPC type] squeezes past you”. The other version is; what if the player wants to get past an NPC who is blocking a one-tile area? An NPC blocking a one-tile area and standing *still* should be an impossible scenario – I am certain there are no areas which are valid for crowd NPCs adopting the “meandering” walking type which are also only one-tile wide – so if one encounters an NPC in an enclosed space, it’ll be if you and the NPC are moving towards each other and need to cross over. If the NPC “initiates” the move, we get the scenario shown above. If the player initiates the move, then the game looks at both the player and the NPC, does the usual check of whether they are allowed to move through or not (this might have to wait until 0.9, as it’s going to be a complex calculation – for now it just returns “yes”) and then, if so, it has the player move along with the obstructing person during the later of their two turns (so if the player is next scheduled to move on turn 18174, and the NPC on turn 18175, then both will move on 18175, so that neither character is able to have a “free turn”). You then switch places with them, as shown in this example, where I step into an NPC who I am friendly enough with to switch places, then I turn around (taking one turn) and we therefore see the NPC two turns behind me, and they then leave. Had I just stood still, then they would have initiated the two-turn move, going “through” me without forcing my movement.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Mymove.gif)
The three systems shown here also work when indoors as well as outdoors. These are all very rare scenarios, and I suspect will (for the most part) only happen if the player is standing deliberately still to try to annoy the NPCs, but it still needed handling. With all of this done, I am now… 99% that all NPCs of all categories, whether inside or outside, and whether dealing with the layout of the terrain, the motion of other NPCs, or the motion of the player themselves, should be able to path correctly past any obstacles (I think there is still one final minor non-crash bug here involving NPCs who have stopped to admire something, and if they have stopped in a “line”, then other NPCs may struggle to get past, but I’m working on fixing that one). As a last note on this, it’s also worth noting that in almost all cases I’ve worked hard to ensure every corridor/path both inside and outside is, in most cases, at least two tiles wide. However, in certain areas – slave quarters, some cathedral generations, slums, and a bunch of other places – one tile corridors can generate, so it was clearly important to handle these sorts of scenarios.
Also, now I need to at some point have you be able to switch your “walking style” from “walking” to “shoving” (or “pushing”, maybe?) so that in the rare possibility of a blockade (which I *think* should be impossible, as I’ve modeled spawning a bunch of NPCs on every tile in an enclosure and they’ve always managed to find their way out so far) you can always push your way through NPCs and force them all to move into the position you previously occupied, though that might not make them all that friendly to you. Nevertheless – and although I’m not even sure such a scenario can ever happen – it seems like an important addition which I’ll probably add this release, and it should be simple (note if there’s an NPC there, and if so, just switch places with it).
Campfires
Hunter-gatherer encampments now have campfires, beds, and tables. Only the fires so far have an image, but the beds and tables will be made of either wood or stone, and will get images before the end of this release:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Campy1.png)
We still need more variation and detail in these areas – a lot more, honestly – but hunter-gatherer areas now look slightly less bleak and empty than they did a little while ago (in the above picture you can see some stone chair/tables and a second fire). More soon, hopefully, though anything beyond tables, chairs and beds might have to wait until 0.9 or a little beyond. I’m focusing on feudal nations this release (although all NPCs will be present), and it’ll probably be the next release when I do more on nomadic and hunter-gatherer NPCs and societies.
Guards
We now have guards! Guards appear outside Parliaments, Mints, Embassies, Officers’ Quarters, Armouries, Mansions and Citadels in the middle of Fortresses, and also inside Banks and Arenas (the former to guard the vaults, the latter to keep the crowd at bay and make sure nobody interferes with the combat). The game also now notes every part of the map which needs a special “permission” in order to access it, and guards are tethered to certain permissions, meaning that if the player steps onto a tile which has the (‘Embassy’,24) permission and the player isn’t from the nation with the id# 24, then the guards will act – right now the game just registers this since the conversation system isn’t in yet, but that’s the plan. So, here are some guards doing their guarding thing (they currently wear standard clothing since armour generation doesn’t exist yet):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Majors1.png)
And then here’s a slice of the visual map, and the “forbidden” map, which shows the parts of the terrain close to the armoury door which will trigger the ire of the guards, so we can see that anything within the courtyard, and some of the tiles just outside the the gate, will trigger their ire (the guards don’t show up on this view, but as we saw above, the guards are basically standing just outside the gate):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Armo.png)
So, now we just wait until later this release when I get working on a conversation system and the guards can accost you! More on this later once I figure out how precisely it works, but all the guards spawn, and detect intruders, and that’s all that matters for now.
Distance Demographics
The crowd’s demographics now vary according to the expansiveness of the nation in question. By this I mean – if the nation is small, then all people spawn with the genetic demographics (skin tone, hair colour, eye colour, etc) of the capital, or nearby. If the nation is large, the game will sometimes look for a random tile in that nation’s territory to choose the demographics from (which is to say, if you’re in the capital city it’ll normally be a “capital person”, and sometimes someone from further out; if you’re in a town, it’ll normally be a “town person”, but sometimes someone from further out) and use those to spawn the person instead; and if the nation has colonies it’ll do the same. This means if you run into two people in a nation with the same cultural demographics (clothing, hairstyles, etc) but very different skintone/hair colour etc, then you can reasonably deduce that nation is either very large, or has some colonies somewhere. Here are two examples of this kind of crowd, and the latter you’ll note has a priest leading some followers (the priest of course now spawns with the right robes). Rather annoyingly I wasn’t able to quickly find a nation which had colonies/homelands with skin tones at the two extreme ends of the spectrum, but you still get the idea from these of a lot more variation in the larger and more expansive empires:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Mixcrowd.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Mixcrowd2.gif)
Another thing this has got me wondering: in future versions (0.9 or 0.10 onwards) all the map except your home nation will be in shroud when you start. Should colonies be “lit” or not? I think the best solution is that colonies don’t start as explored, and if you take a ship to one of your own nation’s colonies, perhaps all the colony land is then revealed when you arrive? In contrast, normally, you’ll just explore the tiles around you as you move, and if you take a ship, it will perhaps show you the ocean path you move along? That seems like a good compromise without having a situation where you start with a few chunks of the map explored which are disconnected from your nation’s homeland.
Lesser Houses
I’ve now implemented the first stage in generating families/houses which are less important than the small number at the top of each civilization (one of which, of course, belongs to the player) but are still noteworthy. In nations with the “Vassalage” ideology, one of these families will have a special “Manor” building spawn in each town in that nation, and a family rules each of these manors and therefore each town. In Vassalage nations the other smaller buildings in upper class districts will also belong to these families (so they have a manor, and a home in the capital), whilst in non-vassalage districts these buildings will also belong to second-tier families, but not “special” ones (as in, rich merchants or whatever, not those with direct feudal/political power). However, for the vassalage nations, these all needed coats of arms! So, I’ve returned to the sigil generation system and added in the ability for “lesser” houses to have coats of arms. These are much simpler than the major houses, and have a geometric pattern determined by the aesthetic preference of their nation (octagon, square, circle, cross, diamond) which feeds into an algorithmic sequence that combines various elements (I’ll also add a system ensuring there can’t be more than 5 vassalage nations, and they can’t share a shape, to ensure variety across the game world). Now, bearing in mind of course there are meant to be for lesser/more general houses… what do you think?
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Subthings.png)
Compare, of course, with some examples of important families:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Majors.png)
So what do you think of the minor ones? Good, bad, too little detail, too similar, just right…? Of course, they still need mottoes, and I’m thinking of having it tether them to the towns they’re from in some way (or perhaps these lesser houses don’t have mottoes?).
What next?
Next up I’ll be working on adding more “fixed” NPCs like guards – so this means tellers in banks, priests in religious buildings, servants in mansions, officers in officers’ quarters, delegates in parliaments, and so on. This week is probably also going to see a little bit of reworking of some aspects of world generation, since I need to add in a system for vassalage nations to generate and track these other houses, and for parliamentary nations to figure out how many delegates they should have (I have a cool system planned for this), and I might add in the new “Monastic” religious ideology I’ve been thinking about for a while too. Either way, I’d say we’re about 75% through NPC mechanics at this point, and in a fortnight or so I think everything with NPCs should be finished, and then we can move onto the other massive part of this release – conversations. See you next week!
Post by: bluwolfie on August 26, 2015, 08:13:40 pm
Post by: Zireael on August 27, 2015, 11:20:49 am
Post by: bluwolfie on August 27, 2015, 03:49:22 pm
Bluwolfie, "The Wise and Patient" is a motto. Not a description.
A motto which vaguely.. Describes them, and what they are like. That's kind of what a motto is.
Post by: Aquillion on August 27, 2015, 10:26:35 pm
Post by: Retropunch on August 28, 2015, 02:16:02 am
Also, are you doing days of the week? The church/holy day would be a big one, but I can imagine other differences in days (weekends being busier in the taverns perhaps?).
How much this feeds into gameplay is obviously up to you to decide, but I feel that it's an unmissable part of a strong simulation.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 29, 2015, 08:16:17 pm
Are the members of each house going to exhibit unique traits and behaviors? I mainly ask in reference to the text describing them. "The wise and patient" for example, is it safe to assume that there are going to be sage like characteristics to such a house? And/or perhaps they gravitate to certain positions, political or scholarly? And another house may be known for their fierce warriors or haughty nature?
Anyway, I think it'd be cooler, overall, if the motto meant something. A house with "By Sword and Fire" as their motto should probably be pretty different from one with "Prosperity and Trade" or something.
Yes, the mottoes are going to have an effect on the house, but in some cases, will be "historical", but not currently relevant - so if you have a pacifist civ, and one family is "DEATH AND BLOOD" or something, then they might have once been great warriors but that will broadly be secondly to the structural changes in their nation.
Awesome as always. Just a quick question - how deeply are you delving into scheduling? I feel that it's a huge thing in terms of giving the city a proper 'feel' to it. Having the streets getting busier at the end of the work days, followed by the taverns filling up, followed by everything being quiet other than a few brothels/taverns will really make it feel alive.
Also, are you doing days of the week? The church/holy day would be a big one, but I can imagine other differences in days (weekends being busier in the taverns perhaps?).
How much this feeds into gameplay is obviously up to you to decide, but I feel that it's an unmissable part of a strong simulation.
Er... deeply enough that it looks like every single person is simulated, when that will, essentially, be unnecessary. That's this next week's task: get streets full at day time, empty/emptier at night, people return to houses, shops and taverns and whatnot close, and also things like guards change shifts, priests lock up the church go to sleep, etc.
Days of the week: I will be putting that in this release. I'll also probably add in religious festivals... though possibly in a later release. They're generated/listed at the moment, so I'll have to ponder whether they should actually appear yet or not...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 30, 2015, 05:01:30 am
So, this week it has been the turn of all the stationary NPCs. Here are some examples:
Priests
Priests now spawn in religious buildings and cathedrals. In religious buildings, the priest lives on the top floor and will return there in the evenings; in cathedrals they have distinct rooms on the ground floor to which they will retreat as and when appropriate. For the time being, however, they just spend their time around the ground floor of the cathedral interacting with the worshipers, going about their own worship, etc. There is actually a tiny bug in the below gif – the priest was standing on the same tile at the altar, when they should be standing next to the altar – but I’ve since fixed that, but I otherwise rather liked this gif so decided to stick with it.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Priests.gif)
Embassies
Embassies now have clerks and diplomats in them; the clerks are probably going to be “general” NPCs in the embassy crowd, whilst I think diplomats will be assigned to specific areas. The ambassadors for each nation in other nations will be crucial NPCs who will always be tracked separately, so they haven’t been coded just yet.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Emba.gif)
Servants/Slaves
Servants/slaves (depending on whether the nation is a slaving nation or not) now spawn and go about their business sensibly in upper-class houses. The houses will also, of course, get visitors in the form of various aristos from time to time, and then later, we’ll get working on the “crucial” NPCs – i.e. the family who lives there – generating properly. Thus, for now, here’s an example of some servants and some general citizens. You’ll note the servants will always stand next to something, either next to a person to serve them, or next to a chair/table/whatever in order to keep it clean and tidy. They’ll sometimes return to their quarters in the basement, and once I get schedules working, they’ll obviously retire there at night.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Uppercrowd.gif)
Prisoners
In jails (in nations with the Penitentiary ideology) we can now find prisoners in the cells, one prisoner per bed, milling around. As mentioned above, a small number might be someone of particular importance, but it’ll be up to the player to decipher who (if anyone) that might be. Prisoners will also be on release schedules (or at least, the lucky ones will be!) so they’ll be replaced whenever one moves out. I might add some kind of system whereby the different floors of each jail are for different types of prisoner – I’ll think about that going forward.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Jahail.png)
Archivists
Below the cathedrals of theocratic nations you’ll find a crypt… and if you explore that crypt, you might come across a room containing the most secret archives of that religion. Right now these are tables without books, as we don’t have book generation yet, but we do now have the archivist, and their guard(s), spawning. Here’s a gif of me finding an archivist in a half-flooded crypt in a city next to the ocean, and then having a look at the archivist, and looking at his religious garment (which you’ll note has grey patterning – as well as “default” robes and the “religious leader” robes with gold patterning I showed last week, I’ve added in a mid-tier version with grey patterning which will be given to people like archivists, abbots, inquisitors etc, who are higher-ranked than the average priest but not the leader(s) of the entire religion). The “Archivist” is depicted with a ‘V’, and the ‘g’s are of course the guards:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Archivist.gif)
Once books are generating, archivists will be guarding the most important secrets of their religion, so the books behind them will be immensely important to find a way to read…
More Guards
Guards have also been added to several other areas which need them, such as Officers’ Quarters, and Mansions, and various other places, and the guards for now all shout the “Oy, shop that!” placeholder (along with their x/y coordinates) once you walk into their territory:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Ofguard.png)
Monasteries
I’ve now temporarily (or permanently, we’ll see) removed the “Cultism” religious ideology and replaced it with, for the time being, the far more interesting “Monastic” option, and as such, we now have monasteries spawning. These are structured in the form of a religious building in the middle, a range of paths and vegetable gardens around it, a “loop” of monastic housing in a shape based on the civilization’s spatial preference, with several other important rooms (libraries, dining halls, abbot’s quarters, etc) spaced around the outside (or sometimes the inside). As examples, here we have a map grid containing a monastery (diamond), then the player standing outside one (cross), then inside from the player’s perspective (square) and an absolute perspective in the same monastery (circular) – note of course that all the wall in middle and edges of the fourth picture is not actually wall, since outside the monastery is where the vegetable garden is, but all the spare space in an “interior” map is just filled in with wall:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/NewS3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Monastery-Outside.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Insaad.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Inside1.png)
Next Release?
I find myself with a quandary. Everything to do with NPCs and their schedules, behaviour, appearance, etc, will be finished, at the latest, by the end of next month. However, one will not be able to interact with NPCs at this point: there will be no conversation system. At this point my intention is to continue working on this release until the conversation system is fully implemented and as deep/detailed as I want it to be, and thereby make this the largest (in terms of time invested) release URR has ever had, so looking to release in Oct/Nov. As the first gameplay release, this seems appropriate on some level – I want the first gameplay release to have a lot to do (or at least a lot of people to talk to!) rather than a little. On the other hand, I do strive (with mixed success) to release new versions as rapidly as I can. So: what does everyone think? Right now I feel I’d rather save up both NPCs and conversations for one massive first gameplay release, rather than make NPCs 0.8 and conversations 0.9, as I think a world full of NPCs you can’t interact with will feel rather peculiar… but I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Next Week
Next week… I have no idea. Something involving NPCs in some way. See you then!
Post by: Aquillion on August 30, 2015, 05:53:54 pm
This week I’ve implemented almost all the “stationary” NPCs. To explain what I mean by this, URR has three “tiers” of NPC: the crowd, the stationary, and the crucial. Crowd NPCs spawn and despawn as the player moves around the world map and are of importance insofar as they demonstrate the demographics of the nation, and you will be able to acquire significant information about the generality of the nation/religion/culture they belong to from them, and they serve also, when in crowds, to illustrate something of that nation’s ideologies (so you’ll only see a crowd with a bunch of people trailing a priest in quite a religious nation, for instance). Stationary NPCs are positioned in locations where there must always be an NPC serving a certain function, but the individual is not of particular important. Examples would be priests in religious buildings, jailers in prisons, innkeeps, guards, and many others. In some cases these individuals will “change” around after time – guards, for example, will be “met” by another guard at a certain point who will then take over the guarding role, i.e. they change shifts – whilst others, like priests, will obviously not change every few hours. Crucial NPCs, meanwhile, are those NPCs who are of sufficient importance to the game and the world that regardless of where the player is, the actions and movements of these NPCs will always be tracked. This category is primarily for NPCs like rulers, religious leaders, inquisitors, heretical leaders, nobles, military officers, and the like. Also, very rarely, what appears to be a stationary NPC will actually be a crucial NPC. Which is to say: in a jail, maybe 95% of the prisoners will be “general” prisoners, but a tiny number might have massive global significance due to their past role in a grand plot, and one wouldn’t know which was which until uncovering a path of clues which lead you to the important prisoner. Ninety-nine out of every hundred priests might be good loyal clerics… but perhaps one in a hundred hides an religious artefact of immense importance in their private quarters?I do have what might be an excessively-obvious question: Won't the player be able to figure out if a stationary NPC is crucial or not by carefully observing their movements and determining if they're being tracked in detail when offscreen?
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 30, 2015, 06:13:50 pm
Post by: Retropunch on August 30, 2015, 07:27:57 pm
Whilst I would hate to sound to be doubting your majestic development skills, I do feel that as URR gets more advanced/indepth there's a lot more scope for overlooking of some issues, and I feel the only way to get around that is to let people dabble and report back.
EDIT: Also, please try to put the pictures in spoilers! It can make it difficult to follow the past thread of updates/discussion.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 31, 2015, 12:07:32 pm
I do have what might be an excessively-obvious question: Won't the player be able to figure out if a stationary NPC is crucial or not by carefully observing their movements and determining if they're being tracked in detail when offscreen?
Good question! Basically, they will be "sleepers" - so they will only act as special NPCs when it would be obvious they were special NPCs. By which I mean, a special prisoner will behave precisely as a normal prisoner, until they are "activated" by some event. So if they are never activated, they'll never do anything different. Equally, if a non-player event activates one, then they'll stop "pretending" to be a stationary NPC anyway, so you won't get situations of the sort you describe (a very prudent concern though!).
I'd be happy to wait several months more in order to have something to do with the NPCs. In shame like this, it's such an important feature after all.
Preference noted and added to the list :).
I'd really much rather have an earlier update without conversation. This is mainly from a perspective of wanting to help - I feel that the current stage would be significant enough for us to chew on for a while and report back any bugs/problems/thoughts. Whereas if you add in conversation that'll be a huge amount of new stuff to be faced with for us to sort through.
Whilst I would hate to sound to be doubting your majestic development skills, I do feel that as URR gets more advanced/indepth there's a lot more scope for overlooking of some issues, and I feel the only way to get around that is to let people dabble and report back.
EDIT: Also, please try to put the pictures in spoilers! It can make it difficult to follow the past thread of updates/discussion.
Earlier: got it (though from both votes, and my own preference, I continue to lean towards a larger release, but no decision has yet been made).
>Whilst I would hate to sound to be doubting your majestic development skills...
(http://memecrunch.com/meme/KVZ7/blasphemer/image.jpg)
I don't disagree, and you're right, there definitely is - and in general that kind of regular feedback is exactly what I want - but I just fear that it would only feel like half a release... and since I am billing this as the "first gameplay release", there needs to be stuff to do, i.e. people to talk to! As I say: no decision made yet, but I am strongly leaning in that direction, even if it might make for a slightly slower bug-hunting process afterwards (though hopefully not).
Spoilers: sorry, forgot! I'm not used to doing that at all, so I will try to remember next week...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 06, 2015, 11:42:49 am
Now, some stationary NPCs require two special things: they might need to be replaced in the short term (so there will always be a guard in any guard location, but at certain points in the day a new guard should come along and relieve the other guard, who would presumably be getting tired), and they might need replacing in the long term (e.g. gladiators who have died by now, or sailors lost at sea, etc – the game needs to replenish its volume of some of these NPCs when some are killed or cease to be important). Long-term replacing is not yet required (since NPCs, and the player, cannot yet die), but for short-term replacing, there is now a system in place to perform this task. When a guard spawns, the game sets a length of their watch, and when this period is up, a new guard is spawned as close to the guard as possible without the player being able to see the new guard spawn. The new guard then travels to the location of the old guard, and once they are on adjacent tiles, they switch places, and the old guard then moves out of the district and despawns, whilst the new guard becomes effectively identical to the old guard. I’ve also set up a system where there is a set “pool” of guards for each place, so perhaps you’ll be able to persuade certain guards to let you in if you know when their shift is, and their willingness to be bribed/persuaded/threatened/etc? Here, therefore, we have both the guards on a mint changing over, after which a priestess and her escort ramble past:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And the equivalent in a bank: they would not ordinarily all change over in this short a space of time, but for the sake of testing, it looks pretty neat:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Travel and Abstract Scheduling
Once I’d implemented this guard system, I then realized the game needed to track this wherever in the world the player was (or, at least, when the player next sets foot on that tile, work out which of the two guards should be on their shift, and spawn them). This seemed trivial, but it quickly became clear I was going to have to do other things before this. If I want the game to see how long it has been since the player last set foot on a map grid, then I have to know precisely how many turns/how much time moving on the travel map takes – and that, in turn, means programming that fully (currently there is just a placeholder of 20 “ticks” of the clock for each grid moved) and also making sure it cannot be exploited, and that moving on the travel map is never more/less efficient in terms of time spent than moving on the local maps (so, for instance, if on the world map you move north, north-west, then west, it should only count you a few turns as you move through the “corner” of the NW tile, since you wouldn’t walk to the middle before turning… but this rapidly makes the calculations very complex, as the calculations have to look at your previous two turns to figure out what would have been the most optimal way to move from Tile 1 -> Tile 2 -> Tile 3 if you’d been doing it on the local map instead of fast travelling). As such, I spent two days this week developing a detailed calculating system for working out the most optimal path the player could have taken between what I call two tiles and their outcome – the outcome being either pressing Enter to explore that tile, or moving onto a third tile – and thereby ensuring that, for long distance, fast travel is always equal to the most optimal path the player could possibly take on foot, i.e. the player should not be encouraged to spend real-world minutes slogging around the world on the local map, as it will never be faster (it will either be equally fast, or slower). So, basically, the system now tracks your previous two moves, and all the possibilities of those moves, and then when your third decision causes these possibilities to “collapse” (forgive the quantum terminology) the game calculates how long the most optimal way of carrying out that movement would all have taken, before then letting the player do any more interacting. This might sound strange, and it took a solid two days to code, but now it works perfectly and can handle all scenarios of the player’s fast-travel movement, and is always efficient, and allowed me to finally return to guards and ensure that the game knew which guard should be on patrol duty. In 0.9 therefore this system will be expanded to actually take account of terrain: moving on roads will be very fast if you have a mount, moving on desert will be extremely slow if you aren’t in a caravan, moving on mountains will be even slower unless one takes a mountain pass, and moving on ocean will, of course, be impossible unless one charters a ship.
Exploration
As part of the above, I decided to do a little bit of work on how the world map is going to look to explore -this is still not going to be the first release where the map starts mostly shrouded (though it seems very clear that that will be 0.9 early next year), but I wanted to implement it at the same time anyway. When you move you now uncover all the tiles in a circle around you (effectively a 5×5 grid centered on the player with the corners removed) but you can also see all mountains in a far larger area, to simulate the ability to, naturally, see things which are higher up than other things (profound, I know). In the future I’ll probably let you see a decent distance across the ocean, too, but I haven’t added that yet. Here are gif and image examples of how this looks, which I’m very happy with at the moment:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Finally…
Last but not least, many thanks to the extremely generous donations of the last couple of weeks; I really appreciate them! Over the coming week I’ll be working on completing the scheduling system for NPCs – day night cycles, going “home”, that kind of thing – and doing a lot of remaining edge cases and things like that, so once that’s all done, I might get working on one of the other clothing generators for this release, or keeping track of the “crucial” NPCs. We’ll see. See you then!
Post by: Aquillion on September 06, 2015, 08:13:16 pm
When a guard spawns, the game sets a length of their watch, and when this period is up, a new guard is spawned as close to the guard as possible without the player being able to see the new guard spawn.Is it possible for the new guard to spawn someplace silly, or somewhere where the player might notice a guard couldn't possibly come from (eg. a closet the player previously saw was empty, or a guard popping out of a 1x1 unseen space behind a pillar?) Now I'm picturing some sort of mass changing of the guards where all the replacements pop out of the shadow of the same pillar like they're pouring out of a clown car.
Spawning a guard in the closest unseen location reminds me of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13YlEPwOfmk); just because the player can't actually see your spawning doesn't mean it's necessarily going to make sense!
Post by: Retropunch on September 07, 2015, 05:39:37 am
Spawning a guard in the closest unseen location reminds me of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13YlEPwOfmk); just because the player can't actually see your spawning doesn't mean it's necessarily going to make sense!
Good point!! It would probably be best if they spawned on a main road or an open area. It shouldn't be too noticeable as I doubt the change overs will be too regular, but it still could seem strange if you get one spawn from where there is just a brick wall.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 07, 2015, 08:07:29 am
Spawning a guard in the closest unseen location reminds me of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13YlEPwOfmk); just because the player can't actually see your spawning doesn't mean it's necessarily going to make sense!
Ah yes, not to worry - they are always spawned far enough from the player, and if the player is near the middle of a district, they spawn at a gate instead and make their way from there, so they'll never appear (or vanish) in weird dead-ends!
Fantastic work! I love that you've got replacing in - I had wondered how/if you were going to tackle it or if we were just going to get immortal and unmoving guards/npcs. The abstracting of travel is also impressive. Depending on how tight the clock is (and I'm hoping it's not too tight!) then it might force players to use the overmap more as it's always going to be the quickest, but that's probably not a bad thing.
Heh, only a few versions hence will we be able to answer that; but yeah, I think it's for the best if I maximize the use of the world map and only have you on the local map (even if that takes up most of the actual real-world gameplay time) for doing things which matter. Players will always seek out optimal decisions, even if those are dull/grindy, and I want to avoid those wherever possible.
Good point!! It would probably be best if they spawned on a main road or an open area. It shouldn't be too noticeable as I doubt the change overs will be too regular, but it still could seem strange if you get one spawn from where there is just a brick wall.
^ as above - yep, but not to worry, nobody emerges from brick walls!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 12, 2015, 06:28:12 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/09/12/not-quite-the-shortest-update-ever-but-not-far-off/
Post by: Retropunch on September 12, 2015, 11:02:55 am
I did wonder about npcs and housing - will all static npc's have houses assigned to them? It might be a bit difficult to do ALL npc's (and many may potentially be travelling/not from the area), but static ones would presumably live in the area and should probably have housing assigned to them. That could lead to interesting mechanics, such as killing/ordering the killing of a static NPC at their home so that their post is then free at their allotted time.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 13, 2015, 08:43:44 am
Interesting post, and congrats on the new position!!!
I did wonder about npcs and housing - will all static npc's have houses assigned to them? It might be a bit difficult to do ALL npc's (and many may potentially be travelling/not from the area), but static ones would presumably live in the area and should probably have housing assigned to them. That could lead to interesting mechanics, such as killing/ordering the killing of a static NPC at their home so that their post is then free at their allotted time.
Thanks! Most excited about it. NPCs who matter will, so I'll be including guards in that. But as you say, I think it would be really cool if we could develop a system for distracting guards, getting them away from their posts, etc...
Post by: Man of Paper on September 16, 2015, 07:39:17 pm
Let's say you want to go from Stabland to Generic Castle Fortress and it'd take about 5 hours to get there on foot. That is, without fast travel. If you decide to fast travel it'll take x% longer to reach. It'd give players a reason to stick to slow travel (other than missing the small, but not unimportant, things). I did think of the argument that it may be too "gamey" but it could be explained away by the player taking the most direct route as opposed to the fastest, which anyone who's used google maps will know can have a huge difference in travel time.
Perhaps being on horse/cart/flock of seagulls could change the modifier for fast travel time as well?
Post by: Retropunch on September 17, 2015, 05:21:13 am
Suggestion on fast travel I found to be interesting in my own ponderings, not sure if it's implemented or if it'd work for you but:
Let's say you want to go from Stabland to Generic Castle Fortress and it'd take about 5 hours to get there on foot. That is, without fast travel. If you decide to fast travel it'll take x% longer to reach. It'd give players a reason to stick to slow travel (other than missing the small, but not unimportant, things). I did think of the argument that it may be too "gamey" but it could be explained away by the player taking the most direct route as opposed to the fastest, which anyone who's used google maps will know can have a huge difference in travel time.
Perhaps being on horse/cart/flock of seagulls could change the modifier for fast travel time as well?
I personally disagree - I'd hate to feel punished for taking the most convenient option especially when (with no disrespect meant to the gorgeous wilderness) its not very fun to endlessly wander around the wilderness (/get lost). I do feel there should be an overall cost (food/rations) on travelling, but that it should work out as roughly similar if you walk it or fast travel. Admittedly, taking carts/caravans should cost in actual money as well, but they should be moderately faster/safer to account for this.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 18, 2015, 04:40:19 am
Suggestion on fast travel I found to be interesting in my own ponderings, not sure if it's implemented or if it'd work for you but:
Let's say you want to go from Stabland to Generic Castle Fortress and it'd take about 5 hours to get there on foot. That is, without fast travel. If you decide to fast travel it'll take x% longer to reach. It'd give players a reason to stick to slow travel (other than missing the small, but not unimportant, things). I did think of the argument that it may be too "gamey" but it could be explained away by the player taking the most direct route as opposed to the fastest, which anyone who's used google maps will know can have a huge difference in travel time.
Perhaps being on horse/cart/flock of seagulls could change the modifier for fast travel time as well?
I personally disagree - I'd hate to feel punished for taking the most convenient option especially when (with no disrespect meant to the gorgeous wilderness) its not very fun to endlessly wander around the wilderness (/get lost). I do feel there should be an overall cost (food/rations) on travelling, but that it should work out as roughly similar if you walk it or fast travel. Admittedly, taking carts/caravans should cost in actual money as well, but they should be moderately faster/safer to account for this.
I agree with Retropunch - do we want to ENCOURAGE people into the less interesting and slower route?! That surely seems like madness! The terrain may be lovely, but it's the points of interest you're going to/from. People are always going to want to do the most optimal path, and why would I want to make that path slower for the player and less interesting for the player? I agree that "It'd give players a reason to stick to slow travel", but surely we don't want that - at least over significant distances, between areas separated by map tiles, etc.
HOWEVER (and I love the possibility of seagull travel) - there are going to be several modifiers in 0.9 (0.8 is going to be a huge release, assuming I do NPCs and conversations, so 0.9 will be quick and small). Having a mount will speed you up significantly, but only if you travel on roads. Crossing desert will be slow (5x?) unless you're in a caravan, in which case it is only a little slower than normal terrain (2x?). Crossing mountains will be immensely slow (10x?) unless you are going across a mountain pass, in which case again, only a little slower than normal terrain (3x?). Water will be uncrossable except by ship, which will probably take something like 2x standard movement time (or maybe just 1x? We'll see). I think the main travel cost will be time, and obviously money if you do buy a place in a caravan, hire a guide across the mountains, buy a place in a ship, buy a horse, etc!
Post by: Retropunch on September 18, 2015, 06:56:12 am
HOWEVER (and I love the possibility of seagull travel) - there are going to be several modifiers in 0.9 (0.8 is going to be a huge release, assuming I do NPCs and conversations, so 0.9 will be quick and small). Having a mount will speed you up significantly, but only if you travel on roads. Crossing desert will be slow (5x?) unless you're in a caravan, in which case it is only a little slower than normal terrain (2x?). Crossing mountains will be immensely slow (10x?) unless you are going across a mountain pass, in which case again, only a little slower than normal terrain (3x?). Water will be uncrossable except by ship, which will probably take something like 2x standard movement time (or maybe just 1x? We'll see). I think the main travel cost will be time, and obviously money if you do buy a place in a caravan, hire a guide across the mountains, buy a place in a ship, buy a horse, etc!
I'd love there to be different methods of travelling if you can spend it - like having some of the desert people taking you across on a fast caravan would only be 1.5x slower or something, compared to just a normal caravan at 2x. Similarly, an average ship might be 1.5x across the sea, but a dedicated fast frigate might be 1x. Obviously you could account for the speed increase due to normal caravans/boats/whatever would have stops or might not know the most efficient route. You could then have ones that might be slower but better protected, and other variations.
As travel is so important, I'd see the variations as a really good way to encourage more strategy from players - do I pay more to get there quicker? Am I more worried about speed or protection? would it be better to do this journey slower, hope I can make more money at the next port, and then pay more for the other legs of the journey?
The only problem however is the game clock. As I've always said, I feel that rushing the player would sacrifice all the hard work you've put into world building (and annoy the player a lot, as they want to explore and take in the world), but if there is no rush to do anything, you're always going to take the slowest and safest route. I'd really suggest that you have a sort of 'not on the clock unless pursuing a quest' style. So if someone asks you to do something, there will always be a time-limit (deliver this to xyz within 4 days) but otherwise time isn't so important (although money is, so you'd need to keep doing quests - which are on a time limit to gather the funds to travel). I know you have an overarching timelimit you want to impose, but I'd suggest this be very flexible and also quite relaxed.
Post by: Aseaheru on September 18, 2015, 07:41:56 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 19, 2015, 06:18:43 am
I'd love there to be different methods of travelling if you can spend it - like having some of the desert people taking you across on a fast caravan would only be 1.5x slower or something, compared to just a normal caravan at 2x. Similarly, an average ship might be 1.5x across the sea, but a dedicated fast frigate might be 1x. Obviously you could account for the speed increase due to normal caravans/boats/whatever would have stops or might not know the most efficient route. You could then have ones that might be slower but better protected, and other variations.
As travel is so important, I'd see the variations as a really good way to encourage more strategy from players - do I pay more to get there quicker? Am I more worried about speed or protection? would it be better to do this journey slower, hope I can make more money at the next port, and then pay more for the other legs of the journey?
The only problem however is the game clock. As I've always said, I feel that rushing the player would sacrifice all the hard work you've put into world building (and annoy the player a lot, as they want to explore and take in the world), but if there is no rush to do anything, you're always going to take the slowest and safest route. I'd really suggest that you have a sort of 'not on the clock unless pursuing a quest' style. So if someone asks you to do something, there will always be a time-limit (deliver this to xyz within 4 days) but otherwise time isn't so important (although money is, so you'd need to keep doing quests - which are on a time limit to gather the funds to travel). I know you have an overarching timelimit you want to impose, but I'd suggest this be very flexible and also quite relaxed.
Agreed - I continue to lean towards TIME and MONEY being, basically, the two major currencies of the game (and I'm still probably not going to have any kind of food/ration system or anything of that sort, as that just feels like it would be an irrelevant distraction). Definitely pay more for faster travel. Speed: there is a line between rushing the player and an appropriate clock which prevents the player seeing everything. I know my reply is still "I'll just to have to playtest it!" and I know I keep saying this, but it remains the truth. One possibility is that for each of the nine items the player is trying to acquire (with 3/9 required to "win" and further collection being like the optional runes in DCSS) the clock is pushed back. So maybe the clock starts with 2x "times", where 1 "time" is the amount of time I think the player would need for one item, then it is pushed back by 1 "time" whenever an objective is completed. Or something like that. Right now handling important NPCs moving around the map irrespective of the player's location is causing me a large enough headache that I can't deal with anything to do with time for now! Once we have NPCs in, and conversations, and trade/travel (all of which will take us to early 2016), then I'll come back to this!
Posting to watch this already awesome thing.
Thanks! :)
Now, for this week's update:
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I’ve just finished reading Q, a novel by the Italian literary collective Luther Blissett (that actually being the name of a footballer, a name they deemed to be inherently comic), which I absolutely loved. I recommend that everyone interested in URR give it a look since it looks at a lot of themes similar to those I’m trying to convey in the game, and so I will avoid spoilers, but there is one crucial point here (and that is mentioned in the book’s blurb, so it’s not a spoiler) – the narrator adopts a wide range of names and identities throughout the book. The book – set during the Reformation – emphasizes, albeit implicitly, the impossibility of ever being truly secure in knowledge of someone’s identity in an era where transport is limited, countries appear “massive” without aircraft and trains and cars to traverse them, and for all except the highest-ranking members of society there are no clear records kept on who is who, who lives where, and who is from where. Reading the book managed to segue quite nicely into some thinking I’ve been doing myself recently, but the book made this all the more certain in my head: URR has got to have a disguise mechanic.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/08/Qluth.jpg)
Of course, we can still have a layer where the player can “earn” permissions to certain areas via transparent means. By which I mean – bribe someone to give you documentation to access Place X, or earn the loyalty of a religion so they’ll let you into Place Y, and so on – but surely we could take full advantage of the detail of the world’s faces/clothes/cultures/social norms/etc by implementing a disguise mechanic. I think this would have several components:
Appearance: add items for the temporary dyeing of hair and lightening/darkening of skin tone and temporary facial tattoos, and allow for adjusting hairstyle. Other NPCs will, in part, judge whether you are part of their nation based on how your face/hair look.
Clothing: the player adopting certain items of clothing lends other NPCs to assuming the player belongs to certain categories. This would be both clothing, but also things like rings, necklaces, types of armour worn, weapons sheathed, etc.
Speech: this is a really interesting one, and I suppose ties back into the ongoing question of “how is the conversation system going to work?”. It would be amazing if there could be some kind of system where the player can try to “fake” the forms of speech expected in that nation/culture/religion, and the better they can do this, the less suspicion they fall under. Perhaps the player can offer special greetings once the player has heard them once (“Greetings of the Divine King of the Snow!”) or generic greetings if not (“Greetings”), and the more “generic” comments the player makes, the more suspicious NPCs become, but the more the player knows what needs saying, the more they’ll fit in. Equally, once one becomes used to how people of a certain nation speak, perhaps one can select what “style” of speech to speak in a given conversation? That could be so interesting (in my current ongoing drafting of how conversations are going to work, I’m working on trying to define methods for generating different styles of speech).
So once you adopt the first two – dye your skin, and find the right clothes – you’ll be able to walk around in most nations undetected. But if you want to talk to anyone there, you’ll need to mirror their patterns of speech – and, equally, perhaps a particularly isolationist nation has a lot of guards on every major trade route, and you’ll be challenged by them even if you look like you belong to that nation? I think there are so many interesting potential gameplay experiences here: to some cultures your character presents themselves as they “truly” are, in other nations you entirely try to fake it, and maybe in other nations you play it by ear? This seems like another mechanic which would really take advantage of the detail in the world if we can make NPCs very observant about when something seems to be “off” when looking at/talking to the player.
Whether this will be 0.8 or 0.9 remains contingent on precisely how large 0.8 ends up being – is it just NPCs, or is it conversation as well? – but this is definitely going to turn up very soon, though it might be in a different release to conversation per se. If anyone has any other ideas for some more details on this mechanic, or perhaps how it could work in other contexts, or other parameters we could civilizations vary by: let me know!
Post by: Aquillion on September 21, 2015, 12:35:07 am
That way, there would be time pressure when the player is actively pursuing their main goal, but they'd also be free to approach the game in other ways if they want.
Post by: Retropunch on September 21, 2015, 02:27:09 am
Hmm... I can see the advantages of using time as a hard limit, but personally I prefer games without hard time limits, since sometimes it can be fun to just enjoy yourself and explore, which is hard to really get into when you know the game will end if you spend too long mucking around. It encourages the player to try and optimize absolutely everything, which can be good for balance and can make for easier game-design, but which I don't think is actually very fun. I would suggest a softer limit where wasting time makes the game more difficult in some way (causing you to lose the trail or something in some abstract way), up to a certain maximum where you're totally off-task and will have to work hard to get back on-task but aren't penalized for just spending forever exploring some random ruin if that's what floats your boat.
That way, there would be time pressure when the player is actively pursuing their main goal, but they'd also be free to approach the game in other ways if they want.
I completely agree in principle (and I usually HATE time limits), although URR is one of the few that I'm willing to make an exception with. Not being able to explore absolutely everything will make you prioritise where you go, which I believe will definitely have the effect of giving a lot more strategy and re-playability - want to explore the great desert fortress of Ba'Nak? well then you can't see the swamp city of Urhal. Want to go to the coastal slave town of Lila? Well then you can't make it to the frozen encampment of Al-surway shamans.
However, I'd hate to feel rushed on a micro level. I assume that the game time is years, so spending three or four in game days wandering around a ruin probably wouldn't make much of a difference. I imagine it's only really for long trips (that would take weeks/months) where there's a time limit. Furthermore, I completely agree that the time limit should be soft. If there's a hard time limit of exactly 15 months or something, you're always going to have to have that hanging over your head and the player will try to optimise everything possible to squeeze some more time in. If the game just gradually ramps up in difficulty/other things happen, that'd be fine.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 27, 2015, 09:53:42 am
Hmm... I can see the advantages of using time as a hard limit, but personally I prefer games without hard time limits, since sometimes it can be fun to just enjoy yourself and explore, which is hard to really get into when you know the game will end if you spend too long mucking around. It encourages the player to try and optimize absolutely everything, which can be good for balance and can make for easier game-design, but which I don't think is actually very fun. I would suggest a softer limit where wasting time makes the game more difficult in some way (causing you to lose the trail or something in some abstract way), up to a certain maximum where you're totally off-task and will have to work hard to get back on-task but aren't penalized for just spending forever exploring some random ruin if that's what floats your boat.
That way, there would be time pressure when the player is actively pursuing their main goal, but they'd also be free to approach the game in other ways if they want.
Interesting thoughts (though I've posted before about the tension I want to get between the excitement/interest of exploration and the knowledge that you can never explore anything) - however, I am certainly thinking about the possibilities of flexible time limit(s) which are/can be extended or reduced based on the player's actions (i.e. more like a standard food clock, and less like the "age clock" in ADOM, for instance).
I completely agree in principle (and I usually HATE time limits), although URR is one of the few that I'm willing to make an exception with. Not being able to explore absolutely everything will make you prioritise where you go, which I believe will definitely have the effect of giving a lot more strategy and re-playability - want to explore the great desert fortress of Ba'Nak? well then you can't see the swamp city of Urhal. Want to go to the coastal slave town of Lila? Well then you can't make it to the frozen encampment of Al-surway shamans.
However, I'd hate to feel rushed on a micro level. I assume that the game time is years, so spending three or four in game days wandering around a ruin probably wouldn't make much of a difference. I imagine it's only really for long trips (that would take weeks/months) where there's a time limit. Furthermore, I completely agree that the time limit should be soft. If there's a hard time limit of exactly 15 months or something, you're always going to have to have that hanging over your head and the player will try to optimise everything possible to squeeze some more time in. If the game just gradually ramps up in difficulty/other things happen, that'd be fine.
Your first paragraph - exactly. Second paragraph: agreed, hence my previous comment that I think the time limit needs to be shiftable based on your actions, and stricter on a macro than micro level, though how exactly this will play out is still something I need to calculate precisely. I'm thinking about it! Though at the moment (as the top of this week's blog post which I'll upload below this reply notes) most of my thoughts at the moment are going into world-scale NPC tracking at the moment...
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Normal service will be resuming next week: I’ve moved house, settled in, and started planning out the final push on NPCs, which is to say tracking all the important NPCs as they move around the map – a process which has required me to do a lot of thinking about how to code it before actually getting started (this will turn into what it is effectively a Travelling Salesman problem where the time values at certain points are unknown, which I’ll write about here in the next few weeks). Anyway, here’s a post I wrote a little while ago with some of my thoughts on the future of the Encyclopedia; next week we’ll have an URRpdate as usual.
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I’ve decided to remove the Encyclopedia from URR because I increasingly feel/fear it is going to end up doing the player’s “job” for them, and because my original conception of how the Encyclopedia is/was going to work is clearly going to be a programming nightmare.
Let me explain my logic. Right now, the Encyclopedia gives the player a full overview of everything in the world, though that’s only because the game is obviously not replete with gameplay as of yet. The intention was to – either this version, or more likely the version afterwards – fundamentally change the Encyclopedia so that it only starts off with information about your nation, religion, culture, histories, etc, whilst the others remain unknown. Then, each time you uncover a little nugget of information on your quest, the Encyclopedia would update itself. So when you first discovered the name of a nation, it would add in an entry for that nation, but all the information about that nation would be displayed as “????”s (or maybe just blank regions where text could be inserted) until you found those out, and then it would be added. Equally, were you to discover some piece of information that was meaningful, but you didn’t know which nation/religion/whatever it was associated with, there would perhaps be another list of entries in the Encyclopedia without names, noting that *some nation* somewhere has a given flag, but you don’t know which nation. When the player then encountered irrefutable evidence that Flag X belonged to Nation Y, the Encyclopedia would then “conflate” these two entries into a single entry, associating Flag X with Nation Y for ever more.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/09/Encyc1.png)
However, as in the first paragraph of this entry, I increasingly realize that there are some pretty major issue with this type of system. Firstly… surely this is doing the player’s job for them? Surely if the focus of the game is uncovering these cultures and how they interact and searching for the items you seek in the maze of heresies and histories and all the rest of it… surely we should be leaving these connections to the player, and getting the player to come to recognize the nations and cultures they encounter? I fear now that codifying this type of information in the Encyclopedia will run into several major issues. Firstly, it’ll “force” the player (or at least behaviourally strongly encourage) into constantly opening the Encyclopedia to check things, rather than remembering “ah yes, this is Nation X, I encountered some of their emissaries before”. Secondly, the player might not actually notice a useful bit of information, but if the Encyclopedia then updates, it tells the player that piece of information is useful! It seems to me this second one presents a major issue. Thirdly, there’s a question of what information the Encyclopedia should show. To stick with the nation example, should it show the national flag? The national dress? The national style of shoe? What vases in that nation look like? There has to be a line drawn somewhere, because if you want the Encyclopedia to potentially list everything about a given nation, you risk basically reproducing everything about that nation and leaving nothing in the actual game.
So, those are the gameplay issues. There is also a programming issue, which is that I increasingly realize this type of tracking – and perhaps most imporantly, getting the game to notice when a useful piece of information has been “seen” and then updating the appropriate Encyclopedia page – is (or would have been) a horrifying nightmare. This is a secondly concern to the gameplay, of course – if I still thought this was a good method I would certainly have done it – but it still matters somewhat.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/09/Encyc2.png)
What’s the alternative? Well, I think I’ll keep the Encyclopedia in for 0.8 and probably 0.9. Whilst the world is “open”, I think it only enhances the game to be able to see everything at the start and give new players some impression of the size/scale/scope/variation of the planet and the variation of its cultures. However, a little further down the line – shall we say 0.10? – I’m now 99% sure that I’m going to remove it permanently, and rely two things. Firstly, the player’s ability to become familiar with the interconnected world they find themselves in; and secondly, crucially, an alternative to the Encyclopedia (maybe a “Journal” or something of that sort) which records every piece of information the player character sees/hears/experiences, but not the significance of it. With this model you can once more view/read everything of note you have ever looked at/seen, but it doesn’t tell you *what does/doesn't matter.* So once you’ve read a book, you can forever “look up” the information in that book (so it basically as if the player character has an eidetic memory). Therefore, this will be a replacement Encyclopedia where you browse “books”, “clothes”, “paintings”, and the like, but you do not browse information about “nations”, “religions”, “cultures”, since that’s what you’re piecing together. Equally, I'll also work on a system whereby the player can "tag" certain items in their viewed history as things they think are relating to a particular riddle, and then browse according to tags and assess the data they have and what else might fit into that category.
Therefore: the Encyclopedia will survive 0.8 and 0.9, and then be replaced by this new version which records player character experience but leaves understanding up to the player – which is surely the whole point of the idea of the game and the riddle(s) hidden across the world’s cultures! For now, however, the Encyclopedia will remain to assist players as we go through the worldbuilding -> gameplay transition in looking around the world, getting some grasp on its detail/complexity, etc. See you all next week for the resumption of normal service!
Post by: Retropunch on September 27, 2015, 11:35:36 am
I'm a bit unsure about it though - I feel that there might be far too much information for any casual player to process. Whilst having to piece things together is fun, information overload is not. As you've said, you don't want the player to be endlessly staring at the encyclopaedia - but I worry that having just long lists of all the things you've seen would cause even MORE of that. Take a look at the list of houses or gods - that's far more than anyone could be expected to remember, and having the information any more diffuse than that would just be impossible to process.
I'd suggest that you allow the player to piece things together themselves in the journal. So lets say that every time you discovered a new nation, it'd add an entry to the encyclopaedia - after that, you can fill in what the flag is/leaders are and so on from a list of all the things you've seen/heard/found that relate to that nation. So it'd be like how it is now, but the player would be in charge of putting things together. I'd combine this with major things/people being added automatically to the correct place.
To be honest though, I still think that'll be far too tedious for the player. I completely get that it's the whole point of the game is for the player to work things out, but you want the player to have easy access to the information they need to do the working out.
Post by: Piotrhabera on September 27, 2015, 02:22:32 pm
1: If I am a noble, what family I'd be a member of? Minor or major?
2: Does ppl recognize my noble title and show me respect?
3: Do I am able to create my char or everything be put into random generator?
4: Are there chances I may spawn already married/engaged to someone?
5: Will be there a possibility that I may have old wounds or physical changes due to events?
6: Will I attain scars?
7: Will I be able to woo someone and marry that person?
8: Will I start with a weapon?
9: Can I own ships, shops, disctrics and everything that generates $$$?
10: Will alchemy exist and if yes then where I can find known formulae?
11: Can I follow more than 1 religion?
12: Am I able tomarry more than 1 person?
13: Can I make weapons and armour and if yes then where I can find known styles?
14: Will be there a skill system?
15: Will be more things on worldmap that it is atm?
16: Will be there a possibility to observe the sky and see planets?
17: Will astrology exists and if yes then where I can find known info about planets?
18: Will be there a visual representation of wounds?
That's all! Thanks!
(sorry for flooding with questions)
Post by: Piotrhabera on September 28, 2015, 10:04:10 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on September 30, 2015, 04:24:20 am
It makes sense that you'd have some minor, biased preconceptions before you go to a region. I would rather have the game
In a game all about the flexibility of record-keeping, i feel it would be a shame to miss out on book burning, of those self-same treatises - but leaving your notes intact.
That way, players nursing conspiracies will be left blinking in the sun, and be forced to see if their theories hold up in the light of day- or if you're playing by ear, decision time as to whether you'll go purely by feel or actually it's time to start scheming.
Sometimes you don't want notes, and it's glass-shattering to be in the middle of a promising encounter and start trawling through your pocket travel guide (unless you actually do this in game, with modifiers).
Tattoos. Need i say more? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0) Next, oral records. Ask an NPC! Third, "memories". The more exhilarating the encounter, the less you recall and the longer it takes. It would include fragments of the notes you've most recently made, details relating to your environment and some pretty random stuff.
The recall mechanic could be hilarious, and make for interesting choices. Should i smell the flowers to remember which one is poisonous, or try to stealthily rummage through my backpack for my scroll on herbalism?
Options such as "illiterate", "dyslexic", "Amnesiac", or making your notes vulnerable and Heavy could be fun no?
Man i should be in the credits
Post by: puke on September 30, 2015, 12:58:34 pm
One game that handled travel very well, was The Magic Candle. You could go overland, but if you wanted to get somewhere faster or reach another landmass, you had to talk to captains in port towns and book passage with someone willing to go in that direction.
An count-down timer on the main quest kept you at a shortage of time, so optimizing travel was fairly important.
I understand that you are talking mostly about overland travel here, so the travel modes might be by foot, horse, carriage, or caravan.
Foot and horse is a simple upgrade proposition, trading time for money. A carriage might allow you to travel quickly with some more carriage capacity, or with persons who may not be skilled riders.
But you are mostly talking about caravan travel, so why would that be better than just hoofing it?
Safety, sure. But in a combatless or combat light game?
Perhaps the dangers of the road could be represented in Oregon Trail style events. Things that slow you down, impair you, or cause you loss could pop up as weighted random events. They could be mitigated by traveling in a large group, such as a caravan, with professional cooks and teamsters and such.
Maybe also secrecy is a currency, like time and money. It may be easier to arrive somewhere undetected if you come in with a caravan, than if you show up as a lone traveler or even as a traveler on a hired coach.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 02, 2015, 02:13:46 pm
Very interesting post! (please use spoilers for images though!!!!)
Blaarhrhgrjghjgrtjbhkjhjkghkrjgnreoijgdoim
I'm a bit unsure about it though - I feel that there might be far too much information for any casual player to process. Whilst having to piece things together is fun, information overload is not. As you've said, you don't want the player to be endlessly staring at the encyclopaedia - but I worry that having just long lists of all the things you've seen would cause even MORE of that. Take a look at the list of houses or gods - that's far more than anyone could be expected to remember, and having the information any more diffuse than that would just be impossible to process.
Excellent point which merits a few replies. Firstly, I actually think religions/houses are very different; as it stands right now, religions have *massive* variation and houses basically only vary in their coats of arms and there aren't any other identifiers. I would actually feel very confident in the player getting to know religions - I've come to do so by accident in some saved games I load/save often to test some new feature - and I would think this would be even more the case with actual play. Secondly, since information will at least be labeled by type - "this is an altar", "this is a painting", etc, I honestly don't think it'll result in that kind of overload, especially as you move around the world map slowly-ish, won't see everything in a single playthrough, etc. I know of course I say "we'll just have to playtest it" a lot, but I honestly think this will work fine, though as below, I think allowing you to CREATE encyclopedia-style entries might not be a bad idea.
I'd suggest that you allow the player to piece things together themselves in the journal. So lets say that every time you discovered a new nation, it'd add an entry to the encyclopaedia - after that, you can fill in what the flag is/leaders are and so on from a list of all the things you've seen/heard/found that relate to that nation. So it'd be like how it is now, but the player would be in charge of putting things together. I'd combine this with major things/people being added automatically to the correct place.
To be honest though, I still think that'll be far too tedious for the player. I completely get that it's the whole point of the game is for the player to work things out, but you want the player to have easy access to the information they need to do the working out.
Mmmm. I... sort of agree with that. Sort of. Perhaps you can "construct" entries on particular things like nations, religions, families, and add/remove components which you think are related to the same thing? That might be a good compromise!
Replies in bold...
Checked the last updates, and I have a few questions about game mechanics
1: If I am a noble, what family I'd be a member of? Minor or major? Minor - never a ruling family.
2: Does ppl recognize my noble title and show me respect? In your home nation, certainly; elsewhere, less likely.
3: Do I am able to create my char or everything be put into random generator? Currently you choose nation, but I'm strongly leaning towards doing away with even that and have the game pick what it thinks is the most "interesting" nation to start; you can choose f/m, but otherwise nothing. Probably.
4: Are there chances I may spawn already married/engaged to someone? Nope.
5: Will be there a possibility that I may have old wounds or physical changes due to events? Probably!
6: Will I attain scars? Probably!
7: Will I be able to woo someone and marry that person? Nope.
8: Will I start with a weapon? Not sure! Depends how combat makes it in, if it does.
9: Can I own ships, shops, disctrics and everything that generates $$$? Interesting question; answer for now is "probably".
10: Will alchemy exist and if yes then where I can find known formulae? Nope!
11: Can I follow more than 1 religion? I'm currently thinking that the player character can appear to follow as many as they want; the gods are not "real", in the NetHack/DCSS sense of physically affecting the world, so the player character can follow any religions they want... though obviously Religion A finding out you secretly worship Religion B who they hate might not take it well.
12: Am I able tomarry more than 1 person? See above!
13: Can I make weapons and armour and if yes then where I can find known styles? Hmm... not sure.
14: Will be there a skill system? Naaa.
15: Will be more things on worldmap that it is atm? The map is pretty busy already! Monasteries are appearing this release, but that'll probably be it, aside from caravan routes through deserts and mountain passes through mountains in 0.9.
16: Will be there a possibility to observe the sky and see planets? Possibly! I've been thinking about this. Could be a bit of nice detail.
17: Will astrology exists and if yes then where I can find known info about planets? Exist in the sense of "have gameplay effect"? No. Exist in the sense of "some NPCs believe it"? Probably!
18: Will be there a visual representation of wounds? Hopefully.
That's all! Thanks!
(sorry for flooding with questions) No problem!
Reading in-game, opinionated tomes DF style sounds cooler to me then perusing your stacks of flash cards.
It makes sense that you'd have some minor, biased preconceptions before you go to a region. I would rather have the gamecorrectwhat is blatantly wrong, and let the player evaluate and pencil in the margins the rest for themselves.
In a game all about the flexibility of record-keeping, i feel it would be a shame to miss out on book burning, of those self-same treatises - but leaving your notes intact.
That way, players nursing conspiracies will be left blinking in the sun, and be forced to see if their theories hold up in the light of day- or if you're playing by ear, decision time as to whether you'll go purely by feel or actually it's time to start scheming.
Sometimes you don't want notes, and it's glass-shattering to be in the middle of a promising encounter and start trawling through your pocket travel guide (unless you actually do this in game, with modifiers).
Tattoos. Need i say more? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0) Next, oral records. Ask an NPC! Third, "memories". The more exhilarating the encounter, the less you recall and the longer it takes. It would include fragments of the notes you've most recently made, details relating to your environment and some pretty random stuff.
The recall mechanic could be hilarious, and make for interesting choices. Should i smell the flowers to remember which one is poisonous, or try to stealthily rummage through my backpack for my scroll on herbalism?
Options such as "illiterate", "dyslexic", "Amnesiac", or making your notes vulnerable and Heavy could be fun no?
Man i should be in the credits
Flash cards - excellent way to put it. That phrase actually sums up rather nicely my problems with the current system.
So basically you're thinking about an actual recall MECHANIC? Some limitation to what can be recalled, what situations, how things are recalled, etc? The fundamental problem with this is that it'll just encourage the player to write things down external to the game, and although I have nothing against games which do that, I don't think I want to reach that point - I'd rather have the game preserve player information. But if it doesn't preserve everything, or things are not easily accessible, people will realize that the "optimal" play is to put things down outside the game. That's the fundamental problem - I *do* like the ideas you've listed, but I'm just not sure how to overcome the pen-and-paper issue...
Post by: Aquillion on October 02, 2015, 02:21:21 pm
Maybe some sort of mechanic where you can build inferences in-game bit by bit, then hit some sort of button to 'confirm' them and get a reward if they're accurate, but penalized if they're wrong (like Phoenix Wright and games of that nature.) Obviously this might feel a bit too game-y if done wrong (who is confirming it?) But it would solve several problems at once -- it'd give the player a reason to input things through the game, it'd create a feedback loop to encourage players to focus on the main game mechanic, and it'd give players a reliable and easy-to-consult database of "confirmed" facts while avoiding making it automatic or too easy for them to fill out.
The reward / penalty could affect the time limit. Perhaps in order to confirm journal entries, the player has to speak with important people relevant to that entry -- so you have a conversation with the local Bishop or whatever, and if you have all your information about their religion in order, it's confirmed and they help you in a way that advances your overall quest; whereas if you screwed up, you waste time, risk offending them, and get a penalty.
Although this makes the game start to feel like a fantasy-world Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 02, 2015, 02:56:30 pm
I think that, since making these connections and inferences is core to the game, you should try to 'gamify' them somehow -- to make it so the player is eager to find them and input them, to give them a feel of immediate reward for discovering them.
What an interesting idea - I don't think I'd have thought of that. Hmmmm. You've suggested some rather interesting mechanics too. I will give that one some serious thought!
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 02, 2015, 03:28:38 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 04, 2015, 03:12:33 am
Look at it as a iron man mode. Players who want an Eidetic memory can have one, and the RP heavy demographic can have this.
Hmmm... I'll consider it!
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 04, 2015, 03:24:57 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 04, 2015, 04:49:43 am
1) The game looks over the entire world and identifies every location where a guard should appear. This means it counts up the number of guard-worthy buildings in each city centre (mints, parliaments, etc), in upper-class districts (currently always three major families, but I do intend to change that in the near future), and stores each guard in a list. It then also looks for an appropriate place for that guard to live – if we’re in a fortress, the guard will be stored in the same map grid (i.e. the fortress) and if we’re in a city the guard will almost certainly live in a nearby lower/middle-class district. Either way, it also stores where these guards should spawn. For non-guards the game assess how many other important people should be appearing on each tile based on the ideologies/religions/etc of each area (so we’ll have ambassadors, blacksmiths, chieftains, doctors, executioners, gladiators, inquisitors, judges, monarchs, lords, ministers, officers, other nobles, regents, abbots, archivists and mercenaries). For now they cannot spawn in the middle of what I’m calling a SCHEDULE event (see below) as this would quickly increase the complexity, but I don’t think this will be an issue, since the world will be vast enough that 99.9% of important NPCs will have begun doing things by the time you ever get to see them.
2) There is now a new dictionary called abstract_creatures, who are the important creatures (I assume only people, but I’ve named it “creatures” in case there are… I don’t know, noteworthy mounts or something later?), which all of these people are put into. For each guard it places a guard in their guarding area, a guard in the district/place they would live, and then has them both schedule a time at which they cross over. For everyone else it just places them in an appropriate starting location. Whenever one of these people takes a turn, it’ll look into this list (instead of the grid-specific lists) to get the person – and as for when it does this, we then look at the kinds of event I’m creating for these abstracted-out people.
3) The game then generates two kinds of “event” for the schedules of these guards, and for all important NPCs – what I’m calling “TIME events” and “SCHEDULE” events. TIME events are those which happen at the same *time* every day – get up, go and guard the thing, stop guarding the thing once the other guard appears, return home, etc. For those in governments it’ll involve going to the appropriate buildings, for rulers it means holding councils, for gladiators going to the arena and fighting and hopefully-not-dying, etc. Then they will sometimes gain SCHEDULE events, which are one-off occurrences: talk to this diplomat, check this town out for heresy, meet secretly at this location on this date, etc. The game will track whether an important NPC is going a TIME or SCHEDULE event, and if a SCHEDULE event, it will ignore all TIME events until there are no more SCHEDULE events to complete, at which point the NPC will look at the next TIME event it would normally have, do that, and from that point onwards behave within its normal list of TIME events.
4) The NPCs use the time “quantum scheduling” system previously described, and when they are heading towards a target in a grid which has not yet been spawned, they assume the highest possible time it would take them to reach it were it spawned – so if there’s a building that could spawn anywhere, we assume it takes 200 ticks to reach it (all grids are 200×200) – if it could only spawn in the left-most side of that grid and the NPC will be approaching from the left, we assume it will take 100 ticks to reach it, etc. After the grid is spawned, the game will actually create a list of all possible timings from each gate leading into that grid to each important location on that grid; this can never be exhaustive for non-city areas or for houses (as there are simply too many), but for NPCs moving to important doors (of which there might be a dozen) from one of four city gates, one can readily see it’s the work of a moment to have the same calculate those and store them for future use after the player leaves that grid and the grid becomes abstracted once more.
5) What then happens if the player steps onto a grid with these abstract people, or leaves a grid on which there exist people who need to be abstracted? Well, this (obviously) is the tricky part, and something I know Dwarf Fortress found challenging to program, and now I’m at this point myself I see why. If you step on and there are abstract NPCs, it will have them “rewind” to the start of their most recent action, generate/reload the map, and then have them play out that action physically. This will mean creating quite a static list of “Actions” and “What This Looks Like On A Spawned Map”, but that shouldn’t be a problem (creating rigid lists is often much simpler, if more time-consuming, than writing PCG!). When the player then leaves, the game will then track how far through their latest action each NPC was, and schedule their next action for either the standard time (if a long way off) or the shortest possible length of time it would take that NPC to start doing that action when moving on the spawned map… and then save the map and do everything else as normal.
6) This means – I think – that NPCs will never wind up doing anything faster than they possibly could if they were “walking it” on an actually present map, but they will sometimes do things slower, but this is simply unavoidable without spawning every single grid at the start of the game (in this regard this is vaguely akin to a Traveling Salesman problem where the travel-length value at each vertex is unknown and/or changeable based on the actions of an external actor). This means that whether or not a particular area has yet been spawned or not, the player will be able to track with great accuracy the movements of important NPCs, and guards will change their shifts irrespective of player actions, and so forth.
I’ll be starting coding this tomorrow. I’ll start with guards since I already have most of their code, and then once I’ve checked that I’ve got them going from their guarding place to their homes and vice versa at appropriate times, and changing over their watches, I’ll move onto the more complicated important NPCs who move between more districts, might move between cities, etc, and we’ll see how it goes. An update on important NPC progress will therefore be next week’s blog post – see you all then!
Post by: WordsandChaos on October 04, 2015, 10:39:21 am
IE: If Guard A is due to replace Guard B at 9AM, but has a meeting with a lover/conspirator/whatever at that time, it should override that guard's change over time, right. So he will go to his event, be there at 9. At 9, Guard B's shift ends: does he leave, or extend his shift until guard A arrives? If you wanted to get into a place, it would be interesting to be able to take advantage of a temporary absence of guard, for whatever purpose, between the time Guard B walks away to get some sleep, and Guard A arrives from their scheduled event.
Post by: notquitethere on October 04, 2015, 12:05:24 pm
You really should put a link to the website in the first post.
Post by: Retropunch on October 04, 2015, 12:14:29 pm
Perhaps you could just do all of these with different spawning of unimportant NPCs, but it might be nice to have some sort of different observable behaviours.
One of the things that I'd love to see - and something that I really don't think has been done before - is a changing world, where things can actually dramatically change for ever rather than having a sort of 'sitcom reset'. City gets the plague? drastically lower population/abandoned. A lot of this would be portrayed through NPC actions more than anything else - many games do it with conversation ('you're Foo the terrible murderer!') but it would be great to see that expanded into the schedules and actions of all NPCs
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 07, 2015, 04:24:43 am
Interesting. So, does that leave the possibility for absences in something like Guard duty?
IE: If Guard A is due to replace Guard B at 9AM, but has a meeting with a lover/conspirator/whatever at that time, it should override that guard's change over time, right. So he will go to his event, be there at 9. At 9, Guard B's shift ends: does he leave, or extend his shift until guard A arrives? If you wanted to get into a place, it would be interesting to be able to take advantage of a temporary absence of guard, for whatever purpose, between the time Guard B walks away to get some sleep, and Guard A arrives from their scheduled event.
Exactly, this is my thinking - you should be able to interrupt guards, or prevent them changing over, or "catch" them on their way to "work", etc. The current system doesn't really allow for that, but this new one will!
I'm interested in roguelikes and Borges' fiction and I can definitely see the thematic connection. There is no possible world in which I wouldn't want to play this.
You really should put a link to the website in the first post.
Awesome, thanks! There isn't a link?! Good grief. Added.
Sounds very interesting indeed. I wonder if it might be worth putting in some overall 'states' for under different conditions. For instance, if the city was under attack/plague/religious ceremony/festival and so on. It would then check this list first, and see if there's anything special that needs to be done.
Perhaps you could just do all of these with different spawning of unimportant NPCs, but it might be nice to have some sort of different observable behaviours.
One of the things that I'd love to see - and something that I really don't think has been done before - is a changing world, where things can actually dramatically change for ever rather than having a sort of 'sitcom reset'. City gets the plague? drastically lower population/abandoned. A lot of this would be portrayed through NPC actions more than anything else - many games do it with conversation ('you're Foo the terrible murderer!') but it would be great to see that expanded into the schedules and actions of all NPCs
That's an awesome idea. I had definitely planned global/national events like religious festivals which override other schedules, but those other options make a lot of sense. I'll definitely build that so that I can create and insult arbitrary national events and the game will know how to get people doing them. Re: paragraph 2: I agree, that would be *awesome*. Let's do it!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 11, 2015, 03:56:15 pm
A couple things before we get started this week. You can now watch my talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxV5Ln8BOAo) from the UK IRDC 2015 on URR’s general generation systems. Check them out! Also, I’ll be at this year’s ProcJam (http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/procjam-2015-kickoff-day-tickets-18723814433) opening talks (though not speaking this time) down in London, so you should all come and say hello, both to me and other excellent PCG folk speaking. Hopefully see you there! And if not, I recommend taking part in ProcJam – a lot of awesome stuff came out of it last year and I’m sure the same will be the case this year. Also, as mentioned previously, I’ve now started a job as a three-year research fellow; currently I’m therefore working on URR at weekends and in the evenings. Progress is speeding up again now, but it’ll inevitably be a little slower than it had been pre-move. As such, I’m now seriously once more considering releasing NPCs without the conversation mechanics as 0.8… but I might not. Basically, I’m going to finish NPCs, and then take stock; but that possibility is still on the table. I don’t want people waiting ages, and I do obviously want the NPCs to be tested, but at the same time I promised gameplay and the conversation system is going to be in-depth and exciting, so I want to offer that, even if that means a longer time between releases. We’ll see.
Now, onto this week’s update, where I am pleased to report that development has now resumed after around a fortnight of moving house and starting-new-job admin, and we have some initial progress in the handling of the game’s important NPCs. So, read on…
Placing and Counting NPCs
When a world is generated there is now a block of code which looks over each tile, examines what is in the tile and the ideologies of its owning nation, religion, and all this kind of data, and comes to a conclusion about how many guards there should be, what kinds of guards these are (Mansion, Parliament, Castle, etc), where they should rest (in that same tile, as in a Fortress, or in another city district), and so forth. It does the same for all other important NPCs, and then counts up the total. Here’s a map I had the game print out where each tile was coloured according to how many important NPCs it had. A black/grey tile had none, and then the colours/numbers went through the rainbow to denote numbers of guards from 1 to 10 – dark red, red, red/orange, orange, orange/yellow, yellow, yellow/green, green, light blue, mid blue. If there are 10 or more, it uses a ‘+’ symbol. One can see roughly where all the major cities are, and get some impression of where fortresses are, and for the time being nothing spawns in towns which would “merit” a guard (though this will probably change) and so those don’t show up (same goes for tribal encampments, though I might add guards to certain buildings there in the future). I think it’s quite interesting to note how different cities have different textures of how important NPCs are laid out, depending on their ideologies and so forth. Note also that some of the fortresses have different numbers, again according to their layouts/ideologies. Anyway, here’s an example of this map:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And some zoomed-in examples of cities with very different “important NPC textures”, where in most cases the +s are indicative of things like city centers and upper-class districts and military districts, whilst the common 1/2/3/s tend to be lower-class districts where the national ideologies vary what spawns and doesn’t spawn there:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As for these important NPCs: they are stored in two areas – if it is an important NPC who will never ever leave the tile they are currently on, it saves them in the potential_npcs list on that map tile; if it is an important NPC who will be moving around the world, it saves them in the potential_npcs list in the world overall; this separation is to avoid a situation where even NPCs who never leave their map grid were in the global set of abstracted-out NPCs, there would be no point scheduling them and going over their routines/actions, since those can just be modeled when the player goes near. At this point it also (though this is not fully implemented yet) creates a bunch of tags for each important NPC. This might be something mundane and overt like “Guards the mansion of Family X”, or something covert like “Intends to murder NPC X in a plot with [list of other NPCs]”, or “Once met a mercenary who knew where [secret item X] was buried”, or whatever, which one might be able to discover. This brings us back to the previous discussion a while ago of secrets NPCs hold: a jail might have 50 prisoners, most of whom might be mundane, but a few will hold secrets which might be of use to you in some way.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spawning Important Folks
Until the player goes near to any of the important NPCs, they remain “abstract”. They are able to act and gain connections by possessing the list of “npc_info” stuff listed above (who they plan to usurp, their other secret agendas, etc), and this also means that a spawned NPC can talk about an unspawned NPC without that NPC having to be spawned, which means that all the important NPC information is set up before the spawning of any of those NPCs. When the physical version is spawned because the player has stepped onto their map tile (or they are a roving important NPC and they have just moved into the player’s map tile), the game looks for the “npc_info” which describes an NPC of that sort and then tethers that npc_info to the physical copy of that NPC and deletes the abstract copy. That then doesn’t change the abilities of other NPCs to reference the important NPC, but it just means they now reference the physical copy rather than the abstract copy, but either way the game knows the information relevant to that NPC, and that NPC can move around the map (whether “physical” or “abstract”).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Reworking Guards
When I worked on guards in the past few weeks, I hadn’t fulled realized that guards were, basically, an “important” NPC, and therefore would actually need to be tracked to their homes and the rest of their schedules just like all the others. This means I’ve had to undo a little bit of the code I wrote before for tracking guard pairings and so forth, but this didn’t actually take as long as I’d feared. Guards now still spawn correctly and match up with their “abstract” selves, but no longer exchange their positions, as that requires me to transform some abstract guards into real ones at appropriate moments, and then get them matching up whether or not all, some, or none of them are spawned – the next step is therefore to get them (and everything else) performing according to their schedules, which is the objective for the coming week.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next Week
Important (and unimportant) NPCs remain permanently/temporarily spawned when they cross districts, so you can follow them; guards can exchange their patrols with one another at the correct times; TIME (regular) and SCHEDULE (unique) events work, or at least have begun to be implemented. See you then for more work on the important NPCs of URR![/list]
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 18, 2015, 04:38:44 pm
Importance of Important NPCs
Firstly, the game now selects a lot of new important things during world generation; or rather, it has always done this and then stored “keywords” and information so that specific areas can be generated later if/when the player sets foot in them, but this has now been expanded to every NPC who might be important. Therefore, the world at generation decides precisely how many servants live in a given mansion, for example, and how many mercenaries live in a mercenary guild in a certain city, and so on. The map I showed last week was partly complete in this regard but was lacking a bunch of other important NPCs I had actually forgotten about, but I believe the game now generates them all correctly. This means all guards are generated at world gen, along with all other obviously-important NPCs (like rulers) and a small number of other NPCs (like slaves, servants, prisoners, etc) who are then intermingled with non-important versions of themselves.
Since new important NPCs have been added, take a look at this new diagram – you’ll see that there’s now a bunch of important NPCs spawning in towns, settlements, more in cities, all over the place! Much more colourful and much more variety, and shows that not everyone who matters lives in a city…
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Important_NPCs2.png
Historical Importance and Secret Information
The game can now assign “notes” to each important NPC, notes which might be referenced elsewhere in the game and will determine some of the unique things you might be able to do with each unique NPC. Examples include whether that NPC is involved in a plot, is secretly a worshiper of another religion, has an unsolved crime to their name, fought in a war/wars, is corrupt or embezzling somehow, what other important NPCs they’ve met, where they traveled, and so forth (and also past-tense examples for all those I wrote in the present tense, so an important NPC might have been involved in an un/successful plot in the past, but is not involved in one currently). This will obviously develop far more in 0.9 onwards, but the basic framework is now in place for meeting a merchant in one place, who tells you about a plot he overheard involving someone in the next town over, then finding that person and encouraging them to give you information about the plot, and discovering it is being lead by a number of political delegates who all secretly worship another religion, and then finding out a list of delegates and trying to decipher who it might be, and finding out this plot may be attempting to put a particular person on the throne, a person who – as someone else told you – may just know the location of one of the items you’re seeking…
…and so forth.
Representation and Delegates
I turned back to the democratic ideology choices this week and added a nice bit of extra detail here. There is now a new NPC type, the “delegate”, shown for now with an “a”, and each democratic(ish) nation will have a selection, depending on how many seats there are in their parliament. Once the game knows this number, it then carries out a reasonably complex equation. The game counts up how many towns, monasteries, and districts there in a nation (say, 4, 2, and 18), and then attempts multiples alongside each of those (1,2,3,4) for how many representatives there might be from each town/monastery/district, and then attempts to get that as close to the target delegate value as possible. If it hits it directly: great. If not, then the game gets as close as possible to that value, and then adds in a few extra delegates which belong to the major families, the military, the national bank, the national religion, or some combination, depending on how many “extra” delegates are required. This obviously produces a lot of variety – in some nations each monastery has two delegates, each city district just one, and each major house two; in another maybe each city district has two delegates, but the military fields six of its own delegates, and the bank a couple too. Delegates have been given (temporary and very basic) schedules for me to test in the coming week getting them all moving correctly around the world map. Here’s an example map of nations with the “representation” ideology (in white) and their distribution of delegates, who will all be scheduled to come together to the parliamentary building once every X weeks/months/etc:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Delegates1.png
Road Aesthetics
A minor thing – I noticed that all road curves were curved, and that doesn’t really stick with the whole geometric-aesthetics thing, so road curves now vary, just like almost everything else, depending on the nation they’re found in. A truly minor detail, but once I realized it, I just had to fix it. The octagon and diamond inevitably look similar (the octagon just has less diagonal), but still:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Early Days for Castles
On evenings when I didn’t have enough time to sit down and really do a lot of this complex scheduling/technical stuff, I started work on castle generation and, although it took a long time to figure out how exactly this was going to work, I’m very pleased with the initial results, and I’ll definitely have something to show in this regard in… two weeks? Something like that. But here’s a little hint of some castle walls, a gate, a moat, and is that… is that something which might become a DRAWBRIDGE?!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Vassal Houses
The game now spawns an appropriate selection of lesser houses for nations with the “vassalage” ideology. There’s a longer blog post in the work for the future about how I’m reworking these for 0.8 and the new variation I’m trying to add to all the nations as a result, but that’s a future thing; nevertheless, these now appear, and each is given a town to rule; in the very near future I’ll be expanding this so that a “county” appears around each town which each family rules, and all the farms and whatnot within it, which is the area that vassal then controls. Still not quite sure how the mottoes for these lesser houses will generate, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something acceptable in the near future.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What next?
Well, by the end of next week I hope to get the important NPCs moving and scheduling themselves around the map, even if only in a very basic state, and to have significantly more progress on generating castles, and hopefully to allow you to follow and track important NPCs whether they are”abstract” – i.e. the player hasn’t yet gone close enough to them to pawn them – or “real” – i.e. the player has gone close enough – and these NPCs should carry out their schedules regardless of whether they are on the other side of the world, or directly in front of the player. That’s a pretty big ask, and I’ll be busy for much of next weekend, but I’d hope for the first steps towards it next week. I’m also drafting out in the background a few other improvements to the policies system (which is now becoming “ideologies”, as that is far more descriptive of what I’m after here), extra variation in each nation, and also some thoughts on ambient flora and fauna and making those a) more interesting and b) actually exist, respectively. I’m also now strongly leaning towards saving up both NPCs and conversations for a big release, as DF did that a while ago and it seemed to work out fine, and I know it would be worth the wait… I know I mention this debate every entry at the moment, and I still haven’t 100% decided, but I’m about 95% on the “save it up for an epic first release” side of things. Either way, see you in a week!
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 19, 2015, 02:49:08 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 20, 2015, 04:01:55 am
Dialects pretty please! I found it striking that one corner of england could barely understand the other end in tudor times (all the invasions and new settlers didn't help).
Dialects *within a given nation* do you mean? It is proving tricky enough to come up with 30+ forms of English for each nation, I think dialects might just be a bit too tricky!
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 21, 2015, 12:25:08 pm
30+ forms of English for each nation:o
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 21, 2015, 06:09:45 pm
30+ forms of English for each nation:o
As in, 30+ forms; one of which is for each nation! Not 30 per nation!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 25, 2015, 04:15:43 pm
Homes are Assigned
Homes are now assigned to all important NPCs, and each NPC has a “work” location and a “home” location (although special events, like a gladiator being pulled away from their training to fight in any one of many possible arenas, will add another “work” location). In some cases these are the same districts – so the guards who guard castles are also guards who live within castles, and their work and home districts are the same, and the same goes for every guard in a one-tile fortress, town, etc – whereas other guards will live elsewhere. There are no homes in a city centre, but the guards who guard the mints or parliaments have to live somewhere, and so they now live in other districts, where the district depends on the NPC (so the guards of mansions are better-off and live in middle-class districts, whilst the guards of arenas will live in lower-class districts, and so forth). When the player then enters a district with homes in for the first time, the game will look over which important NPCs are housed in that district, and will assign actual doors and houses to those NPCs, and ensure that random NPCs in crowds will never enter these houses. Here’s a little output noting which guard in a pairing each guard is (“first guard” or “second guard”, their form of guarding, where they begin the game (whether on duty, or not on duty), and then where they work and where they live; and you’ll notice a range of living districts for the mint guards.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Homes.png
Ocean Trade Routes
The game now generates ocean trade routes. All settlements except hunter-gatherer encampments which “touch” the coast now count as being a “dock” (even if these do not physically spawn yet, but will soon), and the game now has an algorithm for attempting to piece them together in a reasonably interesting, efficient, and wide-reaching way. The player will be able to jump onto these shipping routes, as will important NPCs who need to travel very long-distance (which will be rare, and mostly for mercenaries, soldiers, ambassadors, diplomats, plotters in various schemes, explorers, inquisitors, preachers, etc). I’m very happy with the kinds of shipping patterns this produces, and is something I’ve been meaning to add for a while, since it connects up parts of the map not ordinarily connected and thereby allows important NPCs to potentially travel to places they couldn’t travel to before (more on this below). These routes will show up on the world map once you find them, and when you consider boarding a ship in 0.9 (probably) onwards, you’ll be told where that lane stops, how long it will take you to each location, how safe from pirates etc each part of the route is, and so forth.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Oceanroutes.png
Road and Off-Road Pathfinding
When an NPC is looking for a path between settlements, the NPCs consider two possible routes – one using any tile they’re able to use, whether something fast like a road or something slow like an ordinary piece of terrain, and another using only “special” forms of travel, meaning roads, naval trade routes, and (in the future) desert caravans and mountain passes. Whichever one is faster (and safer) will be the one the NPC selects. So in this first picture, we see the terrain of a given world. In the second picture we see “all valid tiles”, and we can see that oceans are excluded aside from shipping routes, deserts are entirely excluded (since caravans do not yet exist), mountains are excluded (since mountain passes do not yet exist) and rivers are excluded, except on tiles where a road crosses them. In the third picture we see the final map which only uses roads and shipping routes, which might take longer paths to a given location but each particular tile will be faster – and so the game will check them both whenever an NPC wants to move. I debated going even further and weighting every single tile and using some kind of A* with Bounded Costs system, but a) that would be a surprising nightmare, b) it’s very CPU-intensive and this multi-settlement pathfinding has to be done effectively instantly, and c) I actually think this can have gameplay value: if you are told Person X is travelling to Y, you can be told if they’re travelling by road, or not, and can try to catch up with them that way, rather than knowing they’re going by the absolute optimal route, which might be very challenging for a human player to deduce.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Terrain.png
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Worldpathfinding.png
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Worldroads.png
A final interesting note: we can see in both of these pictures that the area in the northwest is cut off from the rest of the world. That area happens to have no towns which are on the coast and therefore have docks, and same goes for cities, and it is separated from the rest of the world by mountains and desert, and cannot therefore be accessed by land (unless the player is willing to move through desert or mountains without caravans/passes, which will cause each turn to take many many times longer than normal; NPCs will not have this option). Therefore a future (but probably quite simple) system will be required to floodfill the world and to ensure that every settlement, no matter how obscure and hard to reach, can always be reached via land, road, shipping route, caravan route, or mountain pass, or some combination – something this particular generation doesn’t achieve.
NPCs Moving Around the World Map
Although this is all snazzy and important, the most important thing by far is that all important NPCs now move around the map on their standard schedules. They will not yet appear and spawn if the player enters the same tile, and they are not yet able to be given one-off tasks (“Come together in Parliament for a vote”, “Go to this arena for a fight”, “Present your latest artistic work in front of the King”, etc), but they all correctly make their way around cities and towns, they perform their actions at the right times, they get up and go to sleep, change watches if they’re guards, tend to vegetable gardens if they’re monks, and so on and so on. Now, naturally making sure that the player can physically see this happening is the next step – and a big one – but at any moment in time I can now check what every single important NPC across the world is doing, or in the process of doing, and when they’re going to stop doing that and start doing something else. There isn’t really a nice picture I can put up for this, but it’s happening, and that’s crucial and very exciting.
Next Week?!
The next two weekends are both free for me to focus entirely on coding (as well as ongoing evenings etc), so I’m hoping for a lot of progress. For next week I’ll be continuing to inch forwards on castle generation, hoping to get guards once more changing over their patrol timings with each other, and start to get all the important NPCs spawning when the player steps onto those tiles and being tracked whether abstract or spawned. That’s quite a lot, so we’ll see how it plays out, but I’m very pleased with my speed of development at the moment, particularly considering how many other professional (and personal) commitments I have at the moment. See you next week!
Post by: Willfor on October 25, 2015, 05:35:15 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Oceanroutes.pngOne way to make your ocean routes look a little more realistic would be to weight the deeper parts of it as more expensive to travel through for the purposes of ocean crossing. This will have ships hug the coast a little more realistically until they're ready to cross at nearer points.
Post by: Aseaheru on October 25, 2015, 10:26:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2015, 06:01:59 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Oceanroutes.pngOne way to make your ocean routes look a little more realistic would be to weight the deeper parts of it as more expensive to travel through for the purposes of ocean crossing. This will have ships hug the coast a little more realistically until they're ready to cross at nearer points.
This is a nice thought - I'll do that!
That tiny channel with all those sea trade routes going through would make a pirate salivate...
Ha, you said it!
Post by: Retropunch on October 28, 2015, 02:17:38 pm
What are your ideas about piracy? I know it's a long time in the future, but are you thinking of an actual 'event' or a sort of end of action report?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 30, 2015, 12:16:58 pm
Great idea about ocean routes Aseaheru!!
What are your ideas about piracy? I know it's a long time in the future, but are you thinking of an actual 'event' or a sort of end of action report?
Oh, definitely an event! You'll probably be utilizing ships in 0.9, though as you say, piracy is a way off...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 01, 2015, 07:22:56 am
Matching Up NPCs
Now when any important NPC spawns, the game correctly matches them up with their abstract version. In some cases this can be slightly more complex than usual – for instance when spawning a priest in a map grid with a whole bunch of priests, it needs to spawn the right priest, or when spawning a merchant in a market district it needs to correctly choose the merchant who sells the particular type of goods in question (who will be stored in the game’s abstract information, so that they can be referenced at any point even if they haven’t yet been spawned). I know I’ve mentioned this several times in past entries, but I think this time it is *actually* full implemented, at last. There are some classes of NPC who do not yet spawn physically and therefore cannot yet be matched up to their abstract counterparts – for instance lords of towns in vassalage nations, or delegates for parliamentary nations (since I haven’t yet worked out where the heck they live!), but the system can be easily expanded to those when the time comes.
Town Walls and Diasporic Communities
In keeping with my plans to ensure that all ideologies have actual physical effects (akin, this is a blog post in its own right, which will probably appear in the next few weeks) I’ve added in the code for placing walls around the towns which exist in isolationist nations. Depending on the aesthetic preference of each nation – the standard square, circle, octagon, diamond, cross I’m going with at the moment – town walls generate according to a slightly different algorithm, and look quite different once constructed. Here are illustrative examples for each shape (square, diamond, octagon, cross, circle). At some point these will likely gain guards at the gates at the outside, either to check who turns up, or perhaps to charge those wishing to enter depending on economic policies…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/Walls_Square2.png)
Additionally, “Internationalist” civs have the reverse of this, and all of their towns contain what I’m calling diasporic communities. When such a town spawns the game will look for the nearest nation to that town’s nation which the nation actually has diplomatic ties with (so no nations they’re hostile with, and no tribal nations) and will then spawn a few of the houses (and some of the crowd) from that nation instead. Here’s an example of a town which had a community from another feudal nation, but sometimes they might even have a nomadic community living there, which would merit a different brick tile as well as brick colour:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/diasp1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/10/NewS.png)
(You’ll see some new shapes and things in the latter picture, which are the new “Barracks” and “Military Base” structures for various ideologies, with (of course) an appropriate shape for the nation in question). I am of course fully aware that this two-colour system is not how these things would look in the real world, but again, recognition/visuals/gameplay > realism in this case, since I want it to be very visually apparent that you’re living in a more varied town than normal. As above, all of this is part of the background objective of this release, which is making the world’s nations even more varied by completely reworking the ideology system. More on this later!
Prisoners, Farmers, Monks, and so forth
There is a particular category of NPCs where you have a number of the same kind of NPC in a grid, but only some of them are “important” and therefore need to be tracked. As I’ve mentioned in a previous entry, a jail might have 80 prisoners, but only 3 of them might be particularly important. The game can now distribute the importance to a random three prisoners, whilst also storing the remaining 77 so that the player cannot leave, return, see which prisoners have “respawned” and thereby deduce which matter and which do not.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/03/Jail1.png)
All Abstract Schedules Work
This is a small but crucial point – I’ve now confirmed that all abstract schedules work correctly for all important NPCs, and that when the game starts (now fixed to exactly midday on Jan 1st, 1700) they all start off doing the correct job they should be doing. Whether an NPC moves from tile to tile, or always stays within the same map tile, and whether they are exchanging guard duties, tending to vegetable gardens in monasteries, ruling a nation or shopkeeping, all schedules now (as far as I can tell, and with 2000+ important NPCs per world gen, this is tricky) seem to work perfectly. I haven’t had a crash in a long time, and I can look at the important NPCs sitting on any map grid and they all always appear to be doing the correct thing. It is of course possible there’s a bug hidden in here somewhere, but I’m actually feeling very confident about it now. This is a major step towards next week’s objectives (see below) and it feels really good to have it all functioning correctly. I’ve also worked hard on optimizing the time it takes for abstract NPCs to take their moves, particularly when the player is fast-travelling, though this inevitably takes a bit of time; but since the laptop I program on is ancient and garbage, and players won’t be fast-travelling during gameplay anywhere near as often as I’m doing it in testing, I think a tiny pause per step is acceptable (though I will still continue to improve it).
Home Doors
Now, when the player generates any map grid, the game looks over all the important NPCs stored by the game, notes those which have their homex/homey variables on this map tile, then looks over what kind of door they should be living behind – a standard house, a castle, a church, and so forth – and then finds an appropriate door on that map grid and makes that their home door. For buildings with multiple doors (cathedrals etc) it stores all doors in a list of “home doors” rather than just the one. For some NPC types this hasn’t yet been completely handled – inquisitors, sailors and explorers will probably lack any home tile, I’m not yet sure where exactly certain NPCs will spawn and act (e.g. blacksmiths), and so on – but the overwhelming majority now get a set of door tiles attached to them. This also means that once such doors have been assigned, random crowd NPCs will never go through that door. Again, we continue to build towards next week’s objective (see below) of getting all the important NPCs to always act correctly “in person”, as well as in the “abstract”.
Next Week
My plans for the coming week are to begin work on the most challenging part of all: getting spawned NPCs (i.e. those the player can physically see on their map tile) to act according to their abstract behaviours and schedules. This is a huge one, and it will likely take more than a week for the entire thing, but I hope to have significant progress to show in seven days. I’m also probably going to slowly continue work on things like castles and ideologies in the background, and continuing to add to town variation (I need to get manors spawning for “vassalage” nations, and military bases for “standing army” nations, for example), but ensuring identical behaviour for spawned/unspawned NPCs is the core goal for the next couple of weeks. See you then!
Post by: varsovie on November 01, 2015, 06:50:51 pm
(Or even procedural porn 8) )
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2015, 08:36:55 am
Oh god more procedural generated content porn pls.
(Or even procedural porn 8) )
Well, I'm sure I can deliver at least one of those...
Post by: Greenbane on November 05, 2015, 10:20:45 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 05, 2015, 11:22:05 am
Amazing progress so far! I'm still watching this intently. :)
Thanks! This release is getting bigger and bigger, but it's going to be damned exciting to be in the game world once it's done.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on November 05, 2015, 01:12:57 pm
(And looks beautiful)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 05, 2015, 06:31:48 pm
I love URR, because it's a small indie project tightly focused on its goals.
(And looks beautiful)
Thanks! I appreciate the tightly-focused comment too, especially since it took a while to really zero in on what I thought was interesting, but now I've figured out what I'm doing, nothing is getting in the way. The world is expansive, but focused for a couple of years now on the procedural-cultural-riddle idea, and with NPCs and conversations this will finally begin to emerge.
(And thanks! There is more beauty on its way)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 08, 2015, 09:27:27 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/11/08/procjam-2015-report/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 14, 2015, 06:18:51 am
Religious
Collective Faith: churches spawn in towns, but not cities.
Organized Religion: churches spawn in lower- and middle-class city districts. Chapel spawns in castle.
Religious Freedom: capital city contains district housing all religious buildings; towns contain no religious buildings. Many small chapels for each religion spawn in castle.
Zealotry: churches spawn in every lower- and middle-class city district and every town. Chapel spawns in castle, and holy books spawn in many rooms.
Monastic: monasteries spawn outside cities. Monk quarters in castle.
Military
Conscription: barracks spawn in towns. Conscript training area in castle.
Standing Army: military bases (larger, and containing barracks and armouries spawn in all towns). Large garrison in castle.
Militia: many citizens carry weapons of some sort.
Pacifism: there is no military district in the capital city.
Vassalage: in towns there are manors instead of village halls, and there are a large number of lesser noble families (beyond those living in the city), each of which controls a town and its surrounding area. Hall filled with banners of lords/nobles spawns in castle.
Foreign
Exploration: cartographer shop spawns in market district. Map room spawns in castle.
Isolationist: towns have walls around them. Extra defensive walls spawn around castle.
Internationalist: towns contain diasporic communities from other nations. Foreign tribute room spawns in castle.
Interventionist: Spies and informers spawn in other nations. Secret vault/room with espionage information spawns in castle.
Imperialist: colonies owned by the home nation appear on the world map. Trophy room of captured items from other nations spawns in castle.
Intellectual
Traditional: biographer shop spawns in market district. Super-rare biographies spawn in castle.
Mathematical: architect shop spawns in market district.
Mechanical: mining shop spawns in market district.
Literary: bookseller shop spawns in market district. Super-rare books (of any sort) spawn in castle.
Antiquarian: historian shop spawns in market district. Super-rare histories spawn in castle.
Leadership
Representation: parliament spawns in city centre; delegates are assigned to an appropriate mathematical distribution across towns, monasteries, colonies, districts, families, religion, and the military (depending on other ideologies/factors). No throne room spawns, but rich quarters for current elected ruler spawn instead.
Stratocracy: barracks in every housing district. Military-focused throne room with heavy guard spawns in castle.
Monarchy: large graveyards with crypts spawn. Regal throne room spawns in castle.
Theocracy: crypt with archives spawns under cathedral. Throne room with altars and holy texts spawns in castle.
Trade
Free Trade: all city districts are free to enter. Well-guarded cache of foreign money spawns in castle.
Mercantilism: cities cost money to enter/exit (and towns if also with isolationist policy), but there is no cost for movement inside.
Planned Economy: each district in a city costs money to move through.
Protectionism: inferior prices for selling foreign goods; increased prices for selling domestic goods. Well-guarded cache of domestic money spawns in castle.
Barter: black markets spawn in lower-class districts and towns.
Cultural
Hegemony: racial background affects relations with NPCs and other nations.
Aesthetics: jeweller shop spawns in market district. Art gallery spawns in castle.
Venatic: fletcher, bowyer and crossbowyer shops spawn in market district. Hunting trophies are displayed in castle.
Wisdom: linguist shop spawns in market district. Super-rare philosophy books spawn in castle.
Justice:
Vigiliantism: bounties for wanted individuals are listed on posters, and may be acquired from a central bounty office in the city centre. Heads on pikes spawn outside castle and/or in castle grounds.
Gladiatorial: arenas spawn, both for entertainment and punishment of criminals. Information about champions spawns in hallway in castle.
Frontier: pistolmaker, riflemaker and powdermaker shops spawn in market district. Rifle armoury spawns in castle.
Ordeal: punishment is by ordeal, the nature of which varies from nation to nation. Torture chamber spawns beneath castle.
Penitentiary: prisons spawn in lower-class districts. Dungeon spawns beneath castle.
The idea here being that these aren’t “abstract” changes, but physical and structural changes that the player should see in each nation they visit, and which in turn will be reflected in the kind of people you meet in each nation, how they behave and talk, and so on. Perhaps one can learn about the ideologies of distant nations in other ways – a book about a nation would only mention a famous fight in an arena if that nation has the gladiatorial ideology, for example, or a painting would only depict a nation invading another if they were (probably) imperialists – and perhaps plan out one’s path around the world, at least in part, based on this; at the same time the player should be able to have a decent idea of what they’ll find in a nation before they set foot there. Here are some examples – some of these already exist in 0.7’s world generation, but some of these variations are very new. We have here a town with walls and various military facilities and a mansion (and no town hall, since a town with a manor is ruled from there instead), a city centre with a parliament, a town with a diasporic community, and a new marketplace of a sort redesigned for the next release:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Many of the ideologies are however smaller in scale – certain shops spawn, or people behave in a certain way, and so forth – and are therefore not quite as easily represented in a nice blog entry screenshot. Equally, I’m also going to add a new set of variations which aren’t really “ideologies”, per se, but rather things like: regular statuary at junctions and alongside roads in cities, gardens in every district, writing everything on tablets instead of books, having developed gas lighting for their streets, and another two-dozen or so ideas I’ve got along these lines (using prayer mats instead of chairs in religious buildings falls into this category of non-ideological variation). Just more and more stuff to be developed slowly but surely in the background to further add to the variation and difference in each nation.
Next week we’ll have a big coding update. It has become apparent that I’ve stacked up quite an impressive list of bugs and issues and small things requiring fixing over the last few months, and I think it is wisest to deal with all of these in the coming week before starting anything new (i.e. getting NPCs moving around correctly according to their abstract schedules in the physical world). It is reaching the point where I just have too many things 95% finished in the next version to really keep track of, so the focus before next weekend is in clearing up and optimizing a huge number of things coded in the past couple of months, in order to free up a bit of cognitive space to then proceed with finishing off NPCs. Equally, apologies for two not-progress-heavy blog posts in a row; coding is going on in the background, but there’s so much on my plate at the moment (full-time research, book proposals, papers, etc) that I’ve been inevitably focusing on smaller coding tasks than larger ones which require serious focus for several days on end. Anyway – see you next week, at which point a bunch of papers and other tasks will have been concluded, and so coding should accelerate once again!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 23, 2015, 08:52:39 am
New Stuff
Firstly, in nations with the vassalage ideology, we will now find that towns no longer contain town halls, but instead contain manors, each of which belongs to a specific noble family which rules that town and its surrounding area. These are naturally different in shapes according to the nation, and have some pleasant gardens surrounding them akin to (but smaller than) the gardens in upper class districts. These have three floors just like their larger kin, and now all generate correctly across all three floors. Also, you’ll note that they have clear gardens but they can be a little tricky to see when the colour match – once I redo plant generation and ensure visual variation across the world, this should be much clearer (and the same goes for all other buildings with clear “garden” areas. Here are some examples with the exterior on the left, then the floors from highest (with bedroom) to lowest (for servants/slaves):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next up, delegates now have identified houses in all possible map grids. What I mean this is that whether a delegate in a democratic nation represents a city district, or a town, or a monastery, or whatever, they will now always have somewhere appropriate to spawn and to live. These are generally houses that stand out from the rest, but are not ordinarily of a higher status than “middle-class” (of the sort shown below). In an upper-class district they get upper-class homes, but everywhere else special middle-class houses will spawn. The one shown below is in a city centre with the “cross” aesthetic preference, and three delegates from the district. I recognize this looks a little artificial, but I’m content with how they look here (given that delegates in various democratic nations in the real world are naturally given special statuses of various sorts). Similarly, everywhere else, houses of this size that stand out will belong to a delegate.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There are now a suitable number of priests in each cathedral, and they know that they sleep there, and so when we move onto getting NPCs to physically follow their abstract schedules (the next major task), they will be able to retreat to their quarters at night when appropriate. The number of priests in the cathedral varies per cathedral, but they will always be found moving around the space and talking to others, or worshiping at the altars, or working at a table, and so forth.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Town halls also now have an interior, and some quarters where the mayor lives (I decided to combine those two roles into one), but as above, in vassalage-y nations there is no town hall and towns are instead ruled by a noble from their manor. Here are a couple of town hall interiors (they are all this kind of “star” shape, since I try to make every building a noteworthy and distinctive shape, and those happen to be a shape I haven’t really used anywhere else yet, and certainly not in towns). The rooms on the ground floors with tables will be where town records spawn once I’ve implemented books/scrolls/tablets/etc.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Training areas now spawn in city centre districts in nations which enjoy gladiatorial combat. This will be the standard “work location” for gladiators on days when there are no fights, and you’ll be able to watch them sparring once weapons get introduced. For the time being I’ll give them the same “meandering” code as NPCs get when they look around memorials or art galleries and the like. Doesn’t look super-exciting right now, I realize, but once it has gladiators training (and maybe things like training dummies?) it’ll be rather more noticeable. The shape of the layout is, of course, determined by the nation’s aesthetic preferences.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Improved/Fixed/Resolved Stuff
- Prevented market districts from spawning too many shops in nations with “forced shops” in their ideological preferences.
- Dealt with a bunch of issues involving sand, snow and ice terrain behaving oddly when certain structures are placed on them (since these are handled differently to “ordinary” land).
- Dealt with an interesting scheduling bug where monks really, really hated tending their vegetable gardens.
- Fixed an issue where guards for inside and outside mints became confused about their roles.
- Increased the colour contrast on prayer mats for certain religions to make them less painful to look at.
- Fixed a weird bug with segments being taken out of corner towers in certain districts.
- Fixed an issue with important guards (which is to say, all guards) not being corrected abstracted and returned when the player leaves their map grid.
- Random crowd NPCs will no longer go into a house that has been assigned as somebody’s home.
- Jailers, Mercenaries, Prisoners, Merchants, Innkeeps and other classes of NPC who generally wander around a given room/floor for most of their ordinary day no longer make a mad sprint for the exit the moment they spawn.
- The roads surrounding barracks, military bases and mansions do not override existing walls when spawned.
- Crowd NPCs in towns with foreign communities now only go into the appropriate houses from their culture when returning “home”, and NPCs from the other civilization present actually spawn and go about their day.
- Jail offices now contain, y’know… office stuff. Chairs and so forth.
- Roads in snow/ice/desert towns no longer sometimes appear at a strangely low z level.
- Towns in snow/ice with at least one edge of water no longer have edges that look strange and flat.
- The inside of monasteries always resembles the exterior, and are therefore no longer sometimes somewhat akin to the TARDIS.
- Houses in middle-class districts can no longer spawn, somewhat incongruously, in the middle of parks.
- Fortresses can no longer spawn on adjacent tiles to towns (I’ve only ever seen this ONCE, and should have been impossible already, but it is now doubly impossible).
- Fountains no longer look like delegates when they’re downhill. No, I don’t understand either.
- The quantum scheduling system no longer causes a crash at map edges.
- Fixed an issue that encouraged NPCs to run in circles in a particular form of middle-class district.
- The sex of NPCs is now chosen before they ever spawn – this allows them to spawn according to cultural preferences (only female priests, only male rulers, either in army, etc) and for people to talk about them with correct pronouns.
- Ensured that smaller upper class houses work again – since implementing something that assigns houses directly to families they had been riddled with bugs.
- Leaves are no longer made out water when they hang over tiles of water…
Next Week’s Stuff
At this point I’d say we’re at around… 80% completion on *everything* to do with NPCs and their AI behaviours (for now). We have crowds spawning, crowds pathfinding in every possible area, crowd demographics for nations and cultures, crowds entering/leaving buildings appropriately, important NPCs being spawned, important NPCs being tracked in the abstract, important NPCs being spawned when the player steps onto the appropriate map grid. All that remains is 1) to get important NPCs, when spawned, acting the same way they do when abstracted out, and therefore moving correctly around the physical maps, and 2) to add in the remaining important NPCs who don’t currently spawn (executioners, chiefs, and the like). Then I need to finish off the remaining clothing types (some of the lower-class clothing, and then all the clothing for nomadic/tribal nations), and finish adding in all the new ideological variation between nations, and then it will be onto castle generation and the conversation system! It’s hard to say what order this will be done in. Finishing off scheduled NPC movement is a very technical task and I like to leave myself clear periods of a day or two to work on that kind of thing – but I’m full-time employed now and I’m busy next weekend and the weekend after. As such, I’m probably going to focus on Everything Else for the next fortnight or so, and then come back to NPC scheduling to finish off the calendar year with. Therefore, I would guess that next week we’ll have my continued purging of the bugs and glitches I’ve stacked up (since only around 50% of the issues on the list have been resolved this week) and work on clothes, castles, or both. See you all then!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 01, 2015, 03:51:40 pm
Democracy
I decided to return to what I mentioned last week about giving delegates special homes and make this a little bit more detailed and a bit more interesting. I’m always looking for things that make each civilization distinctive, and doing this for democratic nations in a little more detail was something that quite appealed. Therefore, in each possible delegate location, there is a different kind of housing. The diagram below shows this – the top row are for “district” delegates, and the bottom row for “other” kinds of delegates (who might of course be resident within a district, but the game counts them differently). Middle-class districts use standard middle-class district houses (but gives them flags outside) just as upper-class districts use standard upper-class houses (again, with flags outside to denote that they are special), whilst aside from those every other area does something slightly special to denote the housing assigned to democratic delegates (all have flags outside). Here’s the full set:
Huge image, so linked it instead: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/11/All-delegates1.png
These are, I think, pretty identifiable, and are another way to mark out differences between nations. It will also make it clear where delegates live, which might have use a little further down the line. The most challenging of these was for the “Bank” delegates who might live within the mint, and the “Religion” delegates who live within religious buildings, since those required me to return to buildings whose generation algorithms I thought I had entirely finished with, and add something new. With that said, though, I’m really happy with how all of these turned out, and they continue to add a little more depth to the more democratic of nations, and variation within democratic nations (since each nation distributes its delegates differently – one nation might have religious delegates and bank ones, another might have monastery and farm delegates, and so forth).
Castles
This week I’ve done a fair bit of preparatory work on castles. As I mentioned, I’ve been away this weekend, and will be away next weekend, but I’ve still had (and will have next week) a couple hours at the end of each day spare to get some coding done. As such I’ve tried to give myself something that doesn’t require sitting down and doing a huge amount of technical effort (since I like to focus on that kind of thing for long periods) but rather something creative which is primarily down to creating variations and having them generate correctly. As such, prior to this weekend I set up the system for the exterior generation of castles – they now generate according to national aesthetics, and of a size appropriate to the number of rooms they need to contain, and with various other things outside based on policies (severed heads on pikes, extra defences, homes for delegates, etc). This weekend and next weekend I started to work on their interior generation, which is complex and time-consuming but will look extremely exciting once concluded. I don’t think by next week’s blog entry I’ll have enough to properly show off a castle, but the week after that I suspect will be the big “castle generation” entry I’ve been working on for a while (I’m extremely pleased with how castles are coming together). In the mean time, here’s another little castle teaser:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/11/NewS3.png)
Sigils
Given that I wasn’t happy with them before – and everyone who commented seemed, generally, to agree – I’ve changed the “lesser house” sigils for nations that have them to something that looks way better than the previous set. There are now 15 unique ones for each shape aesthetic that are far superior to the previous set. Here are some examples:
Again, huge image: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/11/Newminors.png
Fixes, Improvements, Minor Changes
- Vases now only spawn for religions, not upper-class families; I didn’t want to allow the colour clashing between a nation’s colours and those of the vases (which have their own large set of nice-looking presets). Since I want more and more to be tethered to national flag colour-schemes in the future (armour, books, etc), I thought this potential slight ambiguity should be taken out. (Admittedly incense stands and vases both don’t match with religious colour sets, but that’s because they look terrible if I try to force that upon them, so we just have to accept that and move on, and besides, they are more “decorative” than an integral part of the religion – like altars, vestments, etc)
- Fixed a few minor problems with certain river generation possibilities in middle-class city districts.
- Fixed a problem where the orientation of Officers’ Quarters did not transfer correctly from their exterior to their interior
- Stopped servants/slaves getting stuck in gates…
- Ensured that all the new aesthetic-based road layouts still keep all relevant NPCs pathfinding correctly
- Other stuff I failed to note down whilst writing this entry!
Next?
This week I want to continue castle generation, continue working through the list of small things and required fixes, and move closer to having everything except conversations and spawned-NPC scheduling done; then do spawned-NPC scheduling; then move onto conversations. I’ve decided I am definitely going to go for a big release, so I’ll be moving onto the conversation system as soon as January swings around. The majority of people voted in this direction, but I hope this is ok with everyone. I don’t want to release a world full of NPCs you can’t engage with, and although I don’t want people to drift away with the length of the release (hopefully constant blogging prevents this!) I do now quite strongly think it’s the right idea and will be a very impressive, and very comprehensive, release. As above, my target is to finish everything except conversations by the end of the calendar year, for which I have a month left. Yikes. See you next week!
(Next week’s update will also be a late Sunday/early morning, but after that, we’ll be back to the normal Saturday/Sunday updates)
Post by: Simon on December 01, 2015, 05:26:20 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 02, 2015, 04:52:06 am
Post by: Retropunch on December 06, 2015, 02:58:25 pm
Just one question - have you thought about how you're going to tie the economy of nations into this? Perhaps you'd do it at a more macro level (more cities compared to villages for a wealthy nation and vice versa), or maybe on the type of districts available to spawn, but castles might be a good place to also show this off - Wealthy nations would have lavish castles whereas poorer ones would have more of a fort.
Just a thought!
Post by: Kaje on December 07, 2015, 07:51:22 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2015, 01:38:25 pm
Extremely impressive work as always.
Just one question - have you thought about how you're going to tie the economy of nations into this? Perhaps you'd do it at a more macro level (more cities compared to villages for a wealthy nation and vice versa), or maybe on the type of districts available to spawn, but castles might be a good place to also show this off - Wealthy nations would have lavish castles whereas poorer ones would have more of a fort.
Just a thought!
Thankee! Yes, definitely, I'd like economic differences to be wide-spread, low-key, subtle and "pervasive" much like the aesthetic shape differences, colour choices, and that kind of thing. I'm not EXACTLY sure how yet, but I'm working on it. That'll be 0.9 though since the list of stuff still to do for 0.8 is massive enough, even if I'm cutting through it at a pretty damned good pace at the moment...
I hate ASCII games - yet I absolutely cannot wait to play this when it's near a playable form. Seriously stoked - awesome stuff.
Haha, thanks! I'm pleased to have "converted" you :). It'll be initially playable with this release in ~April next year or something. Very glad you like it!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 07, 2015, 05:58:51 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2015, 06:48:05 pm
Once again blown away by how sleek and beautiful URR is compared to most ascii games out there
Ty, ty :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2015, 06:52:10 pm
Now, onto this weeks’ update. This week I’ve continued the great bug purge and I’ve dealt with a massive volume of bugs, even with most of Saturday and Sunday being lost to other commitments. At this point I’ve got through a good 70% of the bugs that have accumulated in the last few months (although new ones begin to bubble up from my quagmire of code), so by the end of the next fortnight I would expect to have them all done along with castle generation, and I can hen finish off clothing generation and conclude pathfinding and AI scheduling behaviour. I’m still aiming to have all of this done by the end of December, which remains in the category of “difficult but not impossible”, so we’ll see how it goes. Here’s a complete list of issues resolved this week:
Bugs, Glitches, Improvements
- Fixed a few minor errors with delegate generation in democratic nations and ensured they are always distributed correctly.
- The basement vaults and the upper-floor delegate quarters in Mints that have delegates present are no longer mysteriously switched around.
- Ensured that small officers’ quarters (spawning in military bases in towns) always generate correctly on the inside, and don’t sometimes appear devoid of all furniture.
- All delegate houses can now be entered, and look distinct on the inside from standard middle-class housing (they have ornate flooring instead of wooden flooring)
- A major issue where you could sometimes see through church walls has been fixed!
- A minor issue with rivers in middle-class districts sometimes being smaller than they should be depending on the placement of district gates has been resolved.
- Castle generation is now appropriately affected if a river goes through the district.
- Sometimes closed doors were not opaque and sometimes open doors were; this has now been permanently fixed.
- In lower-class districts buildings can only be placed either in areas without road tiles, or on standard rather than special road tiles, in order to prevent some weird AI behaviour when roads surrounding buildings meshed with special road tiles.
- A minor issue in middle-class districts where special roads were given priority over standard roads (it would take a while to explain what this meant) at certain points, and was producing weird AI behaviour; again, as above, this is now resolved.
- When you load the game, it no longer mysteriously advances one turn.
- Religious symbols actually blend correctly on prayer mats instead of blending in a slightly peculiar way.
- People who spawn in groups now actually have clothes…
- Doors to delegate homes no longer glitch out weirdly.
- Fixed a weird issue where mountains that spawn rivers could no longer spawn them correctly; I think this was a result of some under-the-hood changes to storing world data a little while back.
- Fixed a weird issue with religious buildings that have additional corner branches instead of “side” branches, wherein they were not generating perfectly on the inside (this was a small error I suspect nobody else even spotted, but it was bothering me).
- Fixed a bug where a few orientations of delegate housing in city centres spawned houses that were actually too small to correctly generate an interior!
- Sorted out an issue where town walls in isolationist nations would sometimes stretch to the map edge and make it impossible to enter without leaving the map grid and then going back inside at the right “angle”.
- Ensured that smaller middle-class houses have more room partitions on the inside and look rather less empty and bleak.
- Dealt with a final remaining issue with middle-class houses where the interiors were, STILL, sometimes slightly too large.
- Resolved the final few issues with Mints re: the number of guards that spawn inside them, thereby making sure there are never now too many guards or too few and spawned guards can always match up correctly with their abstract counterparts.
Next Time
This coming fortnight I’ll be handling all remaining accumulated bugs from the last ~6 months of development (that weren’t dealt with in the past fortnight) and finishing off castle generation. My expectation is that the update on the 12th/13th will be castle generation, then 19th/20th will be the final bugfixing/improvement entry, then 26th/27th will be clothing, and then 2nd/3rd of January should be the conclusion of all remaining pathfinding/scheduling developments. After that we’ll be moving towards the conversation system, which is beginning to take quite a solid form in my mind. See you all next week for, I hope, castle generation! It’s looking extremely impressive and I think you’ll all be very happy with how it looks. You’ll even be able to walk along the battlements (if you can find your way up there)!
Also next week will have pictures. Dozens of awesome procedurally-generated castle pictures.
Post by: boatie on December 08, 2015, 10:57:52 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 09, 2015, 07:09:49 am
Man, I'm excited about the news!
Thanks! The next blog update though should be quite something, as long as I do indeed have castle generation in a show-able state by then...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 13, 2015, 04:03:31 pm
At long last, castles are generating, and you will be able to visit them in this release!
So get some food and drink, relax, put your feet up, and sit back for a detailed exploration of how castles are going to generate, what you’re going to find inside them, what the player will be able to do there, how you’ll gain access, who you’ll find living there, and so on.
Firstly – castles are one of the only two districts which are barred to player entry in the current version of the game (the other being dockyard districts). I tried a few early models of castle generation in the present release but just couldn’t find something which worked relatively quickly, generated them in the detail I wanted, and ensured that they were aesthetically consistent with the rest of the nation – not to mention that I was redoing how all the ideologies work and I wasn’t quite sure how these were going to tie in (more on this below). So I decided to leave them until this release, and now that NPCs are almost “done” and the majority of the bugs created over the last few months have dealt with, I realized the time had come to implement castles.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/FIve-Castles-1.png)
What goes into a castle? Castles are located in cities and take up a full district in that city. As I’ve talked about before, policies/ideologies have been completely reworked to provide physical and structural changes to each nation, rather than more abstract things. Therefore, the “Zealotry” ideology has religious buildings spawn in all city districts; the “Conscription” ideology places a barracks in every town; the “Isolationist” ideology creates city walls; “Theocracy” always ensures a crypt beneath a cathedral; and so on. I’ve now extended this system to castles, meaning that the rooms you find inside each castle (aside from the standard halls, guard quarters, etc) are entirely dependent on the ideologies of that nation, and forms a kind of microcosm which reflects the city around it (and all the people in that nation, and its towns and settlements, and its citizens, and so forth).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/Outy-1.png)
So, a Monastic nation will have some monks resident in the castle, a Vassalage nation will have a hallway depicting the banners and armour of all its important houses and families, an Imperialist nation will have a room filled with trophies from past conquests, a nation which cares about Aesthetics will have an art gallery within the castle, one which believes in a Penitentiary justice system will have a dungeon, and so on. This therefore means that each castle can have a range of special rooms, from the smallest possible number of two (I think!) for a nation where almost none of its polices necessitate special rooms, to a grand total of sixteen rooms for a nation which happens to have chosen ideologies which necessitate something special (and everything in-between). As ever I wanted castles to reflect the aesthetic/geometric preferences of each nation (square, octagon, circle, diamond, cross) and also, of course, to actually look like a castle on the outside with walls, moats, and so forth. This leaves us with a “two part” castle system – generating the outside of the castle which is the “district” of the city, so to speak, and then generating the inside of the castle.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/NewS-1024x1024.png)
Here we have an example of a “castle district”. In the design of this generator I wanted to accomplish several things. Firstly it should look defended, aside from the city walls which interpenetrate each city and delimit one district from another. This means walls and/or moats depending on the particular policies of that nation. Secondly, it should fit with the rest of the nation: this obviously means the usual consistency in brick colour, but also in shape, so we see here the castle for a octagon nation (and there will be others shown elsewhere in this entry), and the moat and the walls both clearly reflect this aesthetic preference. Thirdly, of course, it needs to fill up the district – splitting cities into square districts is an acquiescence to various gameplay and technical requirements or decisions, and trying to get a singe building to fill up an entire district just wouldn’t work (cathedrals in city centres, for example, are massive, but only take up around 1/4 of the district at most). Therefore, what else do castles often have? Well, castles (and stately homes/mansions/manors more generally) often have expansive gardens, so I decided to take a leaf from the mansion generation system and add some rather snazzy gardens into the mix as well, behind the walls (these will have more detail once I redo plants in some later release). Some more of the district is then “taken up” by adding small shape-appropriate towers into the external wall of the district as well as the internal; I think this makes quite a nice visual effect, and helps the districts with smaller castles (as castles can vary in size depending on how many ideology-dependent rooms spawn within them) feel a little less empty and devoid. Ultimately it is tricky making the entire district full via a single building, and there is more variation I want to add in the future, but I think it’s working well enough for the time being (as there will also have guards on patrol and so forth to add more detail). Here’s another example for a cross nation:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/Castle-2.png)
We then come to handling the inside of a castle. As above, there is a significant range of possible rooms, *and* each possible room has its own layout, and these need to somehow be shoved correctly into a castle of a particular shape and size. Suffice to say, this is no easy programming task, but the game can now select from a range of preset “starting points” for castles, and then split and subdivide rooms in a number of ways, and then add in the special rooms (and the ordinarily rooms) in sensible locations, and do this for any number of shapes, sizes and permutations of important rooms. Like most of the most complex generators in the game this is a mix of PCG, handmade regions, and large databases of areas that are somewhere between the handmade and the procedural. This system took the best part of a week’s coding to complete, but now it works (I think!) for any value (within the scope of possible values). Castles always contain a great hall and guard quarters (and/or soldier quarters depending on ideologies) which are positioned in the parapets/towers surrounding the castle. All castles then contain a range of studies, dining rooms, bedrooms on their upper floors, and so forth, and then a throne room situated somewhere on the ground floor, although the precise nature and position of this throne room varies for democratic/ theocratic/ stratocratic/ monarchic nations. Alongside these are all the ideology-determined rooms, of which there are dozens. Rooms that might otherwise be similar – like quarters for monks, servants, soldiers, etc (how many ways can you make a room with a bunch of bed distinct??) – always have some variations, so they might have different floors, or different extra furniture, and so forth, so every kind of room will be distinctive. Also – you see those rooms below with just tables in? Those will soon contain books, maps, trophies of battle, tributes from weaker nations, etc, but for now,they’re just tables! So, here are two examples of what the bottom-floor interior of a castle might look like, taken from an octagonal castle and a cross castle:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/Inside1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/Inside1-2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/FIve-Castles-3.png)
Naturally, not all castles have an “open” interior section that leads back outside, it just so happened that the two I generated for this entry did! More important rooms means a larger castle and a lower chance of an open inside. Similarly, there are various things that can appear in corridors – banners showing the coats of arms of vassal houses, holy books on pedastals, placards noting arena champions, and various other things – but I haven’t quite got around to adding those in yet at time of writing (but they won’t take more than a few hours at most). Similarly, see the odd empty room? Those will be money caches soon. Also, if you see some unknown symbols… well, you’ll have to explore some castles to find out what those are! Next we also have some top floors, containing the master bedroom for the ruler (and potential space for a harem, or consorts, or multiple partners, if the civilization in question goes in for that), then various bedrooms for the various offspring of the ruler, guests, and so forth, again with a nice lot of variation for different shapes and sizes of castle – these are of course rather similar to the ornate quarters in mansions in officer quarters in military districts, but there is only so much variation one can give to a bedroom. There are also the upper floors of each tower on each side, which lead out onto the roof! I’ll get pictures of these up at a later date as I’m still finishing them off, but you’ve no doubt seen the bedrooms in URR’s mansions, for instance, so you get the basic idea. There are also various rooms that spawn underground too, and various secret rooms as well…
What about the castle’s inhabitants? Well, naturally we’ll have the ruler; we’ll have any assistants, clerks, eunuchs, partners/consorts, and so forth; potentially priests and monks if the ideologies suit it; lots of guards and soldiers, though again their number and placement vary for various reasons; servants and/or slaves; and any guests, though I’m not quite sure what guests we’ll have visiting rulers. The rulers will of course sometimes leave the castle to preside over parliament, meet foreign dignitaries, and that kind of thing, but that’s in the future. What about access? I’m not going to implement the key/permission system in this release, since most of the things that will be later required to gain access to areas aren’t implemented yet anyway! You’ll remain free to wander around the world for the time being and meet the people there and talk to them, but it won’t be too long until you’ll need the appropriate keys and permissions to gain access to the most important areas; for now, therefore, guards will let you wander.
So there we have it. Castles are now, I would say, as detailed and interesting as cathedrals, which certainly makes a lot of sense – these should be the two most impressive structures in the world (although I have an idea for some special massive buildings in the future, like rare one-off huge prisons, or asylums, or arenas, and so forth). Here’s a comparison pic of a generated castle and a generated cathedral (the two largest structures you can find) to give you a good idea of the similarities and differences. I’m immensely pleased with how these now look and I hope you like them too!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/Inside1-3.png)
Next week I’ll probably post about the final removal of (hopefully) all remaining bugs, at which point I would hope that the game will be stable, or at least as stable as a massive release of this sort can possibly be because major wide-ranging playtesting by a community rather than an individual. Then, hopefully, I can finish off AI/pathfinding and clothing stuff before the end of the year. It remains a hugely audacious goal – I need to get all nomadic clothing and tribal clothing generated, and get every single NPC scheduling and pathfinding correctly on the “human” rather than abstract scale – but I… think it can be done before the end of December. See you all in seven days!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 15, 2015, 01:51:35 pm
The only thing I'd mention, however, is the castle walls. Do any ideologies have the "practical" straight walls to their castle or do they all have the weird indian-esque zig-zag?
Post by: Retropunch on December 15, 2015, 03:59:20 pm
Wowsers. Those are some pretty huge castles and stuff.
The only thing I'd mention, however, is the castle walls. Do any ideologies have the "practical" straight walls to their castle or do they all have the weird indian-esque zig-zag?
The second/third from the bottom is completely straight?
I imagine that many in game will be straight, as that's the most obvious design and from what I remember, even those civs that went on to have fancier ones often had a lot of square (and later rounded) castles/forts.
I have to say I do have a concern though, which is that from looking at those castles (and other big buildings) I'd be hard pressed to know what's where internally (even with a birdseye view!). I can pick out the throne room and a dining room, but everything else is difficult to say. Whilst exploration is fun, getting lost in endless store rooms and whatever whilst you're trying to desperately talk to the king may become tiresome.
This is the obviously compounded on by the incredibly impressive but also very different shapes, meaning that it won't even be that you'll be able to use your knowledge from last time in future.Perhaps you might be able to do something UI wise to overcome this?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2015, 04:29:45 pm
Wowsers. Those are some pretty huge castles and stuff.
The only thing I'd mention, however, is the castle walls. Do any ideologies have the "practical" straight walls to their castle or do they all have the weird indian-esque zig-zag?
Thanks! I think the circular/octagonal/diagonal ones are fairly straight, but those are indicative of the five aesthetics; decided I was willing to drift just a little from realism in the aid of variation (a choice I make pretty often).
I have to say I do have a concern though, which is that from looking at those castles (and other big buildings) I'd be hard pressed to know what's where internally (even with a birdseye view!). I can pick out the throne room and a dining room, but everything else is difficult to say. Whilst exploration is fun, getting lost in endless store rooms and whatever whilst you're trying to desperately talk to the king may become tiresome.
This is the obviously compounded on by the incredibly impressive but also very different shapes, meaning that it won't even be that you'll be able to use your knowledge from last time in future.Perhaps you might be able to do something UI wise to overcome this?
I suspected this kind of question would come up! There are several answers.
Firstly, and most importantly, the conversation system: when being directed to a building for something there's a good chance someone would tell you details ("It's in the map room in the castle, which if I recall is in the north-east corner"), and even if not, once in a building it should only be a couple of keypresses to ask someone where something is and get a reply. At the same time, for the most part I have actually strived to make the layouts fairly understandable, although castles are very complex; I find them fairly clear to play and actually walk around, even when I don't know a layout (even if I do know the generator, admittedly, so I'm certainly not unbiased).
Secondly, ITEMS. A lot of these rooms need things in which don't yet exist! Books, maps, weapons, tributes, paintings, etc etc, which will make them more visually recognizable and more varied.
Thirdly, new rooms - not all the possible rooms are here on these diagrams yet, and the castle size does try to generate in such a way that the castle is dense with important rooms and has the smallest possible number of non-important rooms. I'm still working on this system, and actually in this evening's coding I think I've detected a small issue with it that needs resolving - but nevertheless, the ratio of useful-to-default rooms will improve just a little more before release.
And fourthly, I guess - you won't be spending all your time in these huge buildings! I hope that once we have a lot of strategy-level gameplay around conversations, travel, currency etc going (in next 12 months, along with a lot of other stuff), reaching one of these should be rare and noteworthy, and should hopefully feel fresh, and actively encourage you to explore to not just find Thing X or Person Y you went in there to find/meet, but also to see what else is there. So I don't think it will get dull exploring a castle or cathedral etc, given how comparatively rarely you should be in them in the first place.
Fifthly, you will be able to buy maps of major buildings!
Hopefully that sets your concerns to rest :). I'd be keen to hear any other ideas to sit alongside, but I'm confident the above is a pretty strong combination.
Post by: Retropunch on December 15, 2015, 04:53:03 pm
I LOVE the idea of maps, although it might be good if they could actually have it written as an overlay what those rooms are (map room for instance) rather than just the layout? It'd also be nice if you could, in certain circumstances, have an NPC take you (or escort you!) to a part of the castle.
This'd mean that you could get directly where you needed to go if you didn't feel like having to work it out, and not break any immersion.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 15, 2015, 06:14:09 pm
Labels - quite possibly. Someone might escort you - definitely.
Post by: Greenbane on December 16, 2015, 09:09:44 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 16, 2015, 05:14:26 pm
Post by: destroythecore on December 16, 2015, 07:14:57 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 17, 2015, 05:37:57 am
So this game is made in Python, no wonder the updates are coming out at such a fast pace 8).
Python *is* the greatest (not that I've ever used anything else...)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2015, 06:24:13 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/12/19/the-unpredictability-of-gameplay/
Post by: Amperzand on December 19, 2015, 06:44:05 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2015, 03:21:38 pm
This looks incredibly neat.
Thanks! Glad you like it :).
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 21, 2015, 05:56:42 pm
Post by: ( Tchey ) on December 22, 2015, 08:27:34 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 22, 2015, 10:36:28 am
Ooooh, academia.
Ohhhhhhhh yes.
I'm following you since the very first blog post, and i'm hugely impressed by your Pythonic skills.
Why thank you! Maybe one day I'll produce a PCG-related book too...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2015, 10:34:21 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2015/12/26/2015-in-review/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 02, 2016, 10:25:20 am
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2016/01/02/final-bugfixes/
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 02, 2016, 05:20:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 03, 2016, 04:21:43 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2016, 03:39:33 pm
Nomadic Clothing
For nomadic clothing I wanted something fairly practical and rough-and-ready, but still visually interesting and distinctive, and something “modular”. The feudal clothing is less modular, in many ways, as there are clear archetypes that clothing will appear as a subset of, whereas for nomadic clothing I wanted to design it from the get-go to have more combinations – which is viable (unlike feudal) because it is a little less ornate, more pragmatic, and because you’ll simply see less of it in the average game, so you don’t have to “force in” quite as much variation in a single world generation. Each clothing generation selects three colour schemes, consisting of a plain colour (generally white, grey, some kind of pale brown), a pair of rich colours based on the flag of that nation (e.g. pink and purple, red and orange, blue and cyan, etc) and then a lighter version of the combination of those two colours (so a violet and red flag might wind up with a pale magenta as the third colour). Nomadic clothing is similar to the “robe” archetypes for feudal clothing, i.e. it takes up both the upper- and lower-body clothing slots when worn (unlike tribal clothing, as below) and consists of five layers – clothing shape, pattern shape, pattern pattern (you’ll get what I mean when you look at them), strap locations, and strap pattern, all combined with the various colour sets as described above. Here are some examples with illustrative flags that might be associated with the same nations, so you can see the colour-scheme similarity:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Tribal clothing proved extremely challenging. From the get-go I’ve tried to emphasize relativism in URR, a lack of technological determinism, and so forth, but it is tricky to create “tribal” clothing styles that are intriguing and interesting, without them appearing “primitive”, but still acknowledging that a tiny (or at least, small) tribal nation will not have the technologies of their colossal feudal neighbour, for example. I also, of course, needed them to look very different from feudal and religious clothing, whilst still having enough variety that the clothing of one “tribe” will look nothing like another. After a lot of thought and several full days of trial and error, I’m very happy with the system I came up with. When I was doing the research for these styles I tried to find as many styles of dress used by ancient people that didn’t necessary look “primitive”, and that looked nice and varied. I looked for things like ancient Mesoamerican dress, ancient Egyptian clothing styles, and so forth, whilst accessories (necklaces, bracelets, etc) will appear in later releases. In the end I wound up with ten total possible “styles”, and three rankings of the technological sophistication of the tribal nation. For those with the greatest tailors you get something like the “high” one below – a thick background colour and lines running down it; for those with middling clothing technology (if there is such a thing) get a pale background with a coloured pattern and running lines, whilst “low” technology clothing has no lines and pale/dark pattern. You’ll also note the pattern becomes less dense each time – there are no tiles between the pattern in the left-most, a one-tile gap in the middle, and a two-til gap on the right. I also, of course, had to think about leadership signifiers. Just like religions use silver and gold thread to denote high rank (abbots, inquisitors, archivists, etc) and the highest possible rank (popes etc), and feudal nations will use gold thread for their rulers (see below), there are various signifiers of a leadership position in these clothes. They either have a number of patterned “discs” hanging on their front; a pattern down the middle of their clothing; or a bar that rests in the centre of their torso (the patterns on all of these also, of course, vary).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Class and Clothing
I’ve returned to the highest and lowest class statuses for standard feudal clothing. I didn’t want to create a special clothing set just for rulers because the player will so rarely ever encounter them (although rulers do get unique crowns and unique thrones!), but I wanted something to mark out “ruler clothing” from “upper class clothing”, so I’ve gone with a similar model to the “pope clothing” of adding a special colour of highlights to upper class clothes. Therefore, “ruler clothing” now looks like this, with some nice gold/orange/white trim which varies depending on the other colours of the clothing (however, if the ruler is of a theocracy and therefore also a pope/godking/archcleric/whatever, they default to the religious clothing). Examples:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
There is still one final thing to do for the lowest-class clothing, which is to make certain archetypes even less ornate (though you can see that the buttons are smaller, the belts less patterned, etc), because the 1st and 2nd on that list, for example, are still a bit too snazzy. Although, with that said, I don’t want to make the most common kind of clothing too uninteresting to look at, so there’s a balance to be found between realism and variety. I’ve also made the variety of colours possible for lower-class clothing significantly greater than it originally was, and hopefully you can see that in the left-most column. I’ll update this image later in the week once I reduce the complexity of some of the designs!
Final Clothing Thoughts
I’m extremely pleased with how different all four forms of clothing are. I feel confident saying that although the styles within each vary very significantly, it’ll always be fairly apparent when looking at an unknown person’s clothing whether they are wearing feudal, nomadic, tribal or religious clothing (and the armour sets I intend to develop later this year will obviously be highly distinct again). Here’s a rather nice image of some compiled generated clothing which illustrates this point better than I can, and shows very nicely the massive range of clothing you can now find on all the people you meet in the world(s) of URR:
Very large image: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/01/Hoi2-5.png
Next Up?
I’m very happy with how these are all looking, and with these finished all clothing except armour is done (though armour won’t appear until 0.9) so we’re done with clothing for now (at a later date I will also add gloves, necklaces, rings, crowns, etc – I am really looking forward to crown generation – but not for 0.8, and probably not 0.9). I’m now turning back to pathfinding and scheduling for the third week of work, and we’ll have a large update on this in a week’s time… hopefully with it completed, but we’ll see how it goes. The task remains massive, complex and challenging, and although I’m making progress, it’s a long way from done. If I don’t think enough scheduling and pathfinding is done by next week, I’ll probably post an interim update on some of the other small additions and changes I’ve been implementing into 0.8. Either way: see you then!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 17, 2016, 04:31:08 pm
Spoiler: My thoughts on seeing URR updated. (click to show/hide)
Keep up the great work - the distinction between upper-and-lower class garmets is striking!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 17, 2016, 05:06:12 pm
Yep, I'm going to be really grinding out the remainder of 0.8 now without any other things getting in the way. My goal, roughly, is to release in April; that'll be a year since 0.7, and that's when my partner returns from holiday so coding time will be reduced somewhat. It's... a tough goal, but I think it's do-able (just). I hope to get everything except conversations done by the end of January for starters, and having clothes finished today is a great start on that.
Post by: NJW2000 on January 17, 2016, 05:51:03 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 18, 2016, 01:24:15 pm
PTW, been lurking for a while. This is an amazing project, you're doing great work, keep it up. Probably, of the world generators I've seen, this aims for the most comprehensive and varied creation, which is highly commendable.
Well, thanks a lot! I'm definitely approaching world gen from a much more political/social/cultural angle, which I think gives it a very distinctive flavour and lots of interrelationships between parts (rather than just giving everything a word soup name). I really can't wait to get the next release out and see what everyone thinks of all the people.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2016, 05:30:14 am
…but first…
Fancy coming to work with me for 9 weeks?
Are you a student? Fancy coming to work with me on procedural generation for a few months? Now’s your chance! We’re looking for two people to come and join myself and Dr Sam Devlin(https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~devlin/) and Dr Gareth Beale(https://www.york.ac.uk/digital-heritage/members/gbeale/#research) on a nine-week project for the “YCCSA Summer School”(http://www.york.ac.uk/yccsa/activities/summerschool/) to examine methods for setting rules and subsequently generating a particular category of building – those that have strict and explicit social rules to their layouts and their use by different categories of human actors. For example, this could include religious buildings, hospitals, police stations, prisons, airports, military bases, etc. The exact direction of the project can be altered to fit the right candidate, but that’s the basic outline now – generating architectures of buildings with clear social, not just architectural, requirements to their physical layouts. YCCSA is the York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis, and is a highly multidisciplinary research group that the three of us are all currently a part of.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As above, you must currently be a student, though you can be from any field and any country. We’re looking ideally(http://www.york.ac.uk/media/yccsa/documents/summerschool/2016/Algorithmic%20Generation%20of%20Social%20Architecture.pdf) for one computer scientist and one artist (2D or 3D are both fine), but that’s open to change if particularly good candidates from other backgrounds apply. You’ll be housed at the University of York in the UK for the nine weeks during which this should be your full-time occupation/work, and we’ll (i.e. you, me, Sam, Gareth, and the other person) meet up at least once a week to discuss the project. We may well collectively get a paper or conference submission out of the project at its conclusion, which would look extremely strong on any undergraduate CV if you plan to pursue further study. If you’re interested, feel free to ask some questions here, send me a message, etc, or pass this on to your friends if you aren’t eligible but you know someone who is. The competition is usually pretty fierce for the positions, though, so you’ll definitely need a strong CV to be successful. Deadline for submissions is March 17; hopefully we’ll get some applications from some roguelikers and produce something innovative and interesting! If for some reason you aren’t an undergraduate student this year but will be next year, I would expect similar opportunities to arise in 2017 and 2018 too, which I’ll announce as and when…
Now, onto the URRpdate proper:
Scheduling
I’d say I’m… 75% finished on AI scheduling and pathfinding for important NPCs? As far as I can tell, we’re now at the stage where:
All important NPCs spawn correctly in their houses and can be seen sleeping/behaving within those houses.
All important NPCs whose day jobs are OUTSIDE buildings – e.g. guards who guard outside a building, or gladiators, or merchants in open-air markets, and so forth – all now have perfectly working schedules and find their way to their jobs, irrespective of where the player is, what the player’s doing, etc.
What this means is that one can follow an NPC from sleeping in their bed all the way to walking half-way across the map, through exchanging their guard post with another guard, and then track that guard all the way back to their home in another district, and watch them go to bed. Although this might not seen all that tricky to code, the complexity emerges when one considers that due to the size and scale of the world map, it is of course chunked. Only the map grid the player is currently in is loaded, whilst the rest of the world is stored elsewhere in your save files. The same also applies to buildings, which are only actually generated when the player first steps inside, again to save on generation time and memory usage.
What this means is that there are many, many variations of scenario that can apply to something as seemingly simple as just having an NPC move across a map:
Their house has been spawned.
Their house hasn’t been spawned.
Their home district has been spawned.
Their home district hasn’t been spawned.
Each district between their home and their work has been spawned.
Each district between their home and their work hasn’t been spawned.
Their work district has been spawned.
Their work district hasn’t been spawned.
The player is in their home district.
The player is in a middle district between home and work.
The player is in their work district.
The player moves between districts whilst the NPC is moving, thereby spawning and despawning areas of the map whilst the NPC is trying to move through those areas!
Therefore, the NPC might enter unspawned areas, enter spawned areas, leave unspawned areas, leave spawned areas, and must have their schedule consistent as they move between these different areas, whilst always making sure that if the player “looks in” on them at any time in their schedule, they are doing the right thing, just as the player might enter/leave spawned/unspawned areas with NPCs going about their thing.
This has necessitated four major systems – we have a list of “potential NPCs” who have yet to be spawned and who have thus far moved entirely in the abstract, a list of “abstract NPCs” who HAVE been spawned but have since been de-spawned due to the player moving away from the map grid they’re in, active “creatures” on the map grid the player is currently on, and abstract “building” creatures for creatures who have been spawned, but are now in a building, but the BUILDING hasn’t been spawned. All NPCs are thereby shuffled between each of these four categories, each of which can be accessed or acted upon in various ways according to the player’s location and the status(es) of the NPCs within them. This is by far the least complex system I was able to come up with for handling all of this, and it’s actually coming together now! You can track people all across different districts irrespective of your movement and their movement, and they always turn up in the right places at the right times. The remaining AI stuff is all to do with handling NPCs whose schedules take them indoors (for their work, not their homes), of whom monks are going to be the most challenging, though I don’t anticipate TOO much difficulty for the others…
Clothing Implementation
Clothing has now been transferred out of my graphics-testing python file and implemented into the game proper. Everyone in nomadic and tribal nations now therefore wears all the appropriate clothing, which like all other clothing can be examined. This means all four major clothing types for this release – feudal, religious, nomadic, tribal – have been implemented, at all ranks from the lowest peasant to the highest ruler, leaving only armour to be generated in a later release (probably the next release, 0.9).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Counties
Vassalage nations now split their land up into counties, or regions, or districts, or duchies, or whatever the nation calls them. Each is roughly centered upon a town, and therefore “owned” by the lord, count, viscount, duke, or whatever the nation calls them, that controls that town (and thus mansions spawn in those towns to house these important people, and town halls do not generate as these nations would not have mayors for their towns). I’ll be doing a little more with this system later, but for the time being, here are some example maps of the vassalage-y nations and the counties they created (shown by arbitary colour differences, though when you view them in-game, you get colours of the house in question that rules the area). I’m happy with the kind of size these regions are, and it’ll add another nice bit of variation to a couple of nations each time. There are still a couple of minor peculiar bugs to work out here, but it should be resolved soon:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Castle Basements
Castle basements have now been finished as well, and can contain slave quarters, and a torture chamber or dungeon, and potentially… other stuff as well? They often have two parts and two down stairs, if for example the nation keeps slaves and there is a dungeon or torture chamber, as those would be accessed from separate staircases (though I just need to make a mental note to ensure that the AI can figure that out!). Here is an example, going from the slave quarters, back into the main body of the castle, and then down the other staircase into the dungeon (which is much nicer than jails, since these dungeons are for important prisoners). Upper floors are being changed a little, but I should be able to show them off next week.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Jail Bedrooms
Jailers now have bedrooms which are underneath the jail, rather than having them sometimes leave and return and so forth. This was a slightly strange solution, but I decided it was a solution I was happiest with rather than having jailers leave and return in the morning (leaving prisoners alone would seem strange) or having jailers who take many shifts (I didn’t like this and wanted to emphasize that jails *belonged* to the jailers on some level), so there is now only one jailer who sleeps in a “secure” chamber below the jail. These bedrooms are minimalist and simple so they aren’t really worth showing, but suffice to say that that’s where they now appear.
Harems
Although the appropriate NPCs will not actually exist in this release – they join a list of NPCs like inquisitors and explorers who will be added in 0.9 – there is now space in castles and mansions for the rulers/lords to have a harem, of either sex/both sexes (depending on cultural practices, accepted norms, and the orientation/age of the ruler). Harems contain reclining couches, which are a new form of furniture I very quickly set up a really cool generation algorithm for, and I really like how these look. Right now these couches only appear in these areas, although I might change that in the future. The couches themselves are, of course, both coloured and patterned according to the family whose mansion you find them in, or the ruling house if they’re found in a castle, so here are some examples of reclining couches with the coat of arms that would have them next to them, whilst the shapes emblazoned on them are dependent on the civilization to which they belong, in this case three “lesser” houses in a vassalage nation and one major house:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What next?
This week I’m still working on scheduling/pathfinding, and will be focusing on getting all the scheduling around castles working, and then moving onto those who need to schedule their way into, and around, buildings, and then those who spend their entire schedule within certain buildings (such as certain categories of priests). If the progress on scheduling seems slow, please let me assure you it isn’t, and basically 100% of my spare time is on URR development at the moment – it’s just a huge, complex, and challenging task. But I’m definitely well past half-way and I can see how it’s all going to (finally) come together, even if there’s still quite a bit of ground to cover. See you in seven days!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 26, 2016, 06:28:40 pm
The pathfinding code must be a nightmare. Nice to see the beautiful new clothes in action, too.
Post by: Aseaheru on January 26, 2016, 07:32:33 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2016, 08:17:30 pm
The pathfinding code must be a nightmare. Nice to see the beautiful new clothes in action, too.
It truly is! I do actually remember when Tarn and Zach were working on this similar "pathfinding and scheduling at multiple resolutions" stuff they said it was a total nightmare too (a few years back?). They are so right.
College/university students only, right?
Afraid so!
Post by: Aseaheru on January 26, 2016, 08:56:25 pm
Post by: Yoink on January 26, 2016, 09:09:45 pm
I will certainly have to try it out again in the near future. The sheer number of features I'm seeing is kinda overwhelming, haha.
And those graphics... wow. You've done a great job on that, for sure. I wasn't expecting to see faces staring out at me from screenshots of an ASCII game!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 27, 2016, 03:42:36 pm
Well, thats one sibling who will be mildly distressed.
Darn :(.
Glad to see this is still going strong, I haven't checked up on it in quite a while!
I will certainly have to try it out again in the near future. The sheer number of features I'm seeing is kinda overwhelming, haha.
And those graphics... wow. You've done a great job on that, for sure. I wasn't expecting to see faces staring out at me from screenshots of an ASCII game!
Why thank you! I appreciate it a lot :). The massive release I've been coding for the last nine months is the first major gameplay release, so I recommend waiting just another few months until that one comes out!
Post by: Amperzand on January 28, 2016, 01:23:04 am
College/university students only, right?
Wait, what?
Post by: Aquillion on January 28, 2016, 06:28:14 am
It's a reply to this:College/university students only, right?
Wait, what?
Quote
Fancy coming to work with me for 9 weeks?No high-school students, in other words.
Are you a student? Fancy coming to work with me on procedural generation for a few months? Now’s your chance!
(Or middle school students. Or elementary-school students.)
Post by: Amperzand on January 28, 2016, 06:45:04 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 28, 2016, 10:14:16 am
Post by: Arx on January 28, 2016, 10:58:25 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 28, 2016, 07:49:00 pm
Yep, that Borges!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2016, 03:42:24 pm
Banners
I’ve generated the graphics for banners, which are somewhat like flags except they can only be found inside castes, and probably inside mansions and manors as well once I get around to adding them in. In castles, in vassalage nations, you will always find a corridor lined with the banners of all the lesser houses in that nation. Here are some examples (the frills at the bottom of course vary with civilization preference shape) – these are quite simple, but I’m very content with how they look, and that’s another one I can tick off the list of the last remaining graphics for 0.8. With that said, they might be just a little dark, so I may lighten them just a tad.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Castle Upper Floors
I returned to the upper floors for castles and made some major changes, almost entirely in order to just make them less boring, as they were looking rather uninteresting beforehand and a bit too hand-made. The system used here is again (like castle basements for slave quarters, dungeons, etc) quite similar to the algorithm used in crypts to connect areas and draw corridors, and so forth, but this one is rather more fluid. It places all the important rooms first, including a harem if appropriate (the new dark red icons you see there are the reclining couches we talked about last time, and their colour varies according to the coat of arms of the house to whom they belong), and then ensures they can all path back to the up staircase that brings you to that level. This first stage results in something that looks like this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
If the castle is smaller and there’s a garden in the centre of the castle, you get something like this, since it’s rather harder to generate appropriately – but I actually rather like it! You’ll note that in this case the harem is not placed directly adjacent to the master bedroom, since in many cases that wouldn’t fit, but is instead positioned at a distance with a corridor that then paths in to the main sequence of bedrooms. This gif nicely illustrates the gap in the centre for the octagonal garden in the middle, then the player goes upstairs, and you can see the rooms loop around the middle bedroom.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I’m content with how these look – as ever, it’s hard to make upper floors fascinating when there are only so many ways to draw a bedroom, but they’re distinctive, they get the job done, and leave plenty of room for me to potentially add other things in the future, if anything useful presents itself. So now here’s a little gif using wizard/admin mode, to look at the three layers, from top, to middle, to bottom, to middle, to top. Note also that the corner towers where guards and soldiers live are present on both the ground and upper floor, but the overall shape of the castle is irrelevant underground.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And lastly (I just added this at the last second before posting this entry), here’s an upper floor for a democratic civilization that doesn’t have an ornate throneroom on the ground floor, but rather a bedroom with two sections – one for general governance and receiving relevant people, and a secondary part for the elected ruler to sleep in. Like ground-floor throne rooms, they vary heavily based on ideology, but in this picture you can see it in the top-left corner of the circular castle, and the middle of the “cross”-ular castle, both of which have harems attached (although roughly 1/3 nations will have those, I temporarily activated them for all nations just to help me test the room-placing algorithm).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
AI Stuff
Oh, all right – one brief AI thing. The best thing I’ve seen all week is this debug screenshot, where guards were coming in and out of a mint from all directions and timings and data structures, and sure enough, they all showed up on time (displayed here as the white tiles) and every single guard was there, no matter what the player had been doing and what parts of the game world were spawned and loaded, spawned and unloaded, or unspawned and unloaded. The most beautiful image I’ve ever set eyes upon.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What next?
Moving closer to all this AI work being finished! I cannot wait to be done with all this and be able to watch all the important NPCs going about their days. Once all of this is done, and all the current minor bugs (~a dozen) are fixed, I’m actually going to take a week or so off from URR development. Honestly, the extended crunch to getting this AI stuff finished has been really tough and lengthy, and once it’s done, I’m going to recharge a little bit before I start work on dialect generation and the conversation system (though I will probably continue brainstorming those aspects in the interim). I have a particular game I’ve been desperate to play for a long time, and having finally acquired (second-hand) the console required, I’m actually going to give myself a little time off to play the thing. Don’t worry, blog posts will of course continue! But I do feel a little burnt out for the first time ever, and I just have to have a little coding rest once this huge block is finished, so chances are next week will be “AI is almost finished”, the week after will be “AI is completely finished!!”, the week after will be something else, and maybe even the week after that, and I know this will push back 0.8 a tiny bit further but I just really need a bit of a break. Once that’s all done, though, we’ll start thinking about dialect generation. See you in a week for a big AI update!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 31, 2016, 05:36:01 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2016, 07:08:54 pm
Wow! Great as ever. Just a question - in the donut-shaped castle you showed, there doesn't seem to be a way into the middle bit. Is that intentional?
Oh, yeah, that leads back outside into an interior garden in the castle! But that counts as outside, so it's blank in the interior map.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 31, 2016, 07:53:23 pm
I meant that there was no door into it, unless I misun the gif.Wow! Great as ever. Just a question - in the donut-shaped castle you showed, there doesn't seem to be a way into the middle bit. Is that intentional?
Oh, yeah, that leads back outside into an interior garden in the castle! But that counts as outside, so it's blank in the interior map.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2016, 04:33:59 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 01, 2016, 05:05:19 pm
Oh, whoops, you're right! Well spotted. Fixed.
On the subject of doors, I somet see towns in heavily forested areas where trees block the only door to some houses.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 02, 2016, 06:12:29 am
Oh, whoops, you're right! Well spotted. Fixed.
On the subject of doors, I somet see towns in heavily forested areas where trees block the only door to some houses.
Huh. That shouldn't be possible (though you should still be able to get in diagonally!)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 02, 2016, 08:01:38 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 07, 2016, 06:05:43 pm
Scheduling
So, it’s time for some gifs! Various gifs here of guards leaving districts, entering districts, entering buildings, leaving buildings, exchanging guard duty with others, etc. Guards now work correctly for all outside guards, and almost all inside guards work correctly, and any and every weird combination of movement across the map and the player’s actions also, as far as I can tell, work perfectly.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Comigin.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Intobuliding.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Bankswitch.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/intogate.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Guardout.gif)
However, all of this has given rise to a very amusing bug. So, consider this: the world map is split into map grids, each of which is 200×200 tiles when spawned but naturally starts unspawned, and each map grid might contain a range of buildings. When the world is generated I can check exactly what buildings will be in each district, but naturally in most cases I don’t know exactly where each one will be placed – since that would entail spawning the entire map, on the human rather than world scale, at world gen! Which would be absurd and take probably the best part of an hour or something, possibly more (I’ve never tried it and don’t intend to).
Now, consider this. The player is in Map Grid A. In Map Grid B is a guard, who is due to leave their house and move into Map Grid A, to relieve another guard on guard duty. Map Grid B has never been spawned. How long, therefore, should this first action – moving from B to A – take? No matter how any map grid spawns, moving from any point of a map grid to an appropriate edge can never take more than 200 turns, and therefore all movement of this sort, in unspawned areas, takes 200 turns. Were it spawned, it might “actually” take 20 turns or 190, but we have no idea what the correct number would be until spawned, and since it hasn’t been spawned, I play it safe and assume 200.
With me so far? Splendid. Now, let’s say that the guard leaves their (unspawned and nonexistent) home at turn 1000, and therefore is due to leave Map Grid B and enter Map Grid A at 1200. Now, the player is sat in Map Grid A. If the player waits until turn 1190, and then enters Map Grid B, it will then spawn all the buildings and have the NPC do 190 turns of their action. However, what if this building is near the edge to Map Grid A? Let’s say they get there with 90 turns left. Ordinarily, they would go through, and then take 90 turns on the other side… but that would mean if the player immediately went back through, from the player’s perspective, upon returning to Map Grid B, it would appear as if in two turns an NPC had just appeared and teleported ninety tiles up the map grid! Therefore, if an NPC is just about to cross grids, and the player is about to enter that grid, it takes them to an earlier step in their movement so that the player, just entering Map Grid A, sees the NPC for a few turns before they go into Map Grid B. However, what this means, is that if the player keeps hopping back and forth, the NPC keeps getting pushed back and never actually moves through until the player goes somewhere else! It’s very silly. I’m not sure how to fix it yet, though it probably needs some kind of counter that notes if the NPC has already been pushed back once in its current district, and resets after moving to a new grid. But still: it’s an interesting example of the complexity of the system, and some of the weird situations that arise, and how I’ve tried fixing them.
To further illustrate this point, here are some examples of the scenarios that can arise:
- Player is in a map grid and an NPC moves into that map grid, and should physically spawn.
- Player moves into a map grid, and all stationary NPCs outside buildings (e.g. guards) must spawn.
- Player moves into a map grid and another important NPC is moving in that map grid, and must spawn in the right place, an appropriate way along their schedule according to the timing of their schedule.
- The player follows an NPC into a new grid, and the NPC should be x turns away from the edge of the grid once they are spawned, despite having been unspawned after leaving the player’s grid.
- NPC enters unspawned building, player stays in grid, things must happen in building that doesn’t exist.
- Player is in grid with unspawned building and NPCs within that unspawned building need to leave.
- Player is in grid, NPC enters building, player leaves, NPC must be handle its behaviour in unspawned building and unspawned grid.
- As above, but player enters building first, leaving a spawned but unloaded building in a spawned but unloaded grid.
- Player enters building part-way through NPCs doing behaviours within it, causing it to spawn for the first time, and they should all be at the right part of their schedules…
Basically, consider every variable of 1) the player’s action, 2) spawned grids, 3) spawned buildings, and 4) important NPCs moving through all these, and I cannot begin to describe all the variations. Naturally in many cases a piece of code I wrote to resolve Scenario #14 also worked for Scenario #26, and so forth, but in many cases it didn’t and a massive amount of code had to be written to handle every possible variation and permutation. But I think a large part of it is now done.
Drawbridge Chains
What is says on the tin, really.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Chain.png)
Next Week?
Dare I hope… AI pathfinding/scheduling… finished?!?!?!?!
Post by: BlindKitty on February 08, 2016, 07:48:33 am
Post by: SOLDIER First on February 08, 2016, 07:59:06 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 09, 2016, 01:38:00 pm
Just a question, have there been any changes in this version regarding movement? It's a pain to navigate places with circle ideologies on foot, because you can only move in cardinal directions, and have to hammer on the keys to follow curves, since if you're holding forewards, then hit left, and release left, you don't resume moving forwards.
Asking because on-foot exploration seems to be a really important part of the game.
Post by: puke on February 09, 2016, 02:02:15 pm
you can only move in cardinal directions
I have not tried the latest version, but it looks like this is in:
The screenshot three posts above yours mentions 9-directional movement, with or without a numpad.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 09, 2016, 05:50:31 pm
It's looking so staggeringly awesome it's making me green. With jealousy, of course. ;) I have just one question, though: how do you ensure that crossing a map tile never takes more than 200 steps? I mean, if there is a river through the middle, and a plethora of buildings, especially in slums or poor districts, with winding roads, one would guess it is possible that the shortest route from random house (where the guard may reside) to the exit on the other end of the map might be longer than 200 steps, due to all that meandering. Are you taking any steps to ensure that there is no such possibility? I'm curious, since that's so big project and awesomely intricate - watching it grow is like watching Sagrada Familia being build, only over a decade, not a century. :)
Haha, thank you! Er, basically, it wasn't something I realized I needed to go until after grid generation was almost finished, but I looked through even the most unlikely variants of generated grid, and (I am 99% sure...) it is impossible for any to generate like that. Even rare grids like lots of rivers, few bridges, blah blah, still already had bridges placed in a way that would usefully maximize ease of travelling. All the generation algorithms are balanced between "realism" and "not being bloody annoying to navigate", and the latter of those really helped out! :)
ptw
Good move!
Nice stuff, I really like it!
Just a question, have there been any changes in this version regarding movement? It's a pain to navigate places with circle ideologies on foot, because you can only move in cardinal directions, and have to hammer on the keys to follow curves, since if you're holding forewards, then hit left, and release left, you don't resume moving forwards.
Asking because on-foot exploration seems to be a really important part of the game.
Thanks! Oh, you can use diagonals in the current version - numpad should work, and shift+N activates a "numpad" on the main keyboard (QWE, ASD, ZXC)
you can only move in cardinal directions
I have not tried the latest version, but it looks like this is in:
The screenshot three posts above yours mentions 9-directional movement, with or without a numpad.
^ yup
Post by: Magnumcannon on February 09, 2016, 06:20:55 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 10, 2016, 02:30:46 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 10, 2016, 01:20:31 pm
I've heard about this game some time ago and just now i found out a thread about it existed on B12. PTW!
Welcome, welcome!
I was, uh, forgetting that Cardinal doesn't include the diagonals, but the rest of the point still stands - it would be nice if holding one direction, and hitting a diagonal/side key once didn't stop the held-down key from counting.
Ahhhhh, I get you. Hmm. I'm not sure how to handle that, actually, but I'll add it to The List.
Post by: LordPorkins on February 10, 2016, 01:51:44 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 10, 2016, 03:22:48 pm
Where do i download this???? And if its not out when can i have it??? Is it going to be HTML5??!?!!? What are your demands you sick bastards!?!!?!
Hahaha - head to www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk, but I've been working on the latest version for 9+ months with only a few months left, so I highly recommend waiting until that massive new version emerges :).
Post by: LordPorkins on February 10, 2016, 03:23:32 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 11, 2016, 05:36:47 pm
Wait... This isnt HTML5? It seems like it.
Does it? I wouldn't know, I'm not an HTML 5 person! It's actually Python, anyway :).
Post by: Magnumcannon on February 11, 2016, 06:40:08 pm
What libraries did you use?Wait... This isnt HTML5? It seems like it.
Does it? I wouldn't know, I'm not an HTML 5 person! It's actually Python, anyway :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2016, 12:22:14 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 14, 2016, 07:20:53 pm
Tellers
Tellers now go about their day correctly. The bank remains open all day for people to come in and sit down and wander around, and guards naturally keep guard all day but the teller is only there in the day time. I’ll probably change it at some point so that once the teller exits, ordinarily people won’t path into the bank, but for now that’s going to be how it works, since there are only so many tiny additions and minor things that 1/6000 players will notice, that I can implement in any given release. Here’s a teller packing up and deciding it’s time for a relaxing snooze:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Tellergoes.gif)
And the same from outside:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Toddleoff.gif)
And entering their home, with a rather jumpy gif due to the volume of de-bugging stuff happening in the background, but you can still see that the teller enters, realizes they need to find the stairs, finds them, goes up them, finds bed, goes to bed.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Telhouse.gif)
In the process of handling bank tellers I also discovered a weird bug where either priests could spawn in a middle-class map grid, or bank guards, but not both. This was a result of a silly “elif” where I should have written “if”, and this promptly got fixed!
Priests
Priests seem to be doing their thing correctly! Priests (and worshipers) doing their normal routine in the day time:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Cath.gif)
And then I left, came back at midnight, and sure enough found the priests sleeping in their cells:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Goodpriests.png)
And then, at the appropriate time, the priest awakes and starts doing her thing!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/the-kraken-awakes.gif)
Merchants
Look at this merchant going into their shop first thing in the morning!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/hot-merchant-action.gif)
Truly magnificent.
Walking Through Walls
Found a funky glitch involving pathfinding through cities that wasn’t correctly taking account of where doors inside and outside the city actually went. Basically, in this city, an AI was trying to take this path:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Problemcity.png)
Once I was in the grid below the one in the top-left, it couldn’t spawn properly since it was trying to spawn at a gate that didn’t exist. The path had been allowed because, sure enough, none of those map grids were blocked – i.e. were oceans or mountains or deserts – and a pathfinding map of the area basically looked all green, and didn’t take account of where gates are and are not! I tried to find an elegant solution to this problem, but failed, so I just changed the city pathfinding algorithm to consider any tile outside the city to be blocked (and I’ll think of a more elegant solution later, for when I want NPCs to move from city to city). So before, the pathfinding grid for these map grids looked like the one on the left, and it now looks like the one on the right, so city NPCs have to move always within a city, even if going out-and-in would be more efficient, because taking account of gates is too damned confusing.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Problemcity-2.png)
Pleb Purge
I noticed a tiny weird bug where sometimes, upon entering a map grid in which the NPC needed to “catch up” to where they should be and would have been if the grid had previously existed, they would reach a tile away from their destination (e.g. a door to a building or gate to another district) and then just dance around the tile for a while. It took quite a while to figure out the issue, but the problem was that the game was spawning the random crowd NPCs *before* getting the important NPCs to catch up to their positions, and so there was a truly tiny chance (I probably encountered this in 2/200 game loads before I figured out the issue) that a random crowd NPC would be spawned on an important NPC’s target square, and prevent them from reaching it. Therefore, when you enter a grid, the game now ensures that a) there are no random NPCs standing in the exact tiles in front of gates to other districts, and b) that there are no random NPCs seated on the exact “endpoint” tiles of any important NPC. As such, from what I can tell, this weird little bug (which admittedly wasn’t a game-crashing bug, but still merited dealing with) has been resolved.
Other Bug
Also ffound one bug where certain important NPCs, upon leaving a building, wouldn’t change their internal x/y coordinates to an appropriate external set because they were looking for the wrong kind of door, which resulted in them leaving buildings and being magically transported on top of buildings, into lakes, into trees, etc. This no longer happens.
Next Week
Well, more AI stuff, of course. What else?!
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
Since AI stuff is proving so complex, I’ve decided not to move forward the release – I still think the conversation system is absolutely vital – but I’m going to put out a secret, intermediate release, to a small team of playtesters, to make sure that the pathfinding system all works correctly. Despite my best efforts, there’s no way I can really test every single possibility exhaustively. If you’re interested, leave me a comment! This won’t be until probably next month, and would require you to basically wander around the world, entering buildings, looking for NPCs, leaving buildings, entering other map grids, and just basically doing anything you can to upset their scheduling.
Post by: Amperzand on February 16, 2016, 05:33:11 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 16, 2016, 02:34:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 21, 2016, 07:22:38 pm
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2016/02/22/umberto-eco-and-urr/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 29, 2016, 05:34:26 pm
Firstly this week, before anything else: I’m still looking for a small team of playtesters to test out all the AI stuff in the next URR release, probably starting some time next month. If you’re interested, please send me an email to mark at my domain name, and also link to your Twitter, or Facebook, or something that shows me a little about who you are, and just give me a line or two about why you’re interested and how much time you’d realistically be able to give it – please be honest! I want people who can really contribute to making 0.8 the best it can possibly be. I’m recruiting people to basically wander around the map, go into every building they can, check the NPCs are there and behaving sensibly, and do everything they can to mess up the schedules of the important NPCs. I’d suggest being able to commit at least 6+ hours would be a decent start, but I might ask for more if someone quickly finds a major bug, which I correct, and then upload a new playtesting version. Either way: if you’re interested, give me a shout! I should add, though, that’s it’s possible I’ll just decide to upload an explicit “beta” version with some massive warning saying THIS VERSION MAY NOT BE STABLE and let everyone test it… or I might not. So I’m not yet certain whether I’ll do a closed or open playtest for 0.8 (which I’ll probably just call 0.7.5). But to give me an elite team in case I do decide to do a “closed” test, please let me know if you’d be available by the method outlined above…
———–———–
This week we’ve been continuing to really push Roguelike Radio towards a major re-launch: our recent episode on Strategic and Tactical decision-making (http://www.roguelikeradio.com/2016/02/episode-117-strategy-and-tactics.html) is particularly excellent, I think, and I highly recommend it. Meanwhile, we have another fairly big update this week, which is pleasing, since it shows that things are progressing at a good pace (although I do have a fortnight’s work here, so naturally there’s bound to be a lot). I’ve covered a whole bunch of new NPC types in the last two weeks, and it’s proving very reassuring that the pace at which I’m moving through these things continue to accelerate. Much like I said in the entry before my Umberto Eco post, at this point the task is more “check each bit of code works for each kind of NPC” than “add major new bodies of code”. It’s slow and difficult, but it’s coming together, and it feels so reassuring and pleasing each time a particular class of NPC seems to be working correctly and I can move onto the next one. Here’s a run-down of what we’ve had added since I last URRpdated you all:
Merchants
It turned out that merchants weren’t even close to finished, due to a significant complexity in getting NPCs to spawn at the right time when they are moving between things on a single grid of the world map, i.e. in this case they both live in work in the same district. This needed a lot of new code that would note when they should be spawned in certain scenarios, even if the player hadn’t seen them acting before then, but as far as I can tell this now works perfectly. The code should also carry over into a range of other NPCs that I’m slowly working towards testing, but suffice to say, merchants now appear in their shops at the right times and don’t appear at the right times. Here’s a merchant going from their house, leaving it, wandering across the map, and going into their shop to start the day’s business.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Housetoshop.gif)
Non-Cathedral Priests
Priests in standard religious buildings now behave appropriately, find their way up to the correct floor when they sleep, etc. Here’s a priest deciding to turn in and going to their bed – and this would happen in the abstract too, of course, if the player wasn’t nearby:
And then later on, they wake up, head downstairs (I foolishly let them get a few tiles ahead, but you can still see that we’re following them in a few glimpses on the upper floor), and start going about their way, in this case first settling down in one of the chairs in front of the altar.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Jocasta.gif)
And here’s a priest in another church going up to their bed late in the evening:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Priesty.gif)
Archive Guards
Archives – found in crypts, below cathedrals, and only in theocratic nations – now always have their guards switch over correctly. This necessitated a little extra complexity because they aren’t on the ground floor, but I’m pretty sure this now works correctly no matter what. Here’s a changeover from the outside, into the crypt, where the guards switch…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Guardchive.gif)
…and then the other guard heads upstairs, and out! (From a different crypt that was generated later, hence the change in layout)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Guardgoesout.gif)
Arena Guards
Arena guards now change over correctly, which means that at this point, I *think*, all guards, whether inside or outside, all work correctly on their schedules. It’s very possible that some other weird bugs still lurk out there, given the complexity of the thing, but I’ve been going around trying everything I can think of to break the game, and thus far I haven’t been able to.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Arenaswitch.gif)
And they get home, and I immediately barge in:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Guarhome.gif)
Archivists
Archivists have a super-simple schedule – get up, work, go back to bed – but they now do it correctly regardless of the player’s actions. I entered crypts at various times of day at various points in their schedule, and always found them correctly sleeping or working at their desk regardless. Here’s a gif of an archivist deciding it’s time to call it a day (they do sleep in the crypt/archives beneath a cathedral, which might make them a little peculiar once the conversation system is implemented). These NPCs were also quite tricky because they have various bits of special code determining where they should be sitting most of the day, and their relationship to the guards around them, and they aren’t on the ground floor of the building which adds to code confusion, but still, here we go:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/02/Arcgisleep.gif)
A little bit of dialect generation…
In a spare couple of hours in the evening of Friday 19th, I officially started work on dialect, and therefore speech, and therefore conversation, generation. I have almost nothing to show for it yet, and I’m not really going to dedicate much time to it until all the AI stuff is working, and I’ve distributed the special playtesting version, and I’ve taken a week or two off, but: even from the earliest things I have right now, the variety is going to be amazing. More on this in a month or something, but I just had to take a minor break from coding this never-ending AI nightmare, and I’m incredibly excited about how speech generation is going to look.
Next Week
I’ve been doing the AI for around three months now. You all know the drill. MORE AI STUFF!!! As I’ve said before, though, the amount of new stuff I’m adding is slowly decreasing as time goes, and most of the time now is testing the existing code for every variation of NPC in every scenario. There will come a time when the issues of URR’s AI are finished… but alas, it is not this day. But soon!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on March 01, 2016, 01:18:27 pm
Post by: LordPorkins on March 01, 2016, 06:07:48 pm
ITs ok though, you guys have fun.
Ill just be here…
crying…
:'(
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 02, 2016, 06:14:56 pm
Good to hear guards are working. They're probbably second only to important NPCs in terms of needing a consistent timetable!
Agreed! There's some code in there too for guards detecting when you enter their "guarding area", but it'll probably be dormant this release...
Sadness
One day! I promise! If we're lucky, maybe the Linux version I'm planning for 0.8 will work well on Mac...?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 07, 2016, 03:18:43 pm
This year’s US IRDC has now been booked, and will be at NYU from August 6th to the 7th! Unlike last year where various tedious things got in the way, this year I will 100% be dragging myself across the ocean for this, and staying at least until late on the 8th, and possibly a little longer depending on Various Factors. If I’m going across the Atlantic for it, those of you already in North America have no excuse! I hope to see a lot of URR fans there – for more information, you can check out the information here on Roguebasin http://www.roguebasin.com/index.php?title=IRDC_2016-usa. If you want a European IRDC – and naturally, I do too – then you should pester DarkGod, who volunteered to host it but has since gone mysteriously quiet…
This Week:
Well, in one sentence, even more NPCs now (as far as I can tell) schedule correctly. Here’s a run down!
Guards (again)
Yep, guards needed still more work. Found a bug where if you entered the house of a guard, even if they were actually meant to be in another building, so long as that building was a) in the same district and b) currently unspawned (e.g. an arena, whose guards always spawn in the same lower class district). This has been fixed. Also discovered a bug during testing that sometimes under very specific conditions actually duplicated an NPC – if an NPC went into a building, and you saw them go in (so they had been physically spawned), but the building had not yet been spawned, and you waited until they completed their initial task, and then entered (and thereby spawned) the building, they would appear in the building and behave correctly, but a doppelganger would be made and stored back into the list of abstract NPCs. Then, when it came time for that NPC to take another scheduled action, both the abstract non-existent NPC, and the physically spawned NPC, would both try to take the action (since they shared the same unique identifying number), at which point… Bad Things would happen. This has been dealt with. I know last week I said everything with guards was working, but now I *really* think everything with guards is working. Hopefully.
Prisoners
Due to a classic case of chaos theory, making a totally minor change that was essential to the game’s code for handling important NPCs had the unexpected side-effect of causing only the tiniest fraction of prisoners to ever actually spawn – only the secretly-important prisoners in jails were spawning, whilst the other prisoners who are classed by the game as “important”, i.e. they are saved and still appear when you change map grid, were not being spawned. This has been fixed! Here’s a jail full of prisoners (the “z” characters) wandering about their cells:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Newjail-1.gif)
And the jailer knows how to go to bed, though I slightly messed up this gif by going up the wrong staircase first and letting the mouse cursor stray in at the end…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Tosleep.gif)
And when I go back in at night, they’re all on their beds like good prisoners, and the jailer is where they should be in their quarters:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Beds.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Jailer.gif)
Mercenaries
There was an earlier bug with mercenaries, and although I didn’t explicitly fix it, something I’ve coded in the interim seems to have fixed it, so I’m assuming it now all works perfectly. Hooray! Mercenaries are found in mercenary guilds, and spend their day wandering/pacing their rooms. In the future, of course, you’ll be able to engage with them, but that’s where they stand for now. Here’s a mercenary guild I entered at night, and sure enough found everyone in their appropriate beds:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Merc.gif)
And one waking up and starting to wander and pace:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Awakening.gif)
Servants and Slaves
I… think servants/slaves in upper-class houses are now working correctly. The important ones spawn and behave, the unimportant ones spawn and behave, and so forth. Here’s me running around the upper floor in a non-slaving nation (so “v” is servant, “s” is slave) and watching the servants going around their day – though in fairness, we’re in a equatorial region here, so both skin tones and wood colours tend to be darker, and combined with the brown/red in the floor patterns here, I admit that the servants are a little tricky to see! But there isn’t really much I can do about that, as it’s a rare occurence to have all three of those match up. Though this might finally galvanize me towards actually adding a 14×14 font size soon, that should help in situations like this!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Servantes.gif)
And in another mansion, at night, all the servants are sleeping in their quarters!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Sleeping.gif)
However, there is some remaining weird issue going on – if we’re physically present when they should be waking up, they don’t! This is the top priority to fix this coming week.
Bugs and Whatnot
Found a weird bug this week when a guard who had left their house and was going towards the arena to relieve the other guard there somehow got switched from the “Local Pathfinding” state (where they move from one point to another on the local map by any means necessary, regardless of roads) to the “Roadmap” state (where random crowd NPCs just follow roads). This should be totally impossible, and having gone over the code many times I cannot find how this could take place, and sadly I had no debugging stuff going to catch that happening since I’ve been doing AI for three months now and this is the first time that’s ever happened. Weird. I’ve put in even more safeguards into the code to prevent this happening, but I suppose there’s got to be a tiny chance that whatever weird collection of flukes led to this occurrence could still be lurking out there. Very peculiar.
Also discovered an issue with the way I was actually playtesting things; due to things now being saved in their own subfolders in the save folder instead of being saved in one massive file, saving/loading is vastly faster and more efficient, but it does mean it’s harder for me to “reset” the game to its previous state to continue testing the same thing in fractionally different scenarios. So I wrote in a bit of stability code to basically help me testing; this probably won’t be noticed, but it just makes saving and loading things in the background a little slicker.
Dialects
I’ve continued to take brief breaks from all this madness to work a little bit on the dialect generation system. I’ve identified a massive set of variables including word order and various other things, and it’s looking amazing even at this early stage. In my brief moments of dialect generation, I am coming to realize that before I go much further, I need a very clear and solid idea of what “a conversation” will actually look like. More on this in a near-future blog entry…
What next?
We are approaching a point where there is only so much I can do to try every possible scenario that I can imagine, and I’ll just need to release a playtesting build and rely on the skills of the masses (you wonderful lot!) to help me find it all. Still debating whether to do a closed or open playtest. Leaning slightly towards open right now, but I was leaning towards closed last week, so I’m very changeable at the moment on this point. I’ll update you all once I have more information. For now, though, my focus this week is on ambassadors, clerks, diplomats, innkeeps, delegates, and finishing that issue with slaves/servants.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 13, 2016, 09:56:52 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 20, 2016, 05:43:30 pm
But as for this fortnight’s update: YES, as I’m sure you could guess, I’ve done more work on AI, but my goodness, we’re getting close to an acceptable level of completeness here for the 0.8 release. I just realized with something of a shock how close I am to having this release’s AI finished: Chieftains, Priests, Archivists, Mercenaries, Clerks, Diplomats, Farmers, Guards, ordinary citizens, Innkeeps, Jailers, Merchants, Slaves, Tellers, Servants and Prisoners all work! If I can make sure officers work, and all the NPCs in castles and monasteries work, it’ll be done! Then I’ll do speech generation, then release 0.8, then return to finish off the more obscure NPCs – blacksmiths, delegates, explorers, gladiators, and so forth – in a much quicker 0.9. So here’s a run-down of everything this past two weeks, as I enter what I desperately hope to be the last week of concerted AI work in this release. I will be releasing the playtesting release on the weekend of 2/3 April, and I’m probably going for the closed playtest option. For now, though…
Servants and Slaves, Again
Found a few fascinatingly rare errors involving saving and loading specifically when important but non-unique NPCs were next to, or on, a staircase, and were either transitioning to sleeping or transitioning to doing their normal everyday stuff. If next to the stairs they were trying to find a new target when the game reloaded instead of continuing to the stairs, but if they were already on the stairs, they would cause a soft lock with the NPC trying to find another target. I’m pretty certain I’ve fixed this now for all NPCs this might apply to, and if it isn’t finished, they should roll over to a piece of code that will encourage them towards a chair or a bed for a temporary rest, rather than having them lock up the game, so there’s a slightly less-elegant backup solution in there in case the main solution doesn’t work. I went into the basement of a mansion and waited until it was time for the servants to wake up, quickly modified the code to make them all wake up around the same time instead of over a longer period in order to take a nice gif, and voila:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/timetowakeup.gif)
Ambassadors
Ambassadors and innkeeps have a similar thing to them – they spawn and sleep on the upper floor of their building, and when they get up, they head downstairs and do their thing, and then return upwards. As far as I can tell (I know I keep putting this proviso on everything I write about AI, but the stuff is so damned complicated that I have to!) ambassadors work correctly, although there remains a tiny issue with innkeeps because in their business day they can sometimes drift onto the upper staircase, and if they decide to go to the upper staircase when already standing on it, they go up but then don’t look for a target, and freeze. Not quite sure why, but for the ambassadors, here’s a quick gif of one turning in for the night:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/ambed-1.gif)
Clerks and Diplomats
Clerks and diplomats all now seem to work correctly, using effectively the same code as tellers, albeit with a minor slight difference. They live all over the city, head towards their appropriate embassies, and behave correctly, although there was a really strange issue for a while with the game trying to spawn a duplicate whenever one of them was due to act! Then we had another issue with clerks and diplomats sometimes deciding to sneak upstairs and occupy the ambassador’s bed! Cheeky buggers. All very odd, but now resolved.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Clerktoemb.gif)
Monastery Name Generation
To my amusement, I realized I’d neglected to get monastery names generating! I’d just left them with a placeholder, “Monastery of the Six Halos”, and entirely forgotten about them. I returned there this week and spent an hour putting in a robust name generation system which draws upon the specifics of the religion in question – whether it worships an animal god, a demonic god, a lovecraftian god, an “ordinary” god, a pantheon, etc – and then churns out a series of related but distinctive names for the monasteries in each civilization. Here are a few groups of examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Monasteries.png)
Archivists again
Archivists weren’t behaving perfectly and couldn’t find their way back to their desk after a good night’s sleep. Now they do!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Mysexychair.gif)
Farmers
Farmers now farm! You can head into a farm, and for each farmhouse, we’ll see a farmer doing their thing, which basically involves moving from point to point in the fields, and only moving a few tiles at a time. By this, I mean they select a group of crops to work on, work there for x turns, then move no more than 5 or so tiles in any direction onto another crop, tend that, and so forth, and so you see them slowly moving around their fields. At the appropriate time, they head home. Here’s a gif of a farmer… farming… which is about as exciting as you’d expect, but hey, it works:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Farmoflage.gif)
And goes to their farmhouse:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Farmerbed.gif)
And going to bed:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/bedtime.gif)
Thrilling stuff!
Innkeeps
Innkeeps are now in the appropriate place in the day, and at night. As above, innkeeps use pretty much the same body of code as ambassadors since they sleep in the building they work, they sleep on a floor above their working floor, and so forth. At the moment they should come down stairs in the morning and tend to the bar. I’m also considering using the graphics for the beer barrels stored in the basement for barrels more generally, and adding those into the generation algorithms for some other buildings to add some variety to the standard chairs/tables (i.e. use them as food storage barrels and that kind of thing). For now, people do still come into the tavern when the innkeep is asleep, but that can be fixed some other time, and definitely fits into the “long set of very minor issues” category that I’ll handle in the future. I assume they just sit around and drink their drinks very slowly until dawn once more spins around.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/inbed.gif)
Next Week
The final AI update before the playtesting release, and hopefully pretty much all the AI needed for 0.8… and what a relief that will be!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on March 21, 2016, 01:59:33 am
Very excited.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 21, 2016, 05:53:24 pm
Post by: Aleksanderus on March 23, 2016, 11:57:17 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 23, 2016, 02:15:37 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2016, 12:36:51 pm
Monasteries
Monasteries and castles were always going to be two of the hardest areas to make work perfectly. Castles are complex because they have so many different classes of NPC going about their day and many different floors, whilst monasteries were always going to be challenging because they can contain many buildings – the monastery itself, a nearly religious building for worship, and potentially delegate housing if in a democratic nation that allows its monasteries to have delegates – and the schedules of the monks include interior and exterior behaviours within the monastery (studying), within the religious building (prayer), and outside (tending to the vegetable garden). Additionally, monasteries are an area with a tiny number of important NPCs (i.e. a couple of the monks) and a large number of semi-important NPCs who should be indistinguishable from the other monks (i.e. the rest of the monks), and these categories need to work correctly despite having quite different code with regards to their scheduling. I’ll be working on all the NPC schedules we need in castles this coming week, but as far as I can tell monasteries are now all working correctly! Here are some examples – you’ve seen lots of monks before, but they now tend their vegetable gardens correctly, and head to bed correctly, although there remain a few minor issues that need resolving for next week…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Farmonk.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/xl.png)
And a monk (I’m using “monk” for women and men, since “nun” has a lot of connotations that are distinct from monk) in such a monastery:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/xl-1.png)
More Farmers and Innkeeps
As is becoming a pattern, it turned out that farmers and innkeeps were not working perfectly. The issue with the former was in matching up both important and non-important farmers in their homes at the appropriate times in their schedules (e.g. night) and then making sure those farmers are the ones that start farming in the day, instead of spawning a second copy. Later issues were then discovered with various combinations of being in buildings, out of buildings, being important, being unimportant, etc, including a few weird errors that arose because “Farmhouse” wasn’t in a few places it should be in order to acknowledge it as a potential type of house for an NPC.
The issue with the latter was that although 95% of the ambassador code was usable, I had forgotten that the usual movement for innkeeps (wandering around behind the counter) uses a very different chunk of code from ambassadors (wandering around their embassy and sitting at chairs and talking to people), which meant that innkeeps, if they had just been awoken and then the player entered and therefore spawned the building, it would often place them outside the bar’s counter and get them wandering around their own tavern instead of serving drinks! I’ve now fixed all of this nonsense.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Markymark-2.gif)
Bugs
A huge number of bugs were resolved this week. For some reason, wandering NPCs who enter a building whilst the player is outside and the building is not spawned, and then the player enters and spawns that building, were not behaving properly and were causing the game to crash by attempting to path outside the building. I don’t understand what caused this, since I don’t think I changed any code that deals with that stuff, or even any code related to that stuff, but either way, it’s now fixed; fixed by dealing with the effect instead of finding the cause, but fixed regardless.
Then we had another very weird bug which took a while to track down, but basically if you moved onto the same tile as a sleeping NPC, on a different floor, and that NPC was of a specific class and had been spawned in a particular way, they would move onto the staircase down, and then just sit there doing nothing. Turned out this was an incredibly old line of code that wasn’t fit to handle buildings of multiple floors, and just needed a single line added, but that took a good few hours to hunt down…
Another bug emerged whereby when you went up a staircase, if you then immediately tried to move onto a tile which was occupied by another NPC, and that NPC wasn’t moving, you could switch places with them. This one meant that, in effect, you could transfer someone off their bed, whilst sleeping, and put them on the staircase. Very silly. Like the first in this list, I’m still not completely sure what caused this, but I’ve fixed it regardless by adding a special line of code that prevents you doing a “force switch” with another NPC so long as you’re on a staircase, since the staircase definitely creates the problem.
I also ran into a really strange bug involving the corners of city walls placed outside those walls. If you were going from Map Grid XlY to Map Grid X,Y-1 and there was a city on Map Grid X+1,Y or Map Grid X+1,Y-1, then the game would check whether you could path to the corner of the map grid (as it should), but rather than concluding that this couldn’t be pathed to (on account of being city wall), it instead concluded it could be pathed to with a path time of 0 moves. As in, it defaulted to 0 as the “error” path length, rather than 9999 or some equivalent. This took a while to find since it has been a long time since I’ve handled the code for keeping track of the time it takes the player to move around the map, but has now been fixed, and no longer teleports the player into impossible corners if they then instantly re-enter a map grid after travelling out of it, and there’s a city wall in the corner.
Another bug emerged where it turned out that moving from map grid to map grid on foot, if the player was outside a city, caused the important NPCs to mysteriously vanish into oblivion. This was because I had originally codded it on the assumption – falsely, but it just didn’t occur to me – that only cities would have important NPCs… but of course monasteries, farms, towns and so forth do as well. This meant that when you simply walked from grid to grid, it didn’t think to check in on important NPCs because the player wasn’t going through a city gate, and everything was tethered to the gates. This was a quick copy-paste job to call the same “Check what important NPCs are doing” function when going over map grids, and as far as I can tell, that should have done it.
Honestly, a ton of this week has been on bug-fixing. It’s a real case of two steps forward, one step back: I code a bunch of new AI stuff, and then discover loads of weird new bugs in the process, spawned from the massive complexity of URR 0.8. Still, there can’t be that many bugs left now… right?
And finally, since this is a relatively screenshot-light entry, some NPCs from a nation I ran into during the process of playtesting. See you all next week for finished monastery AI, and hopefully the completion of the biggest challenge of all – CASTLES.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/People1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/People2-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/People3.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 11, 2016, 12:47:52 pm
Castles
Castles have proved to be a very enjoyable break from the rest of this hell – most of their NPCs never leave the building, their schedules are relatively simple, and they’re just so different and aesthetically pleasing that I’ve found this process all rather pleasant. At the moment almost everything seems to work, though there are some tricky things I’ve had to catch where I’d written code for a particular NPC class, forgetting that they could sometimes spawn in castles as well as elsewhere. One example was servants, who in upper-class housing and mansions automatically always sleep in the basement, but in castles actually live on the ground floor (if present); in castles it is only slaves (if present) who sleep below ground. I had to go through quite a bit of code and make sure that the game checked whether servants were in castles or mansions before directing them. The same applied to a few other NPCs, like guards that both sleep and work inside (unique) and so forth. Similarly, I also found that I needed to add in a special line of code for NPCs trying to do inside schedule targets in castles that checked they coud actually path to the target they’d chosen. This might seem obvious and surprising that I hadn’t put it in before, but previously all upper floors of buildings had only one large connected space (even if some of it had permission requirements), so one could always be sure an NPC could path from X to Y on a floor; by contrast, castle upper floors can have parts of turrets and towers that are disconnected from the main floor, and thereby impossible to path to from certain areas, and so NPCs now always check the path they’ve chosen can actually be walked, instead of relying on the game to never generate/choose an unwalkable path. As I say, this was the case until now, but it isn’t any more! Here’s me approaching a castle with some soldiers (‘5’) and guards (‘g’) outside, showing that this is a nation with a standing army:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Soldier-Castle.gif)
Here are a few gifs and images from inside a castle (I’ve been using one particular civilization for all my testing, hence the universal silver/grey colour). First we have a throne room with a lot of knights (‘2’). This is a stratocracy, so the ruler’s throne (the yellow symbol in the middle, which will soon have its own unique generation system) has an unusually large amount of high-ranking protection.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/thronn.png)
The quarters of some soldiers, with various soldiers sleeping off-duty whilst their duplicates guard the castle outside (soldiers appear in castles in nations with standing armies).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Soldy.png)
Some priests (very slowly) meandering in their respective chapels in a castle for a nation with religious freedom as its ideology; whereas priests in normal churches are programmed to wander around and look at altars and desks and statues and whatever, these folks use the same body of code as chieftains or prisoners or mercenaries, i.e. wandering around within particular confines (since it would be rather odd to have them looking at the altars of others!).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Priests.gif)
And here we have a servant on the ground floor going about their day, going up one of the towers at the edges/corners (depending on the layout) of the castle and cleaning one of the chairs on the upper floor; on that floor we also find a guard (‘g’) and a knight (‘2’) sleeping. Somewhere their equivalents will be on
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Serv.gif)
Here’s a monetary cache. This nation has a free trade economic policy, so they have a cache of coinage from a range of other nations in the castle – or, y’know, they will very shortly once I implement currencies. For now though, if you see two guards like this – that’s what they’re guarding. Alternatively, another policy (protectionism, I think) leads to a castle having a large cache of domestic coinage instead, and these are mutually exclusive policies, so there will only ever be one, or neither.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Cache.png)
Merchants, Priests and Innkeeps in Towns
Merchants and priests all work correctly in towns. I had a momentary bit of panic as I realized that I’d only tested priests and merchants in cities, and although the code should work in towns just as well… there was always a chance it wouldn’t, since various things are stored in different ways in towns and cities. Nevertheless, a little bit of experimentation confirmed that everything was working fine there. Here are two shops in a town near the above castle:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Shop.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Towntac.gif)
Monks and Monasteries
Wow. Monks and monasteries. What a nightmare. This is taking so much longer than anticipated – the complexity comes from having multiple buildings on one map, all of which might or might not be spawned, and the presence of tasks that take NPCs from one into the other… and various other things besides. Therefore, I have taken the decision to actually massively simplify them as spawning NPCs from this release. Their schedules are just too damned complicated ordinarily and need too much moving between buildings, acting outside buildings, blah blah… it’s all trivial to handle when the player is on the map grid, but when the player is elsewhere, or they’re present and they’ve spawned some buildings in the monastery complex but not others… urgh, what a nightmare. Therefore, for this release, despite the lovely gif of farming monks from a few weeks ago, monks will actually stay completely indoors. They will awaken, get up, do some work throughout the day, then turn back in. For 0.9 I’ll return here and get them tending to their vegetable gardens and visiting the religious building in their complex, but not just yet.
Bugs
Another fortnight with loads of new bugs discovered and dealt with.
Firstly, we had a bug with categories of NPC who all sleep on the same floor, in the same building, and go to their bed at roughly the same time. If two were targeting the same bed, they would not register it as an inaccessible bed since nobody was on that bed YET, so they would both go there, the person to get there first would claim the bed, and the latter would just stand next to the bed, desperately pining for the bed they could no longer have. Some new lines of code now detect if someone has just stepped onto the bed you’re going after, and NPCs now change directions appropriately; in a future release I’ll have NPCs actually claim specific beds, since right now they only go to general beds – servants will go to any servant bed in their mansion, priests will go to any priest bed in a cathedral, and so forth…
I then ran into a bug that took about four hours to resolve, whereby in a tiny subset of possible religious buildings, priests couldn’t figure out what to do. This took a disappointingly long time to diagnose, especially since it was a block of time that I’d marked out for making sure monasteries worked correctly, but in the end I sorted it out. It happened in religious buildings that contained pools and only a tiny number of chairs/tables, or contained only prayer mats without chairs around tables in the building. These are both pretty rare subsets, but basically the code for choosing locations for humans and priests to meander to weren’t correctly handling pools (they should just gaze into the pool, like the gif below) and weren’t handling prayer mats, since they are stored separately from “chairs”. This is now all sorted, and I think this should work fine for any and all religious buildings.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Pool-1.gif)
And here’s a rather nice gif of a matching prayer mat, clothing, and altar, just since I happened to be in a religious building with a pleasing level of colour-coordination:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/03/Mats.gif)
Then ran into a rather strange bug, whereby people who work in buildings they don’t sleep in, and did everything from their work day before then going to bed and reaching their home away from the player’s observation, would fail to spawn when you then spawned their map grid and went into their home. This one was puzzling, since I’m sure this worked before… but on the other hand, there are so many permutations of saving/loading and whatnot that it may well have been a particular variation I’d missed on my first sweep a few weeks ago. Either way, it all works now!
Next Week
Castle AI finished, Monk/Abbot AI definitely functioning correctly, any remaining tweaking required to put out the playtesting release, and… who knows, I might even start working on the conversation window?!?! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves (for once)…
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 18, 2016, 04:10:57 pm
Castles
Almost all the AI requirements for castles are now done. As I mentioned last week, this was quite an easy and enjoyable part of AI programming, both because a large part was already done for all the involved NPCs and because castles are just very interesting spaces I enjoy moving around and exploring (even as their designer). The stuff that still needed doing after our previous update was to ensure that all guard exchanges work correctly (which they do, almost entirely), that monks behave in a sensible way (they do), that everyone goes to a logical bed when they turn in for the night, which is surprisingly tricky in a building with so many beds on so many floors (I think they do). As with everything else, this should work regardless of the player’s actions going in/out of the map grid, leaving the building unspawned, spawning the building, etc. Therefore, here are some screenshots.
Monks awakening for the day and moving around the castle:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Gomonks.gif)
A guard switch-over when the castle itself has not been spawned; although some of the colours here make it slightly tricky to see at times (I’m still trying to figure out a solution), I love the complexity of this dance as all the conscripts (“6”) and guards (“g”) exit the castle and exchange places with their comrades, before going back inside. In a later version the timings will be varied a little, of course, so that they don’t all appear at the same time, but for the time being this is more than adequate (and does look pretty cool!).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Swap.gif)
Here we have a bunch of knights guarding the throne room switching places. Sorry for the laggy parts of this gif – there was a lot of debugging stuff going on in the background which slowed it down every now and then.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Knightchange-1.gif)
In a slaving nation, we have several slaves in a castle going about their day and maintaining upkeep of the great hall; this was the same civilization as all the above gifs. A few minor issues arose here with behaviour that had been coded for mansions and manors not quite working perfectly for castles, but I’m pretty confident that’s all resolved now.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Slaves-1.gif)
Three debugging images of a generated castle with the NPCs placed within it, and where they start. C = conscript, g = guard, K = knight, s = slave, M = monk. They normally start at their guarding locations or their beds, and then start moving as soon as they’re spawned by the player entering the castle.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/NPCS1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/NPCS2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/NPCS3.png)
More Monks
Monasteries have been successfully simplified for this release – abbots and monks now behave entirely indoors within the monastery, rather than venturing outside into the vegetable garden and the religious building at the core of the complex, and thereby causing all manner of confusion. Here we have some monks going to bed and already in bed, and then for reasons unknown I go for a wander into the next part of the monastery before ending the recording…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Monksleep.gif)
Bugs
Lots of fun bugs!
Firstly, something started crashing when I entered inns. It turned out that this was because of a slight typo I’d made in a line of code handling the decisions of important NPCs that accidentally scooped up a particular subset of non-important NPCs (e.g. those who can do their thing in taverns) and caused the game to implode. This wasn’t too tricky to fix once I found the line of code, although it took a fair bit of hunting down. Secondly, we had a bug involving the middle courtyards of castles (see below) which resulted in the player, upon leaving them, sometimes being transported onto the roof of the castle instead of correctly settling into the courtyard. This has also been fixed. Thirdly, we had another bug that caused certain categories of NPCs to duplicate themselves under extremely rare circumstances with the player’s movement and their spawning/non-spawning of buildings at various times in the player’s movement schedule, and this caused a bunch of problems with the clone NPCs overlapping in their schedules, or only doing half of their schedule, or all kinds of strange things. I figured out what the particular permutation was, and dealt with it. Fourthly, I ran into a bunch of problems with soldiers, conscripts and knights attempting to use the code designed for guards (since when guarding, the game should just treat them the same as guards) which needed fixing in a laborious but not massively challenging process, which basically entailed adding [‘Soldier’,’Conscript’,’Knight’] to almost every line of code with ‘Guard’ in it.
Lastly, I discovered a rather fantastic bug whereby guards and conscripts and suchlike inside a castle, who were trying to path outside a castle in order to relieve their comrades, would sometimes path to the internal doors in a castle (if that castle has an external courtyard) and would emerge into the courtyard, not have any idea how to path to their guard partners (despite being outside, and therefore supposedly able to path), and then for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, they would insert themselves into the door (see picture below) and sit there until I noticed them. This has only happened once, because I resolved it immediately after, but I really have no idea how they put themselves into the door. I guess it’s just one of those mysteries.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Courtyard-troubles.png)
I also made a range of other minor changes this week in preparation for the interim playtesting release. Firstly, I removed the stat bars from the bottom of the screen, and the stats from the windows on the left of the screen. Those are almost certainly going to need updating/changing in the future, but for now, they’ve just distracting, especially as the game’s current stage is fully about exploration and (once 0.8 is out) talking to people. I’ve also made some minor changes to a bunch of flavour text here and there, primarily relating to travel and the player’s movement in the world, and changed a bunch of things relating to the wording of various items and features and terrain types and the like, as well as clarifying a few mechanics points, keypresses, etc. Naturally my focus is on the AI for the playtesting release, but I want to make it at least a reasonably streamlined experience for the playtesters!
Next Week
All that needs doing is finishing off castle AI, which is mostly done already. Next week will be the last AI update for 0.8, and hopefully the interim playtesting release. Finally!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 30, 2016, 06:33:14 am
Finishing Castles
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I finished off everything that still needed to be done for castles, and so as far as I can now tell, all the possible NPCs that can spawn in a castle all function correctly with their schedules, their placement, their tracking whether the castle map grid is spawned/unspawned and whether the castle itself is spawned/unspawned, and so on and so forth. One major issue was with sleeping and waking NPCs, and in a few particular contexts guards who should be spawned sleeping in beds were spawned sleeping at their posts, whilst those who should have been on guard duty at their posts were on guard duty in their beds! This got fixed by copying a line of code which should have applied to all guards, but was instead applying to around 90% of them thanks to a typo. I then ran into some issues with entering a castle after the 1080 time of the day (which has 1440 “ticks”, each being ten “turns”) which is when all the guard schedules should switch over; for some strange reasons, the knights guarding the throne room were struggling to spawn correctly and causing a crash, which had *something* to do with beds, but I wasn’t quite sure what.
The “filled” doors are doors to the outside whilst the hollow doors are within one building, so here we see various guards and conscripts going outside. It’s slightly jerky due to all the debug processes printing, but I think it still looks rather snazzy, and I love seeing such a large volume of people going about their day without the game crashing! (You’ll also see slaves and knights in these gifs also just going about their daily business in the castle)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Finalguards-1.gif)
And then immediately after, the guards/conscripts who were guarding outside come back inside and head to appropriate beds:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Finalguards2.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Finalguards3.gif)
Here’s a cache guard switching with another cache guards whilst various other guards/knights/etc on the same timetable also move to wherever it is they need to go in order to switch over:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Cacheswitch.gif)
Guards on upper floors wouldn’t behave
As a result, here are some guards and a knight in one of the towers finding their way down correctly, rather than misbehaving terribly:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Down.gif)
I ran into a bug whereby I sometimes ran out of beds on certain generations, but only for knights and guards. It took quite some time to diagnose what was actually happening here, but it finally became apparent that when the smallest possible number of beds spawned in the corner/side towers (four per tower, so sixteen total) and the game was trying to place guards and knights in those towers, and there was a cache in the castle, there simply weren’t enough beds, so the NPCs were stuck trying to find a bed; this meant I had to specifically enable their ability to climb up towers to find another bed, but only specific staircases (because the main staircases are in the main castle, rather than in the towers)! The disconnected nature of the upper floors of castles is unique, and has basically required adding in quite a few exceptions to a lot of NPC behaviour which ordinarliy wouldn’t have to think about impossible paths on a given floor.
After that, though, things went quite smoothly with servants, slaves, and monks. Here we have a basement in this castle containing the castle’s slaves, who were all going about their day most of the time and then filed into the basement as time went by:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Allslaves.gif)
And monks sleeping at night in their quarters:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Sleep.png)
I then turned my attention to priests, who – in castles – can fall into two categories. In religious nations you’ll find a single large chapel with a priest walking around inside, whilst in nations that have freedom of religion you’ll find a large number of small chapels, each with a priest (and altar, book, etc) of the appropriate religion. Here’s a priest wandering around a full-size chapel for a nation dominated by a particular religion (you’ll note various servants coming and going at the same time), and then various priests in smaller chapels in a castle in a nation with a plurality of religions:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Chapel.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Priest.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Priest2.gif)
And I must say there were some cool religions in this castle. Jaguars for the jaguar god!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Jaguar.png)
Then, servants. They work the same as slaves (aside from being on the ground floor instead of underground), and these worked pretty much immediately thanks to all the code in place for slaves. I then moved onto torturers and jailers, who should be spawning in a different section of the basement, away from slave quarters (if slave quarters are present) and who keep to a very simple schedule. Sure enough, these folks seem to work perfectly well now too. Here’s one of them wandering around (I also really love how under-castle jails look, don’t you?).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Jailer.gif)
And heading to bed:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Jailhome-1.gif)
And here’s a torturer checking out the cells under their control (where unfortunate people will one day appear), and in a later version there will be various unpleasant things in the centre of this room, which will vary from nation to nation (so different nations have different methods of torture, if torture is their thing).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/tort-1.gif)
And slave quarters and a dungeon in the basement of the same castle, with two different staircases. This is a rare-ish scenario, but meant I had to make absolutely sure that slaves returning to their quarters knew which staircase to take (servants, being on the ground floor instead of the basement, don’t have this issue)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/04/Jaguar-1.png)
And that’s pretty much all the NPCs for castles! In future versions I may add in a couple of extra NPCs, like book-keepers for archives and the like, and also I need to add in concubines at an appropriate point – and the actual leaders themselves! – but for now, castles still appear very active when the player wanders around them, and that’s what matters for 0.8.
Final Check, Final Bugs
The last thing to do before sending out the playtesting release is to active all possible AI actors and spend a little while wandering around the world and trying to break them myself. I’ve now done so, and to my absolute delight, I have thus far discovered that everything seemed to be working correctly, although I do still harbour a tiny, tiny concern that certain NPCs in certain houses might not always appear in their houses at the correct times, depending on the player’s actions… but I couldn’t produce any bugs here, so that’s down to be super-secret super-elite playtesting team to figure out.
I’m also going to implement a few debug tools for my playtesters, so they can now look at a debug print-out which shows all the important NPCs in that area, where their homes are, what their current tasks and schedules and objectives are, and so forth. This, naturally, will not be in the final release, but I thought it was a pretty essential feature to maximize the potential of the interim playtesting beta.
Although I have ever confidence in my team, the complexity of all this stuff does mean it has to be possible that the final 0.8 release will go out with a few minor issues still in place. This would be disappointing, of course, but so long as there are no AI related crash bugs present when 0.8 hits the shelves, I’ll be content – it would obviously be even better if there were no AI bugs of any sort whatsoever, but I’m being realistic. Pathfinding and scheduling is massively complicated already and made even more complex by the variety of permutations of spawned/unspawned/loaded/saved areas the player can bring into existence or push into the background through their movements in the game world, and despite my best efforts, I’m sure it’s still possible for an NPC to duplicate, or to vanish into nonexistence, or something else of that sort. But we’ll see! Maybe the playtesting release will be remarkably stable and nobody will find any problems whatsoever.
HAAAAAAAAAAA.
Next Week
DIALECT GENERATION! For the next week or two I’ll be working on the underlying mechanics for generating different styles of speech for each in-game culture (in the average game we need to produce around 40 very different styles of speech, and ideally many tens of thousands possible across a long enough stretch of time). I’ve started to draft this in various forms over the last month or so, and so next week I’ll give you all a run-down of what I have in mind here. After that we’ll be onto designing the conversation screen! I’ve also been giving this a lot of thought, and I have some idea how this is going to play out, and how it will connect to the dialect/sentence generation stuff I’ve been quietly putting together and experimenting with in the background. See you in a week!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 30, 2016, 05:07:53 pm
One play isdue I have quite often is that it can be hard to tell doors apart, especially in slums. Castles look like they'll have similar issues, are there any plans to implement slight coloration for doors? ( so a dark brown wood door would be very very light brown, or a vault door might be very light grey.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 08, 2016, 09:57:40 am
Hmm: I hadn't, but I take your point (though I'm hoping players will identify the nature of doors more from the shape of the building/context of the area than the door itself). I'll play around with colours a bit and see how it looks!
--
A huge update this week, so let’s skip the introduction and get on with it!
AI Refinements
I’ve had a wealth of fantastic feedback from my playtesters this week – thank you to you all! As such, I’ve implemented a whole range of fixes, some of which were for issues that I thought had been resolved ages ago, but some code edit in the mean time had apparently ruined, leading to these problems.
Firstly, we had a wealth of problems with servants/slaves in upper-class housing districts entering non-crucial mansions, and then when players enter them, a whole suite of Very Strange things happened, normally resulting in a crash. Quite a few people reported it. This bug was a leftover from a previous model of NPC handling, and required me to prevent random crowd servants/slaves from going into buildings, so now they just move around the district or sometimes leave the district instead; in turn, I’ve disabled servants/slaves in second-tier upper-class houses, and I’ll put them back once I come to 0.9 and I’m putting in all the other NPCs and NPC variations 0.8 will lack. This should all now be fine!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Slaveys.gif)
Secondly, I’ve had a bunch of reports of crashes when saving/loading the game, and these are very hard to diagnose, unfortunately, but I think I’ve fixed it. One was a rather strange issue with the pathfinding maps in buildings; these were just saved and loaded, but for some reason this has stopped working when you save and close the program; save and reload works fine. In truth, I don’t really understand what could be causing this in the slightest, but it takes just a few milliseconds to recalculate when you load the game instead of trying to load it from scratch, so I’ve dumped in some code to that effect, which will be sufficient for now. Debug logs still look crazy, though.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Log.gif)
Thirdly, a major problem arose with non-“important” NPCs sometimes straying into the code for important NPCs, and being asked by the game to report their “current_step” variable (which relates to how far through they are moving from one district to another on a regular/routine schedule), and the game thereby crashing because they don’t have that variable at all. A lot of people reported this, and it turned out to be pleasingly trivial to diagnose and fix, since it basically required the addition of “if npc.important:” to a particular piece of AI code, and that sorted it out. Result!
We also had an issue with guards failing to appear to relieve other guards in upper-class districts, which has now been fixed:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Swapshop.gif)
And ambassadors were not always in their embassies at night, which needed a quick fix:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Emb-1.gif)
There were also reported issues of jailers sometimes getting into an infinite loop (fixed), an issue with castles that contained both slaves and jailers/torturers in the basement and they would sometimes try to path to beds in the other segment of the basement and cause the game to go into a loop (fixed), farmers sometimes didn’t always appear on their farms at the right times (fixed), and entering a farmhouse after a farmer who you saw enter, entered, and that farmer wasn’t an important farmer, would cause a crash (fixed), due to them inexplicably attempting to use a line of code designed for guards and knights moving between floors in castles, and the game freaking out with concern about the impossibility of pathing to duplicate mutually-exclusive staircases which didn’t exist. Weird. Also, we had a problem with guards sometimes teleporting themselves into the inside doors of a castle, which was screwing up their ability to exchange places with their counterparts at the right time (fixed, below) and a whole host of little minor problems which I didn’t write down whilst solving, but were generally not crash bugs, but just strange actions.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Inside.png)
There is still one issue, which is that if you enter a “farm” map grid at night, the farmers spawn outside and then immediately rush inside to sleep; this really should be fixed, but it’s low priority, so in 0.9 I’ll make sure they appear in their buildings. It’s basically because most farmers being unique, but unimportant, AND being in their own buildings, is a unique combination, which requires some special code to it though. If I don’t mention on the blog that I’ve fixed this in the next couple of months, somebody remind me!
If you’re on the playtesting team, you should have a link to a new version in your inbox in the next few days. For everyone else, suffice to say that major bug-fixing improvements are taking place at the moment, and the team are doing damned well. More news as and when…
Talking Screen
Insanely exciting developments this week! We have a first draft of the conversation screen! It is heavily *in progress*, but check this beautiful thing out:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/firstdraft.png)
Now, I’ve been working on how this should look for quite some time and there’s a lot of stuff here to explain and describe, so let’s take it in order. Firstly, when you want to talk to someone you press ‘s’ for speak – ‘t’ is currently used for throw, and the options are therefore “throw” and “speak”, or “chuck” and “talk” – I think we can all agree that chuck is far too informal, so the first option is obviously better. This gives you a crosshair like the look function and the grab function and so forth, which can be moved in a 7×7 square centred on the player. Anyone in that area, and without your line of sight and on an explored tile (so you can’t exploit it by trying to speak through walls and finding where other NPCs are!) can be spoken with by pressing Enter, which brings you to the above screen. (In the below gif I quite rudely start talking to an NPC whilst they’re sleeping, but these are early days – naturally waking someone else will soon have some effect on their mood in the conversation).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Speak.gif)
Once you’re there, we have a bunch of options, which fall into three categories. Firstly, we have the “standard options”.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Biens.png)
These are the options that the player will be given for every single person they ever talk to. These will be related to the player’s “memory” (which will soon replace the existing “encyclopedia”, which is to say that you can ask anyone a question about any sub-topic within these topics, so for every important painting you’ve seen, you’ll be able to raise it as a potential topic of conversation (if you’re thinking “this will make for extremely tedious optimal gameplay – don’t worry, I have a solution, which is later in this entry). These options will likely form the majority of one’s conversations, and allow for a great breadth in potential conversation topics. Naturally, some people will be more or less willing to discuss each topic, for reasons of their own preferences or their culture/religion.
Then, we have the “special options”.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Biens-1.png)
These are options specific to the class of NPC you’re talking to. A priest will give you options like “Worship”, “Holy Book” and “Relics” that we see here; a servant or slave will show “Tasks”; a noble or lord might show “Family”; an archivist will show “Archives” and “Tombs”; and so on and so forth. There are never more than four special options, but quite a few classes of NPC now have four special options listed. These will often be the crucial topics to speak about with an NPC, but naturally the standard options will also often yield important or interesting data of various sorts. I think these add a nice sense of variety when encountering new types of NPC, and also direct players to some almost “recommended” topics of conversation, which might be especially important when people are learning the game and find themselves a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Stuff you can talk about.
And thirdly we have the “dialect” option.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Biens-2.png)
Now, you may be thinking – what is to stop the player simply asking every single question to every important NPC in the hope of extracting some information? We all know that gamers can often be satisfied with performing some very unexciting things in games if they are gameplay-optimal, and naturally I therefore don’t want it to be gameplay-optimal to “grind” in this way and just ask everything you can in the hope of landing upon something which matters. Once you’ve explored the world a fair bit, you are going to have hundreds, and potentially (in the late game) thousands of things which you could ask a given NPC. The solution to this problem is rather simple, and I think rather elegant. Basically, all NPCs will have a “conversation interest” meter, hidden to the player, but reflected in the tone with which they speak. If you ask relevant questions, the conversation continues. If you don’t, they will quickly become disinterested, and past a certain point, just end the conversation with you. This will therefore strongly encourage the player towards focusing only on conversation topics you know are important, or towards those you think might be important, getting the player to make intelligent and informed judgements instead of just taking a shot on every conversation option. This is very different to most games with conversation options, in which players are generally strongly encouraged to exhaust every conversation tree, and I think it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Also, I then thought of a way even this could be exploited – end the conversation, start a new conversation, try some more options, etc – but that’s also readily fixed. Characters who end the conversation due to your stupid or irrelevant questions will be unwilling to start a new conversation for a period of time, and since time will be the fundamental “food clock” resource in URR, you won’t (in almost all cases) be able to just wait around until they reset (a few days? A week?), and if you do, then it will have to be a strategic choice because you strongly feel you need to speak to a character who has previously shunned you.
Anyway, back to the screen. When you select an option you’ll get a list of every possible topic, and whether you know the dialect well enough to speak that question in that dialect (I’m still working on how exactly that will be “acquired”). These are empty for now, but will be one of the next things I’ll work on. We also see two images at the top of the screen, for the player and the person you’re talking to, whilst the conversation will scroll up (and be scroll-able) in the middle of the screen, with your comments left-aligned and the comments of the other character right-aligned. These are all the things I’ll be putting together in the next few weeks!
Lastly, on dialects, I would also like to add (on a more personal note) how enjoyable it is to be working on the speech generation/conversation system stuff! There’s a real pleasure to be found in starting to work on an entirely new and very cool system, and the past few days have been a great little period of starting to piece the disparate components required together. I’m really happy with how this initially looks and excited to keep working on this in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 14, 2016, 01:50:32 pm
Lots of new bugs fixed thanks to the playtesting team!
Fixed a very rare issue where important NPCs, moving in a map grid you are in, and then you leave, will crash upon trying to calculate how long it will take them to hypothetically complete their task, which is a number the game needs in case the player doesn’t return to that map grid, and therefore the important NPC must “tick” over into their next task at the appropriate time – and, if the player returns to the grid half-way through the NPC concluding their task, the important NPC should be half way there. The problem would arise from a random NPC being placed on the important NPC’s target square, and preventing them from reaching it and the game from acknowledging that they’d finished testing out their remaining steps. To fix this the game checks if there is a random NPC, and if there is, it deletes it. If there’s another important npc there (super rare, but… I think it has to be possible?) then it shifts them aside by one tile, has the first important NPC test their route, then shifts them back. It’s not super-elegant, but it’s entirely unseen by the player and gets the job done, and fixes a crash bug that a good two or three people reported.
Fixed an issue with guards under very rare circumstances in castles not correctly exchanging themselves with the other appropriate guards, which now works fine again. (Again, as before, they tend to change over at the exact same time, and that’s a truly minor aesthetic thing I’ll alter in the future).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Gers-1.gif)
Fixed another bug where, for a small subset of possible nomadic fortresses, merchants wouldn’t spawn because I’d failed to ensure that there were spawn points for all the (twelve?) possible market generation algorithms. Fixed another bug which had slaves/servants failing to spawn in large-but-not-massive mansions in upper class districts, due to a rather silly typo in the function that generates them and wasn’t adding beds on the bottom floor to the list of beds that slaves/servants could spawn upon. Also fixed a bug with doors and iron bars in torture chambers in dungeons in castles, whereby looking at the bars would very rather fail to produce a picture, whilst looking at the doors would often result in a crash, due to the lack of a wall nearby for the game to use as the correct terrain/texture (this was quickly fixed by adding an exception telling the game to look further in the map for the right wall terrain instead of just the surrounding tiles, which is adequate in every single case/scenario except this one).
At this point, it is actually looking like… dare I say it… everything for NPC AI / scheduling / pathfinding is basically working? The volume of bug reports have slowed down from a torrent to a mere stream, and nobody has found any truly catastrophic issues that required me to seriously rewrite large portions of code.
Hopefully.
Guards and Merchants in Fortresses
I’ve also continued to work on AI and NPCs and whatnot in the background whilst I wait for my playtesters to send me more bugs and issues. For instance, similar to a question I posed a little while ago about NPCs working correctly in towns, i.e. out of cities, came a similar question – would guards and merchants work correctly in nomadic fortresses?! Short answer: no, there were some serious issues with merchant scheduling, although guard scheduling appears to work completely fine. I had to put in quite a bit of new code to ensure that merchants were spawned correctly at the right places (whether in house or at their stalls), and to ensure that when merchants awake for the day and leave the house, they actually go directly to their stalls, and that when you leave and come back, the game actually correctly spawns the merchants at their outside shops instead of placing them in an imaginary “shop” building (which would be correct for a city, but is not correct for a fortress). Here’s a bunch of gifs from fortresses, the first three of merchants selling their wares, at home, and then emerging and returning to their location (a two-part gif).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Merchants1-1.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Merchants2.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Merchants3.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Merchants4.gif)
However, as you will note… this does again raise the issue of skin tone and soil/sand colours. As I said a few entries ago, I’m going to try fiddling with the sand colours, and potentially making soil more of a “red brown” and even the darkest skin tones a little closer to “light brown”. It’s damned tricky though when you only have one-colour tiles to play with, in most cases, and there are only so many shades which are even light enough to see in the first place! Still: I’ll fiddle with these colours a bit and try to make sure that darker skin tones and soil/sand stand out a little better than they do at the moment, since although you can follow this, it’s obviously nowhere near as clear as dark skin tones on lighter terrain types / light skin tones on darker terrain types, and this is an issue that needs fixing somehow.
Conversation Window
You’ll notice a few other slight changes to the conversation list: “Exchange” and “Challenge” have been added, whilst one or two other options have either been removed, or subsumed into a larger category. “Exchange” is distinct from “Trade”, which is only an option for merchants and is explicitly for offering money, in exchange for an item, which they are selling; by contrast, “Exchange” will allow you to either demand something from them for nothing, or offer them something for nothing, or propose an exchange of items/information/money/anything else. It’ll then up to the other character to determine whether or not they want to accept the offer/demand/exchange, or they’re offended by it, flattered by it, etc. I realized that this was a pretty crucial thing to add, so that’s now in there, and will lead to a slightly different screen to the rest of the conversation options, although some of the others are definitely going to have unique/distinct stuff too. When clicked on, it’ll bring up three windows – one for your items/intelligence, one for their items/intelligence, and then a middle window to put in items from both lists and see what they think of it. The same window will be used for bartering in nations that aren’t especially fond of coinage.
“Challenge”, meanwhile, will be another more detailed function to allow the player to challenge another NPC at various things – or, at least, offer/demand a challenge. This could be a battle, or to accuse them of something, or offer to gamble with them, or anything of that sort. This will probably be developed a little later once I have some idea of what kinds of things you should be able to challenge NPCs at/with/for! This will bring up two windows, one for the nature of the challenge, and one for the stakes that you propose .The same two windows will probably be used for “Smithing” as a conversation topic, to decide on what you want smithed, and the resources/payment you want to contribute. Anyway, I think both of these more complex options will be very interesting and very important, alongside the other “standard” conversation options which will list topics the player can potentially speak about.
In this gif, we look at a standard conversation option which will give you one window with a list of things you can say and whether you know how to convincingly say them in that dialect, then we move onto the “Challenge” option which shows us two windows, and then “Exchange” which shows us three. Hopefully by next week we should have some idea of what’ll be in these options! (You’ll note the below gif was taken before name implementation)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/05/Three-speak-3.gif)
0.8 Small Changes
I’ve spent some of this past week also putting in a somewhat sizeable range of small edits for 0.8 across a range of areas.
I’ve removed the “History” and “Heresies” options from the encyclopedia. The histories option has been removed because it no longer correlated well with the new forms of name generation for each nation (as outlined in this and the previous entry), and because this needs a substantial re-write anyway, and because in the near future players should be discovering the world’s history through their actions and conversations, rather than in the encyclopedia. The “heresies” option has been removed because it was always just a very early draft when I first implemented it, and it really needs a lot more work before I’m happy making it a core part of the game. Equally, as discussed before, the encyclopedia won’t be around for long anyway, so I don’t think it’s a tremendous loss to remove these options. In the Guidebook, meanwhile, I’ve updated the “Controls” list, disabled the “Histories” section, and updated the “NPC Types” list, as well as changed a couple of comments in a few entries which were no longer totally accurate.
I’ve also updated the policy descriptions for each nation, since these were out of date, and didn’t fit! Again, before too long these will probably be less visible and abstracted out, but it’s an important improvement for now. I’ve also updated the “0.7” stuff everywhere to “0.8”, and various other fiddlings just to fix things here and there. Quite a few people reported as bugs things that I’d just put in as placeholders, so I thought it was important to prevent any future confusion! I also disabled the “grab” function (for pulling/pushing large objects) since a) it isn’t relevant right now and b) it doesn’t seem to be working properly.
Next Week
Names will be integrated from the experimental file into the main game, and I’ll be figuring out how exactly dialects are learned. I have come up with four main options, and I think the fourth is definitely the strongest from a gameplay perspective, but I want to get some feedback before I go ahead in put in all the infrastructure for this! And probably some more bug fixes, but I am rather pleased to note that bug reports have trickled off, so I’m quietly hopeful we’ve now fixed all the major issues with 0.8…
Post by: Retropunch on May 15, 2016, 01:09:13 pm
However, I'd really really encourage you to move the conversation system away from the 'option robot' approach. My issue with a lot of rpg games is that you sort of just go through a list of topics until you find the one in which they say something interesting. That's completely not how a conversation would normally work - I wouldn't just approach you and say 'Mark - clothes? Mark - monasteries?' until I got a response which I found useful. Whilst I really like the idea of a conversation meter - I feel that still just works like a more focused version of the option robot.
I'd suggest instead a sort of chat bot for the user to converse with, maybe with some option prompts as you already have. I did this for a project I was working on and, whilst the rest of the game was awful, that worked very, very well.
Chat bots normally don't work well as the user can literally ask anything and the chat bot doesn't have a built in 'personality' (in fact, one that 'passed' the Turing test did have a built in personality of sorts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Goostman) so they seem lifeless. More than that though, with a game based chat bot, you're strictly 'in universe' - you don't have to worry about the bot not knowing things, as it should only know parts that are relevant to it. If you ask it a question it doesn't like, it can get irritated that you're wasting it's time without it seeming as though it's just covering up for a lack of sophistication.
The main reason why I think it's crucial for your game however, is that it allows some really awesome interactions. Don't address the lord by his proper title? instant rejection. What if the NPC asks you about your feelings on their rivals? you'll want to know that information and say the right thing. Use the proper greeting for that particular religion? gain a bit more leeway with your questions. Whilst that can be done by picking options, parsing is really easy and I'm absolutely positive it adds a solid layer of immersion. I'd strongly, strongly recommend it if you can.
Post by: Antsan on May 16, 2016, 02:19:37 am
Quote
The main reason why I think it's crucial for your game however, is that it allows some really awesome interactions. Don't address the lord by his proper title? instant rejection. What if the NPC asks you about your feelings on their rivals? you'll want to know that information and say the right thing. Use the proper greeting for that particular religion? gain a bit more leeway with your questions. Whilst that can be done by picking options, parsing is really easy and I'm absolutely positive it adds a solid layer of immersion. I'd strongly, strongly recommend it if you can.I doubt that parsing it actually is easy. The player could be start asking perfectly valid questions (from their perspective and even from the perspective of the designer) that the bot simply doesn't understand, because the player is using synonyms of words unknown to the bot. That's way more immersion breaking than an option system in my eyes.
I also liked it perfectly well in the Realms of Arkania games.
Post by: Robsoie on May 16, 2016, 09:16:33 am
I'd suggest instead a sort of chat bot for the user to converse with, maybe with some option prompts as you already have. I did this for a project I was working on and, whilst the rest of the game was awful, that worked very, very well.
Chat bots normally don't work well as the user can literally ask anything and the chat bot doesn't have a built in 'personality' (in fact, one that 'passed' the Turing test did have a built in personality of sorts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Goostman) so they seem lifeless. More than that though, with a game based chat bot, you're strictly 'in universe' - you don't have to worry about the bot not knowing things, as it should only know parts that are relevant to it. If you ask it a question it doesn't like, it can get irritated that you're wasting it's time without it seeming as though it's just covering up for a lack of sophistication.
They maybe don't work well for everything, but chat bots can be rather entertaining
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnzlbyTZsQY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2JmbgbXX4E
:D
Post by: Retropunch on May 16, 2016, 01:40:20 pm
I doubt that parsing it actually is easy. The player could be start asking perfectly valid questions (from their perspective and even from the perspective of the designer) that the bot simply doesn't understand, because the player is using synonyms of words unknown to the bot. That's way more immersion breaking than an option system in my eyes.
I also liked it perfectly well in the Realms of Arkania games.
Granted, it doesn't work perfectly all the time, but parsing really isn't too difficult to do and is very, very well supported in Python (https://wiki.python.org/moin/LanguageParsing). I had this up and running in my project (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=137403.0) and it worked fine in my own little universe - I'm nowhere near the level of competency of Mark, so I'd imagine he'd be able to come up with something truly special.
You can easily fill over any gaps by coaching the player a little bit or/and using autofill (or a list of suggestions when you start typing). However I honestly never found I needed that - as long as you're asking stuff 'in universe' then you're by nature quite limited in what you can ask but you don't feel to be.
In terms of synonyms you can get issues, but it's quite easy to set up a synonym list using a standard dictionary lookup. You can also fit in a cheeky cover method, where if you ask about something nearly right, the NPC tells you it's knowledge: 'well, I don't know how old the Red Church is, but I do know that the Red Church has a secret basement'. This can be used for pretty much everything - again, you'll get a few bits where the NPC overshares, but that shouldn't be much of a problem.
I'm not saying it's a very simple thing to implement, but URR has always been about breaking new ground, and I honestly think there is so, so much you can do with this that the normal option robot doesn't allow for.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 21, 2016, 01:06:41 pm
But, my initial thoughts are: no to chatbot, but this chat version will be sufficiently different to any other option-robot that it'll be interesting enough. Reasons:
1) Technical. I've never done anything with chatbots and don't really know anything about them, and I'm wary of downloading a massive new library with stuff to learn. In the short term this is exacerbated by the fact I *need* to get this version out before the very start of August, so I just don't have the time necessarily to learn this all. I also feel... you're right that I'm trying to innovate in lots of ways, and although I do use a library for printing characters and whatnot, everything else I've tried to build some scratch. It's possible I could try to build a chatbot myself (!!!) but I'd rather not download stuff for it and then build on that. Building from scratch would be a huge investment, but so would downloading-and-then-modifying.
2) Speed of production. A chatbot will take me so much longer to produce than this system, but I'm honestly not sure it'll be all that much better. Although I'm (obviously!) not allergic to long development times, I am approaching the conclusion of this release, finally, and I really don't want to slow things down any longer, or add another massive task. I mean this both in psychological terms, and in "getting the game out there for people to play with" terms.
3) I honestly don't like chatbots. I just... weirdly, I think they show their artificiality actually more than the option-robot does, or at least, the type of option-robot I have in mind. Also - and this is close to the technical reason, but a little different - I think it would be extremely hard to program a chatbot to drop the kinds of hints/clues, at the times I want them dropped.
4) Would it get annoying? I think it's one thing to quickly select a greeting for many conversations; I think it's another thing to type out a greeting anew every time. Conversations are a huge part of the game, so I think having something a little quicker and speedier will surely be useful.
5) I think the system will be so unlike most option-robots that it will still be very distinctive. a) You have a massive wealth of options and no explicit clues towards what you should say, or implicit "suggestions" for what you should say (i.e. games tend not to give you "pointless" options, but URR will effectively do so, but it's up to you to decide which are useful/pointless), b) you cannot exhaust all options and have to carefully choose options, c) you'll be speaking in and moving between dialects and different styles to say the same things. So (as I see it, anyway) the only thing "similar" to other option-robots is basically just having a list of options - but the nature of that list, and everything else, should be so distinctive that I really don't think it'll be an issue! I just... yeah, I just don't think a chatbot is the way to go here. I'm doing everything to make the system different, but I'm concerned about technical questions, the loss of "control" that a chatbot system would offer, and all the other things above.
Basically, I think: what if we can get SO many questions you can ask, that it's basically indistinguishable from the possibility space of what the player could ask to a chatbot?
^ that's what I want to aim for.
NOW! I won't rule out the possibility of altering it in the future. But for now, I do think this system, with the many unique/distinctive aspects above, is the way to go; but *obviously* as always I massively appreciate the critique, and it has made me feel I should look for some other ways to make it more distinctive, which I will ponder. But I just don't think chatbots are the answer!
Actually, in truth... a sixth reason is that I have signed up to either show URR and its conversation system, or give a talk on the conversation system, at almost half a dozen venues in the near future, so I actually need to have it show-able soon! :-\
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 23, 2016, 02:59:00 pm
Learning Dialects
I’ve got the conversation window opened up. You can see yourself and the person you’re talking to, browse the appropriate options, and access some special windows for challenging the person you’re talking to, exchanging or buying/selling items, etc. The next stage (this is the task for this and next week) is to add in the full database of possible sentences, add in a data structure to allow new sentences to be easily added (by me in the future) and easily “unlocked” (e.g. when you learn about a painting, you can then talk about that painting), and in order to do this, I need to think about the other half of the conversation system: being able to ask these questions in appropriate dialects. We now therefore face a rather challenging question: how does the player learn a dialect? I see several options, and I’m still not quite sure which one to go for.
1) You can only say a sentence in a dialect once you have heard that sentence. This would be the simplest; I’d add some colour variation in sentences said by the other person in a conversation to show whether a) you already knew that dialect bit or b) you were hearing it for the first time.
2) You gradually acquire % knowledge, and it is distributed randomly across topics. This could have a range of methods: maybe it’s the number of conversations you have, or the time you spend in a particular nation (though I’d have to make sure that couldn’t be exploited by just running around in the forest, so maybe settlements only!), or something else; as time goes by you can say more and more in that dialect.
3) You can acquire books, or blocks of knowledge, which teach you *everything* in a dialect for *certain topics*. So, for instance, a book called “Laws and Finance in the Nation of Mugoppe” will, once acquired, allow you to speak like a native on the “Laws” and “Money” topics; similarly, perhaps certain characters can be encouraged to tell you everything about a certain topic, which then triggers a little under-the-hood acknowledgement of the same thing, i.e. you can now speak on that topic as a native.
4) Some combination of the above?
5) Something I haven’t thought of?
So, from readers, may I request: can you think about these options, and any potential fourth options you might conceive of, and let me know your thoughts? The basic requirements are for there to be a truly MASSIVE volume of potential sentences, a volume of sentences which can be added to as the player discovers more about the world, and a “learning” system that is interesting, distinctive, and can be somehow “distributed” throughout the world – i.e. you will always learn languages gradually, rather than instantly. This might be fast if the player specifically sets themselves to quickly learning a dialect and doing X (the learning process) a lot, but it should never be instant; there needs to be the option for the player character to know a tiny part of a dialect, a lot of a dialect, some of a dialect, etc.
There’s also an additional exciting technical question of how to code and store it all… but my intention is to get to plan that out in the next few days once I have some idea of how it should all work!
Also, for this release, I think the player will have full access to every dialect, but in the very near future (0.9 or 0.10) that will change, and the player will have to learn each form of speech for each dialect via whatever means we decide upon.
Chatbots or Robots
A very interesting idea came up in URR’s Bay12 thread this week about whether URR could perhaps instead use chatbots rather than the “option robot” approach. A very strong argument was made for it, and I did actually seriously ponder it for several days, but in the end I decided it wasn’t the right move. Succinctly, my reasons were:
Technical/speed – I’ve never used a chatbot before, and it would require a potentially lengthy process of up-skilling, and I’m really desperate to get 0.8 out asap.
Clues – how easy/hard would it be to program a chatbot to “drop clues” of the right sorts at the right moments in the right context? I have no idea, but I don’t think it would be easy, and given the above point, I don’t know where I’d even start!
Annoyance – a chatbot means the player has to type things, and selecting greetings is one thing, but typing out a greeting every time would quickly get quite infuriating I think. Don’t get me wrong, it would be super cool if the player learned things rather than the player and the player character learning things, but the corrolary there is that the player would have to type everything.
Uniqueness – I already think the system I’ve proposed here will be very different to any other “option robot”, although I am certainly open to further ideas about how to further differentiate it. This is because: a) You have a massive wealth of options and no explicit clues towards what you should say, or implicit “suggestions” for what you should say (i.e. games tend not to give you “pointless” options, but URR will effectively do so, but it’s up to you to decide which are useful/pointless), b) you cannot exhaust all options and have to carefully choose options, c) you’ll be speaking in and moving between dialects and different styles to say the same things. I feel the combination of those three will be very distinctive.
So, I decided not to go to with the chatbot, but I thought it was an interesting enough idea to be worth posting here, in case anyone else has some other ideas, or some other ways to make the system even more distinctive (but you’ll have to be fast, coding starts this week!). Of course, had I elected to go with the chatbot model, I wouldn’t have needed to think about the player character learning dialects as discussed above in this entry, since it would be up to the player themselves, but for the reasons above, chatbots just don’t seem like the best solution for URR.
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 23, 2016, 05:12:47 pm
Dialects could be languages, strong accents, slang? Divvy it up. Slang you get on the streets, languages you stumble through with books or translators (and maybe practice with your travelling companions), accents you get used too.
I like the "you know it once you hear it" idea. We will inevitably be kidnapped/run away to/loose our books within somewhere with a strange tongue, and guessing the right phrase will be hilarious. Gestures should be included too.
Memory is the last thing. If it's a uncommon phrase you haven't bothered with for months, low chance to succeed. If you use a book, stay out of fights.
Post by: Brightgalrs on May 24, 2016, 12:08:25 pm
The sentences you hear for the first time is scrambled or blanked out. You then have to ask the person who says says it what it means, which unscrambles/reveals it. This plays into the "conversation interest" mentioned earlier this month. An NPC who is asked to clarify every-other utterance will very quickly loose interest in the conversation. So to stop yourself from annoying every NPC you come across it should be possible to look up sentences in books to learn their meaning.
Post by: Retropunch on May 28, 2016, 12:13:02 pm
I honestly believe that URR NEEDS that. Uncovering languages and the like is great, but if it's just used to fire questions out it quickly sucks the excitement away. I want - nay, need - to start off stammering through a conversation with a peasant about the way to the capital city, and with enough work and practice be able to trade my wit with the king's court, where as misplaced platitude, expressed belief or remark might get my head chopped off.
In terms of revealing the language I'd do it as follows:
- You have to learn the basics from books or a teacher. Alternatively this could be gained slowly with exposure
- You get (hidden) 'application points' from books and teachers, this is basically an xp pool that gets used up when you 'use' the language (mainly by speaking to users of that language)
- Once you use that pool up (although this could be done in tandem), you need to find books or teachers on specific subjects and study those - this means you can only speak about stuff out of the core topics once you've actually learnt about them them - again this, uses an application point pool
- You have a further 'mastery' variable - this goes up slowly, and once you get to 100, you automatically can talk about anything (meaning you don't have to go through EVERY topic to master the language).
Bonus points if you have a 'fluency' variable on top of that, and once that fills up they can't distinguish you from a native! This could be especially useful for more...dubious activities.
I believe this methodology would stop grinding behavior, and it'd also allow you to master the language without having to go through every single topic to be able to speak about them. It requires you to have to both find the resources to learn and apply them, and should end up being pretty natural (as well as having the added benefit of not having to learn stuff that you're not directly interested in). The hard part would be signaling when each pool of points is full up. A message of the 'you're ready to apply what you've learned' or 'you've exhausted all you can learn in this manner' would probably be ok, along with a few more pointers from teachers/books.
Post by: NJW2000 on May 28, 2016, 02:50:27 pm
Also, if URR has places in which more than one language will be spoken a lot, if there was some way that could be used to gain knowledge of a language faster, this would both be a bit realistic and present a more strategic gameplay approach than "pester random people".
Post by: Scoops Novel on May 28, 2016, 04:46:28 pm
If URR has places in which more than one language will be spoken a lot
Pidgin and loan words should be a thing.
Post by: Daniel the Finlander on May 30, 2016, 01:03:22 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 31, 2016, 07:53:29 am
I have a question unrelated to the last update: will there be more farms scattered around the countryside? Last time I played the map was surprisingly empty, consisting mostly of wilderness. The game's setting is based on the pre-industrial world, so shouldn't there be more farms and farmers? This little detail would make the game more immersive, at least for me.
Hmm, interesting question! Er... not in the next release, but I could certainly see myself adding this change. It would be a fairly small/easy one to make, so I'd definitely consider it.
---
This week's blog entry touched on lots of things (including my first live TV experience!), so the full thing can be read at http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2016/05/30/television-canada-dialects-talks-esports/, but here's the URR-specific bit, about dialects and whatnot.
Dialect System
In light of all the excellent comments last week, I have some idea of how dialect learning will now take place in the game. The overwhelming answer seemed to be “some combination of 1 and 3”, and I agree that this is the best solution. If you’re talking to someone about a topic and they make mention of a particular aspect of that topic, then you’ve heard someone say that particular thing in that dialect, and that’ll get added to your list. Alternatively, you’ll be able to buy books or ask someone to specifically tell you about extensively about a particular topic (for a price), both of which will add appropriate information to your database for that dialect. There were also five really interesting ideas raised which I hadn’t thought about, and here they are, and my thoughts on them:
General books? It was suggested that perhaps one could build up a reserve of “points” which are acquired through “general books”, perhaps, which allows you to talk in a dialect for quite a while without needing expertise, but once you exhausts that knowledge of the “basics” of the language, you then pursue more specialist information. I quite like this idea for the basics, and perhaps a system where you can choose where to focus this basic learning? It needs a little more thought, but I think it has promise. Verdict: Probably.
Event learning? The idea was put forward that your character can learn dialect information by attending particular events. I think this could be a fantastic middle-ground between learning language bits just by hanging around in a city, and learning from items – if you go to an arena you’ll learn how to talk about combat, going to a religious festival will let you overhear info about that religion, etc. I’ll have to think about how exactly to put this in to prevent farming/tedium, but I really like it. Verdict: almost certainly.
Fast forward feature? One comment suggested that you can choose to spend time in a city just learning the dialect as another means of acquisition. I think if I implement this you will not be able to pick up language just by hanging around in a city normally, but you will be able to choose to click a button to spend X time in a city talking to people, and at the end of that time your dialect proficiency will go up; spending time as a resource, therefore, which is always a good option in a roguelike. Verdict: Probably.
Learning basics helps you learn advanced? It was suggested that you learn advanced parts of a language faster the more of the basics you know, but I’m not sure how well that would line up with learnings in “chunks” through books, events, etc, but the concept makes a lot of sense. I’ll think more about how to add this. Verdict: Maybe.
Mastery? The idea came up that when you reach over a certain % of a dialect, you are automatically given the small parts you don’t have – so when you have 90%, for instance, everything is automatically filled in, since your player character can “work out” how everything else would be said. This makes a lot of gameplay and thematic sense, and I like it. Verdict: Definitely.
Also, I realize that I should make explicit the difference I’m intending here between “languages” and “dialects”! All the major civilizations in the game world will “speak English”, but different dialects of it which produce different phrasings, different ways of speaking, etc. By contrast, smaller tribal civilizations will speak their own languages, which will need their own systems I haven’t quite decided on yet…
Post by: Greenbane on May 31, 2016, 08:26:29 am
I'll add a question to the mix: why must all major civilizations readily speak the "common tongue"? Might be interesting to have different languages across the world. It seems like a bit of a waste to ponder and implement all these learning methods only to apply them to minor dialects. Well, unless those dialects aren't really minor, and thoroughly colour the variant of the common tongue a given nation speaks.
Post by: Retropunch on May 31, 2016, 09:25:53 am
Still following this intently! Keeps getting better. :)
I'll add a question to the mix: why must all major civilizations readily speak the "common tongue"? Might be interesting to have different languages across the world. It seems like a bit of a waste to ponder and implement all these learning methods only to apply them to minor dialects. Well, unless those dialects aren't really minor, and thoroughly colour the variant of the common tongue a given nation speaks.
Completely agree - I'd be disappointed if there aren't a number of main languages, especially as language is so tied into culture. Dialects are good and all, but there are very few dialects (at least in reality) that you'd have to actually learn from a book or a teacher.
I'd suggest that there be a relatively small number of major languages, and the player would know a number of them to start with (depending on their house). On top of that you'd have a lot of smaller ones for tribes and the like. Whilst it might be hard work at this junction, I don't think you need to go too far into making the other languages 'other' though - a simple substitution for English words would do and you could always improve on that if you wanted to later.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 05, 2016, 12:28:30 pm
Still following this intently! Keeps getting better. :)
I'll add a question to the mix: why must all major civilizations readily speak the "common tongue"? Might be interesting to have different languages across the world. It seems like a bit of a waste to ponder and implement all these learning methods only to apply them to minor dialects. Well, unless those dialects aren't really minor, and thoroughly colour the variant of the common tongue a given nation speaks.
Completely agree - I'd be disappointed if there aren't a number of main languages, especially as language is so tied into culture. Dialects are good and all, but there are very few dialects (at least in reality) that you'd have to actually learn from a book or a teacher.
I'd suggest that there be a relatively small number of major languages, and the player would know a number of them to start with (depending on their house). On top of that you'd have a lot of smaller ones for tribes and the like. Whilst it might be hard work at this junction, I don't think you need to go too far into making the other languages 'other' though - a simple substitution for English words would do and you could always improve on that if you wanted to later.
Thanks! :). Hmm, basically the reason was that I haven't yet found a way to learn a *language* that wouldn't be tedious, grindy, annoying, etc. If I do find one, though, I do quite like the "small number of main languages" idea - that could be quite a nice balance between giving every nation its own language with the potential gameplay difficulties there, and the greater realism of having linguistic blocks across the world. I'll think about it!
----
Remember that technical stuff I talked about last time, and the dialect learning system we discussed the week before? This is going to be one of those rare URRpdates which is actually semi-technical, and I’m going to talk a little bit about how I’m going to implement and store the player’s knowledge of each dialect.
Dialects vs Languages
Firstly, as mentioned last week, I’m talking currently only about dialects – which for the sake of URR I’m currently defining as “a way of speaking English” – rather than languages, which in the URR context I’m defining as a totally different set of characters being used for speech, which might be unintelligible to the player character. The latter will be used for tribal nations (once I figure out a way to implement it that isn’t totally infuriating), but for 0.8 and all immediate future releases, we’ll be focusing on dialects rather than entire languages. It was suggested on URR’s Bay12 thread this week that languages could actually play a small role in the “main” civilizations of the world, i.e. the feudal and nomadic ones, by having 3/4/5 languages across the world as well as dialects, so that you have a lot of nations you can visit that speak your language (which would offset the potential annoyance of having exploration curtailed by language problems) but there are still multiple languages even in the large nations of the URR world. I’m pondering this option and haven’t reached any conclusions yet, but it’s definitely an interesting option.
Technical Specifics
So, I am faced with a bunch of interesting challenges here. I see these four in particular, and I have four solutions I’m currently implementing, with the target of having a working model by this time next week, and some nice screenshots to show off!
Firstly, a system is required that can both keep track of standard “sentence meanings” – such as [Standard Greeting] – and however many custom sentence meanings might be required within a particular game world, such as [Ask about the painting “Sunrise over the Empire of Nurnek”], which will obviously be unique to that particular playthrough. These should all be given to the player in the same way and at the same time, so that the player starts with just a bunch of standard conversation options, and then as time goes by and they learn more about that generated world, they’ll gain a massive range of other conversation options. My intention is that upon world generation, the player will be given a range of sets of the sort greeting_questions = [], farewell_questions = [], and so forth. These will then be populated with a standard set, but they can also be added to manually by the game as a particular playthrough proceeds; so encountering a work of art will append a new possible sentence about that work of art. In turn, each of these additional sentences will be part of an archetype, e.g. “ask about painting”, “ask about sculpture”, etc, and a “tag” on each will keep track of what each sentence means, so that when the player learns how to say [Ask about painting “X”], every sentence of that sort becomes ask-able. A quick mock-up of how this should look, if the player had clicked on the “Past Life” option:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/mock.png)
Secondly, the game needs to track what dialects the player character can and cannot say each thing in. This has two obvious options – either the game tracks sentences and lists for each one the appropriate dialects the player knows, or lists the dialects and tracks the sentences that can be said. It became immediately clear that it should track the sentences and then record valid dialects for each sentence, rather than the other way around – if I tracked the dialects, then each dialect would quickly fill up a massive list of valid sentences which would take a long (“long” by roguelike standards) time for the game to sort through each time. Therefore, the game tracks all sentences, and in each sentences has a list of numbers, which relate to each civilization whose dialect the player can say that sentence within.
Thirdly, a method for storing dialects themselves is needed. I’m not currently completely sure about the correct method to do this, but it’s one of the things I’ll be thinking about this coming week, and then implementing the week after. If you look at the URR slides below, you’ll get a good impression of the variables that need to be recorded, and those need to be put into each civilization somehow. More on this later!
Fourthly, we need a method for sorting through certain conversation options that might come with a particularly large volume of viable options. For example, regardless of your dialect, the “Greeting” menu might only have a few options – “Warm Greeting”, “Greeting”, “Terse Greeting”, etc. By contrast, the “art” menu will end up including every piece of artwork you ever see, and if you reach the end of the game, and you’ve investigated a lot of galleries, mansions, cathedrals, castles… it’s going to be the pretty colossal list, and there probably needs to be some way for the player to immediately sort through them. Maybe options to sort by civilization, or start typing in a word and it tries to match that up? So once you know a particular piece of art called “Sunrise over the Great Southern Ocean”, you can type in “Sunri” and it’ll immediately offer you that option. There could be other methods, but I think some combination of those might be the best.
My intention for this week, therefore, is to populate all the option menus with an appropriate set of options, and to start figuring out how exactly to store dialects and therefore generate sentences. More soon! And here’s another mockup I put together for this week’s presentation:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/mock-1.png)
Lastly, if you want the slides from my recent talks in Canada, head here! http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2016/06/05/dialects-the-technical-side/
Post by: Neonivek on June 05, 2016, 12:48:44 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 05, 2016, 01:19:59 pm
Post by: Retropunch on June 05, 2016, 01:33:33 pm
More than that, whilst I love dialects as a gameplay mechanic, it's a bit confusing why you'd need to learn one. I know there are some rare exceptions (some Mandarin and Spanish dialects can be very different, although they basically become their own languages), but if you take English (which has a lot of dialects) I can pretty much talk to someone from any dialect without too much difficulty. Sure, up in the north of Scotland they use some words I don't know, but I was able to converse with them fine and quickly learn their substitutions. They could easily understand me speaking a more 'standard' dialect, and I certainly wouldn't need to consult a book or a teacher! Just something to think about.
Re Tech Specs: I'd strongly suggest a 'type and suggest' model. Not only is it quite an intuitive system for the player, but it also means they have to actually think about what they want to say rather than just scroll through a list until they find something they could try.
Post by: Scoops Novel on June 05, 2016, 01:54:13 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2016, 06:59:15 am
It will be interesting to compare in-game time to out of game- sometimes the player will go through a few months in a day, sometimes URR will collect dust on the hard drive as it worms it way back into your forebrain. There should be a easter egg if the two ever match up, IMO. There could be some other uses if you track it- I look at those faces you posted and I immediately think "yes, I should have to recall their features if I want to report them to the cops. OTOH, if i haven't played in 6 months? Then some handholding would be nice. I'm sure there's a few other cool things you could do with it.
Ha! That's a neat idea. I do actually have a masterplan for another idea which is vaaaaguely like that one, and I might implement a little further down the line...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 11, 2016, 11:35:43 am
Post by: hops on June 19, 2016, 07:23:02 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 21, 2016, 05:50:20 pm
Started rereading the blog, and possibly catch up with the current devblogging. It's interesting to see this go from low-fantasy to... even lower-fantasy? :P
Haha, fantasy-free! Well, effectively. Welcome, anyway!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 21, 2016, 05:52:00 pm
So, firstly, here’s now the conversation menu looks now, with and without a scroll bar. I’m still finishing off the coding on the scroll bar as these things are really just remarkably awkward and difficult to program in well, especially when you have options that can take up multiple lines and change size, and be sorted into windows of different sizes depending on the player’s selected options. Nevertheless, screenshots/gifs:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/Conv1-1.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/Conv2.gif)
These are all, of course, only the default options, as the system for implementing extra questions is not yet in place, but will be soon! So as you can see, we’re going for a two-part colour coding here: green and white means that you’ve got the knowledge to say that in the chosen dialect (obviously you can say everything perfectly in your home dialect, otherwise you’d be in serious trouble!), red and grey means you haven’t. For looking at dialects, the currently-selected dialect shows up with a blue diamond and all the other dialects you know anything of have a red ‘X’. When you’re in the “Challenge” and “Smithing” options and the other options that have two windows, selected/rejected options will be displayed the same way; when you’re trading, which has three windows (your trade goods, selected trade, their trade goods), the items in the middle window will have a < or > arrow next to them showing which person of the two trading parties (i.e. you and the person you’re talking to) they came from.
Now, some techy stuff. When the world is generated, the game now has an (in the process of being written) list of every possible question archetype. There will probably be somewhere between one and two hundred default questions, at a guess, and finishing these off is one of my tasks for the coming week. As for questions that are generated? Well, every question of the sort “What do you think of [work of art]?” will simply be a variation of a default “What do you think of a specific work of art?” question, and once that question is learned the player will be able to ask about any work of art. Those meta-level questions are not present in this initial list, since one would never ask “What do you think of a specific work of art?” without stating the work of art in question, but they are also stored, albeit in separate lists. I am still calculating exactly what the best way to store the player’s dialect knowledge of these meta-questions, but I expect we’ll have a large list of meta-level questions – since there aren’t that many (ask about an artwork, a city, a town, a book, a poem, etc) I think they should be stored fine in their own list.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/farewell.png)
You’ll note a “gap” between the top and bottom lists; the bottom list is for question topics that only show up when you talk to particular classes of NPC, whereas the top lists apply to everyone. Of the two special instances shown in the above picture, for instance, the “tombs” questions apply to priests and archivists in cathedrals, whilst the “harvest” questions (as you might expect) apply to farmers. In turn, each question in each category has a list added onto the end of it, which contains a set of numbers, relating to which dialects the player does/doesn’t know how to ask that particular question in. This system obviously requires me to type out all the standard question forms – which I’d have to do anyway, regardless of system! – but works very rapidly in the speech system when listing possible statements and whether they can be said in a particular dialect. Upon a particular sentence being selected, the game will then translate the overall question into a specific question for that dialect – so “Who built the tombs?” might become “By the efforts of what craftspeople were these tombs carved?”, or “What people created these great crypts?”, or “Under what ruler were this tombs mined out?”… and so forth, and the same then obviously applies to every possible question, including the generated ones. As well as finishing all the question lists, the other goals for this week are ensuring the scroll bars work correctly, storing the meta-questions, properly allowing the player to switch dialect, and allowing the player to start typing something and then have the list of potential questions adjust themselves based on the “search” – as we discussed before, this is going to be *vital* for some of the really long question lists.
Post by: pondicherry on June 23, 2016, 04:23:04 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 25, 2016, 07:38:29 am
I'm really impressed by you and your work on URR. Really amazing things here. Great Work!
Aw, thanks! So glad you like it. Let me know what you think of 0.8 in a month or two!
Post by: Kaje on June 25, 2016, 08:51:01 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2016, 08:02:21 am
I've been away for a looooooong time - could anyone give me a runthrough of the currently playable state of URR?
Right now, still "just" super-detailed world; but latest release is now 14 months in development, month or two left, with millions of people and a speech generation and conversation system!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2016, 08:41:15 am
Conversation Options
I’ve created a draft list of every single default conversation option in the game. I haven’t actually counted them up but there are several hundred default options, and these will be available in every conversation, as well as another hundred or so “default” options limited to a specific class of NPC (so you can ask a guard about guard duty, an archivist about their archives, etc etc). Here’s a screenshot with an entirely incomplete section of potential default questions, and a gif of looking through the default question options for a whole bunch of conversation options:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/ICCC2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/ICCC-1.gif)
I’m sure I’ll keep adding new questions here, but I’ve built the rest of the technical architecture (i.e. the parts more complex than the lists shown here) in such a way that just adding something to the lists here will implement a new question in all the relevant parts of the game’s code where it should be, and allow me to put in a system for generating that question. You’ll also note the different colours! After some excellent thoughts in a comment last week, there is now a range of knowledge the player can have about a given sentence. A green diamond means you can say it perfectly in that dialect; a red diamond means that there is absolutely no chance you will say it correctly; but the interesting ones are the numbers, which range from 1 -> 9 and mean you have a tiny -> very high chance of saying it correctly. If you select one of those options, a die will be rolled to decide if your character says it correctly. If they do, that sentence is then elevated up to a green diamond; if no, it is reduced by 1 or 2 (we’ll see how this goes in gameplay) making it harder to correctly guess next time you try (since you thought you knew it, but didn’t, so actually have less info than you thought). In terms of how these numbers will go up – learning a single sentence in a dialect will means that X other unknown sentences in that category will be moved upwards by Y values; X and Y will be both dependent on the size of the category. The “greeting” category, for instance, only has three options – “Polite Greeting”, “Neutral Greeting” and “Blunt Greeting”. If those are all at values of 0, and then you hear someone give you a polite greeting so that becomes a 1, the others will also immediately go up to around 0.3, for example. By contrast, the ideology category contains almost two dozen standard entries, so learning from from 0 -> 1 might add a 0.1 onto three or four of the others. This means two things – firstly, some interesting and I think valuable chance-based gameplay where you decide whether or not to risk a sentence you might be able to say correctly. Secondly, the player character’s knowledge of a particular dialect will be a more gradual development process, rather than an absolute (although some things will still immediately move you from “0” to “1” knowledge). I think this is a really good development, and I’m so glad it was suggested last week – it also makes the UI look far more interesting!
Scrolling
The scroll bars in the conversation window now work correctly. I don’t know if any of you have ever tried to program in scroll bars, but these things can be surprisingly nightmarish to code, I’ve found, but they all work rather nicely. Here’s me scrolling through the list of dialects (which is entirely complete for now, but will of course start off almost empty in future versions) and the scroll bar adjusting appropriately. I know it’s only a small thing, but these sorts of UI elements are definitely important when you’re going to have potentially large volumes of stuff to look through. Which leads onto the next section…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/ICCC3.gif)
Search
On the topic of large volumes of stuff, I’ve also implemented the system for being able to search through a particular block of possible questions and narrow them down based on some typed letters. As you type letters into a particular window, they show up at the top; backspacing then remove them; and the game quickly updates the list of possible questions. Here’s an example of – I typed quite slowly in this example to show the list shortening, as it shortens quite fast as soon as you’ve got a few letters in there, and then backspaced back and typed in quickly just to demonstrate that the system works effectively. In the future, therefore, even in conversation categories where there might be hundreds of options – towns, artworks, novels, etc – you’ll be immediately able to just type in “Red” to find the “Town of Red Eagle” in a second without having to scroll through potentially a hundred options. I was actually very surprised by how easy this turned out to be – I was expecting implementing search functions with large volumes of entries to take far longer. Here’s a gif of me typing in “when” into the “Past Life” category – this short category is not one you’d necessarily want to search, but it illustrates how the search function works (note the “when” appearing at the top of the window as you type it, and then the questions are narrowed down).
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/ICCC4-1.gif)
Changing Dialect
You can now change dialect. Selecting a new dialect switches the player’s current_dialect value, and all the conversation options then update based on whether or not you know the new dialect. Fairly simply, but obviously important. For now, all dialect knowledge is totally randomized for the sake of testing – not sure how I’ll leave this for the release. Depends on timing!
Meta-Questions
I’ve also implemented a draft list of meta-questions. There are the “What do you think of X” questions where the full list of such questions slowly expands as the player discovers more and more of the world. As there aren’t too many of these meta-questions, these are just being stored in a separate list. These won’t be present in the 0.8 release, as these need integrating with the system that’s going to replace the encyclopedia in the near future, but the basic implementation is there. This will probably be one of the first things I start doing for 0.9, although since 0.9 will include generating weapons and armour for soldiers and guards, and it has been a long while since I did any artwork, it might be hard to resist starting there…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/06/Metas.png)
What next on conversations?
This coming week I’ll start developing the sentence generation. All the “abstract” dialect generation is in place, so the game can select word elements, appropriate cultural/historical/geographical reference lists, sentence complexity for a dialect, various ways of speaking about various things, and so forth, and so now I need to translate this into actually spawning different sentences! I have a good idea of how to structure this, so it’s time to get started on that.
Post by: Scoops Novel on June 27, 2016, 02:15:42 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 27, 2016, 06:12:24 pm
Post by: Ehndras on June 28, 2016, 08:27:46 pm
Be warned: I'm one of those annoying "talk to every single NPC, exhaust every single chat option, touch every object, read every description, do every mini quest, and generally explore all the lore" kind of guy. Yes, I have every single book ever made in Elder Scrolls in my in-game libraries, meticulously arranged by color, alphabetized, or by category. (depends on the shelf.)
As my best friend puts it, I'm that prick who stops and walks halfway across the map to loot that one random corpse or box that's probably got nothing useful. Then again, that's why I become rich early on (and am always encumbered - a derp)
Ahh, the things we writers do in games...
Post by: hops on June 29, 2016, 12:24:15 am
Post by: Skynet on June 29, 2016, 11:43:34 am
I can easily put 50+ hours into URR in half a week, if the content is there to be exhausted!
This is shocking to me. It is very easy to produce unlimited content but getting a human to consume all that content is impossible since humans can easily get bored by that content. So writing an algorithm to produce a 50,000-word novel is easy but writing an algorithm to produce a 50,000-word novel that a human will read is difficult (hence, the NaNoGenMo competition).
If you consume 50 hours of content, and in each hour, reads 1000 words (a huge underestimate), you will consume 50,000 words of content. Assuming that you can tolerate the possible repetition of content, could Mark be the first person to have produced a human-readable, computer-generated novel...simply because, you, Ehndras, was willing to consume this content?
Disclaimer: my previous account is Servant Corps, and I made posts in this thread before.
Post by: HellTiger on June 30, 2016, 07:17:36 am
many thanks for some hints!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on June 30, 2016, 11:02:40 am
After the next release, probbably, since the world comes to life.
Post by: HellTiger on June 30, 2016, 11:58:52 am
Post by: Ehndras on June 30, 2016, 08:53:16 pm
:)
I'm a writer. Character development and lore are what I love in games. Otherwise, I wouldn't have played Final Fantasy X 60+ times, beaten Kingdom Hearts a dozen times, Played every single Fallout and Elder Scrolls including the oooooooooooooooooooold versions, etc.
Also, I can easily read a 500-page hardcover novel in a few short hours. I read ridiculously fast thanks to a weird technique I developed as a kid. I loooooooooove reading! I spend all day on Quora reading and writing :)
Post by: Ehndras on June 30, 2016, 08:54:30 pm
Quote
could Mark be the first person to have produced a human-readable, computer-generated novel...simply because, you, Ehndras, was willing to consume this content?
Post by: Heretic on July 01, 2016, 12:42:32 pm
(Love to test AI system)
Heh
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 01, 2016, 01:16:21 pm
I can easily put 50+ hours into URR in half a week, if the content is there to be exhausted!
Be warned: I'm one of those annoying "talk to every single NPC, exhaust every single chat option, touch every object, read every description, do every mini quest, and generally explore all the lore" kind of guy. Yes, I have every single book ever made in Elder Scrolls in my in-game libraries, meticulously arranged by color, alphabetized, or by category. (depends on the shelf.)
As my best friend puts it, I'm that prick who stops and walks halfway across the map to loot that one random corpse or box that's probably got nothing useful. Then again, that's why I become rich early on (and am always encumbered - a derp)
Ahh, the things we writers do in games...
Then this will be *the* game for you, given that doing that will be - to a greater or lesser extent - basically integral to success, and to finding all the generated clues to the game's resolution!
Since we're on the topic of NPCs, and I'm currently still catching up, will NPCs have their own personal set of beliefs and philosophy? I don't know how that would translate to gameplay, but it would be interesting to see some sort of a resurgence for the willpower and thought process for AIs mechanic of yore.
Yes! It will vary based on their role, status, and history/origin/house/etc, which will influence what they'll be willing to say, do, etc. The question is still how much of this to show, and how to show it per se, which I continue to work on...
Assuming that you can tolerate the possible repetition of content, could Mark be the first person to have produced a human-readable, computer-generated novel...simply because, you, Ehndras, was willing to consume this content?
Ah, I've been rumbled!
Right now, I'd probbably say no, unless you really, really like ghostly-empty planets in ascii.
After the next release, probbably, since the world comes to life.
Yep.
When I can wade into beta-test? I read somehow in this thread, that first part of it finished, and now it's close to open testing... Or I miss somethink?
(Love to test AI system)
Heh
You can download the previous version (now over a year out of date, as this new version is huge!) and I did run a closed beta test a little while ago for testing 0.8, but that's done now. You'll be able to download 0.8 very soon! :)
Post by: WakeMeUp on July 01, 2016, 06:44:16 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 02, 2016, 05:10:26 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 02, 2016, 05:18:51 am
Will NPC's walk and talk?
What exactly do you mean? At the same time, to each other, or what?
NPCs wander around doing their daily business, and you can go up to them and talk. Do you mean ambient conversations?
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 02, 2016, 02:05:50 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 03, 2016, 09:43:17 am
Wow! It's so much cooler than DF!
Haha, well thanks :). It has turned into a very different project - let me know what you think once 0.8 is out!
I mean NPC's talking to players while they go about their shit, like you'd see in most cities say.
Oh, erm... I haven't decided yet, honestly. We'll see, there will probably be some forms of speech that appear in the message window at the bottom of the screen instead of within the conversation window when you pass by them, or things you overhear in the streets ,things like that. There's quite a few things to consider there with regards to UI, distracting the player, optimal play (will it be optimal to just hang around and listen to things, and do we want it to be?), etc etc
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 05, 2016, 06:30:01 am
You can also do "the elevator pitch", where you have a very short window to interact convincingly. Hell, you could go full on Speed and try to catch up to someone so you can warn/talk/insult them.
That's ignoring all the benefits of talking and fighting.
Post by: SharpKris on July 05, 2016, 07:18:18 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 05, 2016, 08:52:25 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2016, 02:07:07 pm
Could you have the player automatically track alongside the NPC and have their current location/direction of travel displayed at the bottom of the conversation window? "You are crossing to the street on the left". It allows for some fun stuff; talking to the wrong person without paying attention to your surroundings will get you robbed in a alley before you know it.
You can also do "the elevator pitch", where you have a very short window to interact convincingly. Hell, you could go full on Speed and try to catch up to someone so you can warn/talk/insult them.
That's ignoring all the benefits of talking and fighting.
Heh. These are all nice ideas. I really like the first one, actually, and having the context of conversations also adjust things. I'll give this some thought!
holy hell how did i not PTW this yet
Welcome!
You could have a toggle for "listen to ambient conversations", where you walk slower, but are able to overhear snatches of conversation from people around you
Oooh, yes. I quite like this idea.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2016, 02:19:45 pm
I have to say, I am *so* happy with how these look! They’re all very different, some speak to particular locations or cultural ideas, whilst others don’t, but they are all distinguishable. I’m still doing a little bit more work on these, but only a couple of hours’ work remains, and then in 0.8 everyone who you speak to will have their name highlighted. So, here is a rather splendid set of examples from a whole bunch of cultures in some playtesting world generations! Hope you like black-and-white images…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names4.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names5.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names6.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names7.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names8.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names9.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names10.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names11.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names12.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names13.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names14.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Names15.png)
In the process I also had to develop the very start of the system for generating sets of animals and plants within particular climate zones. Plants were already present but were distributed across all biomes of a certain type (so northern tundra and southern tundra areas would have the same plants, somehow), and also tended to be colour-matched to their biome, which made a degree of sense but definitely reduced the kind of background/aesthetic interest they could potentially generate. Plants were therefore redone, and their naming conventions were also altered somewhat to reflect these changes (all of which come before visual generation at some later date when I have a spare couple of days). Animal generation has now appeared for the first time, and just like plants, they are tethered to a certain area of a certain biome – so the game finds a tile of desert, looks to see how far contiguous desert extends, and then all that desert has the same group of species. The species elsewhere, by contrast, will be completely different, even if they are also desert. Like plants, I’ll generate the images for these at some far-later date (since this isn’t exactly gameplay-essential stuff, just general background worldbuilding), but the names will be used in this release, as they serve to inform the name generation for individuals in certain nations, and they’ll also show up in artworks and literature and metaphors and the like later on. I also thought quite a bit about which animals I can realistically vary in appearance and name, so a few common animals aren’t in here because I couldn’t think of how to vary them well enough, whilst a couple of more obscure animals are present precisely because they vary a lot. Here are some animal/plant printouts, with their biome attached:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Oceanroutes.png)
And then two massive printouts of all the plants/animals generated across a world, so you can get a full idea of the generation systems for these:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Oceanroutes-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Oceanroutes-2.png)
As for the bugs, I’ve reached the point where only two things remain for 0.8: sentence generation, and bugfixes. Sentence generation is such an intellectually complex task – although once I have a suitably complicated but usable and modifiable programming framework in place, I’m confident it will actually move quite quickly – that I need to spend a lot of time simply planning it out before I actually start coding it in. In this vein I’ve been scribbling ideas all over paper for the last week, and although it is taking a while, I am zeroing in on a workable method. Much like most things in URR, it will wind up being a balance between some structures and templates, entirely procedural elements, and then a range of variation within these aspcets based on the speaker producing the sentence – a soon-to-be-gigantic function called make_sentence has now been constructed, and so the only remaining task is to actually write the thing (ha!). As a result of this week’s focus on planning, however, on the actual coding front I’ve been working instead on bug fixing, in order to ensure that 0.8 is actually stable once I release it (hopefully at the end of July/start of August). Some of these were found from my own playtesting adventures, but a large number were submitted by the playtesting team I recruited a few months ago (thanks again, all of you!) and with these all fixed, I do actually feel fairly confident that every part of 0.8 (aside from speech/dialects/etc) is finished, bug-free, and ready to release. I can’t rule out the possibility that there are NPC-related problems I simply haven’t anticipated yet, but I haven’t run into any in quite some time, and everyone basically seems to behave correctly (though I’m going to have to revisit NPCs in 0.9, of course, to implement the NPC classes that aren’t being included in the upcoming 0.8). Here’s a run-down:
Fortress guards no longer sometimes fail to move when they should exchange schedules with another guard.
Fortress merchants always appear correctly even if the player enters the grid part-way through their move from their home to their stall.
Fortress merchants are always assigned to the correct open-air stalls.
There cannot be two open-air stalls of the same sort within a single fortress, nor too many merchants for them to all be assigned a stall.
Slaves and servants in upper-class districts absolutely, definitely, without a doubt, always sleep in the correct places on the correct floors no matter how and when the player spawns the mansion and what other movements the player takes.
Drawbridge chains do, actually, appear, when the player looks at them.
Looking at certain doors in torture chambers or dungeons no longer causes the game to crash.
Looking at a small number of bars in torture chambers or dungeons no longer results in a black screen instead of the appropriate generated image.
NPCs are always the correct inverted colour when they pass under trees or a gate.
Handled some weirdness with players stepping through gates and sometimes winding up on the tile next to the gate, and sometimes winding up one gate further away.
Fixed an issue where you could read sections of the encyclopedia that should have been disabled.
Fixed an entirely aesthetic issue with some potential colour patterns on couches.
Resolved strange issue with a small subset of square-based castle generation outcomes that would position guard towers in the wrong orientation.
See you all next week for what might be quite a technical post about sentence generation!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 05, 2016, 06:27:11 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 06, 2016, 09:08:46 am
Post by: Ehndras on July 06, 2016, 06:55:21 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 07, 2016, 07:11:39 am
Wow, those are some interesting names. The long set in the middle was utterly incomprehensible but the rest were things I could imagine myself remembering in play.
Haha - honestly, I think I'm ok with a few archetypes being a bit bizarre...
Pls include a pronunciation guide for those of us clueless about accent marks!
Heh, maybe I will! Languages can have !s in them (i.e. for click syllables) and I recall a few people thought those were bugs, so I might need to make that clear somehow...
LOVE IT!!! URR is proving to be the next-generation DF, though of its own remarkably unique scope. :)
Thanks! :)
Post by: dennislp3 on July 07, 2016, 08:38:58 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 07, 2016, 11:29:31 am
Post by: Retropunch on July 08, 2016, 12:33:21 pm
It doesn't, as I don't have the slightest idea how to do that and I don't feel like going back and making lots of changes, but it should never need it! I don't need to track anywhere near as much Stuff as DF does :)
Yeah, I can't imagine it'd need it unless you started doing things like modelling rock density and water levels. Absolutely every 'tile' is calculated in DF and it still ran pretty much fine on 32-bit.
This, and general thinking about URR has made me think about the need to give NPCs had 'emotional states'. On a basic level, I would imagine these would either be sort of more 'personalities', where if they're 'angry' they'd be a bit shorter with you/less responses, whilst if they were in a good mood they'd give you a bit more leeway to ask stupid questions. Bringing NPCs an appropriate gift or sending a messenger to request an audience would make them happier, whilst barging in in the middle of prayer time would make them angrier (whilst they'd have their own base level of each emotion).
More than that, you could give NPCs more fluid emotions, which would change due to a number of things. Macro level events like being under siege would affect this, as would a plentiful harvest in the other direction. Micro level events might be things like bad weather for farmers or the bar running out of ale. These might affect the base emotional state, whilst the player would be able to tip the scales by their actions.
Obviously this is only 'happy and sad' whilst you could go into it a lot further. Things like hangovers/being drunk could affect things, as could just finishing work. Whilst DF does this on a very deep level, I believe you could fudge a bit of this instead of having to track everything. Having 'going to the tavern' on their evening event list gives a 1/4 chance they'll be hungover in the morning for instance.
I believe this would be a *relatively* easy thing to do which would bring a huge amount of depth and life to the game. You could scale up from base states to a deeper system quite easily I imagine as any personality is better than none, even if it's a bit crude.
Post by: Skynet on July 08, 2016, 07:32:46 pm
The update does remind me a bit about the failed Kickstarter game Cult: Awakening of the Old Ones, though Cult's system could be said to be more complicated. It created brand new species, with randomly generated "morphology" (limbs, heads, etc.) and "traits" (friendly, predatory, territorial, etc.) as well as simulated the spread of these species, which can even cause some species to go extinct. The species would also randomly named, based on the Precursors' language (the Precursors is a randomly-generated race that conquered all of the Known World before mysteriously disappearing...they are the ones who also named all the locations in the randomly generated world as well). I even remember playing as one of the randomly-generated species as well, having multiple arms, etc.
While Cult's system may be fairly impressive (and open-source too! (https://bitbucket.org/dmhagar/empyrea-public)), I kinda like URR's better. I like actually knowing what these animals are and picturing them in my head (oh, a "Black Claw Scorpion", that's cool, I can reason about that) without needing to peek at an in-game encyclopedia every time I encounter another random string of characters.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2016, 05:11:30 am
Skynet: ha, Cult... anyway, don't worry, there's actually a lot of stuff I could do/could have done that I've either delayed or similar removed from the development plan altogether, precisely to avoid that problem! And as you say, I think it's important to give things meaning and easy recognizability; there comes a point where PCG stuff needs too much explaining to fully comprehend it, and with things like plants/animals I've tried to PCG them whilst still ensuring that without having to see them, the player will immediately get a decent impression of what these things might actually look like!
Post by: Retropunch on July 10, 2016, 11:38:54 am
My only response to Retropunch is that URR should beware of "scope creep". The more complicated the project, the more bugs would exist and the harder it is to fix it. It would be simple to implement in the short-term, but it will be difficult to maintain in the long-term.It's certainly an issue, although one I know Mark is really trying to get a handle on with rigorously planned releases. More than that though, my view on personality/mood is that it's one of those things that can be implemented in degrees, and is sort of 'anything is better than nothing' (as long as it doesn't break anything!). For instance, if there were only 4 moods (normal,happy, sad, angry for instance) that'd still be a huge improvement upon having completely blank NPCs.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 18, 2016, 03:01:25 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 18, 2016, 06:04:42 pm
Names in Conversations
As well as being generated, names now appear correctly in conversations. In future versions you will naturally not automatically know the names of strangers you bump into – unlike certain RPGs we could mention where the player magically divines the names of every single you talk to – and learning someone’s name will therefore sometimes be a gameplay mechanic. You might, for instance, know that a particular merchant called [Name] knows something, but the civilization that merchant comes from are not particular friendly to you, and you don’t know what they sell, so you’ll have to try to figure out which of seven merchants in a market district the particular merchant you’re after is, and potentially use other clues (sex, clothing, behaviour, whatever). Equally, of course, the game will remember perfectly the names of everyone you meet, and I’m actually thinking of a system that might alert you when you encounter someone whose name you already know – perhaps a message in the text log saying “You see [Name] [doing task X]” for someone you already know, because there is no visual way to mark out someone you recognise from someone you don’t (i.e. two merchants will both be ‘m’ whether you know them or not). Here are a couple of screenshots showing some conversation windows with people from various name-types:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Name1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Name2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Name3.png)
Changing Dialect
You can now actually change your dialect by selecting a different dialect. This is a small thing, but it required me to start building up the code for handling what happens when you press [Enter] on an option in an in-conversation window, and it therefore has to detect the sentence or the item or the dialect you select, and then notice what kind of thing it is the player has selected, and then take the appropriate action. This works correctly now, though, so you can switch to another dialect and all the % chances of uttering each possible sentence immediately update appropriately. You can see in this gif how the chances of successful/unsuccessful words changes as we change dialect from one to the other.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Dialects.gif)
Sentence Generation (Part I)
After thinking long and hard about sentence generation, and managing to free up a spare day to do nothing else except working on this, I’ve been able to make a substantial start. So, basically, the game splits sentences down into three categories, I’m naming “clauses“, “archetypes“, and “kennings” (which applies to a range of things that are not technically kennings, but the term gives us a good impression of what we’re talking about here).
Clauses: these are segments of a sentence, which vary massively from culture, religion, geographical background, and all the other factors that basically everything else in URR tends to be varied along. A sentence will contain several clauses in most cases, and clauses are basically sections of a sentence that the game will generate independently (via archetypes) and then stitch back together (see below for more information on this).
Archetypes: these are hand-written default versions for each possible question. For each of the questions that the player can possibly ask (or the NPC can ask back), I’ve gone through and written a dozen or so variations of that serve as the foundations of possible replies (although once a reply is finished it will be almost indistinguishable from the archetype that created it). These are then distributed to each culture semi-randomly, with some relationships between some archetypes which others are “free-floating”, and each culture then starts the game with a few basic and foundational ways to talk about the things people might need to talk about in-game.
Kennings: in the case of URR, this refers to a particular way of referring to a particular thing. So this might mean referring to historical events, or a title to put in front of the name of a deity, or a particular way to talk about oceans or mountains, and so forth. These are basically segments of clauses that have to be expressed a particular way, so a clause might say [Title of god] and then the game will look up the appropriate “kenning” for that element and place it into the clause; alternatively, if it says [Desert] then maybe that nation says “Deserts”, or “Great Sands”, or “Great Dunes”, or “the Red Expanse”, or whatever, and the game will quickly check what the appropriate (generated) term is for something in a sentence.
So, in trying to create a sentence, the game does the following process:
Stage 1: select clauses. This first stage means that the game looks at how many clauses should be in a sentence, and what they should be. A nation with a dialect with low “sentence complexity” will have very few clauses in the average sentence, for example, whilst a nation with high sentence complexity will have many clauses. I’ve developed a fairly complex but easily-added-to system for adding clauses into sentences based on the nature of the sentence. This means that extra historical, personal, geographical, religious, etc, detail can be added to a sentence depending on how many clauses it has, and those clauses will be handled intelligently and sensibly.
Stage 2: select an archetype for each clause. The game then checks how that particular culture would express a particular clause and retrieves that archetype (which will then, in stage 3, be massively varied) and readies it. Archetypes are generated/selected in such a way that they should be broadly consistent across a culture, so you shouldn’t get a culture that talks about mountains in one way and talks about oceans in another, but rather talks about all those things in a broadly comparable way. Archetypes also affect sentence structure and in some cases word order, and these elements are also taken into account.
Stage 3: implement kennings/references. This third stage is perhaps the most important part of sentence generation, since at this point the game looks up how to express everything in every clause in that sentence. As we see above, archetypes say things like [Religion-title] and these are all triggers, telling the game to look up the appropriate phrase for the appropriate thing in the appropriate culture. As such, the sentences themselves within archetypes tend to have a large volume of square brackets in them, and aren’t really human-readable – although you can get a good idea of their meaning – until there’s a nice lot of kennings and references in place.
Stage 4: stitch it all together. The game then goes through all the sentence components – now transformed from archetypes with square brackets to archetypes with appropriate references and the like – and stitches them together with appropriate punctuation. This is partially done through the system that places clauses together, and also a bunch of signifiers that handle things like vowels/consonants, plurals, etc.
It was very tricky to find a system that struck the right balance between a) generating a huge volume of potential sentences, b) making the number of hand-made sections relatively low so that I actually get the release out before the 2020s, and c) ensuring a huge amount of modular variation within the sentence structures. With this system – selecting clauses, selecting archetypes, varying almost all of the components of those archetypes, and then stitching the sentence together into a meaningful whole – I’m confident that I’ve found a balance between all of these requirements. I think I’ve struck a balance between large volumes of hand-made sections, large volumes of procedurally-generated sections, and sections of speech that sit somewhere in the middle where handmade elements can be altered or twisted in some way depending on the particular nature of the speaker. I’m really excited to see what this will produce! These are just initial trials, but in the coming week I’ll be trying to build up all the possible conversation options and archetypes and clauses and whatnot, and then we’ll see how that looks. Here are two variations OF THE SAME CONVERSATION, and just look at all that variation!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/BAIC.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/BAIC-1.png)
(Note: you’ll also see a tiny bit of procedurally-generated calendars there! Some use years, some use a bunch of other systems; this might not make it into 0.8, but I just happened to be testing it out whilst I took these screenshots)
(You’ll also note the lack of ‘?’ in the second – just a typo!)
Having looked at the power of this system, even with the incredibly simple conversation above, I am *so* excited about how this is going to work. I now just need to write all the other words to slot into every other part of the system, and this is a huge task, but by next week’s blog entry I hope to have it all done and to be able to show off some more detailed conversations, as well as some of the other conversation options I’ve been developing this week – these extra things aren’t totally ready just yet, but they’ll be essential to making conversations feel very human, and adding extra depth.
Next Week
Conversations, sentences!
Post by: Arx on July 19, 2016, 02:36:16 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 19, 2016, 07:04:07 am
Post by: zaimoni on July 19, 2016, 08:14:55 am
Give some thought as to whether "Dialect" is the right word to use. If you don't do languages, you're envisioning variations upon a common language right? "Accent" makes more sense. Dialect doesn't really come into it when you're speaking a trade language.Trade languages i.e. pidgins don't have grammar. If that was the case, it would be *really* obvious in the demos posted here: they'd read like Engrish, or other highly ungrammatical English.
Declared intent is to not force the player to memorize how idioms vary, just intimate they are there. That's handwaving changing the actual syllables, i.e. dialect.
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 19, 2016, 10:56:54 am
It makes little sense that a clan from the opposite side of the continent happens to speak the same first language as everyone else. Hence i assume trade/common language.
Post by: Retropunch on July 19, 2016, 03:57:36 pm
Pidgin and trade languages are distinct. Latin, French, English, those have been trade languages. Creole is just a occasional variant.
It makes little sense that a clan from the opposite side of the continent happens to speak the same first language as everyone else. Hence i assume trade/common language.
I think this gets down to the fact that dialects are a little bit of a confusing thing to be simulating. Whilst I *love* the idea of learning a 'dialect' in terms of 'being able to pass yourself off as a local' - it seems strange that a world would have a common language and so many wildly different dialects (unless that's part of the puzzle?!). If this was meant to simulate a trade language, that's fair enough - but then there isn't a great deal of point learning the dialects (as if you were a native, you'd just speak the mother tongue!).
I honestly believe that these should just be called 'languages' for now and treated as such. If/when real language learning becomes a thing then that can take over from this, but at the moment it does seem very confusing.
Regardless of this, I also think it'd be a good idea for dialects/whatevers to have common modifiers and greetings/goodbyes/standard parts. I feel like it'd give the user a lot of agency. If they remember to bow at the beginning of the conversation that'd definitely warm the NPC up, whereas not doing would anger them. Not using their full title might be a snub in some areas of the world, whereas in others it may be seen as something that is not said in public.
Whilst this could (like moods) be implemented in a very simple form and still be great fun, it could go a lot further: Not using a title might be seen as a public snub in court, which would gain you favour from their rivals, however not bowing might be seen as far too offensive for anyone.
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 19, 2016, 05:51:52 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/LcSGd4U.gif)
do fencing, please.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 20, 2016, 05:14:14 am
That looks really good! Pretty keen to see how it plays out. Natural language related computing has always fascinated me.
Thanks! I'm really happy with how it's looking, especially what I should be able to show for it next week once far more of the words/syllables/clauses/archetypes/kennings are in place!
Give some thought as to whether "Dialect" is the right word to use. If you don't do languages, you're envisioning variations upon a common language right? "Accent" makes more sense. Dialect doesn't really come into it when you're speaking a trade language.
I do think dialect is the right one, as a particular kind of one language, whereas to me, an accent is more about pronunciation than sentence structure and phrasing.
Declared intent is to not force the player to memorize how idioms vary, just intimate they are there. That's handwaving changing the actual syllables, i.e. dialect.
^ ja. You select a dialect, say a thing, and if you know how to say it in that dialect, your player character will say it in that dialect. With that said, though, dialects are strongly influenced by their cultures, so you should recognize when you're speaking to someone from a really expansionist imperialist nation, for instance, as they're always be using military metaphors, praising war and conflict, accept violence, have a very competitive notion of world politics, etc etc...
I think this gets down to the fact that dialects are a little bit of a confusing thing to be simulating. Whilst I *love* the idea of learning a 'dialect' in terms of 'being able to pass yourself off as a local' - it seems strange that a world would have a common language and so many wildly different dialects (unless that's part of the puzzle?!). If this was meant to simulate a trade language, that's fair enough - but then there isn't a great deal of point learning the dialects (as if you were a native, you'd just speak the mother tongue!).
I honestly believe that these should just be called 'languages' for now and treated as such. If/when real language learning becomes a thing then that can take over from this, but at the moment it does seem very confusing.
Regardless of this, I also think it'd be a good idea for dialects/whatevers to have common modifiers and greetings/goodbyes/standard parts. I feel like it'd give the user a lot of agency. If they remember to bow at the beginning of the conversation that'd definitely warm the NPC up, whereas not doing would anger them. Not using their full title might be a snub in some areas of the world, whereas in others it may be seen as something that is not said in public.
Whilst this could (like moods) be implemented in a very simple form and still be great fun, it could go a lot further: Not using a title might be seen as a public snub in court, which would gain you favour from their rivals, however not bowing might be seen as far too offensive for anyone.
Hmmmm, interesting thoughts. I am going to keep calling these "dialects" for now, because I've used that name already and I don't want to confuse things, and I probably WILL add languages in the future, so I want to keep that word for use in the future. They do have fixed greetings/insults/etc though! Again, hopefully I can show those off next week; it's going to be potentially slightly amusing, as insults are based on the beliefs of the insulter, not the insult-ee; so if someone from an imperialist nation insults someone and calls them a worthless pacifist, but that person is from a very pacifistic nation, they aren't going to be too badly insulted. The titles stuff is definitely going in, though, but I'm just working out how exactly to include that...
A little birdie told me you have some interesting combat plans. It sounds like you're nearly there with your desire to weigh each other up and act accordingly so
I do! Once 0.8 is out in a month, 0.9 (also due in 2016) will add in weapons/armour for guards/soldiers/etc, and add in remaining NPCs, and then at the end of the year I'll weigh up what needs to come next. I can't promise it'll be combat, though, but we'll see how things look :).
Post by: zaimoni on July 20, 2016, 09:13:32 am
I think this gets down to the fact that dialects are a little bit of a confusing thing to be simulating. Whilst I *love* the idea of learning a 'dialect' in terms of 'being able to pass yourself off as a local' - it seems strange that a world would have a common language and so many wildly different dialects (unless that's part of the puzzle?!). If this was meant to simulate a trade language, that's fair enough - but then there isn't a great deal of point learning the dialects (as if you were a native, you'd just speak the mother tongue!).It's completely realistic. Less than a century ago, German as spoken in far north Germany was 100% mutually unintelligible with German as spoken in far south Germany. Also, American English, British English,and Australian English are full-blown dialects right now, that are very likely to go mutually unintelligible within the next two centuries or so.
Novel Scoops and I have been mentored by different experts (we have directly contradictory definitions of what a trade language and what a creole are, are so there is nothing to argue.) My assumption is that linguistics and anthropology are mutually incomprehensible.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 20, 2016, 12:03:50 pm
Quote
Insults are based on the beliefs of the insulter, not the insult-ee; so if someone from an imperialist nation insults someone and calls them a worthless pacifist, but that person is from a very pacifistic nation, they aren't going to be too badly insulted.
This makes me unreasonably pleased. I love games with little details like that.
Post by: Aukustus on July 20, 2016, 03:51:00 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 20, 2016, 07:57:08 pm
This makes me unreasonably pleased. I love games with little details like that.
Excellent :). In many ways URR is a game of little (generated) details; I think they're so important to making a world feel real, coherent, lived-in, etc etc
I'll be mad if the POI bar will still be shorter than the other UI bars :).
Haha, don't worry, they won't be around for long anyway!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 23, 2016, 05:26:13 am
Post by: Retropunch on July 23, 2016, 06:42:34 am
t's completely realistic. Less than a century ago, German as spoken in far north Germany was 100% mutually unintelligible with German as spoken in far south Germany. Also, American English, British English,and Australian English are full-blown dialects right now, that are very likely to go mutually unintelligible within the next two centuries or so.
At that point though, it becomes a new language. Obviously the line of delineation is very blurry, but in terms of a common definition, if it reaches the point where it was mutually unintelligible it would be considered a new language or a split (Slavic languages for instance).
In terms of the second point, I went to a conference a while back which had a talk on this very issue. The research it was based on showed that all languages are coming closer together (which is pretty great when you think about it) with more and more common words across all languages. More than that, sentence structure is moving to a more latin-based structure for languages with very different structures. The reasons for this are quite obvious (like the internet, the proliferation of English, Hollywood).
With that in mind, we might go closer to a URR universe which is dominated by dialects instead of languages!!
Post by: Skynet on July 24, 2016, 11:19:51 am
I've been commissioned to write a four-part series on qualitative procedural generation for Rock, Paper, Shotgun! Societies, practices, cultures, beliefs, and so forth, and how to integrate them into gameplay. I think one part will be going up each fortnight for the next three fortnights, but here's the first one. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/07/22/future-of-procedural-generation-1/
The comments themselves are also useful to read, since many of them act as a useful "corrective" to advocates of PCG lore. It's important to know a technology's weaknesses as well as its strengths.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 24, 2016, 05:06:14 pm
With that in mind, we might go closer to a URR universe which is dominated by dialects instead of languages!!
Interesting! I do think it will be fascinating to see how languages look when my generation (as someone in my mid-twenties) are expiring; fifty years from now I'll be interested to see how the world's major languages have shifted, and as you say, probably come closer together. For URR, though, I am definitely leaning further towards adding in a SMALL number of languages atop the dialects, maybe only 3/4 per world over large geographic areas... but I haven't decided yet!
The comments themselves are also useful to read, since many of them act as a useful "corrective" to advocates of PCG lore. It's important to know a technology's weaknesses as well as its strengths.
Oh, totally - replying to them all is one of the things I need to do now before I go to bed!
And now for this week's update:
---
Sentence Generation
This week I’ve been adding in a truly titanic amount of speech variation into the game. I’m only now beginning to realize the size and scope of this task, given the level of variety and interest and complexity I want to include, but at this point it’s close to around ~1/3rd of the default conversation options done. There’s a vast number of archetypes, a truly gigantic number of clauses and descriptive modifiers (a comment a character might make about the word “world” if they’re from a particularly isolationist nation, for instance, which might be something like “frightening in its size and distances”). I’ve already written several thousand of lines of speech, variations in those, templates, words, clauses, kennings, all kinds of stuff, and written the (actually remarkably simple) code that pieces them all together. I’ve reached the end of all the “default” questions which you can ask anyone (and their answers), and I’m now moving onto the class-specific questions (and their answers), and then after that onto the special answers that change their sentence structure, not just their sentence content, depending on the NPC. By this I mean, you can always answer the question “What is your religion’s most sacred relic?” with an answer of the sort “Our most sacred relic is X”. However, a question like “What is your opinion about the ongoing war?” cannot be answered with a single sentence with words switched out, so needs a more complex set of answers tethered to the opinions of that NPC.
There basically hasn’t been much new coding going on since last time, so below you’ll find two conversations I had with different people, and how different they turned out (so the same kind of thing I showed off last week). You’ll notice that certain words get “expanded” upon, such as that “in which we all serve and are served” bit of the first picture below; these are bits of flavour text heavily dependent of course upon religions, cultures, backgrounds, etc, and these are one of the major things that will give you a hint about the background of the person, when they elect to give you a bit of their perspective on an issue you’re discussing. By the end of this process there will be an *incredible* number of these little expansions; as above, I’ve only done about 1/3rd of the default conversation options so far (not to mention negative replies, replies that can’t have a default form, and other stuff) and already there are several hundred of these. Naturally some political beliefs are easier to find expansions for – consider how much of a conversation someone from a pacifist nation would comment on, compared to how much of a conversation someone from a planned economy nation would have a comment relevant to planned economy to make – but I’m trying to come up with expansions for even the less-obvious ideologies too.
Anyway, here’s two examples of one conversation again, and you can see these are already more complex than last week:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/New-Conversation-1_1-3.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/New-Conversation-1_2.png)
I love how distinctive these are, and how you can even in just a few snippets of conversation start to guess at some of the beliefs and backgrounds of the people and their nations. In that last one you can see that we need a scroll bar for the conversation window, which is coming shortly.
For next time, I’ll be continuing to put in the massive databases that underlie the sentence generation system. I’m also starting to put in the first parts of two next things, both designed to enhance the smoothness and realism of the conversation system, instead of reducing it to what can look like a question-and-answer session. Although I’m super-proud of the above screenshots, they ARE quite question-and-answery, and this needs to be changed, and that’s what these two new elements will help us towards (the “how interested am I in this conversation” meter will be coming later). These two new elements are:
Counter Questions: this is what I’m calling it when the character you’re talking to asks you something back! They’ll reply (or not) to your question, and then ask you a question back; sometimes the same question, sometimes a related question, and sometimes a more general “Why are you asking that”, “Why do you want to know?”, etc. You’ll then get a reply option (see below) that you can use, or not, depending on your preference.
Replies: you as the player can respond to a specific thing that another character said and question them further on a topic that emerges in the process of conversation. For instance, if they mention a person, you can immediately say “Can you tell me more about [person]”, if you want to. Alternatively, as above, you can offer replies to what someone asks you, and will have the option to tell the truth, lie, semi-lie, etc.
These do require a bit of work, and I want to get all the “default” stuff done first, so I won’t mention these for another week or two, but I wanted to note that I’m aware the structure and flow of conversations needs a little work, and I’ll be working on that soon.
See you all next week!
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 24, 2016, 06:41:11 pm
The conversations sound like they should either be full shakespeare or before a judge :P. Throw in some informal shit!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 24, 2016, 07:15:18 pm
Post by: Skynet on July 24, 2016, 08:28:11 pm
Are some of the comments too long?
It's your extraneous sentence clauses (generally the one surrounded by commas and are seen as pointless asides). At first, they're cool to view as they add a bunch of world-building detail, but they quickly appear silly and stupid after repeated exposure. It almost sounds like, well...
Quote from: T3, Totally Not A Criminal
"I HATE CRIME, OH YES I DO, ESPECIALLY VIOLENT CRIMES. THEY ARE THE WORST. THOSE CRIMINALS ARE SO VIOLENT AND EVIL AND WRONG. WE NEED TO LOCK THEM AWAY, AND ALSO MAKE SURE THEY ARE SAFE AND SECURE IN THEIR PRISON CELLS, BECAUSE THE NINE GODS KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY ARE NOT SAFE AND SECURE IN THEIR PRISON CELLS."
Or, I guess, you could tone down the number of extra clauses and see if that might work out.
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 24, 2016, 09:34:05 pm
It almost sounds like, well...Quote from: T3, Totally Not A Criminal"I HATE CRIME, OH YES I DO, ESPECIALLY VIOLENT CRIMES. THEY ARE THE WORST. THOSE CRIMINALS ARE SO VIOLENT AND EVIL AND WRONG. WE NEED TO LOCK THEM AWAY, AND ALSO MAKE SURE THEY ARE SAFE AND SECURE IN THEIR PRISON CELLS, BECAUSE THE NINE GODS KNOWS WHAT HAPPENS IF THEY ARE NOT SAFE AND SECURE IN THEIR PRISON CELLS."
(https://i.imgur.com/OjliPhj.gif)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 25, 2016, 03:40:47 am
Post by: Neonivek on July 25, 2016, 04:01:06 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 25, 2016, 07:26:32 am
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Newdemo.png)
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 25, 2016, 07:42:38 am
Post by: Retropunch on July 25, 2016, 12:36:14 pm
Mostly, it's just trying to avoid the age old 'over sharing' of NPCs - whilst it's a fine line between not giving the player enough info/driving them forward, if every NPC just overshares at the tip of a hat it breaks immersion a bit.
There's a more important point here though - in URR there are hundreds and hundreds of people to talk to and you need a natural way of making sure the player doesn't feel like they have to talk to everyone. I'd suggest the best way to do this is to have a number of levels of how talkative people are (bonus points if it's about certain subjects) - I'd expect preists to talk my ear off about festivals, and generals to talk my ear off about war plans, but not really the other way around. I'd therefore choose to be selective just out of necessity. Similarly, I'd expect guards/farmers/so on to have relatively little to say to me about anything, unless I needed to know something very specific to their job.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 27, 2016, 01:46:33 pm
In the mean time, here's a little piece I wrote for Vice Gaming about PCG in RimWorld!
http://www.vice.com/read/you-can-spin-your-own-sci-fi-tale-in-rimworld
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2016, 10:53:05 am
First, length and clauses. Many of these are simply too long, and there are too many additional clauses. I think the extra clauses will become just a little bit annoying after a certain point, especially if you’re talking to lots of people from one civilization close together. As such, I’ve made some sentences shorter, and reduced the likelihood of clauses being added to sentences. This also meant a change to sentence complexity: I’ve decided to actually make quite a substantial change here and change sentence complexity from a value/modifier embodied in a civilization to a value embodied individually in each person you encounter. I realized that since you’ll spend a decent length of time in each nation at once, you’re probably going to be spending a while talking to a range of people from the same background, and so I want to boost variation between people more than I want to boost variation between civilizations. As a result, each person now has a sentence complexity modifier specific to them. This has five variations, which I’m currently just storing as 1-5; that’s an x/15 chance that each sentence they say might have a clause. This means even the most wordy person will add in extra detail clauses in 1/3 sentences, but for most it will be far rarer. I’ve tried this out a little and I’m much happier with the kinds of sentences it produces (along with the other changes). Equally, it means that that kind of extra info will come to the player more gradually, which I think is also beneficial.
Secondly, punctuation. The end of sentences now varies according to the mood of the person speaking them; a hostile NPC will end with “.” or “…” to everything they say, a neutral NPC will end with “.”, whilst an NPC very positively disposed towards you will end sentences with a mix of “.” and “!”. Again, a very simple thing, but it’s already making a big different to the ebb and flow of conversation.
Thirdly, and related to the above – formality. Many of the sentences were just too formal and rigid and didn’t have the kind of flow that you would expect sentences to have. To adjust this, I’ve made some changes to quite a few of the sentences, added in the possibility for things like “Hmm…” to appear at the start of sentences, or things like “Let me think”, or “That’s hard to remember”, or “I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I recall”, things like that – I’ve also added in more use of “I’m” instead of “I am”, “I’ve” instead of “I have”, etc, and so on. The combination of these various alterations seems to be working quite nicely, and gives a far more conversational feel to the whole thing.
Fourthly, visuals. I felt that using the skin tone for the sentences on both sides of the conversation is making the actual conversation window look a bit too thick and same-y; instead, the player’s comments will always be the same colour as their @ symbol, i.e. white, whilst those from other characters will change according to skin tone. This breaks up the visuals and seems to make conversations a little easier to parse, which is obviously very important!
Fifthly, stories – see below in the example for precisely what I mean by that.
As such, this is how conversations should look from this point onwards:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/07/Newdemo.png)
There’s still a lot more to be done, of course – like adding “Hmm…” and all the other stuff described above, but I think this is a great step forward.
More next week!
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 30, 2016, 03:23:14 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2016, 04:59:57 pm
Post by: guessingo on July 31, 2016, 06:50:39 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 01, 2016, 08:58:02 am
how close are you to the next release?
Hopefully... a month? Month and a bit?!
Post by: Daniel the Finlander on August 04, 2016, 07:48:31 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 05, 2016, 06:34:59 pm
What ideas do you have about fail states? You're gradually deciphering a puzzle, so i wonder how you can make starting the process anew statisfying. I know you were considering time skips on failure; my question is how often we're gonna die. if it's thick and fast, i'd like to have maximum continuity so that i can run into the aftermath of my previous characters run amok. If it's very occasional but i'm still going to need 50 attempts, i won't mind so much about continuity since each character has established themselves but some callback would be nice beyond a gravestone.
Also, i demand some verbose NPC's do this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmXmMpNuPU)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 07, 2016, 01:52:56 pm
Could sentence complexity be affected by the profession of the individual? For example, a priest's sentences would have a higher chance of being complex while a peasant's sentences would be more blunt and simple.
Agreed! That's something to be added :)
Have you considered providing/accepting alternate tilesets or isometric view? I know you're keeping it close-sourced but if people contribute the sprites do you mind doing the code?
What ideas do you have about fail states? You're gradually deciphering a puzzle, so i wonder how you can make starting the process anew statisfying. I know you were considering time skips on failure; my question is how often we're gonna die. if it's thick and fast, i'd like to have maximum continuity so that i can run into the aftermath of my previous characters run amok. If it's very occasional but i'm still going to need 50 attempts, i won't mind so much about continuity since each character has established themselves but some callback would be nice beyond a gravestone.
Also, i demand some verbose NPC's do this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPmXmMpNuPU)
Alterate tilesets?
ISOMETRIC VIEW?!?!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh, I can imagine nothing more terrifying. The game is far too "hand-made" to use ASCII/ANSI characters to ever, ever do any other kind of display. Sadly that'll never happen, I'm afraid. However, for failure states, I haven't yet fully decided yet. As you imply, it'll need a lot of balancing and playtesting, and honestly - I'm just not sure yet. Death will be rare, though, but I need to make sure you don't just keep playing past a point you've already effectively "lost".
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 16, 2016, 08:46:29 am
Default Conversation Options
At this point almost all the “default” conversation options are done! This means everything that you can ask every character, and also the class-specific questions (like “What are you guarding?”, “What nation do you represent?”, “How long have you ruled this nation?”, etc). This was a totally huge volume of work I’ve been putting together over the last fortnight and it’s great to see it all nearly done,. and it’ll certainly be all done by this time next week. Here are some examples of conversations with people from specific classes, in this case with a priest, guard, and diplomat:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/Words1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/Words2.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/Words3-1.png)
Default “Expansions”
“Expansions” are what I’m calling bits of a sentence that certain NPCs will add to certain words in a sentence. For example, as we’ve seen rather than just saying “What is the greatest battle your nation has fought?”, someone from a particularly militaristic nation might be “What is the greatest battle, that glorious arena in which all are equal, that your nation has ever fought?”. Similarly, rather than asking “Are there any mountains nearby?”, someone from a particularly exploration-focused nation might ask something like “Any there any mountains, those peaks that inspire us to great deeds, nearby?”. Almost all of the expansions for the default conversation options are now in place, and wow, there are a truly huge number. There are close to a thousand expansions I’ve written for various ideologies with various words, and much like everything else, the inclination of a person towards using expansions is contingent upon their sentence complexity value – a higher sentence complexity means more expansions. As a result of making conversations more human as we discussed a fortnight ago, these are now far rarer, but here are some examples from the generation system, which gathers all possible expansions for a certain word for every nation into one place, then if a random number is rolled that is lower than the nation’s sentence complexity, it selects an expansion for that nation for that term and stores it. Again, by this time next week these will be totally finished.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/Expandi.png)
NPC Personalities
NPCs are now generated with four personality modifiers that will structure how they behave. These will now be explicitly visible, although they will be noticeable from the kinds of replies you get, and also in some cases I suspect I’ll get other NPCs to tell you about the personalities of other relevant NPCs.
Sentence Complexity – this has been shifted from nations to people, and reflects how much people give in answers they’re willing to give. By this, I mean let’s say you ask someone about whether they know about any nearby towns, and they know about five towns. Will they tell you all five, or just one, or somewhere in the middle, and will they comment on what they think about those towns? This modifier will determine that, but it’s different from whether they’ll reply at all – replying is a binary, and then the detail of the reply will be structured by these metrics.
Education – this affects how much someone knows, i.e. how often they’ll wind up saying “I don’t know!” to a question. Naturally this will vary according to class, and expected educational levels, and so forth, and therefore certain questions will be more likely to give you an answer from certain NPC classes, because others simply won’t know the answer!
Patience – this is a modifier for how much an NPC is willing to speak with you. This will combine with modifiers for each civilization, and also for each NPC class and the player’s current status (so a guard will be disinclined to talk to a random person automatically, whereas a merchant will naturally be more inclined to talk to a random person in the hope of making a sale).
Privacy – this modifier affects how willing the person is to talk about their own personal details, and probably how willing they are to tell you information about their culture, religion, etc. This won’t vary too much, but some NPCs of the same class will certainly be more or less concerned about telling strangers their thoughts.
These four metrics are being generated for each NPC, but I can’t say yet whether they’ll make it into the conversation system in 0.8 – I’m really trying to get an absolute core conversation system done, with the kind of scope and variation I want, and then release that. It’ll probably be in 0.9, but I thought it was worth drawing attention to these elements now, as more ways to vary the conversation experience.
Conversation Scrolling
Added a scroll-bar to the main conversation window. I pondered for a while how best to do this. Firstly, I was going to have the scroll bar only appear to the left-hand side of the right face when the conversation gets long enough, but that would mean that the conversation window would then slightly resize itself (which didn’t look nice) and it could slow things down a little to have to measure the size of the conversation before printing it, and then altering the size of the printed conversation. I then tried having a scroll bar only appear on the right-hand side double-grey border when you needed to be able to scroll, but this was very inelegant and seemed disconnected from the actual conversation you were scrolling through. As such, my third try was to do what I’m now going to stick with, which was to add a dark version of the scroll bar always present on the right-hand side, and then have that scroll bar expand and light-up once the conversation is too long. See below:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/Beautiful-1.gif)
(Though you’ll note just for testing purposes I asked the same question a lot, and they didn’t get bored – boredom still needs implementing!)
Next Week
Next week I’ll be finishing off the final parts of the elements above, and I’ll be working on the non-default responses. This means answers which are negative, e.g. you ask “What size is your army” and the reply is “We have no army”, and also special answers, like “What do you think about [nation]” which doesn’t easily fit into a sentence structure where you just switch out words, as they’d express positive/neutral/negative feelings very differently, so these need more complex answers. See you all then!
Post by: Retropunch on August 16, 2016, 01:06:39 pm
Again I feel it's one of those things where you can do a little to get a big result ('what city are you from?' - allied city good, enemy city bad), and add more when it becomes worth while. You probably wouldn't want many questions as you probably wouldn't launch into a full blown back and forth with a stranger (and it might get annoying) but I feel that none at all becomes a bit strange.
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 16, 2016, 08:44:39 pm
I think either showing or narrating changes in expression can help too. I'll take a curt answer from the farmer if "he stares into the distance for a second" say.
NPC's should predict some questions. All your conversations namedrop frequently, and if your question indicates you don't know about that either they should explain of their own accord, depending on personality.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 17, 2016, 03:34:14 pm
Great update and it's really coming together well. I still feel that it needs the NPCs to ask questions back - with how realistic the conversation is, it feels extremely odd to be having a one sided conversation. Even if it was little things ('what about you?') that'd be great, but it'd be even better if they asked questions that might have some bearing on relationships ('Are you a follower of the Light of Zarthon?' 'yes' 'well, let us say the holy chant of olivepesto together then!' and so on...)
Again I feel it's one of those things where you can do a little to get a big result ('what city are you from?' - allied city good, enemy city bad), and add more when it becomes worth while. You probably wouldn't want many questions as you probably wouldn't launch into a full blown back and forth with a stranger (and it might get annoying) but I feel that none at all becomes a bit strange.
Excellent :D! Oh, totally, they will be asking questions back. Maybe next week, maybe the week after; we'll see how things play out. This weekend is totally free for URR coding, which is truly wonderful, and I'm looking forward to getting a real ton done. I totally agree, it's a fair easy addition, and one that shouldn't crop up too often in "general" conversation, but will make things way more realistic.
Olivepesto, olivepesto, olivepesto, olivepesto...
Replies should be a bit less straightforward. You've got these cultural extensions that colour the speech, and your first example nails a tone; in general answers should be delivered stylishly like that. People love to be snappy. If they're being blunt, i don't think ellipses alone cut the mustard. Bolding/itallicizing important words would work; "I protect the manor of House Lopponama..."
I think either showing or narrating changes in expression can help too. I'll take a curt answer from the farmer if "he stares into the distance for a second" say.
NPC's should predict some questions. All your conversations namedrop frequently, and if your question indicates you don't know about that either they should explain of their own accord, depending on personality.
Hmm, interesting! Sadly I can't make things into italics easily, but bluntless will have a lot of '.' and '...', and just shorter answers in general. I DO like the idea of showing/narrating things, too! I love that idea, actually. I'll add that in and put it in a different colour or style or something. Predicting questions: hmm, interesting. I did have an idea vaguely like that to alter certain replies based on earlier replies, but these might have to wait for the quick 0.9 after 0.8!
Post by: Retropunch on August 20, 2016, 12:45:04 pm
Excellent :D! Oh, totally, they will be asking questions back. Maybe next week, maybe the week after; we'll see how things play out. This weekend is totally free for URR coding, which is truly wonderful, and I'm looking forward to getting a real ton done. I totally agree, it's a fair easy addition, and one that shouldn't crop up too often in "general" conversation, but will make things way more realistic.
Olivepesto, olivepesto, olivepesto, olivepesto...
Awesome - I can't wait!! I think a truly two way conversation is uncharted territory in games - I can't think of a single game which does it. Some RPG games (bioware for example) do have a lot of sort of 'conversation paths' which you can choose, but that's not really the same thing. You can rarely completely ruin or improve a conversation, and they'll rarely ask you anything that isn't plot central.
You may have mentioned this before, but will each NPC have a general disposition variable to the player, and what effect will that have? If I raise it high enough will it open further options? It'd be brilliant if I could structure a conversation in such a way that if I butter them up correctly, I'd get a better response than if I just went for 'when does the major leave the barracks?'.
Secondly, and this might seem a strange idea, but have you thought about putting in mini-games? I was just reading through this thread on tafl (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156664.0 (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156664.0)) and thought how awesome it'd be to have some games like that to play. Whilst I know you've got a strict schedule, even putting in a game of checkers or similar could be a really nice addition. If you gave different civs different games/rules, it'd give players a great incentive to explore before the full adventuring stuff is in. Just something to think about.
On pasta, on bread and out of the jar; olive pesto, olive pesto...
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 20, 2016, 02:06:36 pm
Post by: Retropunch on August 20, 2016, 03:34:35 pm
Ancient games like this (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-06-01-why-did-ancient-egypt-spend-3000-years-playing-a-game-nobody-else-liked) would certainly add personality.
Yeah, that was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. Even really simple ones would add a bit of flavor and give a something to do other than just endlessly explore.
I find with the Witcher that it's great to have a break from the general exploring/whatever to go and do a few minigames - it's a bit of a palate cleanser and also makes me feel just that little bit more immersed.
Post by: NJW2000 on August 20, 2016, 05:22:07 pm
[DIFFICULT:MASSIVELY]
Is my prediction. But it would be pretty fun and flavoursome.
Post by: Retropunch on August 20, 2016, 05:35:14 pm
[INDEPTH:VERY]
[DIFFICULT:MASSIVELY]
Is my prediction. But it would be pretty fun and flavoursome.
Should be pretty easy relatively speaking - most of these games have been made a billion times over in python (I did a checkers and a basic chess game as tutorials when I was learning) and slotting it in shouldn't be too bad. Yes, if you wanted to add custom/procedural rules that'd be a lot more difficult, but just some basic naughts and crosses/checkers type games should be easy enough to throw in.
Not saying it's simple, just that I believe the pay off would be pretty big for what it entails.
Post by: Skynet on August 20, 2016, 08:01:35 pm
[INDEPTH:VERY]
[DIFFICULT:MASSIVELY]
Is my prediction. But it would be pretty fun and flavoursome.
"My most favorite game is [GAME_NAME]. [GAME_NAME] is based on our country's strong love for [RANDOM_TRAIT], and [SUPER_SECRET_CONSPIRACY_CLUE] and is totally not Calvinball in disguise. You [ACTION] [MINTATURIZED VERSION OF RANDOMLY GENERATED ANIMALS WITHIN THE BIOME] to get [POINT_NAMES] and you win when you reach [ARBITRARY GOAL]. There [IS/IS NOT] a time limit involved. Want to play?"
"You are in the last inning of [GAME_NAME], and your opponent is about to do [RANDOM ACTION] (which has a 100% chance of moving the game towards your opponent). You are 60% proficient in [GAME_NAME], so your margin of error is +/- 20%. You have two choices, [ACTION_A] (which is very risky but could win the game) and [ACTION_B] (which is much safer). Choose now!"
>[ACTION_A] - 70% of losing immediately, 30% chance of winning immediately
>[ACTION_B] - 50% of game continuing in a stalemate, 30% of game moving towards you, 20% chance of game moving towards your opponent
---
On topic, I warn against scope creep, so try to limit as many features as you can...and take as many shortcuts as necessary when implementing the features you do want. For example, if I want procedurally generated games, I would unironically use the approach I outlined above, even if it might not be as fun interacting with menus to "play" a mini-game, just because it'd be easier to pull off. Maybe I can afford to make a more complex procedural-game-generator if the games were made very rare, so people might be more invested in trying them out. Of course, more focus on making mini-games means less focus on the main game...so...it's a difficult balancing act.
I do like the idea of "conversation paths" for handling convos between the PC and the NPC and think they'd be easier to implement and somewhat cool. Retropunch pointed out that they have been used before (rarely), which is a good enough reason to use it again and improve on it. Plus this means you can reuse your sentence generation code for your character's responses as well (with your very own personality tics). NPC chooses a random question, the sentence generator spits out a sensible reply based on the character's background.
Post by: NJW2000 on August 21, 2016, 04:14:43 am
I reckon that a coupla variants on chess or go (board size, pieces/starting stones, scoring system/win conditions) would be easy enough to program for URR, comparatively, but AI would be a nightmare. And as for actually fully proc-genned games...
Post by: Retropunch on August 21, 2016, 04:38:08 am
Whilst I know Mark is in absolutely no rush to onboard players and the like, it seems as though it'll e quite some time before actual 'game' bits get added in whilst the world continues to be built. That's fine, but having a few side games (and being able to travel to different lands to play these games) could make for a very nice early 'aim' for players.
It can also easily be built on as more systems get put in place. Once a monetary system is implemented, the player could bet on games. Once shopkeepers are added in the player might be able to buy the required game boards to play, etc. etc.
I'd keep the number of games very low, maybe 2-3 per world and have them relatively simple. There's tons of python tutorials on how to make battleships, chess, go and checkers which you could just rename or alter slightly. You could even just settle on chess, and randomly pick a few variants at start (see chess variants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_variants)).
Post by: ChairmanPoo on August 21, 2016, 04:43:50 am
Ancient games like this (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-06-01-why-did-ancient-egypt-spend-3000-years-playing-a-game-nobody-else-liked) would certainly add personality.somewhat OT, but I love the tale about the small clay pot in the mummy. I can imagine the conversation.
Post by: NJW2000 on August 21, 2016, 04:46:14 am
And I know very little about programming, but I know that AI is really bloody difficult, especially with chess/go.
Draughts might be an option: draughts has been solved and stuff, it's a bit simpler.
Post by: Retropunch on August 21, 2016, 04:55:15 am
Thing is, you couldn't actually play them singleplayer unless Mark wrote AIs or something like that.
And I know very little about programming, but I know that AI is really bloody difficult, especially with chess/go.
Draughts might be an option: draughts has been solved and stuff, it's a bit simpler.
Chess AI has been created millions of times over, and there are many tutorials on it, and a lot of opensource bits/fullimps to draw on (fully functional open source python console chess on the first page of google: https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-develop0ment/threads/416196/chess-in-python)
Yes, it's not going to be grandmaster level, but it'd be good enough for the casual player.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 21, 2016, 02:28:57 pm
-----
Words!
Two way - yes, I totally agree! Like I say, it'll be rare-ish that they ask you questions back, but if they get suspicious, the volume of questions will rise. Buttering people up - yessss, but not in 0.8. I just want to get this thing out in September, and that means focusing on the essentials of 0.8 and nothing else, but yeah, I definitely need some kind of mood-tracker for what people think about you and therefore what they say.
-----
All the remaining default conversation options, and all the remaining expansions, are now complete. I’ve also altered the expansion code such that certain expansions aren’t tied to certain words or sentences within a language and guaranteed to appear whenever that sentence or word is said, but instead they appear with a % chance for every instance of a particularly word or phrase someone in that dialect says, depending on their sentence complexity (as we discussed before, sentence complexity is now tied to individuals, not to entire cultures). Here’s a couple of examples, courtesy of our good playtesting friend, Orangejaw Moonblizzard, and some NPCs who may or may not have had their origins changed using admin commands for the sake of testing (as you’ll notice these replies could not be for the same nation!)…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/OJ1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/OJ2.png)
Negative Replies
The big thing this week and weekend has been working on negative replies – so, for instance, if you ask “Are we near the desert?”, the default response is “We are near [desert] in [direction]”, or whatever, but obviously a valid option is “We are not near the desert” – and this obviously applies to loads of questions. What if the speaker’s nation has no army, or dislikes art, or have never travelled, or doesn’t know any other civilizations, or lives on a tiny island and knows nothing of the wider world, or doesn’t worship a religion, and so on? We therefore now have a body of negative replies for people to basically say “no”, “that’s irrelevant”, “I don’t know”, or “I don’t care”, in hundreds of thousands of interesting ways!
These negative replies effectively now split up into two categories, which we could usefully call “general” and “specific” negative replies. “General” negative replies include replies like “I don’t know”, “I don’t remember”, “I’d rather not answer”, “I’m not authorized to give you that information”, etc, which can apply to a huge range of NPCs in a huge range of situations. Since the player will run into these fairly often, I’ve made sure that there’s a lot of variation in these general negative responses – although in many cases, of course, there’s only so many ways that you can actually utter some of these things, but here are a few examples.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/OJ3.png)
“Specific” negative replies refer to asking a question where the answer is still answering the question, rather than a general answer, but still a negative. For instance, if you ask someone what they think a particular policy in their nation should be, they might reply “I have no interest in politics”, or if you ask someone whether they know any distant cities you might want to visit, they might say “I know of no distant cities” – and so on and so forth. Each of these is often more specific and more varied than the above, so I’m trying to bias people towards using these wherever possible, although they are naturally dependent upon particular cultural/political/religious situations.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/08/OJ4.png)
Crowd Disinterest
You’ll all recall the “conversation interest” idea that URR conversations will have implemented – that unless you ask relevant questions, NPCs will quickly lose interest in talking to you. This is to stop the player just going through every single question one after the other, and to encourage you towards asking sensible, logical and appropriate questions. However, I realized the other day that I can’t just limit this to a specific NPC getting bored; if you have a bunch of general questions you’re asking every soldier, for instance, then you could just go from one soldier over to the next soldier in the barracks and start questioning them, ignoring the questions you already asked Soldier 1, but assuming (quite fairly) that they will probably respond the same way, seeing as both Soldier 1 and Soldier 2 are just default soldiers.
Therefore, I need to implement some kind of “crowd disinterest” solution, and I think I’m going to do this on two levels. On the “local level”, NPCs within a building will see who you’re talking to and what you’re asking them about, and also within a map grid (within your line of sight, or nearby), and will take note of the questions. So if you question Soldier 1 about pointless stuff, and they tell you to go away, then you start asking Soldier 2 pointless stuff, the time it’ll take Soldier 2 to lose interest will be shorter than normal; Soldier 3’s will then be even shorter; and so forth. Then, at the global level, I think we need a system whereby information about the player slowly spreads through cultures/cities/religions/etc in the entire world so that people get some idea of whether they should respond to the player or not. Neither of these systems will be in 0.8, but they definitely need to be there.
Next Week
Remember those two new conversation features I mentioned a while back – replies and counter-questions – and also all those questions that have more complex replies, such as lists? Some combination of those will be coming next week – probably the complex replies, I would think. See you then!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 05, 2016, 02:58:44 pm
Counter-Questions
Counter-questions are, as you might expect, questions that the person you’re talking to winds up asking you, which then lead to a variety of possible replies. So, for instance, they might ask you about YOUR religion, in which case you can be truthful or lie and so forth, and the same will then apply for a range of scenarios. Questions of this sort will be particularly relevant when trying to get past guards, for instance, or when trying to enter particularly restrictive or xenophobic or militaristic nations, and the like. I think this will add a very strong extra layer into the conversation system and the ability for the player to “bluff” their way through certain areas, whilst also (like the above points) boosting the realism of the system by changing it away from a rather simpler question-and-answer system. Here’s an example of what counter-questions might look like based on some of the conversations from last week:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/09/591.png)
Replies
A “reply” in URR is something that can only be said in response to another person’s statement. When a reply is possible, the “Replies” dropdown list will appear, highlighted, right to the special options and to the left of the dialects. Clicking this option will then offer this special sentence/response; if you select another option that isn’t in the replies list, the replies will remain and can be returned to later in the conversation, so this isn’t just a one-off chance. This means that as particularly long conversations continue, the number of possible replies will grow, but it will never grow above half a dozen or so at the most, I would think, and some of the replies will actually be the same as other default questions that simply take on newfound relevance after a previous question. Here’s the same conversation with some answers and two different models: which do you prefer? In the first version the reply and the next question are apart, and the other person might make another comment, whereas in the second version, the reply and the next question are combined…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/09/592.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/09/593.png)
If you don’t select the reply when prompted, various things will happen. If they ask you a question and you just go onto asking them another question, they’ll likely be offended. Alternatively, some replies will be akin to “follow-on” questions, so they mention something, and you can then pursue that with them as a result of that conversation. These options will stay in your reply options for that character forever, and can be addressed (or not) whenever.
I’m going to implement this because as I experimented, it became clear that conversational flow in real life is obviously far more of a back-and-forth than a question-and-answer, and the system needed to reflect this. The reply will allow the player to get more depth about a specific question asked instead of moving onto another question, and should be especially relevant if the NPC being talked to winds up revealing something the player wasn’t previously aware of, and wants more information on.
In the process, though, I found myself wondering about the exact flow of the overall. Right now the system is that you select a topic, you select a question, then the questions window closes and you see it spoken and a reply given. This is largely from the inevitable constraints on the size of the screen, fitting in questions as well as images and topic lists, and so forth. I became briefly concerned that this might actually break up the flow of conversation, especially if you want to ask two questions from the same topic list one after the other. To help cancel this out, if you return immediately to a conversation topic you’ll be at the same part of it you previously scrolled into, and I also added in a system that will keep any letters typed in for the search function whilst you’re still in one topic. So let’s say you ask about Artwork X from Nation Y, and you found the question by typing in Nation X’s name into the “Art” menu, and that question is asked, and then you want to ask about another artwork from Nation X, going immediately back into the art list will keep the letters there, but changing to another menu will reset the letter tracker. I think this is quite a good compromise. Equally, of course, we should remember that the conversation system in URR is specifically designed to be a little slower and more thoughtful than the systems one gets in more RPGs where the player is encouraged to just exhaust conversation options. I think the current system (with these recent changes) will now work very smoothly, actually, and I’m happy with the balance between ease-of-access and possibly encouraging the player to think about other relevant options as a conversation progresses.
Next few weeks:
In the coming weeks I’ll be trying (see below) to continue the implementation of counter-questions and work on the implementation of replies, as well as adding all the “Hmm…” stuff and punctuation options into conversations properly, rather than having them only present as a placeholder to test how things look. The other big thing to handle now is that all the [religion] or [date] or [place] modifiers work; a few have been implemented, but again, just quickly and crudely to get a feel for the system. Another task for the coming weeks is to go to all of these, make sure they work, and to make sure NPCs already spawn with the requisite information for personal details – “I was born in [place] in [year]” – as well as civilisation details – “I am from [nation] and we worship [religion]”, and so on. There’s a pretty big selection of these,so it’ll take a bit.
Why no blog post last week?
Last week was the first time in several years I missed a blog update – this, unfortunately, is simply because I am basically working twelve hours, every day including weekends right now, and I’m totally swamped with my work at the moment. Believe me, folks, I am *incredibly* desperate to get 0.8 finally finished and out, but there’s just so much on my plate at the moment with strict fixed deadlines which has to be prioritised, and it’s hard to carve out any time (even at weekends) to do much coding. Just rest assured I am working as hard as I possibly can to get 0.8 released, and I’m really sorry it’s taking so long and I feel tremendously guilty about dragging it out, but things are really tough right now (due also to other life issues beyond what I’ve described here) and I’m deeply stressed out, but doing my best. There’s only so many hours in the day and I just cannot prioritise coding at this month/two-month moment in my life, but I’m trying to grab an hour here and there to just inch forward on conversation implementation. In the coming month, therefore, some of most of the blog entries are going to be other entries on general games topics of discussion/interest I’ve had written for a while and I think you folks will be interested in, and I’ll upload those instead if (as is likely) there isn’t really any URR update to put out. I hope you’ll enjoy these entries; people have always enjoyed these before, so I hope these will keep you all occupied until I’m out of this rough patch. I’m really sorry, I hope you all understand, and I promise 0.8 will be worth it.
Post by: NJW2000 on September 05, 2016, 03:48:57 pm
Also, if NPCs can ask questions, what about answering questions just with another question.
e.g.
"Where do you live?"
"Who's asking?"
Or: "Where are those soldiers going?"
"Why do you want to know?"
etc.
Post by: Scoops Novel on September 06, 2016, 10:01:46 am
Agreed, NJW. Lots of conversations are back and forth statements with implied questions.
Post by: Retropunch on September 06, 2016, 12:02:40 pm
I also feel that, similarly to the second type of question (that only specific people can be asked from the start of the game), I feel that NPCs should only really ask you questions about stuff they're interested in. Similarly, they should ask more questions when they like you more and less when they like you less. All common sense stuff, but something I've never seen in a game before!
BTW I much prefer the first layout for replies (with the break between answer and the next question). Whilst the first one looks more 'natural' it's a bit harder to read and with so much conversation available, it'll be important.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 09, 2016, 05:05:32 pm
Is there an option to leave a pregnant pause in the conversation, i.e. you question someone a lot, they ask you one question, then you answer but don't ask anything else? As if you were trying to get them to ask you stuff or talk about something generally?
Also, if NPCs can ask questions, what about answering questions just with another question.
e.g.
"Where do you live?"
"Who's asking?"
Or: "Where are those soldiers going?"
"Why do you want to know?"
etc.
Interesting. I hadn't considered this option at all, but it's an intriguing one. I'll give it some thought. Answering question with question - yes, definitely! I've actually put in one or two of those already, but there's a small chance they might not make it into 0.8.
Chill man. If toady can get away with 2 year releases you can sure as hell miss a blog post ;).
Agreed, NJW. Lots of conversations are back and forth statements with implied questions.
Thanks my friend :). I do appreciate it. It'll be so useful to be able to take a month back and just get through all this work garbage before I make a victorious return to finish 0.8 off.
This all looks great! I agree with NJW - I think a lot of this comes down to how you can influence the NPCs with replies and questions. As you may remember back to our conversational analysis courses, a question is a always a loaded interjection - there's never a 'neutral' question and I think that's important.
I also feel that, similarly to the second type of question (that only specific people can be asked from the start of the game), I feel that NPCs should only really ask you questions about stuff they're interested in. Similarly, they should ask more questions when they like you more and less when they like you less. All common sense stuff, but something I've never seen in a game before!
BTW I much prefer the first layout for replies (with the break between answer and the next question). Whilst the first one looks more 'natural' it's a bit harder to read and with so much conversation available, it'll be important.
Only asking questions about stuff they care about; agreed, that makes a lot of sense actually - obvious now you say it, but I hadn't considered it. It'll also make conversaitons more meaningful, as it'll always boost conversations in topics that NPCs will know a lot about, i.e. a priest will ask you the most religious questions back, and combined with them already having the most to say on that topic, should play out really nicely. Re: the first/second option, people are saying both, but the "gap" option is winning, and I *think* I prefer it too...
Post by: NJW2000 on September 09, 2016, 05:10:49 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 10, 2016, 02:56:53 pm
Oh, and a less relevant question: Italo Calvino, yea or nay?
80% YEA!
Post by: Retropunch on September 11, 2016, 09:13:50 am
Only asking questions about stuff they care about; agreed, that makes a lot of sense actually - obvious now you say it, but I hadn't considered it. It'll also make conversaitons more meaningful, as it'll always boost conversations in topics that NPCs will know a lot about, i.e. a priest will ask you the most religious questions back, and combined with them already having the most to say on that topic, should play out really nicely. Re: the first/second option, people are saying both, but the "gap" option is winning, and I *think* I prefer it too...
Yeah, I think it'd flow a lot better and cut out meaningless questions when you're wanting to push through.
Attached to this, I don't know how much you've thought about NPC 'traits' and I believe this would be the best way to do this. For instance, priests would all have the 'religious' trait, and that would make them ask more religious based questions. However, you might also have 'alcoholic' who would talk about drinks/brewing a lot, 'well dressed' who might talk about clothes, and you might have things like 'art lover' who would talk about art, even if they're not a gallery curator and so on.
I believe this would make NPCs seem a lot more like individuals - you could quickly end up with things being a bit 'cookie cutter' if only priests talk about religion and only guards talk about fighting etc.
It'd also allow you to expand further in that direction if you so wished. It'd only be a small step between that and adding in some extra colour to the NPC descriptions ('his coat specked is with paint', 'she smells strongly of alcohol' etc.)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 19, 2016, 02:17:17 pm
Post by: Skynet on September 26, 2016, 06:33:30 pm
Quote
Q: Will URR have sound?
A: Sound no, but music… maybe? Quite a few people have expressed interest in writing music for the game, so this might happen.
Jukedeck (https://www.jukedeck.com) is a website that can generate music on-demand based on criteria that you specify. It's free to use so long as you give them credit (though you can pay 99 cents per song for a royalty-free license if you don't like giving them credit).
You could theoretically generate hundreds of different songs, and then manually tag them as being associated with certain cultural traits ("This song kinda sounds like something an 'Imperialist' civilization might prefer"). As a result, each civilization comes with their own "unique" theme song. It won't quite be procedurally-generated (you have already generated the songs ahead of time), but it'd be interesting enough.
Now about those few people who are interested in writing music? The worst-case scenario is that those few people are now unemployed thanks to Jukedeck. The best-case scenario is that these people could be redirected towards producing music for the key non-generated aspects of the game, such as the main plot where you track down the conspiracy...(unless the conspiracy itself is procedurally generated!) Or, you know, you could split the difference and have human-generated songs mixed in with the computer-generated songs...and see if people can tell the difference.
Post by: Mephansteras on September 27, 2016, 11:31:18 am
Post by: Retropunch on September 28, 2016, 05:45:40 pm
Jukedeck (https://www.jukedeck.com) is a website that can generate music on-demand based on criteria that you specify. It's free to use so long as you give them credit (though you can pay 99 cents per song for a royalty-free license if you don't like giving them credit).
Not to sound argumentative, but I'm not too impressed with Jukedeck and it's not really alllll that suitable in my opinion.
There has been software (things like ACID) around since the 90s which just has loops that pretty much always fit together and will snap to tempo and key. For something like jukedeck you'd just say 'if 'aggressive' increase tempo and pick loops from the 'hard' folder'. Jukedeck seems pretty slim pickings as well, as you can only pick from about three sub-'types' per genre - nice if you need some placeholder stuff but it doesn't really do much, especially for the URR setting.
For procedurally generated music there are some much more interesting things you can do which take little work. Things like procedurally generated music matrices (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(music)), and just broken chords/arpeggios around the circle of fifths would work nicely. Going further, most cultures have their own scales - there's tons to work from (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_scales_and_modes) and you could just implement each civ having a particular scale of their own and have an incredible amount of very different sounding procedurally generated music to help bring each culture more to life.
As you said Skynet, the key to making this great would be to have the music embedded in the culture - certain civilizations tend to gravitate towards certain instruments, so you'd get certain types of music and sounds dependent on that as well.
Overall, I think music is an important part to have in the game - it's as central to a culture as art or clothing, and it's something that's hardly ever explored in games. More than that, I think it'd help the player become a lot more attached - having a civ that has music you really enjoy would obviously make you want to spend more time there for instance.
Post by: Skynet on September 29, 2016, 05:19:56 pm
The reason I suggested Jukedeck is simply due to my preference of reusing resources whenever possible. Jukedeck's program already exist, and while we can make it more "interesting", it takes a lot more work (especially due to the need to research music generation), and the amount of work being spent here in this field may not be productive, especially with a huge backlog of other features to implement. Jukedeck is "good enough" for generating useful placeholder music that can then be associated to the varying civilizations.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 29, 2016, 06:32:53 pm
In the mean time: any of you roguelikers at TwitchCon?!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtjXz4OVUAA4fyK.jpg)
Post by: Micro102 on September 30, 2016, 09:41:02 am
Why am I seeing 2 different graphic styles? Is it a small party game and if so why am I seeing references to armies? Is it just a different type of DF adventure mode?
Basically, sell this game to me.
Post by: NJW2000 on September 30, 2016, 11:32:54 am
RE: Small party game: people going with you may be added at some point, but for now its just you. However, there is meant to be "world activation", like in DF, in which historical figures, armies, groups etc are in certain places doing certain things, and sometimes moving around, during the game.
RE: DF Adventure mode: very broadly speaking, it is pretty similar, BUT: I think the main aim will in the end to find something out or uncover some sort of procedurally generated conspiracy. The designer is interested in the works of Umberto Eco, so if you've read any of them, it might give you an idea of the sort of thing he wants to simulate. Also, there's no fighting or quests now, but mostly just talking and looking at things.
Of course, the designer and people more knowledgeable about the game will be able to give better answers than this.
Post by: Zireael on September 30, 2016, 11:38:33 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on September 30, 2016, 03:32:12 pm
Can't download this right now, but it's got 200 pages of comments and I can't figure out what type of game it is.
Why am I seeing 2 different graphic styles? Is it a small party game and if so why am I seeing references to armies? Is it just a different type of DF adventure mode?
Basically, sell this game to me.
The game has undergone a colossal frame-shift from the start, where it was planned to be a roguelike high-fantasy strategy game, and is now a game of social analysis, unwinding the past of a procedurally generated continent to unveil a conspiracy to re-write history.
Edit: also there's no real gameplay downloadable yet, only what is effectively a walking simulator through an empty world. I advise reading the URR blog archives instead of the thread, they're more coherent.
Post by: Scoops Novel on October 22, 2016, 07:55:46 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 27, 2016, 10:58:08 am
In the mean time: I'm blogging every now and then, but still just so swamped (and unhappy) at work. Should emerge from this towards the middle of November. 0.8 is 95% done, and it's infuriating that I didn't get it out before this massive workload hit, but there you go. I'll be back as soon as I can everyone, I promise :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 10, 2016, 05:04:17 pm
So: where were we, and what remains to be done?
The State of 0.8
0.8 is, by far, the biggest release I have ever done and the biggest release I ever intend to do. Had I known that I’d run into this unexpected delay towards the end of the release, I would definitely not have tried to develop the speech systems alongside everything else and I would released everything except speech as 0.8, then released speech and conversations as 0.9, but as it stands, there are several major parts of 0.8:
NPCs
The current version available here on the site, 0.7, has a massively detailed world devoid of people. This has now been addressed, and there are millions of people – all procedurally generated, with the important ones stored and tracked, and the less important ones spawning and despawning to give a sense of the crowds the player moves through – that can be met in the in-game world. This, obviously, is one of the biggest changes to and developments in the game, and is the last major “system” that needs to be in place, and – via the conversation system – marks, finally, the beginning of actual gameplay! Although a lot of coding was required to keep track of NPCs at various resolutions, near the player, far from the player, inside buildings, outside buildings, inside or outside buildings that hadn’t been spawned yet, and so on and so forth, we finally got there. All NPC systems are finished, and only a few tiny bugs remain (found by my kind playtesters) to be fixed prior to a release of 0.8.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Priestsoldiers.gif)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/07/Gb1.png)
Clothing and Face Generation
Alongside these NPCs we have clothing and face generation. Clothing generation can offer many millions of variations of clothing styles, which the game then varies in four levels – “lower”, “middle”, “upper”, “ruler” – and distributes appropriately to NPCs. You can then view the clothing of anyone you run into, and the player of course now also starts with a set of clothing appropriate to the civilization they start in. Face generation, meanwhile, creates a set of genetic and cultural variations which can produce high hundreds of millions of faces, I believe, allowing you to make judgements about both the geographic and national/religious origins of people you encounter. Both of these systems are fully integrated and finished.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/04/PCface11.png)
Buildings, Districts, etc
An entirely new, massively, and massively important class of buildings have been added: castles. The aesthetics of these vary according to their civilisation of origin (as do all buildings) whilst what is found inside varies according to the ideological and religious orientations of that nation; you’ll find altars, banners, barracks, torture chambers, dungeons, libraries, studies, and a million other things in there (alongside a relevant set of NPCs to inhabit them and move around within them). In districts, meanwhile, I’ve gone over and changed a bunch of the generation algorithms, fixed some unusual edge cases which could sometimes appear, made sure NPCs can always path to where they need to path to, and basically ensured that districts do function correctly in all the ways they have to. All castles and district changes are in place with the exception of a few tiny bugs to do with castle generation that need to be resolved before release.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2015/12/FIve-Castles-3.png)
Speech and Conversations
This is the final one, and the biggest one, since it marks the first meaningful element of gameplay being introduced into the game – which is to say, talking to people, questioning them, acquiring information from, presenting oneself in certain ways, deciding which topics to pursue, and all the other conversation mechanics and dynamics I’ve talked about in blog posts before this one. Speech generation is partly complete, and conversation mechanics are partly complete.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/09/592.png)
What next?
Therefore, there are basically three objectives left to cover before I can release 0.8, each of which is probably approximately of around equal size:
1) Finish Speech Generation
The primary objective is, obviously, finishing the generation of all sentences and potential responses. Now, you’ll remember from some of the final blog entries before I went on the coding break that I was introducing some more complex speech systems, but I’ve decided it’s more important to get 0.8 than it is to implement all the speech dynamics I have in mind. As such, I’m toning back some of these ambitions for the 0.8 release, and whatever kinds of sentences and comments don’t make it into 0.8 will make it into the (small and compact) 0.9 that should appear quite soon afterwards. Nevertheless, there are lots of sentence archetypes that need finishing, lots of sentence components, lots of variations for ideologies/ geographies/ cultures/ religions/ etc that need to be implemented, and then – most importantly – I need to make it all actually generates correctly! There’s so much content in there that some weird grammar mistakes are bound to crop up, and I’m sure some spelling mistakes have slipped in too, all of which need to be fixed.
2) Finish Conversation Mechanics
Right now actual “conversations” don’t really happen, since the AI you’re talking to just produces a response without, for instance, asking you something back. As above, since I’m not putting in every possible sentence form in this release, I’m also not putting in ever possible conversation mechanic into this release, but I still want things to flow quite well and to be quite interesting to deal with. Even though I hope to get 0.9 out fairly speedily, this is still going to be a version a lot of people are going to play for a lot of time, and I want to make sure there’s enough there to reward the wait, even if 20% of the mechanics I want will just have to wait until a later version when I can take the time to really perfect them.
3) Finish all Tweaks, Fix Bugs, Optimisations, etc
Not much to say here – I just have a list of things that need fixing, and I’m going to fix them. Now, some of these I’m going to leave for 0.9, which is going to be a far shorter release anyway, though it’ll only be the bugs that aren’t game-breaking, or are perhaps entirely aesthetic, that I’ll leave until then. Anything critical, or anything that is definitely going to be noticed, needs to be fixed now.
Therefore:
It has been very hard on me to have to stop programming for a period and cease, however temporarily, working on a project that I care so much about and means so much to me. I know some people will have drifted away, I know the blog has lost some readership in the last few months, and – chances are – some people will have seen this as proof that a big project like this is doomed to fail! But worry not: we’re back, and the ramp back up to the speed I was developing last summer will take a little while, but it’s going to happen. My schedule and my life more generally will be freeing up gradually over the coming months, to some extent Jan/Feb/March, and even more so April/May/June/July, and that spare time will be going into URR. Next summer (much like last summer) in particular will give me ample time to code, and I’ll certainly be taking advantage of it. I’m starting now to keep the code open, to check in on what needs doing, remind myself where I left off, and to start slowly but surely developing the speech content first and foremost, as that’s certainly the easiest thing to get back into the swing with. URRpdates in the coming weeks might be smaller than normal, but they will still have something to show. URR is back, and the final push towards the first gameplay release is now – finally – on.
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 10, 2016, 06:28:52 pm
Post by: Retropunch on December 11, 2016, 10:04:17 am
Re: lost readership/people drifting away:
This happens with so many projects, even when the developers are working hard behind the scenes.
The key to preventing this is communication - even a one liner blog update every week or so to say 'been working on some name gen stuff' is all it takes, even if that 'working' was really just you jotting down a few ideas whilst waiting for the bus.
So many projects just lose traction and support over time because a lot of projects just suddenly stop mid way through. I can't count the amount of projects I've been interested in and invested time in for them to suddenly just fold without any notice. Again, it doesn't need to be much, but I'd really encourage you to just send out a few lines or two every week to keep people updated on progress.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 18, 2016, 10:49:29 am
Re: regular updates - yes! See the update below for this. I'm going to keep them coming weekly once more now, hopefully indefinitely, and even if the update is tiny I'm still going to put it up...
---
As you may have seen last week, the development on 0.8 is finally ramping back up again. It has been a long road here, and a far longer one than I would have liked, but I now finally find myself with enough time on my hands to actually re-open that famously lengthy Python file and finish off this gigantic release. Last week I put out something of an overview of where the game stands at the moment, and what needs to be done: which is to say, basically, finishing off the content for speech generation, finishing off the most basic version of the conversation system I would actually feel comfortable releasing, and then dealing with whatever bugs and minor issues remain that cannot wait unil 0.9 (which is to say, crash bugs, or other kinds of serious errors).
The easiest thing to resume work on is the content of conversations. All the data structures and whatnot are present for me to put this stuff in; I just have to actually write it. That’s what I’ve been tasking myself with this week, and I realised that this wasn’t really finished, and that there were quite a few new kinds of variation I could add – with only the tiniest alterations to code – that would bring a lot of extra variety to the whole thing. Therefore, for the last few days in my spare time I’ve resumed fleshing out, and adding more detail to, the conversation system. This basically means ensuring that for all the possible political ideologies, and the various religious orientations that might come up, and so forth, people will have something appropriate and reasonable to say which will (in some cases) hint back towards their backgrounds and beliefs. The central part of this was filling out all the possible “expansions” – where an NPC can say a little something extra about a particular topic, as informed by their background. I thought I had done so previously, but I now recognise this wasn’t the case and there was a lot of valuable (and easy to add) extra content I could include. These are now all complete!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Fairma.png)
I also went to the list of alternatives for certain words in sentences – where one is selected at random for each word for each civilization – and finished this list off as well. As with the above, there was definitely more to be added here, and doing something relatively coding-simple, but content-heavy, has also helped with getting me back into the swing of things.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Suchtext.png)
Lastly, I also finished off another segment of the game’s conversation system, which is ensuring that multiple phrases with the same meaning, but slightly different contexts or grammatical structures, are consistent. Which is to say, if is a civilization might use the phrase “put to death” in place of “executed”, then “execution” should also be “putting to death” – see what I mean? In this case the game randomly selects the way of expressing the “base phrase”, in this case “executed”, and then cycles through all the possible derivatives of that phrase and ensures that they are all combined with the original base phrase, such as “executed”, “executing”, and so forth. In some cases this is trivial, and in some cases more complex. For example, the word “produce” might be rendered for different civilizations as “produce”, “create”, “cultivate”; to render them in the past tense, it simply needs to add a “d” onto the end. However, if the words were also “make”, “yield”, and so forth, these have different rules to be transformed into “made” and “yielded”; I’ve therefore implemented a set of fairly simple but quite comprehensive grammatical rules to ensure that different tenses and uses can be handled, and that the game will also use the right one for a particular civilization when it has someone from that culture say a particular word.
So, that’s now all there is to say this week. However, I’ve had several comments that have stressed the importance of keeping updates rolling now that development has resumed, even if things start out slow and quite minimal. As such, I would expect some of these updates to be quite brief (like this one), but I think it’s better for me to put out short updates than to save them for longer updates and do other pieces in the interim: it’s important to me that it’s clear to everyone that development is moving again, and to gradually regain the momentum I had until around last September or so. In the coming seven days I’ll be looking at the set of conversation variables that have to take account of potentially-changing external factors, and be generated in particular sentences, which are currently as follows…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/brack.png)
These need to be always able to draw on the relevant bit of information being mentioned, and to “output” with an appropriate grammatical structure. So, for instance, [god] is the name and title of one’s deity or set of deities; [greatestbattle] is the name of the most important battle of that nation; and so on and so forth. This is probably the next big task in speech generation, I think, after which the conversation mechanics will be returned to. This week I’m hoping to implement a basic framework for these elements, and start to get characters drawing upon their backgrounds and life information to fill them out correctly.
See you next week!
Post by: Retropunch on December 18, 2016, 11:57:21 am
One thing I was thinking about in passing was about how you'll deal with repeat questioning on the same subject? Will the option be greyed out/removed once asked, or will it sometimes add more information if asked twice? will they get annoyed if you keep asking?
I only ask because getting the same exact response each time seems a little bit immersion breaking, but then again the NPC possibly giving more info on a second try would mean the player would CONSTANTLY ask the same question multiple times. I'd prefer if they said something like 'I already answered that/we already spoke of this' and get annoyed if the player keeps asking.
A little thing, but I think things like that do count a lot.
Post by: Ehndras on December 19, 2016, 01:00:15 am
Post by: Zireael on December 19, 2016, 05:48:20 am
I went in roughly the same direction with conversations in my own roguelike (which is on hold because I'm experimenting with UE4 engine [and more procedural stuff!!!! procedural pseudo-Japanese names are cool af!!!])
Post by: Ehndras on December 19, 2016, 06:28:02 am
Hey, on the violence thing...
All of those are great and all, but... No deviation? No one who doesn't like violence because they were raided, maimed, raped, lost loved ones in a war, some great big historical event? I mean, come on. Cue the angst!
Comma_adds ['Violence'] .append ('the final bastion of self-righteous ego')
Comma_adds ['Violence'] .append ('the realm of barbarism and mania')
Comma_adds ['Violence'] .append ('the bane of prosperous tranquility')
Comma_adds ['Violence'] .append ('final moment before thy dagger's fated kiss.')
Comma_adds ['Violence'] .append ('a means to keep the common man in his place')
Etc. Spice it up. :) Not everyone in the universe feels the same way, especially about something as profound as violence/war/etc.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 19, 2016, 08:20:05 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2016, 08:30:35 am
Repetition - people will never say the same thing twice. If you ask them again, they'll say "I just told you that", or "Like I said, the answer is X", or whatever, and if again, they'll become more annoyed, and so forth, and will quickly just abandon talking to you altogether.
Post by: Zireael on December 19, 2016, 03:20:32 pm
Quote
Repetition - people will never say the same thing twice. If you ask them again, they'll say "I just told you that", or "Like I said, the answer is X", or whatever, and if again, they'll become more annoyed, and so forth, and will quickly just abandon talking to you altogether.
Does URR have a notes/journal system, then, for conversations? If asking again makes people annoyed?
Post by: Skynet on December 19, 2016, 04:54:18 pm
(Or even just open up Notepad and then copy and paste the text regularly into the Notepad document.)
Post by: Ehndras on December 19, 2016, 09:57:17 pm
Post by: Retropunch on December 20, 2016, 06:26:24 am
I know you've been bombarded by questions, but I have a sort of question/request - would you consider doing a more technical blog post on libtcod/python? I believe you're probably the authority on the subject now, and it's a fantastic way for people to get into roguelikes and programming in general - I've got three friends into programming through the libtcod tutorial!
I was mainly just thinking in terms of some tips and tricks, map building and so on with a few snippets here and there as examples. I'd be very interested in reading some of the ins-and-outs, and I do believe it'd bring in a bit more interest - anything on python tends to!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2016, 01:57:30 pm
Does URR have a notes/journal system, then, for conversations? If asking again makes people annoyed?
It will! Not in 0.8, but very soon.
It's okay if URR doesn't have a notes/journal system, because the player will just simply carry around a notepad and write down everything the NPCs says. ;)
(Or even just open up Notepad and then copy and paste the text regularly into the Notepad document.)
Haha, that sounds agonising. I did vaguely actually consider that kind of old-school system, but although it does have a certain nostalgia, I just didn't think it was viable here...
Also, for the armour synonym list (a bit sparse?) perhaps garb, kit, equipment, protection, defense, and gear may be applicable.
Ah, in many cases its due to grammatical specifics of the kinds of sentence it can arise in, but I agree, some of those work well. They're now in!
Great to hear about the repition - it'll definitely help keep the immersion.
I know you've been bombarded by questions, but I have a sort of question/request - would you consider doing a more technical blog post on libtcod/python? I believe you're probably the authority on the subject now, and it's a fantastic way for people to get into roguelikes and programming in general - I've got three friends into programming through the libtcod tutorial!
I was mainly just thinking in terms of some tips and tricks, map building and so on with a few snippets here and there as examples. I'd be very interested in reading some of the ins-and-outs, and I do believe it'd bring in a bit more interest - anything on python tends to!
More tech post: arrghhhhhh. I mean... maybe? I know, obviously, that I have tended to avoid writing that kind of thing before, but I suppose I could consider some kind of set of tips and tricks and best practice, building on my experience of the past few years. Let's class that as a "maybe"... I would not rule it out, but I honestly will consider it :). I have a whole bunch of future entries planned for the final stages of the 0.8 release, though, and another two general games commentary posts, but I'll keep it in mind for the summer. If I haven't written it once 0.8 has been out a few weeks - remind me!
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This week I’ve finished off the generator for greetings, farewells, compliments, insults, threats, and giving thanks; each of these can produce easily over tens of thousands of variations, and then when you factor in elements outside the sentence generator itself – the name of a god, the title of a ruler, and so forth – we readily push well up into the millions. In this entry I’ll talk a little about how these generate, give some examples, and look at the kinds of roles I want these elements to play within the conversation system.
In working on the speech generation, it quickly became clear that having a set of phrases distinctive to each nation will be an easy and quick way to potentially identify the national origin of a character you’re talking to (and an easy way to fake your own, if you know all the common phrases…) and so I’ve tried to break these down into appropriate groupings. In the end I decided that there were six major categories I could vary from culture to culture: greetings, farewells, insults, compliments, threats, and thanks. Each of these will be generated for each culture, and will also vary each individual time anyone says one, so one person from Culture X might say “So long for the time being, and may our great military leadership lead us ever forwards”, whilst another from the same culture might say “Goodbye for now, and let us hope our grand military leaders lead us forever onwards” – and so forth. This has required another large table of syllables, of course, but since these are very regular and common sayings I thought it was extremely important to make sure these varied even within cultures and between individuals, rather than (as with most phrases) having them vary only, or primarily, between cultures and religions and backgrounds, and so forth.
Greetings
For greetings I wanted to make sure that these would be sentences that wouldn’t be too lengthy and therefore potentially annoying to see repeatedly, but should also contain at least a little bit of detail in them (this applies to most conversation elements, but I think greetings are particularly relevant in this regard). I went through several iterations of how these might be generated until I was able to settle on one that hit these two requirements (brevity and detail) reasonably well. At this point, therefore, greetings tend to be of the structure “[Greetings] [from] [X]”. The first element will vary between cultures and between individuals, such as “Greetings”, “Good [time of day]”, “I greet you”, “My greetings”, and so forth. These can sometimes be pushed to the back, so you might get “From X, Greetings” or “Greetings from X” – some variations are grammatically correct in both variations, whilst some are only correct in one variation, and this is all coded in. The second element will vary in the same kind of way – “from”, “on behalf of”, etc – and so will the third, which is inevitably the most varied element. This third element will look at who the individual is and the kinds of beliefs they have, and then generate or select an appropriate greeting as a result. In most cases they will explicitly mention their nation of origin (e.g. “Greetings from the brave soldiers of [nation]”), though in some rare case they will mention their religious belief in their greeting instead of a national or cultural origin (“My greetings on behalf of the zealous defenders of [god]”). As you can see from those two examples, in the first case it seems reasonable to assume the speaker is proud of their army – perhaps a standing army, or perhaps an imperialist nation? – whilst the latter is clearly strongly religious, so perhaps they come from a theocratic or religious zealous nation? Here are a bunch of examples – see you can take some guesses about the political / religious / cultural / geographical / etc backgrounds of the speakers…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting1.png)
Farewells
So, farewells once more needed to be something that could vary sufficiently much and sufficiently often for them to not get boring when somebody might be talking to the player multiple times, or the player might be talking to numerous people in the same civilization or who worship the same religion. This varies by being broken down into polite, neutral, and sharp farewells. A polite farewell would be of the form “[1]” + “[2]” + “[3]” + “fond_farewell” + “specific_farewell” + “!”. So, this might be something like “I’m afraid I” + “have to” + “take my leave.” + ” Now I bid you goodbye, and” + “may you find enlightenment in study” (for a monastic nation). Or, alternatively, “Alas, I” + “must” + “depart.” + “I say farewell, and” + “may all of your hunts bring trophies and glory” (for a venatic nation). A neutral farewell does not contain the first section, and does not contain the “Now I bid you goodbye”, so whereas a polite farewell might be “I’m afraid I have to take my leave. Now I bid you goodbye, and may you find enlightenment in study!”, a neutral farewell would be “I have to take my leave. May you find enlightenment in study.”, whilst a sharp farewell uses the same earlier components and a different end component – rather than a culture or religion-specific end point, you would get something like “I have to take my leave. May all be well” – a generic, general departure which is sharp and not especially friendly. Again, here are some examples, which should give you clues about the speakers…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting2.png)
Compliments
Next up, a pair of related elements – compliments and insults. Each of these will come up less often, but I still naturally wanted these to be very distinctive for each nation, and each example will be worded differently on each generation. “I wager you are as wise and far-sighted as a hawk”, or “I believe you are as clever and sage as the hawk”, or “I know you to be as smart and far-seeing as a great hawk”, and so on and so forth; it’s clearly the same greeting, but each person says it in a different way and will say it in a different way each time, too, to ensure that kind of variety is maintained. These again generate according to ideologies and religions and so forth, and I think they yield a very pleasing level of variation. Examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting5.png)
Insults
Insults were slightly tougher. Whereas compliments can work quite well if saying pleasant generic things, insults have to be relevant to a range of reasons why they might be insulting the player – refusing a trade, stealing from them, challenging them in combat, being a worshipper of a forbidden religion, or whatever. You wouldn’t want a character to kill somebody in an arena, and then someone from a pacifist nation praises them for their pacifistic tendencies. I’ve mixed things up to therefore create broader, and more sweeping sentences that should be applicable to a range of possible situations, whilst still allowing the character to say a logical compliment. Originally my plan was to make insults and threats fairly interchangeable, but just alter the first few words. So an insult would start “May you”, or “You should be”, “You ought to be”, or whatever, whereas a threat would be “I will see you”, “You will be”, “I will have you”, and the like. In the end I decided not to go with this model and to introduce variation between the two and thereby more overall variety into the conversation system (the kind of decision I’ve usually made!) and I split these into two. It was much easier to build appropriate threat generation than insult generation, actually, but the insults have come out really nicely and have a rather unusual sense to them; they’re quite distinctive, and run through quite a range of different ideas and concepts. Examples once more:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting3.png)
Threats
Threats, then, are similar to insults, and the variation is best illustrated simply by showing some examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting6.png)
Thanks
Last, but not least: we have “thanks”. These start with words like “As”, “Being”, “Speaking as”, and so forth, and then something to do with their background, and then a form of thanks. For instance, someone from a conscript nation might say “Being a conscript proud to serve [herhis] [homeland], [thanks]”, or someone from a zealotry background might say “Being as one with the great light of [god], [thanks]”, and so forth. These are shorter and snappier than some of the other generated sentences in this set of six, but they work very well, and again get the point across snappily and effectively, whilst being relevant in a lot of situations. Whereas insults and threats were tricky because they were dependent on what the player had done to merit the insult/threat, thanks are dependent on the speaker who is relating what particular traits or characteristics they find especially valuable. Examples:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2016/12/Greeting4.png)
Next Week
By next week I should have these actually implemented into the game, rather than Python’s output log, and these will come up during conversations. I’m still deciding how exactly things will work with regard to when you say greetings – perhaps they will be automatic, or perhaps they will come up as a default option, or something like that – because I want these to be present to make conversations appropriate and smooth and realistic, but also not add unnecessary work greeting every time. Right now I think the best solution is for the game to automatically give you the greeting options when you open a conversation, rather than having you enter the greeting options manually, but I’ll try a few options and decide on which runs the best. Aside from that, I’ll be continuing work onto speech generation, and slowly moving towards the conversation system – the former is easier to get back into, so I’ve been working there so far, but I’ll now be slowly transitioning into handling the conversation system elements. See you all next week!
Post by: Innsmothe on December 26, 2016, 05:27:57 pm
I must commend your seemingly unerring passion into your project. Not many people can put that much energy consistently into anything. <3
Post by: Scoops Novel on December 26, 2016, 09:49:14 pm
As for the phrases, I'm guessing you've got blunt versions? :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 31, 2016, 09:45:39 am
Jesus Christ you are amazing. O.o.
I must commend your seemingly unerring passion into your project. Not many people can put that much energy consistently into anything. <3
Hahaha, thanks :). It took a while to free the space to get back, but I'm not anticipating any further breaks now. Just need to get 0.8 finished, and released, and then we can see where we are...
Have you thought how to keep the player in touch with their favourite epochs? I know you want to move the world forward whenever we lose the game, and that's well and good. I'd like to have some kind of continuity for that one world i really loved playing in though. Maybe it should be possible to continue play in a world, but everytime you do it you have even less time to figure out the mystery?
As for the phrases, I'm guessing you've got blunt versions? :P
On the first point... I haven't really considered it, and I'm really disinclined, but your idea of "less time to solve the mystery" if you start a NEW character in the SAME world is a really interesting one. I'll think about it!
Oh yes, some are blunter, shorter, always trying to maximise the variation (and you will, of course, never see so many of the same "kind" of statement together in-game as you have here!)
---
Meanwhile, here's this week's blog entry, "2016 in Review", with a summation of URR development and everything else I've found myself up to in the world of games in the last year:
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2016/12/31/2016-in-review/
Post by: pondicherry on December 31, 2016, 01:21:43 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 05, 2017, 10:03:13 am
Your work and commintment are so so impressive. Have a great 2017!
Thanks pondicherry :) - you too!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 10, 2017, 06:43:00 pm
(Warning: due to the nature of this update being entirely programming, the adding of new content, and developing elements that aren’t yet finished and ready to show off, I’m afraid there are no images. Hopefully some screenshots will be back next week!)
NPC Personalities
Firstly this week, in the process of filling out the “options” responses (see below), I needed to actually come in and add some of the personality modifiers for NPCs. In some cases these apply to all NPCs irrespective of whether they are important or not, and in some cases they apply only to the important NPCs that game tracks independently as the player moves around the world, and then in other cases they are relevant only to important NPCs of particular classes (for example, only a gladiator needs to have a fully-formed opinion about the crowds who watch gladiatorial combat). There is now a pretty large set of personality traits that NPCs possess, which affect their actions and their responses – and as with everything, should give the player hints about their origins, backgrounds, allegiances, and so forth. There are definitely too many to look at them all in depth here, but there’s a few particularly interesting ones which I’ll recount here. These include:
like_of_other_countries: This personality trait, somewhat obviously, determines what individuals think about other countries beyond their own. As with many of the traits here, this trait is modified by a range of factors. These include the NPC class and background of the individual person, and the wider ideologies of their nation, and their religion, alongside a small random component throw in to ensure that two NPCs with the same demographics will not always match up exactly, but will still generally be within a logical variation on either side of a set of beliefs. For example, an “explorer” from an “internationalist” nation is likely to think very positively about the rest of the world; a “jailer” or “officer” from an “imperialist” nation is likely to think very negatively about the rest of the world; and so on across all the NPC classes, and potential modifiers for national and religious preferences. Taken on a broad scale, you’ll be able to identify commonalities and overall feelings in a culture, but individuals will still vary significantly according to their individual life experiences.
like_of_art: This trait determines what kind of interest the person has in artistic outputs (paintings, sculpture, etc – there is an equivalent for “literature”, which will cover books, poetry, etc). This is affected once more by the kind of NPC you’re talking to, and to the ideologies of the nation in question. For example, a nation with a strong cultural interest in aesthetics will naturally produce those who like art a lot more; whereas a nation with a strong intellectual interest in mathematics or mechanical engineering will likely be less interested in works of art. This will affect how much people are willing to tell you about the artwork of their homeland, how much they know about it, and give you some hints about the place of artwork in that culture and therefore where (and what) artwork you might be able to find, which might yield clues in your central quest.
religious_zeal: This is a trait affecting quite a range of responses. This will affect how NPCs respond to you if it becomes apparent that you belong to a different religion, what NPCs think about heresy, how friendly and well-disposed they are towards inquisitions and other religious rules and strictures, how they act towards priests, what kinds of money or resources they give to their church, and so forth. Although most obviously living in a theocracy will boost the average religious zeal, this still varies a lot between individuals, in large part from their status in society, their contact with other nations and religions, and their personal history and relationship with the religion in question. There’s a wide set of speech replies that draw on this particular trait, and I’m very happy with how these have all turned out.
policy_acceptance and X_preference: There is a set of nine related traits: the first is policy_acceptance, and the others are X_preference, where X is foreign, military, leadership, and so forth, for each policy grouping in each culture/nation. The first of these refers to the overall contentment of the individual with the general policies of their homeland. Leaders and regents will, naturally, be extremely positive about the policies that they themselves have implemented and oversee; nobles and lords will generally be very positive, but may express small amounts of concern about particular elements of policy; and so on and so forth across the full set of NPC classes, with some classes having much higher chances to have serious issues with the policies, and some classes having particular issues with particular policies – a jailer will almost always think building prisons is a great idea, a prisoner will almost always disagree, and so forth. The second of these, the set of eight preferences, refers to what policy the NPC would like to see implemented instead of the current policy in each of the eight areas. The number of “other policies” an NPC likes is dependent on their overall policy acceptance, and then what alternatives they like vary according to their NPC class and a range of other elements. For now these just lead to a wide range of interesting conversation replies, but in the future I’m hoping to do much more with these personality traits and individual/personal preferences.
leadership_like: This trait refers to how much the NPC likes the leadership of their nation. This is not to say the leadership policy of their nation, as above – theocracy, monarchy, etc – but the individual personality/personalities of the person/people at the top. There are a lot of elements which go into this particular decision for each NPC, and as with the above set, I’m hoping to later tie this into the potential for social movements, conspiracies, and the like…
fellow_soldier_opinion: For those who are within the military, this determines what they think of their fellow soldiers. This varies by rank, by leadership, and by the individual histories of particular soldiers. I’m not quite sure what else this variable will affect yet – beyond a couple of possible conversation replies – but I think it could be a nice way to build up a sense of how different military forces function in the URR world.
There are many others beyond these, but these should give a good idea of the kinds of personality traits that URR NPCs have. As with much of the game, these numbers will not be explicitly visible to the player, but rather should become apparent by the behaviour of the NPC, which – hopefully – should be rich and detailed enough that one can actually draw these kinds of conclusions, and then use this kind of information to make informed strategic decisions about your relationship to that NPC. In turn, all the sentences that NPCs can say which draw upon these elements have been finished, and offer a massive variety of comments and observations that NPCs can make through drawing on their perspectives, understandings, and past experiences.
Insults and Compliments Revisited
Secondly this past fortnight, I took the feedback from several people on-board about the insults and compliments, and decided to revisit these. Although the greetings and farewells vary substantially in length and detail – and, of course, one will never see lots of these in quick succession as we do in these blog posts – the same wasn’t quite true for insults and compliments, so I’ve adjusted these. There are now a range of shorter and snappier insults and compliments, and these have been added appropriately to the game’s databases of possible statements.
I also this week took all the farewells, greetings, thanks, insults, compliments, and threats out of the demonstration file and implemented them into the main game. This took a while because these sentences are generated in a unique way to give a particularly high amount of variation compared to other sentences (because they are so common) and they need to vary both overall between cultures/religions, and in individual moments of speech, so that two people from the exact same background will themselves offer different farewells at different times. This seems to be all in place now, however, and NPCs can now give these statements at appropriate times!
Option Responses
The third major body of work completed this week was what I’ve taken to calling “option responses”. Some questions are easy to answer, since the answer will always take the same form with a word or two exchanged – these are “basic responses”. Other questions are harder to answer, which split into “option responses” (where responses are very different depending on the nature of the answer) and “list responses” (where a response will always take the form of a list). This week I’ve been working on the option responses. Some of the questions that have these kinds of responses include:
What do you think of the leadership?
What do you believe your foreign policy should be?
What do you think of your culture’s art?
What are the religious policies of your nation?
How widely spread is your religion?
What is your job?
What is the history of this monastery?
In all of these cases the game can’t just take a default sentence and then vary it, but it has to instead select a sentence from a wide set depending on the data available, and then create that sentence anew each time. There are substantially more possible “base” responses for option questions than there are for all the basic sentences combined, which gives some idea of the kind of variation that some of these need to have. With this fortnight finished, I’ve now finished these off, and I’m very happy with the kinds of sentences they create – they’re varied, detailed, and will take far longer than the basic sentences before the player will ever come around to seeing the “same” sentences again.
Conclusion
This fortnight has seen some major progress in sentence generation and the conversation system, and we’re almost at the point where the player should be able to have a full – if thus far a little basic – conversation with every NPC you encounter. Stay tuned!
Post by: Retropunch on January 11, 2017, 01:04:30 am
I especially love the way you're developing NPC Personalities - I honestly don't think it's been done before on an individual NPC level, and I can't wait to see it in action.
In terms of traits; will there be more 'individual' traits as well (like 'selfish', 'drunk', 'generous', 'talkative' etc.)? The ones listed seem mostly to do with their thoughts on certain issues rather than their personal quirks. I can imagine these may only properly effect gameplay later on (selfish vs generous shop keepers for instance) but it'd be interesting to see these more individual traits come in.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 24, 2017, 08:17:09 am
Looks fantastic.
I especially love the way you're developing NPC Personalities - I honestly don't think it's been done before on an individual NPC level, and I can't wait to see it in action.
In terms of traits; will there be more 'individual' traits as well (like 'selfish', 'drunk', 'generous', 'talkative' etc.)? The ones listed seem mostly to do with their thoughts on certain issues rather than their personal quirks. I can imagine these may only properly effect gameplay later on (selfish vs generous shop keepers for instance) but it'd be interesting to see these more individual traits come in.
Excellent! Yeah, I'm really happy with how these things are looking at the moment, and everything is coming along so nicely. It's so exciting to ask ANY question (well, almost any question, right now) and see a logical, sensible, and grammatically-correct (normally) reply come out. Those kinds of quirks: interesting, and I do like the idea, but definitely not in 0.8. Going for only the absolute essentials to get the blasted thing out asap!
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Lots of major developments (and some minor ones) in URR this fortnight! Firstly, all the content I added last week meant that a whole new set of words and phrases had to be added to the lexicon; the best part of a thousand in total, if I’m counting correctly. I’ve now implemented all of these, and the game can correctly vary the words from all these new sentences by drawing on these new additions to the central lexicon. Secondly, I’ve now almost finished what I’m calling the “standard” or “basic” conversation system, which is ensuring NPCs can reply to every question they are asked; this should be done by this time next week. Thirdly, a wide range of further variables for individuals and the cultures they hail from have been implemented, and are now having an effect on what kinds of things NPCs will say. Another very, very text-heavy post this week – although next week’s will contain a lot of screenshots, this week continues to be lots of under-the-hood programming and content addition that cannot, yet, be reflected in screenshots, but is getting pretty damned close. Read on!
More Variations for New Words
Firstly, as above, there was a huge set of new words and phrases that needed to be varied for each culture, as with all the others. These entered the game because I was writing the new “option” answers (see last week’s entry), and needed to be written up. This was one of those tasks that isn’t especially intellectually challenging or needs a lot of programming experience, but mostly just involves adding a massive chunk of “content” which the game will then deploy in the appropriate situations. With this finished, I’m very happy with those look, and the sentences read really well and really nicely. Here’s a screenshot from the new set – I’m sure you can see how/where a lot of these fit in…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/01/Morewords.png)
I also went through the existing words, and decided to statistically bias some of them back towards slightly shorter variations, and therefor slightly shorter sentences, as a response to the feedback I regularly get about some of the sentences being too wordy. You’ll see the same in the earlier example, where we have some sets using the same short word twice to boost the chance of that word being selected (this is of course not an especially elegant way to do it, but let’s be honest: my programming is not known for its elegance). This should ensure that sentences will tend to be just a little shorter and a little less wordy, and I’m going to continue this trend of chopping out irrelevant words whilst maintaining sentence variety – though this is a tricky balance to strike.
Nearing Completion on Standard Conversations
The development of the game towards what I’ve been calling the ability to have a “basic conversation” – i.e. the traditional question-and-answer session that one gets in most games, where the player asks something, the NPC responds, and this pattern continues until all conversation options have been exhausted – is now extremely close. NPCs respond correctly for all the “basic” questions (about 1/2 of all questions), and for the “options” questions (about 1/4 of questions), and are in the process of being programmed to respond appropriately to the “list” questions (also about 1/4 of all questions). This is the final step to them being able to ask any NPC any question, and get a response. For now these responses are all truthful, and they always answer, but this will still be a huge milestone once finished. As such, by this time next week, I’ll be able to show off the basic conversation system working universally, for all possible inputs and outputs, even if a few placeholders like “[holybook]” will still be in place, rather than the appropriate text itself. From my current trials with it, it looks amazing, and the experience of being able to select any question from this gigantic list and get an appropriate and sensible response is really something. It has been a long time coming, but I’m very confident that 0.8 will be worth the wait.
New Individual and National Variables
This week I also found myself needing to implement a large number of additional variables for both individuals, and in some cases for nations and religions and cultures, which NPCs would need to draw upon when they give their responses to particular questions and sets of questions.
Mercenaries
A range of new variables were implemented this week for mercenaries, along with quite a complex formula to decide on how much mercenaries cost to hire. There are four elements here – how much training a mercenary has had (counted in years, generally as a soldier, or in an arena, or they simply became a mercenary immediately and learned on the go), how much experience they’d had (how many years they’ve served as a mercenary, and also some specific stories/information about what they’ve done during their tenure), and then a list of benefits and conditions each mercenary brings. For each mercenary, the game develops a possible list of each according to their background. For instance, a particularly zealous mercenary might refuse to fight their own religion (a condition) but be especially keen to fight other religions (benefit). This system is naturally comparable to a lot of modern roguelike games where you have PCG characters with selections of “traits” (or an equivalent term) that mix positives and negatives, and task the player with interesting strategic decisions. The game then figures out how much “true money” a mercenary costs to hire (a secret number converted into in-game currencies whenever it’ll appear on screen), which goes by a formula I’ve developed. Broadly speaking, better-trained and more-experienced mercenaries will naturally cost more, and the more benefits they bring the more they cost, but the more conditions they bring, the less they cost. There’s a bit more to it than that, but some initial testing has shown that this attends some very satisfying results.
National Voting Rights
Here’s an interesting one – the question of national voting rights. At the moment when each nation generates, a die is rolled to decide whether women, men, or both are allowed to hold the throne (or whatever the equivalent of the “throne” is). It then considers who is allowed to join the military – if only one sex is allowed to hold the throne, then that sex will always be able to serve in the military, and sometimes the other one will be too; if either is allowed to hold the throne, then both will be allowed to serve (generally). I’ve now extended this to voting right; if either can hold the throne, then both can vote, but if only one can hold the throne, then normally only that sex is allowed to vote, but sometimes the other sex is allowed to vote at a “reduced vote”, e.g. one quarter of the other. There is no real-world bias here so it’s totally randomised between F/M/either, and all variants are equally likely, although certain ideologies make “Only one not the other” decisions more likely than others (Imperialist nations are more likely to restrict, democratic nations are less likely to restrict, and so forth, although this is not absolute or guaranteed).
Nomadic and Tribal Relations
There are now variables to determine how much particular NPCs like tribal and nomadic nations. This draws upon the general feelings of individuals about other nations, which in turn of course draws on a range of ideological and historical factors, but also then modulates this further according to particular ideologies (if these are a close match with lots of tribal/nomadic states), and the individual classes of the NPCs. These will therefore be generally close to a more general feeling about foreign lands, but also quite different in particular contexts, and will affect what NPCs say about their nations, what they’re willing to tell you, what they themselves have “bothered” to find out (if they care), and so forth.
Delegates and Parties
This week I also implemented the first half of the system that will determine what kinds of political parties exist in democratic nations, which parties hold power, and how these parties will have shifted over time. To assess the political leanings of each nation, the game first goes through all of their ideological preferences and develops a set of overall political leanings for the nation, going by some axes that the majority of real-world political parties go by: are they primarily globalist or nationalist, are they liberal or conservative, are they religious or atheistic, are they collectivist or individualist, and so on and so forth. For instance, the “Isolationist” ideology will naturally add a lot to nationalist, and some to conservative, and a little bit to conservative; the “Aesthetics” ideology will promote individualism, but also nationalism, but also a little bit of globalism, and might also support religious iconography… and so on and so forth. Then, if there is a strong specific religious belief in that nation, it checks what political leanings that religion has (is it very peaceful towards others? Does it enjoy holy wars? Etc) and adds that into the mix where appropriate. The game then ranks these overall national political leanings, and then selects a number of parties, before going through each party and having the central tenet of that party be one of the leanings, starting with the biggest leaning and working down. So a nation that is first and foremost “liberal” will have its biggest party adopt a broadly liberal position, with smatterings of other political tendencies lower down the list for that nation. Once that is done, the game then looks at whereabouts delegates come from in that nation – do they come from districts of the capital, from towns, from monasteries, from farms – and distributes delegates appropriately to each party, depending on its political leanings (and generates a procedural name for the party, although this isn’t finished yet, but I’ll show some off soon). This party affiliation will allow delegates to comment on the current political situation according to their own allegiance – which was the only reason I implemented all of this now! But it’s nice to have it in place, and it makes the democratic nations just a little more fleshed-out, even if it’ll be the small 0.9 release where we really see this more visibly.
There are also about another thirty new variables added in this week alongside the ones listed here, but I decided to mention these four as they struck me as being some of the more intriguing examples from the selection. As noted last week, these variables are entirely hidden (or rather, the numbers in each variable are hidden) and are always going to be represented instead by who people are, how they act, how they dress, what they say, where you find them, who they worship, who they serve, and so on and so forth…
Next Week
The completion of the standard conversation system, all questions/answers for all possible questions, and a lot of screenshots to show it off! It has been a while since we’ve had any proper in-game screenshots, so it’s definitely time to actually give you all a look at how (incredibly neat) everything is looking now. See you then!
Post by: Retropunch on January 24, 2017, 10:17:19 am
National Voting Rights
Here’s an interesting one – the question of national voting rights. At the moment when each nation generates, a die is rolled to decide whether women, men, or both are allowed to hold the throne (or whatever the equivalent of the “throne” is). It then considers who is allowed to join the military – if only one sex is allowed to hold the throne, then that sex will always be able to serve in the military, and sometimes the other one will be too; if either is allowed to hold the throne, then both will be allowed to serve (generally).
I find this a bit of a weird one. Whilst I know you're not going for a real world analogue, the vast majority of civilisations that have had female rulers have still only allowed male soldiers. Take our own country for instance, we've had tons of Queens whilst not allowing women to serve in the military.
All previous civilisations (Egyptians and so forth) have had similar.
Again, I realise you're not going for a parallel to real life, but it seems strange to have the norm being that the throne holder's gender can always serve.
Post by: zaimoni on January 24, 2017, 12:23:14 pm
That said, low fantasy is rife with dying or nearly-exterminated societies where this is appropriate.
Post by: Retropunch on January 24, 2017, 01:04:58 pm
If your army has pretty much zero force multipliers, you just need large numbers of people to fight, hence you want as big of a population as necessary. If you have 1 in 4 children dying in childbirth (and a mother 1 in 100), you kinda need to make sure that you have women around to procreate and not fighting in wars and dying/being injured. Also, many women of young to middle age were pretty much CONSTANTLY pregnant during their life times, with a year or two apart at max making them not particularly effective soldiers.
I can imagine cultural/religious reasons allowing it/enforcing it, but for even basic time period accuracy it seems a bit odd for it to be a 50% chance. My main issue though is just that you'll be ending up with around 30% of civilisations having a woman leader with women fighting and men not. Again, whilst I realise it's not looking for historical accuracy, it's biologically not sensible.
Post by: NJW2000 on January 24, 2017, 03:37:55 pm
This is getting pretty Ursula LeGuin...
Post by: Neonivek on January 24, 2017, 05:43:26 pm
Yeah, from a medieval/renaissance time period perspective, allowing women in the military isn't particularly wise - hence why it was nearly never done.
Sometimes they were trained for militia service incase they either need to defend themselves (Not intended to enlist) OR as an emergency (Emergency enlisting).
This wasn't common and was specific but it did happen.
Still remember that person who wrote about a pregnant woman basically trying to fight off enemy soldiers with a sword because the fight was so hopeless that they basically had to field entire villages.
Though in terms of a society not under immediate existential threat having a regular female army or at least regular female soldiers? Very rare... to the extent that any examples I might have could even be fictional or myth. Well maybe as an inner guard or a personal guard.
Post by: Ninteen45 on January 26, 2017, 01:42:32 pm
Yeah, from a medieval/renaissance time period perspective, allowing women in the military isn't particularly wise - hence why it was nearly never done.
If your army has pretty much zero force multipliers, you just need large numbers of people to fight, hence you want as big of a population as necessary. If you have 1 in 4 children dying in childbirth (and a mother 1 in 100), you kinda need to make sure that you have women around to procreate and not fighting in wars and dying/being injured. Also, many women of young to middle age were pretty much CONSTANTLY pregnant during their life times, with a year or two apart at max making them not particularly effective soldiers.
I can imagine cultural/religious reasons allowing it/enforcing it, but for even basic time period accuracy it seems a bit odd for it to be a 50% chance. My main issue though is just that you'll be ending up with around 30% of civilisations having a woman leader with women fighting and men not. Again, whilst I realise it's not looking for historical accuracy, it's biologically not sensible.
Note that in URR's earliest posts there was stuff like Minotaur generals of armies and the acceptable number of squares for a dragon to take up being casually discussed. Even if it doesn't look that way, we are in the realm of high fantasy. I'd say it's acceptable to say childbirth isn't usually fatal in fantasyland.
Post by: Retropunch on January 26, 2017, 02:15:49 pm
Note that in URR's earliest posts there was stuff like Minotaur generals of armies and the acceptable number of squares for a dragon to take up being casually discussed. Even if it doesn't look that way, we are in the realm of high fantasy. I'd say it's acceptable to say childbirth isn't usually fatal in fantasyland.
From many posts since then Mark has strongly re-situated it in a much more realistic setting and said that it is definitely not high fantasy. He's said a number of time that there won't be any magic or similar, and has on this forum (politely) rebuffed many people asking if there will be magic. As a caveat, there are many religions, and some may believe in magical powers, but that won't be something in game. At the very most, the artefacts that are at the centre of the game's quest may have some sorts of powers, but only in a vague sense (not, fireballs or whatever).
It's not even about childbirth being fatal though, it's just about not wanting to expose the primary way your civilisation grows to danger. Even if Mark takes a very loose attitude to medical realities in URR, it just doesn't make any basic economic or societal sense to do so. Sure, there may be a few cultures that see women fighting as a cultural necessity (only tested warriors may have children etc.) or something, but they'd be few and far between.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 26, 2017, 04:49:52 pm
Post by: Ninteen45 on January 29, 2017, 03:16:58 pm
I'd definitely say that a culture restricting only women to the millitary is very, very strange.
Baby shields. You wouldn't swing a sword at a baby, would you?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2017, 06:18:23 am
Basically: I'm trying to generate a world with major differences from our real world, within the realms of physical possibility: why restrict ourselves to what the real world has had? Why limit what can come up that way? That's just going to massively reduce the amount of interesting things the game can generate, and I'm very much against that. The idea that just because female soldiers might not be "as effective" as male soldiers (whether true or not) means civilizations wouldn't field them, implies everything that every culture does is "rational". And, I think, the history of culture demonstrates that every culture on earth does all kinds of things that aren't "rational" or "optimal", and I see absolutely no inherent reason why this would never happen. We have or have had cultures that kill a non-trivial number of their own children, infect themselves with diseases, hurt themselves or mutilate themselves in various ways, and so forth; cultures don't just do things that would be "best". I just think the game is just vastly more interesting this way, by allowing cultural ideas and preferences that didn't arise in the real world, but where there's absolutely no reason for those cultural ideas to not arise - as real-world cultures do far, FAR more striking things than some of the stuff that's in the game so far.
From many posts since then Mark has strongly re-situated it in a much more realistic setting and said that it is definitely not high fantasy. He's said a number of time that there won't be any magic or similar, and has on this forum (politely) rebuffed many people asking if there will be magic. As a caveat, there are many religions, and some may believe in magical powers, but that won't be something in game. At the very most, the artefacts that are at the centre of the game's quest may have some sorts of powers, but only in a vague sense (not, fireballs or whatever).
Yep; that model only lasted a year or so until I figured out what the heck the game was actually going to be, and then all the fantasy elements vanished. If there is anything that isn't 100% physically realistic, it will be a tiny fraction of items that have truly minor "powers" (akin to some of the items in Borges short stories, for instance), and even then... they might not. We'll see. I'm just focused on getting 0.8 out now, and a very quick couple-of-months 0.9 to further develop the speech system, then taking stock.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 31, 2017, 06:43:07 am
Basic Conversations Almost Finished
Basic conversations have been developed further this week, with NPCs now responding correctly to almost 100% of the large number of “option” queries they can be asked – which is to say, questions that need to draw on some other information and are fundamentally different depending on the outcome of that information, rather than simply being sentences which say “My homeland is X”, in a context where all NPCs will always have the same basic answer to that question. Option queries need to draw on a range of traits in most cases (within the NPC) and a range of broader cultural and religious elements (outside the NPC), and most of this code needs to be hand-written for every possible question, making it a fairly substantial piece of work. From these screenshots you can see that some bits of wording still need tweaking, but I want to stress, these are totally random selections from the hundreds of possible questions; although they aren’t perfect, I’m still extremely pleased with how these look right now, how much variation there is, and the fact that only some fairly minimal tweaks remain to be done to some minor typos, plurals, that type of thing. (Both of these is me talking to the first character I find, hence why I’m clearly talking to people from the same civilisation as me for the sake of these tests):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/01/New1-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/01/New2.png)
Irrelevant Replies
This week I have also begun implementing “irrelevant” replies – meaning things like “I have no religion” as a response to “What is your religion?”, and so forth – which apply when an NPC is asked a question they have no valid answer to, or is entirely irrelevant. This means a massive range of potential answers, some of which are specific to the question – such as “I have no siblings” – whereas others are more puzzled. An NPC might be asked about a painting they couldn’t possibly know of, for instance, in which case they would say “I do not know of that painting”. There’s close to a hundred of these irrelevant replies, all of which (like everything else) need to vary between cultures and individuals. Some of these require quite complex sentences, although others are relatively simple, but this has definitely need a substantial task. I’ve now put about fifty percent of these in place, and NPCs do correctly use them, too! Of course, in some cases NPCs can’t yet give the correct responses – the coding for siblings isn’t in there yet, so everyone just says they have no siblings – but the code for generating a sentence once siblings are present is in place. Dealing with these kinds of familial relationships and the answers to some of the more complex questions will come partly before the release of 0.8, and partly in the speedy 0.9.
Traits
Added some new traits this week, with a focus on four elements that will influence substantially what NPCs know (and what NPCs can tell the player) about the world around them. These are all affected by the individual classes of NPC – generally speaking someone who is likely to be wealthier and better-educated is likely to know more, but there is also significant variation written into the system, and the knowledge of individual NPCs (regardless of their NPC class) is then varied further by ideological preferences of their homeland. For instance, people from an internationalist nation will tend to know more about foreign matters; people from a nation with a system of vassalage will know more about their own nation than average; those from a bartering nation will know less about history, as few records are kept; those from a free trade nation will know more geography, as they travel to trade; and so forth.
geography_knowledge
How much the NPC knows about the surrounding area. This doesn’t mean the nations and peoples and so forth, but rather purely a question of physical geography – nearby mountains, nearby roads, coastlines, deserts, animals, plants, and the like. Affected
history_knowledge
How much the NPC knows about the history of the world (inevitably heavily, but not exclusively, focused on their own nation). This means their ability to talk to the player about the historical events they are familiar with, how many events they are familiar with, and also knowledge about historical artworks, people, places, and so forth.
national_knowledge
How much the NPC knows about their own nation – where things are, who lives there, where towns and monasteries and mines and so forth are and what’s within them, information about important people, etc.
foreign_knowledge
How much the NPC knows about other nations; their locations, capitals, ideologies, religious beliefs, leaders, famous people, practices, etc. As with all the above, this varies across NPC classes, and is then modified by ideological beliefs of the nations in question.
Relics
I’ve implemented the first part of the generation system for religious relics, which needed to go in now so that NPCs could actually talk about them. Naturally the image generation for these will take place at a later date, but for the time being the game can generate the names of religious relics, a little bit of information about them, and who they were originally owned by. Each religion will only ever create two kinds of relics, depending on their beliefs, and these fall into a randomly-chosen “major” and “minor” category. For instance, a religion might primarily produce “Crown” relics, but sometimes have a small number of “Bone” relics; or a religion might focus on “Book” relics with a small number of “Weapon” relics; and so on and so forth. Each has a unique generation system for selecting its name, and we can now end up with relic names like the following:
Twisting Key of Monn’morra
Slender Ring of Saint Ynnop
Wooden Garland of Grey Fox Running the Sacred
Orangejaw Moonblizzard’s Holy Engraved Locket
Fi-Un-Gat’s Pitted Skull
Consecrated Pointed Sceptre of Ibimmom, Sly Rose
The game also now keeps track of how many relics need to spawn in each church (which varies across different kinds of religious building) and ensures that an appropriate number will always appear. Generating the images for these is going to be a lot of fun, but isn’t going to come until 0.10 or somewhere beyond. Anyway, these are now in place, so NPCs will shortly be able to talk intelligently about relics, and specific relics will now be tied to specific reliquaries in specific churches and cathedrals!
Laws and Punishments
Three of the “list” questions (questions where the answer is often of the kind “A, B, C and D are examples of the X”) relate to the particular laws of a particular nation regarding various topics – currently “violence”, “trade”, and “religion” are the three listed in there. This means that nations now generate laws in each of these categories, and a set of punishments, and then assigns punishments to each broken law depending on the severity of the crime (as the nation sees it). Laws and punishments on trade are determined almost entirely by trade policy, but a nation’s perspective on smuggling is also affected by a range of other ideologies; “violence” laws are determined by a wide range of ideologies from across the eight main categories; “religion” laws are naturally primarily determined by the religious policy of the nation, with a few inputs from a couple of other policies.
To take trade as the example, there are now five possible laws that a nation can enact:
District Entry: how much money (if any) it costs to enter a district in the capital.
City Entry: how much money (if any) it costs to enter the capital city.
Foreign Goods: how much extra taxation is put on foreign goods (light, middling, heavy).
Black Markets: whether black markets are tacitly accepted or not, and if not, the punishment for using one.
Smuggling: the level of punishment for those caught smuggling/with smuggled goods.
Each of these then, if appropriate for the ideologies of that nation, has a value assigned to it. When punishments come into play, punishments now vary according to the five possible justice ideologies. I’m not quite clear on how the “Ordeal” justice policy is going to work out, so I haven’t really developed that element yet, but the other four now work nicely. The Frontier policy imposes fines on those caught breaking the law; the Vigilantism policy will see those breaking the law hunted by the general public, who for lesser crimes will demand items in recompense, or injury, or will hunt to the death in the case of severe crimes, the Penitentiary policy imposes a range of prison sentences, and the Gladiatorial policy involves battles to first blood for lesser crimes, and fatal battles for greater crimes. There is also something of the god system from DCSS here; I wanted to develop these in such a way that they would seriously affect the player’s actions in the future, and which nations they choose to take actions in, when they keep in mind what the potential ramifications are. Justice policies should now have a substantial effect on player decisions once implemented – and, of course, NPCs can now talk about them, listing all the policies that are worth talking about in the area in question.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/01/New3.png)
Next Six Months
In other news, some big changes are happening, which are going to lead to some very exciting things. Firstly, I’m leaving my position as a postdoc at the Digital Creativity Labs at the University of York – although keeping my current secondment as a Researcher in Residence at the UK Digital Catapult – and taking up a new six-month postdoctoral position at Goldsmiths, University of London, to study paper puzzles (crosswords, Sudoku, etc), and those who play them, design them, implement them, with a view to developing a new set of paper puzzles that might one day be able to challenge Sudoku in national and international print newspapers. Such an outcome is obviously an immensely ambitious goal, but that’s one of the many things that attracts me so much to this project; the potential to make such a big impact into the game-playing lives of so many people is incredibly exciting. I’ll keep you all updated on this goes as time goes by; this might lead into further research in this area, though I also have a range of other irons in the fire for the longer-term future.
Secondly, during this summer, I’ll be taking up a range of visiting fellowship positions at numerous institutions around the world. Firstly, the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where I’ll be giving talks and running and contributing to seminars on professional gaming and the intersections between video games and gambling practices; secondly, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where my focus will be very much the same; and then the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where I’ll be researching the histories of professional gamblers, specifically with a focus on how professional gamblers are represented and talked about in news media, films, literature, and so forth. Somewhere in the middle there I’ll also be giving a few talks at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on my research, and potentially travelling to two other countries I’ve never visited before as well to offer guest lectures and further develop my Esports and live-streaming research, although those are still in discussion with the relevant parties. If you live in any of those areas, let me know – maybe we can meet up! The few times I’ve met fans in person has always been awesome, and I’d certainly be keen to do so again.
What does all this mean in practical terms? Well, firstly, my brain is going to be a lot clearer to focus on URR 0.8 and finishing my first book in the next four months. Travel has always been something that galvanises and focuses me tremendously well, and these, combined with a new position more closely aligned to my research interests, will do a lot for me. People who read this blog regularly will know the last few months have been tough for a range of reasons, and these new positions are going to be a big help with some of those issues. Onwards, to bigger and better things!
Next Week
Having really pushed on URR this past week, I need to focus on my academic work this coming week, so next week will be a games criticism entry; then by the week after I’ll be aiming to actually finish off the Basic Conversation system by fully implementing the answers to list questions, and making sure that the range of “irrelevant replies” are all implemented and functioning correctly. See you in a week! When we will be talking the notorious “P.T.”, or “Playable Teaser”, and its clever implementation of environmental puzzles…
Post by: Retropunch on January 31, 2017, 09:36:37 am
I was going to quote all the previous messages on this topic, but now I think it's easier to just give my general rationale/thoughts.
Basically: I'm trying to generate a world with major differences from our real world, within the realms of physical possibility: why restrict ourselves to what the real world has had? Why limit what can come up that way? That's just going to massively reduce the amount of interesting things the game can generate, and I'm very much against that. The idea that just because female soldiers might not be "as effective" as male soldiers (whether true or not) means civilizations wouldn't field them, implies everything that every culture does is "rational". And, I think, the history of culture demonstrates that every culture on earth does all kinds of things that aren't "rational" or "optimal", and I see absolutely no inherent reason why this would never happen. We have or have had cultures that kill a non-trivial number of their own children, infect themselves with diseases, hurt themselves or mutilate themselves in various ways, and so forth; cultures don't just do things that would be "best". I just think the game is just vastly more interesting this way, by allowing cultural ideas and preferences that didn't arise in the real world, but where there's absolutely no reason for those cultural ideas to not arise - as real-world cultures do far, FAR more striking things than some of the stuff that's in the game so far.
I get that, and there's certainly a lot of precedent in the real world for species doing things that are sub-optimal, however there are basically no examples (that I can find) of women being used as the main, regular troops up until the very modern age - and for good reason.
It's not to do with effectiveness of troops or anything like that at all, it's to do with growth - it's never even vaguely rational to expose your main method of growth (and therefore civilisation's strength) to harms way. All the things like mass killing offspring and similar have been done with ( very twisted) rationality behind it - ONLY sacrificing your primary method of growth in battle just doesn't make any sense.
Sure, I can well imagine there might be a small number which would have some cultural or religious reason behind it, but to have basically a 50/50 chance that a civilisation would sacrifice their only method of growth (and a 1/3 that they'd use ONLY their method of growth as troops) seems frankly wildly unbelievable.
It comes down to breaking immersion. I'm no history buff and I'm certainly not a stickler for everything having to be realistic, but with the model you've got, you could easily have three quarters of the world's civilisations using only women fighters, which would just seem really jarring. Again, I'm not suggesting doing away with having women as soldiers, just not on that level of probability.
Post by: zaimoni on January 31, 2017, 06:39:56 pm
I was going to quote all the previous messages on this topic, but now I think it's easier to just give my general rationale/thoughts.Then don't be surprised at pushback when you intentonally implement a direct contradiction of "within the realms of physical possibility".
Basically: I'm trying to generate a world with major differences from our real world, within the realms of physical possibility: ....
That's what you've been called out on: flouting natural selection. And no, I'm not expecting you to back down and implement your stated development policy: there's too much ego on the line for that to be a reasonable request.
Post by: Scoops Novel on January 31, 2017, 09:11:57 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2017, 05:32:12 am
Post by: Retropunch on February 01, 2017, 06:06:02 am
That being said, if you want this to be one of the differentiating from reality factors for your world then so be it (I doubt there are too many endless libraries hanging around either!) - I just wanted to absolutely make sure that I had got my point across about it being a 'practical' thing rather than a 'women are rubbish soldiers' thing (as this debate can often get seem like that).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 04, 2017, 07:48:50 am
In the mean time, crunching on a piece of academic work this weekend, but I recently got a chance to play the infamous "P.T.", and I was impressed by how many puzzles and how much gameplay it packed into such a small environment. Thi week, here are some thoughts: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2017/02/04/p-t-cryptic-puzzles-and-small-spaces/
Post by: hops on February 09, 2017, 12:20:30 pm
Post by: Aquillion on February 19, 2017, 02:09:45 am
It's not to do with effectiveness of troops or anything like that at all, it's to do with growth - it's never even vaguely rational to expose your main method of growth (and therefore civilisation's strength) to harms way. All the things like mass killing offspring and similar have been done with ( very twisted) rationality behind it - ONLY sacrificing your primary method of growth in battle just doesn't make any sense.Not quite true. The women of Sparta would sometimes contribute to its defense. Similarly, Shang Yang (a Chinese statesman) suggested that women be used to man (heh) fortresses and defensive fortifications, freeing up male soldiers for sorties; and while it was never adopted, the objections seem to have been cultural rather than practical.
You have to understand that in the ancient world, most soldiers, especially ones manning fortifications, would see little if any action. If you have a fortification that is basically impenetrable to direct assault (as most well-designed ones are), it makes little difference by any measure if it's "manned" by women or men - and if it falls, large numbers of women would die or be captured regardless.
Post by: Retropunch on February 19, 2017, 05:11:43 am
It's not to do with effectiveness of troops or anything like that at all, it's to do with growth - it's never even vaguely rational to expose your main method of growth (and therefore civilisation's strength) to harms way. All the things like mass killing offspring and similar have been done with ( very twisted) rationality behind it - ONLY sacrificing your primary method of growth in battle just doesn't make any sense.Not quite true. The women of Sparta would sometimes contribute to its defense. Similarly, Shang Yang (a Chinese statesman) suggested that women be used to man (heh) fortresses and defensive fortifications, freeing up male soldiers for sorties; and while it was never adopted, the objections seem to have been cultural rather than practical.
You have to understand that in the ancient world, most soldiers, especially ones manning fortifications, would see little if any action. If you have a fortification that is basically impenetrable to direct assault (as most well-designed ones are), it makes little difference by any measure if it's "manned" by women or men - and if it falls, large numbers of women would die or be captured regardless.
I'm not saying women never, ever took or arms or that women didn't contribute to defenses/militia - as you say, as a last line of defense from being invaded you may as well have every man, woman and child pitching in. More than that, there are many examples of women used as spies, logistics handlers, lookouts and similar.
My issue was with a situation where 33% of all the civilisations in the world would field women and only women as troops, with another 33% having a regular army which was comprised of both women and men. That's three quarters the world doing things that didn't - for pretty common sense reasons - happen at that time period at all.
Again, if Mark wants to make this his divergence from history/reality then that's absolutely fine - he can add in three headed lizard monkeys for all I care (as long as they're meticulously well simulated!!) but it definitely is a divergence.
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 19, 2017, 10:10:44 am
Women only armies just doesn't make sense when you've got muscly, replaceable men right there.
Post by: Retropunch on February 19, 2017, 10:31:58 am
It depends on the scale of the army somewhat. In the middle ages far fewer troops were fielded proportional to their population even in the worse wars, so perhaps co-ed armies would have a leg to stand on? I can easily envision a sufficiently secure culture encouraging it even if it's not as battlefield effective. In times of total war a case could also be made when things are desperate enough.
Women only armies just doesn't make sense when you've got muscly, replaceable men right there.
It certainly makes sense in specific cases as part of some cultural/religious aspect or in desperation, but as you say, it doesn't make much sense the rest of the time when you've got replaceable men right there. Even in times of desperation (like a siege), there's normally a lot better things to do with untrained populations that thrust them into the heat of battle.
Again, it's not about 'this can't ever happen', just that it would be incredibly, incredibly unlikely on the scale that Mark first put forward.
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 20, 2017, 04:53:54 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 21, 2017, 08:39:19 am
In the mean time...
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This week (well, fortnight) we have some laws, some new list questions, some political parties, overall a reasonably large entry to make up for silence last week, and a paper, so let’s get to it:
Semiotics of Roguelikes
Firstly and briefly, the paper I wrote a couple of years ago now on the semiotics of various ASCII roguelike games has moved from being published online to being published with in actual edition/volume of Games and Culture. To mark this momentous event, I’ve uploaded a pre-submission version of the paper onto my academia.edu account, so if you’re interested in reading the paper – the abstract is below here – then click here and give it a read, and do let me know what you think.
https://www.academia.edu/31504292/The_Use_of_ASCII_Graphics_in_Roguelikes_Aesthetic_Nostalgia_and_Semiotic_Difference
This article explores the semiotics of the “roguelike” genre. Most roguelikes reject contemporary advances in graphical technology and instead present their worlds, items, and creatures as American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters. This article first considers why this unusual graphical style has endured over time and argues that it is an aesthetic construction of nostalgia that positions roguelikes within a clear history of gameplay philosophies that challenge the prevailing contemporary assumptions of role-playing games. It second notes that the semantic code for understanding the ASCII characters in each and every roguelike is different and explores the construction of these codes, how players decode them, and the potential difficulties in such decodings. The article then combines these to explore how such visuals represent potential new ground in the study of game semiotics.
Violence Laws
The game now generates a full set of laws for violence in each nation. These are not done in quite the same way as the other two sets of laws. Whereas “religion” and “trade” have a set number of values and each value always create a law in every nation, not all nations will even have some of the violence laws. It depends on the ideologies of the nation in question, and what they consider to be a meaningful violent event, and how severe they think it is. The game selects a set of laws, ranks them, and then distributes punishments according to the ranking of the crime, not the crime itself. Here is the sequence by which the game selects laws for violent acts, where the ones that a nation cares about the most come first, and the less important ones come later. As a result, you’ll see some very different values at play here, and what counts as a severe punishment in one nation will be far less severe in another, because it will be much further down the crime list, as a result of the nation being more concerned by other things:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/01/Violence.png)
If I’ve calculated this correctly, this means the shortest set of violence laws is five, and the longest possible set is thirteen, with most nations naturally falling somewhere in the middle. In each case the top crimes merit a “Punishment 5”, which is the highest level of punishment – such as three arena battles to the death, or a lengthy imprisonment, or a severely damaging physical ordeal – and the bottom will merit a “Punishment 1”, and the others in the middle will be distributed appropriately. I’m confident this will again generate an interesting and unique set of consequences for your actions in each nation, and when coupled with the wide variation in punishments, and the kinds of punishments that your character might or might not be able to withstand depending on your build, items, etc… I think some very interested decisions will emerge from this process.
More List Questions
Parents, Siblings, Grandparents, Children
NPCs are now able to talk about their parents, siblings, grandparents and children, in a pretty wide range of ways. For instance, if you ask about parents, they might simply answer that their parents are nobody important (if they feel you’re disinterested, or of a much higher social status), or might name only one, or both; alternatively, if their parents are consequential people recorded by the game, or they are important, then they’ll probably have some more info they’ll (proudly) be willing to give out. For the longer lists, the game also takes account of the sex of the people being mentioned, so they might say “My two brothers are X and Y and my sister is Z”, or “My maternal grandparents are X and Y, my paternal grandparents are A and B”, which will also vary based on any particular bias towards either sex present in that nation; for extremely long lists, lastly, such as children or siblings, they can now reel off a full list that is always grammatically correct. These lists also include titles, too, so you might get “My mother was Queen X the 1st, Keeper of the Brass Casket, and my father was Prince Y, Consort to Her Majesty” – or whatever.
Trade, Violence, Religion Laws
We covered these briefly in a previous entry, but NPCs are now able to tell the player about everything in these categories. Some of these require different lines of code, as in the case of trade and religion laws there is a finite set of “things” that each nation will have laws on, whereas for violence, some potential violent acts simply won’t be recognised or won’t be relevant to particular nations, and therefore won’t be there. Either way, people now give you a nicely detailed list of these laws; and as with everything, how much people tell you will be modified by mood, and their knowledge of their own nation…
Nearby Things
I’ve started to implement the code for NPCs replying to questions of the sort “are there any X nearby”, where X might be cities, towns, nomads, tribal nations, mountains, coastline… you get the idea. There’s a pretty wide number, and some of them have to request information from different parts of the game’s databases, but this code is now being put into place. There are also now appropriate sentence structures here for people to word things appropriately; for instance, if there are individual things, such as towns, you’ll just get a list. By contrast, mountains do not take up individual map tiles but stretch across mountain ranges, so someone might say “There are mountains far and very far to the northwest, far to the north, and somewhat far to the northeast”, which should give the player a decent impression of what the mountain range looks like. (The same then applies to deserts and coasts and so on).
Political Parties
Returned to political parties and developed names for the parties, which will soon be matched up delegates, and we should be able to get some kind of political system actually working. The game first selects a number of parties for each nation, which is semi-random and partly influenced by several ideological factors (outside of their commitment to a democratic form of government), and then (as we discussed before) ranks the various overall trends in the nation, such as individualism or collectivism, nationalism or globalism, and so forth. It then creates parties for the dominant trends, and sometimes with a secondary ideology from lower down in that chart, and now it finally creates names. As such, we can now find NPCs who might be willing to tell you about parties such as:
The Liberal Sovereignty Party
The Party of Enlightenment
The Conservative National Party
The Devout Singular League
The One Reformist Party
The Association of Independent Selfhood
And so on and so forth. As with most things in URR, you should be able to extrapolate some reasonable guesses about the commitments of these parties from their names. In a later version I’ll connect these to delegates, and get the political system in democratic nations working properly.
Next Week
As you’ll have noticed, we’ve slipped back to a fortnightly update this time – although I’m generally back to a post every weekend, this last week has again just been absolutely jam-packed, and I had to push things back. However, hopefully, updates will resume the weekend model from next weekend moving forwards, and I promise lots of screenshots next week. I must apologise for this, but leaping back into the weekly blog posting has been quite a bit new pressure on my time, and although I thought I could go from sparse blog posts to every week: it hasn’t been quite that easy. Things are ramping back up, but maybe just a little more unevenly than I’d hoped. I am also working on finishing my first book at the moment, which is of course taking up a lot of my time, as well as planning how best to get around the world and take up three visiting positions in three countries in the coming months, so there’s a lot of admin in my brain at the moment. I’m desperately hoping to get 0.8 before April, as otherwise that’ll be a ridiculous two years between release… and that’s just too damned long, however much detail I’m putting in to this major version. Nevertheless, normality should resume again next week, with hopefully an even more significant URRpdate. See you all then!
Post by: Ehndras on February 21, 2017, 01:22:05 pm
leadership_like: This trait refers to how much the NPC likes the leadership of their nation. This is not to say the leadership policy of their nation, as above – theocracy, monarchy, etc – but the individual personality/personalities of the person/people at the top. There are a lot of elements which go into this particular decision for each NPC, and as with the above set, I’m hoping to later tie this into the potential for social movements, conspiracies, and the like…
fellow_soldier_opinion: For those who are within the military, this determines what they think of their fellow soldiers. This varies by rank, by leadership, and by the individual histories of particular soldiers. I’m not quite sure what else this variable will affect yet – beyond a couple of possible conversation replies – but I think it could be a nice way to build up a sense of how different military forces function in the URR world.
Suggestion: As in modern and ancient armed forces, there are contextual details one might often miss if solely observing basic rank/hierarchy details.
For example, the Navy Seals and Green Berets can hold the same rank as a counterpart of far less skill and experience. My Father, for example, was a US Army drill sergeant and first fought in Vietnam as a footsoldier. He wasn't infantry, but they got ambushed and many died. He definitely saw combat, but never discussed his service before he died. Not sure what his rank was, but he was at least a Sgt. At the same time, a Sgt. whose a recruiter or officer may be a paper pusher with little combat experience, while another guy might be like my best friend's husband: demolition specialist, former paratrooper who participated in the Bay of Pigs and numerous major conflicts, and thus presents a far greater variable of experience, skillset, and vital to personality and behavior: opinion. As he's now in his 70's, the generational differences have lead to a highly complex set of ideals and opinions that wouldn't be shared by most civilians, nor even soldiers. Still built like a fucking fortress, though, even at his age. 73 or 74 I think? 6 foot 3 or 4 in height (far taller than most humans the world-over) and arms/legs like tree trunks. Not someone you'd want to challenge to a bar fight. (which, ironically, happened a lot)
To show even most variation, let's compare that to another relative of mine. Comm-spec, US Army Guard, warrant officer (W‑1)(I think? Not entirely sure.), was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan but not to a combat unit. Saw some shit, got bombed and mortared, drove their upper in convoys for a bit, etc. If I'm not mistaking them with someone else I know, present deployed to the FOB during the 2010 Tali strikes.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/taliban_attack_kanda.php (http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/05/taliban_attack_kanda.php)
(Sorry for vagueness, hope you understand the necessity with the way the world is these days. The other two are way past their time, and thus its no issue to discuss. The last is recent, so its a different story. I have their permission to discuss. The last, I am only allowed to mention vaguely.)
That last one has a solid shot at joining a federal intelligence agency in 2 years time, to give you an idea of rank-to-factionalization divergence. Thus, comparing three soldiers of relatively similar rank brackets, you get highly developed contextual skill, knowledge, experience, physical builds, mental acuity, languages known, and thus: opinions & beliefs.
For URR, this could mean the soldier you're chatting with is going to gather data on *you*, is a total newb with a shortsword, or is the Achilles of spearmanship. Or, they could be a spy and lying through their teeth.
Hoping you account for that detail down the road. :) All of this in the last few updates implies people tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. All the time.
We all know that's rarely the case. ;)
What do you think of the leadership?
What do you believe your foreign policy should be?
What do you think of your culture’s art?
What are the religious policies of your nation?
How widely spread is your religion?
What is your job?
What is the history of this monastery?
In all of these cases the game can’t just take a default sentence and then vary it, but it has to instead select a sentence from a wide set depending on the data available, and then create that sentence anew each time. There are substantially more possible “base” responses for option questions than there are for all the basic sentences combined, which gives some idea of the kind of variation that some of these need to have. With this fortnight finished, I’ve now finished these off, and I’m very happy with the kinds of sentences they create – they’re varied, detailed, and will take far longer than the basic sentences before the player will ever come around to seeing the “same” sentences again.
Suggestion: Do such inquiries account for multi-tiered context? For example, why not ask the soldier from Uralia what he thinks of the Rothgarians? Maybe they're officially allies, but you find out Uralians and Rothgari don't get along too often. Maybe their alliance is shaky, or on paper yet effectively non-existent. Or perhaps, within a variable magnitude of deviation, they might really fucking hate them for botching an operation or being unskilled at a particular type of combat.
If you take Colonial British tactics against, oh let's say, Revolutionary American tactics, British lose. I'm sure there are those who held strong beliefs that the Brits were buffoons for wearing bright red coats and marching rank-and-file against hit-and-run tactics in dynamic terrain.
That reminds me: broader, or contexual opinions on random details.
Hey, maybe the Rothgari really like those spiffy Uralian uniforms. Maybe they scoff at their cultural facial-tattoos and see them as technologically-advanced barbarians.
If URR is anything like Earth, some cultures/people will be prejudiced against *anyone* with body modifications, whereas others will see them as a normal and righteous sign of faith, culture, or strong roots.
In the Brit's case, something as seemingly silly as uniform color may be a major point of contention, or even a serious weakness in combat.
As we know, a knight in heavy platemail is great in some ways, yet seriously lacking in others.
All the same, a scimitar-wielding, or dual short-sword dancing Sikh warrior has little protection against a rain of arrows from above.
Opinions will vary.
After all, Armokian Dwarves really tend to dislike those tall, lithe elves and their "stupid wooden bows".
Hell, someone can dislike Elvish soldiers alone because they once watched them lose a battle, or they can outright hate the entire Elvish species, or a particular culture specifically, because they were in a village under attack and the Elves failed to arrive in time to protect them.
So much variation to account for. After all, opinions are flimsy, seemingly nonsensical, and as dynamic as the Earth itself. :)
Hope this provides you an idea or two. Cheers!
Post by: Ehndras on February 21, 2017, 01:36:14 pm
I also went through the existing words, and decided to statistically bias some of them back towards slightly shorter variations, and therefor slightly shorter sentences, as a response to the feedback I regularly get about some of the sentences being too wordy. You’ll see the same in the earlier example, where we have some sets using the same short word twice to boost the chance of that word being selected (this is of course not an especially elegant way to do it, but let’s be honest: my programming is not known for its elegance). This should ensure that sentences will tend to be just a little shorter and a little less wordy, and I’m going to continue this trend of chopping out irrelevant words whilst maintaining sentence variety – though this is a tricky balance to strike.
To build upon that, one can assume scholars, priests, and some bureaucrats might use lengthier descriptions/sentences in general.
Or, a GREAT way to figure out someone's affinity: if you ask me about something random, you won't get much out of me. Ask me about a topic I like, and... Well... *points to wall of text in last comment*
If you're conversing with random person #12 and suddenly their answers go from curt to holy-shit-that-was-in-depth, chances are you struck a chord of which they're either highly knowledgeable or highly opinionated.
Thus, some guy from the culture who praises Keshua may give you the expected greeting out of custom, but a hardline fundamentalist or thoroughly devout follower might betray their religious zeal by adding more flavor and depth to anything that warrants a response based on faith.
The same goes for insults, compliments, and other questions.
Once you put in personality traits, someone with anger issues may go all-the-fuck-out with insults and threats, or be more likely to default to such things. Their opinion of you may be harder to shift into the positive, but far easier to sway toward the negative.
A kind, compassionate, humble, etc. insert-nice-guy-meme-here individual might be overly gentle and tread carefully in negative territory more as a general behavioral bias, and less a sign of implicit context.
I'm sure we all know people who will rarely mention something negative, but still hold negative or even aggressive opinions. All the same, there are those who will always find something negative to say about anything, and default to that.
Some people, well, they're just quiet. Or whatever the opposite of verbose is. They'll say far less, but not necessarily rush you to end the conversation. This accounts for people who aren't necessarily in some great rush to get elsewhere, but still have a solid reason for why they talk as they do.
Others, never shut the hell up. We ALL know someone like this. Get the bastard talking and you'll be the one having to suddenly remember an appointment.
OH. That reminds me.
How you choose to greet, or say goodbye to someone *should* have an impact on their opinion of you, and shift their behavior.
You could secretly be a follower of the Cult of Lazarus, which everyone hates. You *could* use that in a greeting, if you so choose to deviate from the basic *click greeting*, to test their opinion or see if your hunch about them also being a hidden cultist - and thus potential ally or source of information - is correct. Or, you just want to piss that self-righteous prick off. Who knows. If you get him to attack you, you have an excuse to defend yourself. Scratch one inconvenience, and without the law getting on your back.
If your cult is legal, they have no defense. Their opinion alone does not constitute an applicable reason to attack someone, so you effectively just baited them into criminal activity by taking advantage of their personal or cultural beliefs and opinions.
Good job!
Post by: Ehndras on February 21, 2017, 01:49:19 pm
It's strange [allowing women in the military] because such civilizations are preparing to win the Darwin Award. Keep in mind that before WWI almost all wars were limited wars, and it was nearly an annual thing before gunpowder (no extended peacetime).
That said, low fantasy is rife with dying or nearly-exterminated societies where this is appropriate.
Or, contextual basis only.
General allowance rule gives way to actual contextual basis for allowance.
For example, in modern military, some don't allow women at all. Others, allow women in NON-combat roles. I know a few ladies who are monsters with a rifle, and one who, according to her commander, is impossibly astute with a grenade launcher as if she was born with the god damn thing.
If a culture does NOT allow women, its absolute.
Perhaps another culture allows women, but only those who cannot bare children. Maybe only female slaves. Maybe they have a cultural quirk where their archers tend to be female. If magic is a thing, maybe women are the usual mages due to the whole sage-crone shtick. Of course, combat medics *are* often military, yet non-combat roles.
Hell, maybe rather than battle drums, culture #5 brings yodeling or ululating ladies along to freak out their enemies and raise troop morale. Hey, Banshees, man.
I see no reason why all of this shouldn't be possible.
Sure, having a large chunk of your females in combat roles in any stone to iron age setting is a bad fucking idea if you don't want to go extinct, but then again, nothing says culture #9 doesn't have a weird thing about women giving birth to as many kids as possible and then marching off to war while someone else takes care of the kids.
As a scifi writer and avid student of history, I can imagine thousands of eccentric variations and the specific cultural tendencies and incidents that spawned them.
Chances are its been done by some culture or other.
Anyway, as I've learned, the best way to protect your women isn't to keep them useless and have big strong men nearby to protect them...
Its to teach them how to fight so they can defend themselves.
Sometimes, the "big strong men" won't be around. Maybe they got sick. (some diseases target one gender more than others.)
Maybe they got killed while hunting.
Maybe they died in battle.
Maybe the bloody idiots are busy getting drunk and don't notice the raiding party just west of the treeline.
Best way to prevent catastrophic loss of your only source of new humans?
Teach them how to fight and kill.
Post by: Ehndras on February 21, 2017, 01:53:58 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on February 21, 2017, 04:42:04 pm
Good stuff.
Post by: Greenbane on February 21, 2017, 07:10:28 pm
If the time comes the army's decisively defeated and the enemy's marching on your population, women defending themselves could be somewhat useful, but the war's already lost by then.
I'm sure there could be cultural quirks that'd create exceptions to this norm, but they'd be that, exceptional. Eccentric variations.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 12:42:48 am
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 12:46:16 am
If we discount all the deaths due to the 3 instances of Bubonic Plague(4th or 5th century, 12th century, 14/15th century I think it was? China, Byzantine Empire, medieval Europe), plus Spanish Influenza, Typhoid Fever, etc, we'd have a HELL of a large population.
Come to think of it, we need to worry more about keeping enough of a varied genetic pool and viable breeding pairs safe from disease than any war... We've lost far, far more lives to disease/accident/disaster than all the wars ever fought by our species.
Post by: chevil on February 22, 2017, 03:24:17 am
Post by: Retropunch on February 22, 2017, 05:14:07 am
Also, y'all vastly underestimate the human ability to procreate. Ask my grandmother's 20+ kids, or her 19 or so siblings and their 17-24 kids each. :P
If we discount all the deaths due to the 3 instances of Bubonic Plague(4th or 5th century, 12th century, 14/15th century I think it was? China, Byzantine Empire, medieval Europe), plus Spanish Influenza, Typhoid Fever, etc, we'd have a HELL of a large population.
The issue with that is that these diseases hit everyone in the area so it doesn't make anyone stronger or weaker. It's not about overall population size, it's about individual civilisation's population size. Before modern medicine (like your grandmother) - women in combat makes for a much smaller population size for whichever civilisation fields them.
More than that, you're completely right that women were taught how to fight and hunt, but that doesn't mean you'd want to purposefully expose your only source of growth to danger. This isn't like it's just a theory I made up, it's how it's happened across every civilisation in the world ever (which is a pretty large sample size!) and for a pretty logical reason.
As a similar (and interesting) example, we can look at the real world example of the Fore people. The Kuru disease caused large imbalances in the gender balance of societies which took part in the cannibalistic rituals as it was mainly women who ate the brain which led to the disease. This led to some tribes shrinking to the point of extinction, whilst others were weakened by their lack of available soldiers and were therefore invaded.
Post by: Heretic on February 22, 2017, 05:19:16 am
There is no hope, but a lot of great stuff is here.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 22, 2017, 07:03:37 am
Once I hope that i will see realise. It was a lot of times ago.
There is no hope, but a lot of great stuff is here.
We *will* see release of 0.8 in the next month or two. I'm just a junior employee in a very precarious and hyper-competitive career field and it's just hard to now find the time I found during my doctorate :(
Post by: Greenbane on February 22, 2017, 07:55:57 am
Also, y'all vastly underestimate the human ability to procreate. Ask my grandmother's 20+ kids, or her 19 or so siblings and their 17-24 kids each. :P
As far as I know, given child mortality and the very real risk of mother's death during childbirth, I don't think medieval families could get anywhere near that big.
Not to mention the fact a woman giving birth to over 20 kids means being pregnant for over 15 years almost non-stop, somewhat less if there's a couple of multiple childbirths along the way. That's your entire prime in medieval terms (15-30) focused on one thing, and it won't be martial training nor going off to war.
Also, in general, I'd say having 20+ kids is quite rare, especially 50-60 years ago (I'm guessing that's about your parents' age). And there's also the matter of providing for so many children. You'd either have to be really wealthy or have exceptionally poor family planning. Even if it were medically viable in a medieval context, nobody but the richest nobles would be able to maintain so many kids, if that.
Anyway, this is getting off-topic. Take your time, Mark. As always, life comes first.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 03:12:19 pm
(Father would be 71 if he were alive, my Mother 60)
Bastards really got up in age, too. One of my great-aunts is still kicking at 103, and another great aunt died at 109 around 2 years ago. Ironically, they lived in what amounts to mud huts, never went to doctors, and ate off their own gardens.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 03:14:57 pm
I'm still an avid fan and player, among many, of UnReal World - which has been developed on and off since 1992! No rush, man. Do what you need to do, and do what you can.
We players can get a little antsy sometimes, but as you age, you realize all good things come with patience.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 03:17:02 pm
Quote
Adolescent pregnancy
Fact sheet
Updated September 2014
Key facts
About 16 million girls aged 15 to 19 and some 1 million girls under 15 give birth every year—most in low- and middle-income countries.
Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are the second cause of death for 15-19 year-old girls globally.
Every year, some 3 million girls aged 15 to 19 undergo unsafe abortions.
Babies born to adolescent mothers face a substantially higher risk of dying than those born to women aged 20 to 24.
Birth rates
There has been a marked, although uneven, decrease in the birth rates among adolescent girls since 1990, but some 11% of all births worldwide are still to girls aged 15 to 19 years old. The vast majority of these births (95%) occur in low- and middle-income countries.
The 2014 World Health Statistics indicate that the average global birth rate among 15 to 19 year olds is 49 per 1000 girls. Country rates range from 1 to 299 births per 1000 girls, with the highest rates in sub-Saharan Africa.
Adolescent pregnancy remains a major contributor to maternal and child mortality, and to the cycle of ill-health and poverty.
Post by: Retropunch on February 22, 2017, 03:21:16 pm
URR, don't worry buddy. You've got this.
I'm still an avid fan and player, among many, of UnReal World - which has been developed on and off since 1992! No rush, man. Do what you need to do, and do what you can.
We players can get a little antsy sometimes, but as you age, you realize all good things come with patience.
Ehndras, just to let you know, it's kinda forum etiquette here to edit posts instead of double posting, especially if it's on the same theme/topic.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 05:42:51 pm
Been here for quite a few years, between this account and the last. :) Depending on time factors, I've realized edits may go completely unseen.
But aye, was nice discussing something interesting. Cheers!
Post by: Retropunch on February 22, 2017, 07:49:00 pm
Don't see where that is applicable, as its in response to a prior post which was likely already read by said party.
Been here for quite a few years, between this account and the last. :) Depending on time factors, I've realized edits may go completely unseen.
But aye, was nice discussing something interesting. Cheers!
No offense meant - I certainly wasn't trying to be belligerent or proclaim that I'm a more experienced Bay12'er or anything, but on this page you've had three posts in a row, and the previous one you had another three posts in a row. This isn't about content, it's just about multiple responses in a row - just edit the previous one.
Post by: Ehndras on February 22, 2017, 08:03:14 pm
I blame social media *cough cough*
Soon as I'm done posting my new RP game I'll edit and delete the excess :) Thanks for the suggestions / reminder, much appreciated.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 27, 2017, 08:06:53 am
---
This week I’m doing something slightly unusual. A huge amount of coding has been done this week, but I’m not yet able to produce screenshots from this progress; some of it is slightly buggy, and I need to test a few new generation systems to ensure that the NPCs I want to talk to, in order to take the screenshots, correctly have the information I actually want them to have. Succinctly, though, we now have a huge set of new list questions generating, various elements such as punctuation and slight meandering to make conversations seem more human, political parties even more fully implemented, a geographical search system put in place, greetings vary massively based on the relationship between you and the NPC, and even a procedural alcohol-name generation system so that innkeepers have something to talk about, and the beginnings of systems for modifying what people will say to you based on their mood (personal), the “local” mood (what people in that area think of you), and their knowledge of the particular matter (geographical, historical, etc).
All of these are finished, on the cusp of completion, or well into development; but because I’ve just been coding like mad, I haven’t really stopped to polish everything and get things to a position where I can take screenshots. As such, I’ve decided just to put this up this week, to signify: lots of coding is happening, and there will be lots to show off soon, but I’d rather show it all off once I can implement screenshots. I know some of the recent updates have been screenshot-lite, so I really want to have a solid volume of screenshots in place once I can show things off.
As such: hopefully, we’ll have a nice set of screenshots next week!
Post by: Zireael on February 27, 2017, 08:10:10 am
This coming weekend will be to some extent the same, as although I'll be interviewing people at an esports event in Poland in the day time, my evenings are very clear.
Esports event in Poland! :D Where is the event? Is it in Warsaw?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 27, 2017, 04:04:15 pm
This coming weekend will be to some extent the same, as although I'll be interviewing people at an esports event in Poland in the day time, my evenings are very clear.
Esports event in Poland! :D Where is the event? Is it in Warsaw?
Alas, no - it is the IEM in Katowice, 3rd -> 5th!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 12, 2017, 07:55:42 am
More List Questions
I have now finished off almost all the “list questions” – which is to say, questions where the answer often takes the form of a list, such as “What towns are nearby?”, or “What animals are sacred to your people?”, and so forth. Here are some examples of the recent additions:
Animals and Plants
You can now ask people about the animals and plants that are local to their homeland, and whether any animals or plants are considered especially important in that homeland, as part of your conversation. They’ll now give you a list of the local flora or fauna as appropriate, which is always grammatically correct, and also lists these things in a fairly logical order. The number is never too high, either, so you never find yourself reading through a gigantic list of things. Although not currently implemented, in the very near future these animals and plants will be spawning, and should be found referenced throughout a culture, and are designed to be another clue the player can potentially use to find out about the world.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Ales1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Ales1-3.png)
International Relations and Geography
The game can now generate appropriate and logical sets of relationships between nations, based on their ideologies, religions, proximity, and so forth. You can now ask people about their relationships with other nations, what they think about other cultures in general, what kinds of cultures are nearby, what tribes and nomads can be found nearby, and so on. The same system is then used for overall geography, so you can now ask a range of questions about things that are near to where the player and an NPC are having their conversation. For example, you can ask whether there are mountains (or mountain passes) in the proximity, and so forth. These questions then redirect to a function which chooses an appropriate area for the NPC to have knowledge of (more educated NPCs will have a wider area, and NPCs more well-disposed towards you will think about giving you a longer response). This system needs expanding to all kinds of conversations, which I will talk about more in the future, but for the time being, people can tell you quite a bit about the surrounding areas:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Others-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Others-3.png)
Laws
Also, here are the law responses from last time:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/02/Laws.png)
You’ll notice the first of those is rather long. This is an example with a nation with a lot of laws on violence, and talking to someone who is well-disposed to you, and is therefore willing to actually talk to you. I think I need to find some way to chop this down; for such a long potential answer, maybe even people who like you the most will tell you the top laws or bottom laws, or maybe they’ll say “Do you want to know punishments for the worst crimes or the most common crimes?”, or… something. I’m not quite sure yet. Either way, it’s pretty clear that a reply this long isn’t really workable, and is very hard to read, and will probably lose the reader’s interest part-way through.
Meanderings
Secondly, I added in a set of what I’ve now taken to calling “meanderings”. As part of making conversations as realistic as possible, I felt it was important to add in code for people thinking for a moment before they reply, or being semi-reluctant to quickly reply, and just generally having the umms, ahhs, and oks, that characteristic real speech. At the same time, of course, having too much of this would quickly get annoying. To balance this out, there are two elements. Firstly, people will only start to use these phrases if they begin to get annoyed about the conversation, and they’re starting to lose interest in you. When their full interest is on you they won’t falter in the conversation, but this might change as time goes by. Secondly, they will not use it too often; an NPC that has just used one will definitely not use it on the next sentence, and beyond that, it is randomised, but becomes more and more likely the less and less interested in the conversation the NPC becomes. If you look at the conversations above, you’ll see a few of those present here and there.
International Relations
As noted above, the game now generates appropriate relationships between each nation in the game, whether feudal, tribal, or nomadic. In essence, the game looks over the ideologies of each nation, and looks at where they match, and where they clash. In some cases a pair of ideologies could be seen as a match or a clash; for instance, two monarchies might get on well because they have the same system of leadership, maybe the families are related, and so forth; or they might hate each other and have a rivalry between their ruling families. In these cases the game chooses at random whether these are “good” commonalities or “rivalry” commonalities. Equally, some shared ideologies will always cause conflict – two theocracies or two especially religiously zealous nations which do not share religions are never going to get on, and likewise two imperialist nations – whilst others will always generate friendship, such as a shared commitment to religious tolerance, or a shared appreciation of gladiatorial combat. Then, in turn, various religious beliefs, geographical distributions, and so forth, further affect matters. These are then categorised into nations that are close allies, friendly, neutral, disliked, or firm enemies; these five categorisations then affect speech, whilst the more specific like/dislike values will play into other elements later on. This is basically akin to the kinds of systems one sees in the recent Civilization games, but somewhat more complex and with many more factors at play determining what cultures think of one another.
Along the civ.relations dictionary, there is also a civ.trade_relations dictionary. This is similar, obviously, but actually somewhat distinct. Whereas relations simply tells you what one nation thinks of the other, in the case of trade_relations, we’re talking specifically about how much trade passes between two nations. Of course, trade is not going to be passing between nations that loathe each other, but two nations that share a massive border and are somewhat friendly are likely to trade more than two nations that are the best of friends, but half the world apart (bearing in mind, of course, that we are talking about the renaissance rather than the modern day here). Trade_relations therefore tells you the volume of trade going on between each nation and each other nation, and in some stores the player will therefore be able to sometimes find the items of other nations for sale. The reverse will actually happen in black markets – if X and Y hate each other, the goods of X might secretly appear in the black markets of Y, and vice versa. In this way I’m aiming to make the potentially someone “abstract” idea of international and trade relations much more concrete; it shapes who appears in each nation, what items appear where and under what conditions, and will also – of course – affect where the player can safely go.
Alcohol
For a fun little diversion for an hour this week, I also implemented the system for procedural alcohol – I’m sure we’ll all agree, a truly vital component of any procedural world. Each nation now selects an archetype of drinks that they tend to enjoy drinking, which can be beer, spirits, or wine; these are designed so that a full world will not have a completely equal distribution, but some generations should have a high volume of beer, spirits, or wine drinkers; much as in the real world, we don’t see these equally distributed. It then generates an appropriate set of alcoholic drinks for each nation, with words drawing on the terrain and climate types enjoyed by that nation, a wide set of default words for each alcohol type, and names – a class of alcohol might be named after the particular monastery where it is brewed, a particular town where it is particularly favoured, and so forth.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Ales1-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Ales1-2.png)
The player can also now ask innkeeps about the kind of alcohol they sell, and they’ll give you an appropriate list! Taverns stock a high percentage of all the alcohols drunk by one nation, but will never stock the full collection; equally, I’ll shortly implement a system so that taverns particularly near the border with another country will (assuming that is a nation with a particular set of alcohols, so not a tribal nation) sometimes carry one of the alcohols from “across the border”. Later on I will also add actual “breweries” in the locations where the various alcohols in a nation are brewed; these will have minimal gameplay value, so I certainly won’t spend more than a few hours on that, but for the sake of completeness I think they need to go in to make the world look just that little bit more complete, more varied, and so forth.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Debug-drinks.png)
Relics
In the last fortnight I also finished the generation system for relics, and here are some example debug logs, where “RT” means “Relic Type”. Some of these do have rather lengthy names, because the names of the people associated with the relic can be quite long. It’s a little unwieldy, but honestly, I think it’s fine. I’m extremely happy with how these work and how these look, and I don’t think I’ll make any more changes here before the 0.8 release, beyond making sure everyone in the game can speak about relics of their religion correctly.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Debug-relics-2.png)
Blog Update Speed
So, once again, this has been a fortnightly update. As such, I’m just going to stop commenting on this for now or trying to predict when the next update will be, and I’ll just say to everyone: I’ll update as soon, and as rapidly, as I can. I am developing URR actively again, as you can see from the above, but I am also changing jobs, taking up two visiting positions in two other continents, and finishing my first academic monograph… so we’ll see how it goes. See you all next wee-… er… next time!
Post by: Neonivek on March 12, 2017, 08:29:46 am
Actually I just assume mead didn't generate in that batch. (and mulled just means heated typically with spices... so it would use the standard drink anyhow)
Post by: Retropunch on March 12, 2017, 09:27:46 am
Post by: Scoops Novel on March 14, 2017, 05:23:50 pm
I understand you can't go into the same detail as your Q&A system, but you need something to represent buttering somebody up at least. IMO, a slightly more abstract system might be the name of the game. Take dwarf fortresses book system.
(http://i.imgur.com/ULmjCVv.jpg)
Spoiler: Exhibit B: (click to show/hide)
Plenty of personality and enough specifics to project onto, without requiring a chatbot to reply convincingly. I mean, you could probably have a conversation like this - "Denstep agrees that his sweater would be a good home for a skylark. In fact, he suggests you begin a colony." - without seemingly trying too hard.
You already have an "interest" system; expand it into a friendliness system! Small talk is the most realistic way to build up to these kind of questions. It's also a perfectly sensible system to influence morale and emotions. I'd like to add: i imagine the player can build up a party if they so wish. Rather then reducing companions notable features to their initial introduction, useful skills and information dispensation i would inject some of their personality into the foot-slogging; namely the fast-travel system where realistically your opinion of your fellows would be formed.
I would give each companion conversation preferences, and allow the player to set his own. When you fast travel, the two collide and you receive a short summary of whats been discussed as well as the partys/individuals mood at the end of the journey. Fast travel would only be interrupted if a conversation turned serious or key information was revealed.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on March 14, 2017, 06:57:07 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on March 25, 2017, 02:04:18 pm
Post by: Ehndras on March 26, 2017, 03:19:57 am
I guess that does side-step the problem with alien-sounding conversation "I am a member of Earth. I enjoy to drink the water. In Earth we have an internal skeleton."
...I'm sigging this, if you don't mind
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 29, 2017, 04:01:19 pm
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This fortnight I’ve been working on getting the entire basic underpinnings of the conversation system finished; I’ve made a lot of progress, not quite enough to show off all the screenshots I’d like, so like last time, I’d rather wait until I can do a nice screenshot-heavy update, which will be next time (whenever that is!).
Instead, I’m going to talk a bit about the second thing I’ve been working on. I’ve now started developing the system by which NPCs will make judgements about you, the player, and where you come from. There are five elements to this: your clothing, your jewellery (meaning what rings and necklaces you are wearing, if any), your skin tone, your facial appearance (scarification, tattoos, headscarves, turbans, that sort of thing), and how you talk. The last one of these I’ve talked the most about in the past, but in this entry I’m going to do a little bit of an overview of how I see all of these functioning, and what it’ll do for the game. Equally, however, I now find myself faced with a big problem: what if all five elements of a player’s appearance suggest different origins or statuses? How should the NPC respond? I have a few notions, but I’m very open to suggestions.
Anyway, without further ado:
Clothing/Armour/Weapons
Other NPCs will make a range of judgements about the player based on the clothing they wear (and, later, the armour they wear, and weapon they wield). I think this will have three elements: what nation they seem to be from, their potential wealth, and whether their clothing denotes any kind of special affiliation, such as a religious order or military organisation. Most NPCs will likely treat you with more deference the more impressive the clothing you wear, but of course wearing the clothing style of a hated nation is likely to have the opposite effect no matter the wealth you’re showing off. For religious clothes, I’d like to have NPCs assume you’re a priest or a monk if you’re wearing obviously religious garb, although such garb will obviously have significant negative effects in certain areas of the game world; at the same time, though, it might encourage a particularly zealous shopkeeper to give you a discount, for instance. However, if people ask for religious advice and your character doesn’t know anything about the religion they are masquerading a priest of… that might be a little suspicious. Once armour is in the game that will also affect people and how they respond to you, probably with a little fear, a little deference, but again depending on the specific situation. Wearing unknown clothes should also elicit some kind of response depending on the nation/people; friendly and inquisitive if a very open and cosmopolitan nation, scared if isolationist, etc…
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/newblog3.png)
Jewellery
Jewellery will appear at some point in the near-ish future, and will consist of rings and necklaces. These will be similar to clothing: there will be cheap, middling, and pricy rings and necklaces available for each nation, and special/unique rings and necklaces for religions, religious orders, various other factors, various ranks in various organisations, and these sorts of things. Right now, I think special jewellery will be available for religions, houses/noble families, monarchs/rulers, but that’ll probably be it (and then more generally, as above, across cultures). I therefore see these as having a very similar set of relationships as clothing, but also denoting several things (such as family affiliation) which clothing does not; although most will be standard jewellery items for the culture in question.
Skin Tone
Skin tone varies very widely in URR, and is inevitably a central method by which peope might make judgements about the origin of the player character. This has only one element, which is to say a geographical assumption: NPCs will consider your skin tone, estimate how close/far from the equator you originate, and then look at their knowledge of nations and take a guess at which one you might be from. As such, there will also be some way to temporarily alter and mask your actual skin tone and make it lighter or darker as part of trying to blend in in other societies; and, of course, with some skin tones you’ll be able to “pass” for a citizen of many countries, most likely, whereas a clothing style would only allow you to pass for one. Hopefully the intersection of these (and the other elements below) will allow for some interesting combinations and strategic decisions.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/newblog2.png)
Facial Appearance
Facial appearance, meanwhile, is a binary element: it denotes the overall culture someone comes from, and that’s it, although in a small number of cases it might also denote rank, slavery, and so forth. Again, if people recognise the markings they will suspect you are from the appropriate culture; if they don’t recognise the markings, the same range of responses mentioned earlier might play out. Again, I’ll be introducing ways to fake some markings (though probably not others?) as a means of further disguising yourself.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/newblog1.png)
How you Talk
We’ve discussed this several times before on this blog, so I’ll keep it brief here, but the way in which you speak is going to be crucial. NPCs will make judgements about your origin based on what you say and how you say it, whilst you’ll be able to fake speaking in other dialects to a greater or lesser extent based on your knowledge of that dialect at the point you’re having the conversation. This will often be a make-or-break point for any player/player character attempting to “fake” their way into/through a particular culture or particular social situation, and is one of the aspects that’ll appear in 0.8 – NPCs won’t respond to it yet, but you will be able to change dialects, and see the results.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/03/Others-3.png)
Summary
These are the five major elements I see as contributing to how other NPCs see the player – the first four being literally how they see the player, and the last one of course only coming into the equation if you start talking to the NPC (or the NPC starts talking to you, which is a feature that definitely needs to be implemented in the near future). I think these will give the player ample methods for crafting an image useful to them at that moment,
But what happens if 50% of your elements suggest you are person A of rank B from culture C and religion D, but the other half of your clothing suggests you are person W of rank X from culture Y and religion Z, which is the absolute opposite? Should they take an educated guess? Should they comment on how you are dressed, and that you are dressed strangely? What if they have particularly strong feelings towards/against A/B/C/D/W/X/Y/Z? Or what if 90% of your visible elements suggest X, but then you have a single element suggesting Y? Should the NPCs focus entirely on Y? Should they assume you are X and just treat Y as a strange element? Does that depend on the nature of X and Y and the context in which you are meeting another NPC? My point from all of these questions is that it’s proving very difficult and complex to decide, in essence and in one sentence, how NPCs should add up the elements of “you” they are presented with and how they should subsequently come to a judgement. This is what I’d love any and all of your thoughts on below; this system isn’t going to be implemented in 0.8, because I’m really trying to get only the core essentials of the conversation system done before release, but it’ll be a crucial element of the fast and much shorter 0.9 which will be finishing off the conversation system straight after. What do you think?
Updates
As I’ve said before, I’m crunching on finishing my first book, and about to travel for six weeks through various visiting fellowships; I am hard at work coding, but right now I’m finding fewer blog updates is really helping me with game developments, so we’ll be sticking to uncertain update schedules until my book is finished and submitted (May 31). I know this is rubbish, folks, and I wish I had some more time, and I hate how long URR 0.8 is dragging on for, but I’m doing the absolute best possible in the present situation. Next update: asap!
Post by: Scoops Novel on March 29, 2017, 07:21:26 pm
In other words, you need a priority system and error checking. If all signs point to one culture, but they're famously xenophobic and you're the wrong race, eliminate it. Something very expensive counts for more as a cultural signifier, tattoes should be ranked higher still as they're permanent.
If they hate say your apparent religion but love your country, hate should be the favoured reaction. As for rank... one valuable item shouldn't be blinked at, but if half of your wardrobe is cheap and the other fabulous, they'll assume you're a thief. The same goes for someone with one conspicuously cheap item, like terrible shoes on a prince. Cheap jewelry can get a pass.
Post by: Retropunch on March 30, 2017, 03:17:53 pm
The two basic options are to communicate to the player 'you look like you're a Xylthian noble' in an inventory screen, or have it that it's very easy from talking to someone early on why you don't fit in 'You look like a Xylthian noble, but you don't wear the right clothes'. Otherwise you have a situation where the player doesn't know how convincing they are or what they can do to change it.
These options can still get tedious, with option one you'd just end up continually trying clothes until you got the right combo, and the second option could get a bit tedious, as you're still not sure which part of my clothing it is, if you need better jewellery etc.
It's one of those gameplay > realism situations where it could become quickly frustrating if not signposted easily to the player. Absolutely the best way to do it in my opinion, would be to have a list of your 'known outfits' (Xyl noble, Austar pirate etc.) and have them greyed out unless you have the right stuff in your inventory. It'd make it a lot less of a dressing game and a lot more coherent.
Post by: Neonivek on March 30, 2017, 04:30:34 pm
Ok so the world generates as usual... However the game doesn't take place in that world it takes place in the future...
And you are an archeologist.
I have to hand it to this game... it really lends itself to some pretty neat gameplay if you ever wanted to take it another direction.
But I have no idea why... no matter what this game is... I can't help but think of it as some sort of weird "cultural anthropology" game. Even the traps I am like "Oooh, now what is the context for this trap?" Mind you I mean it in the best of ways.
Post by: Scoops Novel on March 30, 2017, 09:08:16 pm
Post by: Retropunch on March 31, 2017, 05:38:34 am
Retropunch, i wouldn't worry about communicating it to the player. You'll be surrounded by NPC's who are wearing something appropriate, so it shouldn't be hard to figure out.
I guess it depends how deep the clothing system is, and how much the NPCs react to it. If clothing is just denoted by civ name, station and item (e.g. 'Azal noble trousers, Azal noble cloak and Azal noble turban') then it isn't a difficult one to do. However, if the people of Azal wear mostly red clothing, white head coverings and necklaces, then it might be a bit more difficult for the player to work it out. This depends on how uniform the NPCs are in their dress code, and how much latitude they give you in your dress code.
It fits in to Mark's request for suggestions - I'd suggest that the NPCs take anything that's over 50% of the attributes as you being from that nation/religion. However, I'd fluctuate the NPCs 'trust score' of the player accordingly - if you're trying to do something that requires you to be a noble/religious ordinary then you should be challenged if you're not 100% in the right garb.
The NPCs might also respond to any slip ups in conversation ('wait, if you're really Azal you should know that we celebrate the most holy pesto day on Friday! Heathen!') whereas if you're in 100% convincing you'd get ('friend, you surely wouldn't skip out on the giant pesto baptism ceremony? It'll be a rapturous event.'). Again, I'd flag this up clearly to the player before hand though.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 15, 2017, 12:26:18 pm
If everything but the race fits and the cultures friendly, assume they're immigrants. If the dress is a little off, it's fashion. If it's 50/50, they're a seasoned traveler like a sailor. If it's a complete grab-bag - e.g a asian, wearing a turban, dressed like a cowboy wearing a star of david and tattooed with mexican gang signs - well. People will either point and laugh or you'll be able to sell tickets to all the people asking about your life story. Probably both. Personally, i'd pick the most important of the above (Mexican gang signs) and assume that's where there from.
In other words, you need a priority system and error checking. If all signs point to one culture, but they're famously xenophobic and you're the wrong race, eliminate it. Something very expensive counts for more as a cultural signifier, tattoes should be ranked higher still as they're permanent.
If they hate say your apparent religion but love your country, hate should be the favoured reaction. As for rank... one valuable item shouldn't be blinked at, but if half of your wardrobe is cheap and the other fabulous, they'll assume you're a thief. The same goes for someone with one conspicuously cheap item, like terrible shoes on a prince. Cheap jewelry can get a pass.
Fantastic thoughts, I totally agree about the need for a priority system; check the things an NPC cares most about first, and thnen work "down" from there. Great thinking on thief idea too, and I agree, hate should prioritise love (ah, a bleak reflection on our world!). Great thoughts on permanent things too; that's a really nice foundation to build other stuff on.
Tedium, gameplay, realism
These are great thoughts. Hmm. That is definitely a concern I've had for a while, but as it currently stands... I must be honest, I'm not too concerned about that happening. As below with my other reply, I think part just comes down to playtesting, but I think your idea to have something appear in the inventory screen could be a nice idea, but I think I'd prefer to communicate this by clothing, and have players "identify" clothing as belonging to Nation X or Religion Y when they're in a scenario where it's totally clear/obvious. However, the "known outfits" model I think might be the very best of all the ideas; have a section in the encyclopedia for that, basically, and when you see someone who is perfectly doing Outfit X, that goes in, saying "Priests of A wear B hat, C cloak, boots from any constituent nation, a Ring of D, E or F depending on their rank", etc.
But I have no idea why... no matter what this game is... I can't help but think of it as some sort of weird "cultural anthropology" game. Even the traps I am like "Oooh, now what is the context for this trap?" Mind you I mean it in the best of ways.
I mean, in a way, that's the intention anyway! The more you learn about the world's cultures/peoples/histories etc, the better-equipped you are to pursue the clues you've looking for. But yeah, it definitely does lend itself to other things too.
I guess it depends how deep the clothing system is, and how much the NPCs react to it. If clothing is just denoted by civ name, station and item (e.g. 'Azal noble trousers, Azal noble cloak and Azal noble turban') then it isn't a difficult one to do. However, if the people of Azal wear mostly red clothing, white head coverings and necklaces, then it might be a bit more difficult for the player to work it out. This depends on how uniform the NPCs are in their dress code, and how much latitude they give you in your dress code.
It fits in to Mark's request for suggestions - I'd suggest that the NPCs take anything that's over 50% of the attributes as you being from that nation/religion. However, I'd fluctuate the NPCs 'trust score' of the player accordingly - if you're trying to do something that requires you to be a noble/religious ordinary then you should be challenged if you're not 100% in the right garb.
The NPCs might also respond to any slip ups in conversation ('wait, if you're really Azal you should know that we celebrate the most holy pesto day on Friday! Heathen!') whereas if you're in 100% convincing you'd get ('friend, you surely wouldn't skip out on the giant pesto baptism ceremony? It'll be a rapturous event.'). Again, I'd flag this up clearly to the player before hand though.
I think there are all great thoughts (and hilarious examples!). Have NPCs be increasingly generous to the player the less important the situation you're in, basically; gaining access to a ruler's quarters would be meticulously checked, whereas wandering from one district to another would, obviously, be somewhat less so. And a good point about dress codes etc. I think the best plan is to get this out as fast as possible (obviously!), see how it plays, and put all the "NPC identifying who the player is" code in one area so I can readily go back and change it based on feedback.
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In the mean time, a blog entry this week on other stuff, as I continue to deal with everything in the way of finally getting 0.8 released: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2017/04/15/gambling-virtual-reality-arcades-mechanical-games/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 24, 2017, 03:54:02 pm
So… this is what burnout feels like.
I’m almost now ready to submit the manuscript for my first academic monograph. It will have taken two months longer than anticipated, which was a great disappointment to me – it’s the only piece of academic work I’ve ever had to ask for an extension on. There were many factors at play there, some within my control, and some outside of my control, but the bottom line was that had I taken on less than I wound up taking on (and had the circumstances I was working within been different), I would have been able to get it submitted on time. Although I’m very happy with the final product, and I’m confident the work will be a valuable contribution to the study of unpredictability in games (of all its forms), I find myself reflecting specifically on the process by which the final parts of it – the crunch, if you will – were written. From around the start of March until the start of June, I can truthfully say I did effectively nothing with my spare moments except writing the book. All day on both days of every weekend was book writing; every evening was book-writing; every train journey and flight and coach trip was book writing. During this period I spent effectively no time with friends, no time exercising, and no time whatsoever doing any programming, much to my chagrin.
During this period, I began to experience for the first time what I believe is called “burnout” – my appetite dropped, I developed some anxiety (a deeply new experience for me), I developed some depression (similarly), and it felt at times as if there wasn’t really any point to what I was doing; that was I just speaking into the void because nobody else would read it; that I was letting everyone down by not working on URR (which I still feel quite acutely); and other feelings I’m not going to share here. Although certainly not the darkest time in my life, it has been, in many ways, a deeply unpleasant three months. Travelling a lot in this period helped me, and finding some times to engage with nature – whether meeting wild bison and wolves in the frozen tundra of Northern Canada or meeting wild tropical birds and lizards in the equatorial jungles of Hong Kong and Singapore – helped my mood a lot, but it only stemmed the bleeding, without addressing the underlying issues.
Academia, especially early-career academic before one secures a tenured faculty position, is notoriously stressful and time-consuming. One is always in competition with vast numbers of recent PhD graduates for a ludicrously small number of postdoctoral or junior faculty positions; one is constantly bombarded with requests and obligations and things that need to be done; one is strongly encouraged to submit only to top-tier journals, and yet doing so leaves one waiting for potentially years until publication, damaging one’s employability in the short term. The other crucial element of academia is that there is always more one can do. As academics, we don’t really have working hours, as such – just contracts that say we must “fulfil the expectations of the job”, or some equivalent language, using however many hours across however many days per week that takes. Many contracts even explicitly state we are expected to use evenings, weekends and holidays to meet those requirements where necessary – and that, assuming one wants to spend one’s academic career actually doing research, will always be true.
Up until now, I’ve always been able to field this and maintain the other things I want in my life, but in these last three months, I am not exaggerating when I say every spare moment has gone into the book. For the three months before that extreme compression of my time, almost every spare moment went into the book, and looking back, I can see my free time shrinking into a smaller and smaller gap with every passing day. Something inherently enjoyable – and I do enjoy academic work tremendously – quickly ceases to be enjoyable when it is something one must do, and when it is the only thing one is spending one’s time doing. Because of this the book became something of a chore, which itself made it harder to write, and which itself made it more of a chore, and made more painful my inability to spend my time on other things, and so forth. As a result of the stress leading up to and during the book-writing, I screwed up. I made two serious errors of judgement – one being a different but major piece of academic work I submitted, and another being a piece of work I submitted elsewhere. In both cases I made poor judgements about what I wrote, and over-estimated my knowledge of those domains, and was – quite appropriately – brought down a rung by those who do know those domains. They were both humbling experiences, which really brought home how much my judgement had been impaired by the stress of finishing the book.
But now, the book is basically finished, and I’m on my final visiting position of the year, having also just been offered an amazing new two-year postdoc opportunity in Canada where I will be able to drive my own research and make my own hours. However, as I sit here for now in a cafe in Nevada, trying to take stock of things, I realise that there are four things I must make time for, and a fifth change I need to make overall, from now, moving forward, no matter what, in order both to be the kind of academic I want to be, and to have the life I want beyond the academy.
Firstly, I need to make time again for programming, starting now. It’s something I enjoy tremendously, it’s creative work which forms a crucial balance to the intellectual work I make my income from, it’s something a lot of people are following and counting on me for, it’s something absolutely tethered to my online presence, and it’s something I simply deeply want to start doing again, and which gives me valuable balance in my life. It makes me deeply sad that I wasn’t able to get 0.8 out before I went into this period of total time compression and book-only-focus, and I want to put this right and get 0.8 released as fast as possible, and certainly before my new position starts later this year. Once 0.8 is out URR will be more than half-done, and psychologically, that’s an important marker I need to hit. Therefore, starting next weekend, I intend to devote a day per week to programming, no matter what else might be looming over me or might be requiring my attention. Either Saturday or Sunday each week, but probably I think Sunday, my intention is to always spend that day – as a minimum – programming. Despite the long hiatus, URR is not cancelled, but has certainly been on hiatus, and it’s finally time for that hiatus to properly, and truly, end.
Secondly, I need to make time again for fitness and exercise. I haven’t exercised once in the last three months, with the exception of hiking up and down Victoria Peak in Hong Kong and a couple of hikes in Alberta and Nevada. Normally I would exercise for at least an hour at least four or so days a week, but the book has simply dominated my time and my thought to such a degree that I’ve let this slip completely, down to zero. I can tell and feel that I’m less fit now, I’m less strong now, and less healthy now, and I don’t like it. It’s an unsettling and disturbing change from the state of being I’ve become used to, and I want to get back to my previous level of fitness as soon as possible. I’ve now managed to get this back to exercising twice a week, and hopefully I can push that back towards four as I decompress in the coming months. As I’m moving to Alberta, I’m keen to do lots of hiking there, too, and I have some interesting future travel plans which should also help with that.
Thirdly, I need to make time for a personal life. The fact that I am likely moving to a new country/city in a few months feels like a good time to make this kind of resolution – both to renew existing acquaintances in the UK and elsewhere, especially important now that I’m no longer in physical proximity to my friends in the UK, but also to go out there and find new friends and new colleagues. I’ve always been someone with a small group of close friends instead of a far wider social circle, but this, also, has shrunk to nothing in recent months, and my personal relationships have definitely suffered for it. I’m making amends to those I have unintentionally hurt, which I believe to be an important first step, and from this point onward I’m going to make a lot more time with friends and family in the coming months. It seems that the importance of this to one’s mental health only appears after it is lost, and that’s a lesson I don’t want to have to repeat again in the future.
Fourthly, I need to make time to actually play games. I got into game design and game scholarship and game writing and competitive game play because I love games; because I’ve played hundreds, probably thousands, and certainly own thousands; and I’ve been playing them since I was as young as I can remember. But I no longer find myself with the time to actually play any; in the last year I’ve played only two games for pleasure, which were Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. Both were incredible experiences, but that’s only a fraction of the time I would normally spend playing games. Even in other periods of stress – such as when I was simultaneously finishing my PhD and dealing with a life-threatening illness – I still found far more time to play. It’s fun (most crucially), but it’s also important for my ability to be a good game designer and good games scholar. As such, my goal is now to at least double the number of major games I play each year for starters, and hopefully increase this number as time goes by. Right now, The Witness, Demon’s Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, The Bridge, Antichamber, and perhaps even returning to playing roguelikes all look very appealing, and that’s where I plan to start.
Fifthly, and lastly, I need to focus. Forgive the cliched phrase, but I now realise I need to work smarter, instead of working harder. I’ve been trying to be a game scholar, and a competitive game-player, and a game designer, and a game writer, and all the other things in my life outside games. This is just too much. As a result, I’ve decided to permanently “retire” any competitive gaming from my life. I want to really focus on scholarship/writing/coding, and in turn, to present myself specifically at the intersection of those three things. My background in poker remains a major informing element on my academic career – especially as I move toward studying gambling more seriously as a topic of study – but I think I’m spreading myself too thinly, both in terms of my effort, and in terms of how I appear. I want to focus in on my strengths, instead of trying to be everything, and do everything, when it comes to games.I think this will, without a doubt, be for the best, and strengthen my ability to work in my core domains without “distracting” myself with others.
As for the wider future, academia certainly remains my career path of choice. I take tremendous satisfaction from the unfolding of intellectual ideas on paper; I love travelling around the world to do research, to attend and present at conferences, to meet colleagues, and to experience new parts of this earth; I enjoy the freedom of working hours that academia (generally) gives one, even if that same freedom means working a lot of those hours, and the ability to largely work where and when I want. But these last three or four months have shown me what can happen when I take on too much – I make mistakes, and my ability to do anything else with my time beyond academia gets reduced down to a minimum, and then disappears altogether. This is not a “New Year’s” resolution, but this is certainly a mid-year resolution: I need to adjust my life back toward the kind of life I want to have, and I am confident this will have benefits both within and beyond my academic work. So with this written, and with this posted, I’m going to head to the gym in this hotel and work out for an hour, then head back to my hotel room and play something, anything, on Steam, then do some programming in the evening. The change starts now.
Post by: FakerFangirl on June 24, 2017, 06:22:02 pm
Academia, especially early-career academic before one secures a tenured faculty position, is notoriously stressful and time-consuming.Yeah.
Firstly, I need to make time again for programming, starting now.Yush!
I’ve been trying to be a game scholar, and a competitive game-player, and a game designer, and a game writer, and all the other things in my life outside games. This is just too much.But this is how you prevent burnout! You flicker between many different interests so that each 'job' feels like a 'break' from the others. Like, if you're a professional poker player, and you're tilted, you do something else. Unfortunately, with real life, there's often only one... 'Life'. You can hop between games but you don't get to hop between lives and such. So yeah. When I'm annoyed with willful stupidity and nonsensical hostility (raging for the sake of venting) from competitive teammates then I make a Youtube video. When I'm tired of making Youtube videos I write erotica. When I'm tired of writing erotica I watch world politics. And when I'm depressed from reading and posting about world politics I go play competitively. #Hikki
I find that my most productive moments are when I convince myself that I am working at something in order to procrastinate finishing something else! I value self-improvement and pursuing meaningful interests. Then again, this lifestyle requires a small fortune to sustain since I don't get paid by an employer.
Looking forward to 0.8 ;D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 25, 2017, 11:13:54 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 03, 2017, 01:51:28 pm
So, as mentioned in last week’s entry, my objective is now to devote one full day – either Saturday or Sunday – each week to programming until 0.8 is released, and beyond. As such, this weekend has been the first weekend of that new pattern (I’ve actually been coding both Saturday and Sunday), and for the first time in months I opened up URR’s files (or rather, file…) and took a look at where everything was; I also took some time wandering around the game world to see how everything was functioning and what still needs to be done. My first feeling, I must be honest, was a deep satisfaction at coming back to the project and wandering around the game world. Having slightly forgotten where I was up to before the monograph crunch/burnout began, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many topics one could talk to NPCs about, and how intelligently (I think) they responded; how alive with activity the cities and towns were; and just how different the world felt to anything else that I’ve played, something in its texture, or the potential to fall down a rabbit hole of conversation, or ‘l’ooking in detail about the world. It was a tremendously motivating return, and one long overdue. So, without further ado, here’s the changelog for this weekend:
- The second I loaded up and tried to ‘s’peak to someone, we saw the first problem: the speaking crosshair seemed able to traverse the entire length of the screen, which was deeply puzzling. I discovered this only happened when the player was near the edge of one of the 200×200 grids the player actually walks around in, and this was because of a piece of code designed to prevent the crosshair from slipping off the screen; in this case it was registering that the player was near the edge, but thinking the player was using an infinite-length crosshair (e.g. the ‘l’ook crosshair) instead of one which is supposed to be contained to a 3×3 area. A quick fix took care of this, and told the game to handle edges differently depending on the crosshair the player is using.
- Then discovered that if the relationship between your nation and another nation was classed as “Unknown”, then one particular piece of code relating to greetings wouldn’t work, because it was looking for a friendship_value which didn’t exist. Instead, encountering an “Unknown” civilization now sets the friendship_value to a number determined by the ideologies of the nation in question, so a more outward-facing nation will be more friendly to total unknowns than an inward-looking nation.
- Have added the start of NPCs commenting when you ask the same question twice, and also forgetting after a lengthy period when you last asked something. In the first case, NPCs will give a new response if you ask or say the same thing a second time, and a third time, and then a final response at the end when you’ve asked over twice. The final response will be more or less exasperated depending on the mood of the NPC. Also, asking the same question over and over again will cause the mood variable of the NPC to drop. In some sensitive topics – e.g. talking to an inquisitor about a heresy – will cause mood to drop extremely quickly, and they might even get suspicious about why you keep asking…
- In the second case, all NPCs now have a hidden “forgetfulness” trait, which is influenced by a small number of other factors and determines how quickly/slowly they forget when you last asked them a specific conversation. In all cases, though, it’ll take at least days, and potentially weeks. As noted in a previous entry, there also needs to be some kind of “geographical memory” function to prevent you just asking Person 1 Question 1, then asking Person 2 Question 1, and going on and on in that manner. Instead, people will know when you’ve asked many others the same questions – they “heard on the grapevine” or whatever – and will refuse to answer. This is an important element to prevent tedious grindy gameplay, and I’ll implement this a bit later.
- Fixed some issues with asking people about their parents, grandparents, children, siblings, etc, which sometimes led to crashes when the game couldn’t construct a sentence properly. Will need to also come back to this later when special NPCs have relationships to other special NPCs.
- I’ve also done a lot of fixing of grammatical and spelling errors, which are (as expected) significant in number given the complexity of the conversation system. I had it print out every possible sentence stored for every civilization in a particular world generation – well over one thousand – then went through them all, found every typo, found where in the sentence generation that typo had arisen, fixed it, and moved onto the next. I must have fixed at least a hundred possible errors. I think I’ll do this again, to get another set of sentences, and go through those, and I’ll do this once or twice more before 0.8’s release. Should get the number of errors down to a tiny number by the end.
- I also discovered that fifteen of the “negative replies” – e.g. when you ask “Do you have X” and they say “I do not have X”, or whatever – were returning “This is a placeholder” instead of an appropriate hand-crafted response. This took a little bit of hunting down, but in the end I discovered this all just came down to fifteen typos in the thousands of words/phrases the game now stores! Things like “unimportant” being accidentally written down in another location as “unimpotant”, and things like that.
- Also made a list of questions which need special replies if you appear to be of the same nation/religion as the person you’re talking to (“Why are you asking me that?”, “Shouldn’t you know that”?, “The same as you, surely?”) or a particularly hated nation (“Why do you want to know that?!”, “There’s no way I can tell you that!”, etc). This will connect to the function that allows NPCs to estimate what nation/religion you’re from, which I’ll be working on soon.
- Added a ton (100 or so?) of new words that can be varied across nations, allowing nations to say even more things in a greater variety of ways than they could before. I also found a few cases where a culture would choose a way of saying X1 (e.g. “interested”) but wouldn’t always transfer that to ways of saying X2 and X3 (“interest” and “interesting”), so you would wind up with a culture whose people said “interested”, “intrigue” and “fascinating”, instead of “interested”, “interest” and “interesting”, the latter of which is far more logical and consistent for a single given dialect. I think I’ve now fixed all the cases where this could happen, and the differences in dialects should now consequently be just that little bit sharper.
- Started to think about how to implement what I’ve taken to calling the “metaquestions” that player can ask, e.g. “What do you think about [artwork]” where [artwork] can be replaced by the title of any artwork. I’ve put in general responses for NPCs on these questions now, i.e. I don’t know what this is, I have no opinion, I’ve already told you about this, etc, with more detail to come soon.
So: for a first week back, I’m incredibly happy with this progress! In the coming weekdays I’ll be focusing on my current academic work and continuing to put the final touches and edits to the book, then next weekend, I’ll be back to coding for at least one of the two days. I really feel incredibly invigorated by this weekend, I have to say – I’m really excited to continue pushing the conversation system to point where I can release the first version of it in 0.8. Lastly, and very briefly, here’s a little debug of some sentence generation and whatnot; you’ll see the sentences (on the right hand side) are almost entirely grammatically correct (they are the generated versions of the default sentences on the left); I really like letting these run and just seeing what the game can produce, and the different ways the game can utter the same sentence. And now, to conclude this entry on a sentence I’ve been wanting to say again for months: see you all next week for another URR 0.8 update!
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/Img1.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 03, 2017, 07:24:19 pm
How are you seperating types of questions up? I can understand things like "what is the disposition of the army" getting around on the grapevine that you're being nosy about them, but is there a level of low importance or personal questions this doesn't apply to? Surely asking for names a lot will just annoy or offend individual people if you ask repeatedly, not result in society at large refusing you their names, and the like.
Post by: FakerFangirl on July 03, 2017, 07:32:09 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 05, 2017, 02:24:25 am
Good to hear from you again, I missed your big post about academia last week, so I'm glad to hear you're getting yourself back on track (and that the game is still included in that track!)
How are you seperating types of questions up? I can understand things like "what is the disposition of the army" getting around on the grapevine that you're being nosy about them, but is there a level of low importance or personal questions this doesn't apply to? Surely asking for names a lot will just annoy or offend individual people if you ask repeatedly, not result in society at large refusing you their names, and the like.
Hey Dorsi - and many thanks :). So, yes, personal questions will not get around, "less important" questions will get around a bit, "important" questions a lot. This is something I need to code, either for 0.8 or 0.9, I'm not sure yet, but it'll basically mean splitting all possible questions into categories, and then using those categories to determine how rapidly (if at all) your line(s) of questioning spread across a society or a certain area.
This is like, when one of your favourite mangas gets an anime serialization. Waiting for that 0.8 season before doing the marathon. 8)
Hahaha. Good choice :).
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 05, 2017, 06:30:07 am
"What is your name" - personal, common
"What is the disposition of your country's forces?" - location, authority, unusual, millitary
"where is the government of this location" - location, authority, directions
"What do you think of the government" - personal, unusual, authority
"What do [Religion X] worshippers think about the government?" - political, religion, dangerous, authority
that sort of thing, then build how they react behind the scenes so if you ask a lot of political questions people will get suspiscious if word gets about, asking "dangerous" tag questions a lot might bring interest from third parties if rumor gets about that you're asking them, and so on.
just a few thoughts, might not be worth it in the end!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 06, 2017, 11:03:46 am
Maybe consider having tags, or keywords attatched to them, like
"What is your name" - personal, common
"What is the disposition of your country's forces?" - location, authority, unusual, millitary
"where is the government of this location" - location, authority, directions
"What do you think of the government" - personal, unusual, authority
"What do [Religion X] worshippers think about the government?" - political, religion, dangerous, authority
that sort of thing, then build how they react behind the scenes so if you ask a lot of political questions people will get suspiscious if word gets about, asking "dangerous" tag questions a lot might bring interest from third parties if rumor gets about that you're asking them, and so on.
just a few thoughts, might not be worth it in the end!
I have to be honest - this is *way* better than the technique I was going to deploy! And this could help things much clearer to the player, too, by grouping questions into these kinds of keyword categories and making clearer the link between the question and the potential for irrelevance/annoyance. Yeah, great concept - I'll be doing it this way!
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 07, 2017, 01:05:24 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 07, 2017, 02:13:18 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 08, 2017, 01:24:23 pm
Maybe hide the dangerous tag. More fun if it slowly dawns on you that you sound like a seditionist.
Heh. That's a thought!
Cheers, I came up with it while trying to think of how could you make it so that asking "how strong the army of Xlandia is compared to Ytopia" is denied if they're already refusing to answer "how large is the army of Xlandia" or "How strong do you think the Ytopians are" without just putting them into set categories
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to me! (And I like the national names :))). I'll definitely sketch out this'll look next week...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 10, 2017, 02:45:30 pm
- Finished off all the possible “annoyed responses”, which fall into four categories, which I’m calling “general responses”, “class responses”, “default responses” and “special responses”. When you ask someone the same thing twice or thrice, they give increasingly annoyed or puzzled responses; then, when you ask again, one of these comes into play. 50% of the time when you ask someone the same question over and over, they’ll give a response similar to the responses they gave when you’d asked the same question twice or thrice, i.e. “why are you still asking me this?”, which will sound more or less annoyed depending on their mood (“general”).
- However, sometimes instead of a general response they will give a “class” response, which is a response tailored to their class. For instance, a ruler will specifically scold you for wasting their time; a torturer or a gladiator might make veiled threats about wasting their time; monks will express anxiety about the fact they aren’t getting on with their studies; and so forth. These give a nice little bit of flavour; roughly half of all the NPC classes have “class responses” of this sort when you get on their nerves, but they don’t always come into play. These will also later on appear when you ask irrelevant questions, as well repeated questions.
- Then, the other 50% of the time (when general/class responses are not triggered) the game will look to see if there is a special response for being annoyed about that particular topic, which might be annoyed after giving a positive response (the NPC answered you, yet you keep asking) or a negative response (the NPC didn’t answer you, yet you keep asking). Some questions have special responses for positive/negative original answers, others just for one. If one exists, it then picks one; for instance, if you asked an inquisitor about heresy, and they didn’t answer, and you repeatedly ask, they might say “At this point, I begin to find your fascination with heresy concerning…”, or if you asked them about nearby volcanoes, and they answered, and you keep asking, they might give a snide response like “I’ve said all I can – these things are hard to miss”. If a special response exists, it is chosen 75% of the time.
- Then, if there is no special response coded for the question and the specific positive/negative modifier in question, the game then goes for a “default response”. If they responded positively, they might say something like “I’ve told you everything I know about [topic]”, or if negatively, something like “I will not speak about [topic], can we move on?”. The [topic] in this case will be drawn from a large library of phrases, like “buildings”, “my health”, “my homeland”, “weapons”, “fighting”, “these tombs”, “noble houses”, or whatever makes sense for the topic.
- These also vary according to mood, so an NPC who still likes you after your constant questioning might say “What interests you so much about X” or “I’ve already told you about X”, whereas an NPC annoyed with you will give sharper “Why do you persist in asking about X” or “I have got nothing more to say to you about X”.
- What all of this means is that the responses of NPCs when you get on their nerves is tremendously varied according to their mood, their background, their NPC class, their origins, what you’re asking about, how many times you’ve asked them, a wide range of other factors. It would take a tremendously long time for anyone to come close to seeing all the possible annoyed responses in the general/ class/ default/ special response categories.
- Some questions being asked repeatedly cause a bigger mood drop than others. For example, if you ask about sensitive topics, they get miffed much faster; if you ask about particularly mild topics, there is now a small chance they will not lose 1 mood; in general, though, asking a question twice will, 90% of the time, cause mood to drop by 1 (for those who don’t recall, “mood” is on a nine-point scale, and if it drops to 2, there is a 33% chance they end the conversation; at 1 there is a 66% chance they end it; if it’s at 1 and should drop again, they will always end the conversation).
- Also, asking people from more hostile or more closed nations the same question over and over comes with a die-roll for an extra mood drop alongside the default “1”.
- What all of these points mean is that (in the extreme cases) asking someone from a friendly nation about a neutral topic will take a while to annoy them if you repeat the same query; asking someone from a much more hostile nation about their work as an inquisitor is going to tire them out extremely quickly; and all other interactions fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
- Lastly, some NPC classes will always have their mood drop faster if you annoy them: this means rulers of various sorts, top-tier military officers, inquisitors, archivists… basically any high-rank NPC will get annoyed with you far more rapidly.
- I’ve also coded in what NPCs say when they want to leave a conversation with you; for now, this only happens if you ignore them. There are a wide range of default goodbyes that any class can potentially use, and some classes can only use because they don’t have special goodbyes. Other classes do have special goodbyes, where they will explain that they need to go and do X, or talk to Y, or handle Z, or otherwise that your inane blather is generally less important to them than whatever else they might be doing. They then conclude with a “goodbye”, “farewell”, or similar.
- Note that these are very different from the goodbyes you get from NPCs if you say goodbye first and they echo the goodbye; they will give you at least a reasonably nice response back, even if their mood value is getting quite low. These goodbyes only happen if the NPC decides on their own account to end the conversation because whatever the player is saying is too annoying/irrelevant/distracting to continue the conversation.
- On some goodbyes where appropriate, NPCs might mention the time, e.g. “Good day to you” or “I bid you good night”, etc, and the word used will be appropriate to the time of day, i.e. morning/day/evening/night.
- Also, of course, made sure illogical goodbyes cannot be said – for example, a prisoner will not say “I must attend to other matters now!” and then just go back to walking around their cell; whereas free NPCs might say that, a prisoner might instead say “This conversation has become too trying”, or “Your tedious questions have become too much”, or whatever.
- Added another 100 words/phrases that can be unpacked and spoken differently in each nation, and made sure they can conjugate all the other versions of the phrase sensibly; so “say” can be “say”, “utter” or “speak”, then “said” could be “said”, “uttered”, “spoke”, and “saying” can be “saying”, “uttering” or “speaking”, and so on and so forth. Also added new conjugations of existing phrases or words which hadn’t previously been put into the database.
Next week? I’ll be playtesting all of this stuff, and once that’s all working fine, working on some other aspect of conversations. As mentioned before, I am actually not trying to do everything needed for conversations per se for 0.8 – the “metaquestions” (“What do you think of [artwork]”, etc) are being omitted until 0.9 at least, for example – but just enough to get the release off the ground and let people explore the central elements of the conversation system. As well as playtesting these elements, I want to start going through all the questions you can ask people, and check those work – I’m sure there are some bugs or typos in there I haven’t spotted yet. I’m confident by the end of next week I can have all that done, after which I’ll start working on having things like “[god]” or “[nation]” or “[house]” or “[officertitle]” or whatever correctly appear in speech. Those are a complex set of variables which will have to draw on a lot of different parts of the game, and I don’t want to tackle that until everything here, and the standard Q&A, are all implemented. See you all next week!
Some of the new word variables/extensions, where the comments remind me which other conjugations also need to be covered:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/part-2-1.png)
The general words people will use when they ask things like “why are you still asking me about X”:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/part-2-2.png)
As you can tell, a large part of this week has been writing massive lists! At least next week it’ll be back to playing the game itself and seeing how things play, so hopefully some in-game screenshots will come your way next time…
Post by: Innsmothe on July 10, 2017, 03:01:47 pm
Post by: Retropunch on July 11, 2017, 11:29:39 am
What plans do you have for NPCs to initiate their own conversations? Will NPCs be able to walk up to you and initiate a conversation directly?
If they can initiate their own, what types will there be? There are obvious ones where you're caught somewhere you shouldn't be or enter an office/etc, but what about more general conversations?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 16, 2017, 01:07:10 pm
Just to let you know, I love you and those screens are sexy as all hell <3
Hahaha. Thanks Innsmothe :).
Very interesting and brilliant work as always!
What plans do you have for NPCs to initiate their own conversations? Will NPCs be able to walk up to you and initiate a conversation directly?
If they can initiate their own, what types will there be? There are obvious ones where you're caught somewhere you shouldn't be or enter an office/etc, but what about more general conversations?
Thanks! Not in 0.8 (again, just trying to get the conversation system done in a... "detailed but basic" sense, then release), but yeah, that'll be possible; but I think rare, it's easy to see how it might get annoying. I might end up limiting it to certain NPCs or certain contexts, so if you're wandering around a shop for ages without buying anything, the merchant will try to strike up a conversation, or the same might happen if you're in a bank and you aren't actually speaking to the teller. That type of thing. And as you say, when you get caught where you shouldn't be! And maybe if you're in another nation and you've very clearly foreign, and from a nation they rarely see, people might strike up conversations with you; I would probably implement some time of hidden global timer, so people in that context will never talk to you more often than one in 1000 turns, and then once you hit the thousand turns since someone spoke to you mark, your chance is maybe x/1000 for a new conversation to start, where x is the turns since the thousandth turn; something like that?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 16, 2017, 01:11:15 pm
- Most importantly we have three new elements that influence how NPCs respond to conversations: sensitive topics are “tagged” as such, NPCs are more or less inclined to respond to those sensitive topics, and they have three kinds of basic responses when explaining why they don’t want to respond to something you’ve said for personal reasons (as opposed to not knowing the information, which is factored in elsewhere, and isn’t a case of “not wanting to reply”, but rather “being unable to reply”).
- Every possible question now has what I’m loosely calling a “conversation tag”, which denotes whether it might be a sensitive topic on any of seven possible axes – “individual”, “political”, “national”, “religious”, “military”, “cultural”, “geographical”. Some of the questions will be potentially sensitive on more than one count. For example, if you ask about the politics of an NPC’s nation, that will naturally be flagged under both the “political” and “national”. Most questions have no tags, then it looks like around a third have one tag, and then a very small number have two tags or more; the most tags are questions asking people about the ideologies of their nation, which might be “political”, and “national”, and then “religious” or “cultural” or whichever other applies. What this means is that when you ask someone a question, it will check whether this is a sensitive topic, and the answer to that question will influence whether or not they are willing to give you an answer at all.
- Then the next part is inclinations – how inclined are people to tell you about potentially sensitive topics? Each NPC has a rating for religious topics, for political topics, and so forth, which varies hugely across NPC classes. This is on an internal scale of 0-4; at 0, they will rarely talk to you about a sensitive topic (of the sorts listed above), at 4 they will always talk to you (extremely rare: only national and religious leaders, and then one NPC class per category, will always tell you about X). All other classes are spread out along 1-3 (default “humans” are almost always on 0, or if not, they are on 1 instead). If you ask a non-sensitive question, whether or not they answer will be dependent on other factors (how much they like you, etc) – if you ask a sensitive question, it will check which conversation tags are listed for that question, and compare their rating.
- This might seem incredibly complex, so here’s an easy example. You ask someone about their religion. The game checks how inclined that NPC class is to talk about religious matters; a priest is very inclined, your average innkeep doesn’t have much time for religious matters, and so forth. An appropriate die is then rolled for the question; if successful (and other tests are passed, e.g. the NPC likes you enough), you get your answer. So what happens if they say they don’t want to talk about X?
- Well, I’ve split the “I don’t want to talk about X” into three categories, I’m calling “stupid”, “uninteresting” and “suspicious”, which are the reasons NPCs will give you for not wanting to give you a reply. The “stupid” option means that the NPC is baffled why you are asking them about that particular topic: for example, asking a monk about military matters, or a farmer about sculpture, or an officer about plant life, is likely to elicit this response. The “uninteresting” options is the default, and simply means the NPC doesn’t want to talk about it right now, for which they might give a bunch of reasons. The “suspicious” option means that the NPC refuses to talk on the topic, and is puzzled, concerned, worried, anxious, or most obviously suspicious about why you ask – this happens most often when happening about military matters, but can crop up for any conversation topic except the “cultural” ones.
- In some cases NPCs will give you a specific reason for not wanting to continue the conversation. If you asked about a religious topic, and they don’t want to reply, and they are from a particularly zealous nation, they might say something like “That knowledge is only for loyal followers of [god]”; or if you asked about a political topic, and they are from an isolationist nation, they might explain a dislike of talking to strangers about the politics of their homeland.
- So, a “I don’t want to reply” looks like the following. If “Uninteresting”, they say “[Sorry, I don’t want to talk about that]. [Cultural reason why not]”. If “Stupid”, they say “[Am I really the person you want to ask/I dislike that topic/why are you even asking this?]” (without cultural reason). If “Suspicious”, they say “[Cultural reason why I can’t answer. And why are you even asking?]”.
- I noticed very few questions have the “Cultural” tag – I’ll have to add some more in later versions.
So: these were the things that last week I wanted to get done this week, and they’ve been done. Very please with the week’s coding! You’ll also probably note there are a lot of elements going into how and whether NPCs reply to you. What is their mood? What culture are they from? What culture do they think you are from? What topic are you asking them about? How has the conversation previously played out? What NPC class are they? And if you’re thinking this is a lot… it is! But I think this is what goes into making a reasonably realistic, and hopefully gameplay-interesting, conversation system. When you “fail” to get a reply, for any of the above reasons, the “failure” messages are all being designed so that you know why you didn’t get a response. If the NPC didn’t reply because they don’t like you, because you’re asking about a sensitive topic, or because they dislike the nation you seem to be from, it should always be clear, and allow the player to learn what it takes to find people who are willing to talk to them, and to talk to them in an appropriate way to actually get an answer.
Next week: playtesting and screenshots!
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 17, 2017, 07:02:56 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 17, 2017, 08:18:58 am
Damn, i missed these. Cheers
Heh. Likewise :).
Post by: Retropunch on July 17, 2017, 10:28:40 am
Post by: Ekaton on July 19, 2017, 01:27:24 pm
Post by: Retropunch on July 19, 2017, 02:49:17 pm
I was never able to properly follow this game, even though it seems pretty interesting. I remember reading somewhere that it will not allow you to do much apart from fighting and exploring, is that so? Is there any life-simulator element to it, like the ability to produce sth or trade? If not, are such features planned to be included?
It's kinda the opposite way around from what you're thinking - there's relatively little fighting and a whole lot of life-simulation. From what we know so far, there isn't life-sim stuff like the Sims, but there's a lot of life being simulated in NPCs and how the world works. The main focus will be exploration and adventuring, plus puzzle solving (on a strategic scale, not like...block puzzles)
I'm sure/hope there will be a robust trade system in.
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 19, 2017, 03:15:14 pm
Post by: Ekaton on July 19, 2017, 05:07:13 pm
It's a Renaissance mystery simulator, basically. Think around the world in 80 days but 300 years earlier.
Yeah, that's basically what I've heard - a lot of mystery solving and interaction. That's great, but I hope it can be more of a simulation of the realistic world you can be part of. Like I can do something about those laws, be a judge maybe or something like that. A whole new level of gameplay and immersion.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 19, 2017, 10:08:05 pm
Just to clarify, are these tags shown to players directly?
They are not! And I don't think they will be; as with most things, I want to minimise, in many ways, the level of extra-diegetic elements that point things out to the player, or note down "stats", things of this sort. To some extent that's impossible, but I do want to keep those to the lowest possible level.
It's kinda the opposite way around from what you're thinking - there's relatively little fighting and a whole lot of life-simulation. From what we know so far, there isn't life-sim stuff like the Sims, but there's a lot of life being simulated in NPCs and how the world works. The main focus will be exploration and adventuring, plus puzzle solving (on a strategic scale, not like...block puzzles)
I'm sure/hope there will be a robust trade system in.
Yep; and oh yes, I have a very strong trade system in mind. Trading items, trading currencies; different currencies will have different relative values; some currencies have one category of coin, some have two (like Yen in the first case, or pounds/dollars in the second case); the coins will also be procedurally-generated (of course) and will be treated as items rather than a number somewhere which climbs (since you'll wind up with coins from many nations); the ability to trade things will be coming pretty soon in the development plan, and is pretty crucial to a lot of the game, especially being able to disguise oneself as being from other cultures and acquire items through which one can learn about other cultures.
It's a Renaissance mystery simulator, basically. Think around the world in 80 days but 300 years earlier.
Beautiful description!
Yeah, that's basically what I've heard - a lot of mystery solving and interaction. That's great, but I hope it can be more of a simulation of the realistic world you can be part of. Like I can do something about those laws, be a judge maybe or something like that. A whole new level of gameplay and immersion.
Oh yes, I'm very concerned by the simulation of the world; however, I don't necessarily see the player climbing up the game's social structures especially, unless that could be beneficial to their pursuit of the central quest. I see the player character, to quote a reply I left on another forum a while back, "more as a roaming, ever-adapting traveller, rather than someone who will stay in one place long enough for something like that".
Post by: Retropunch on July 21, 2017, 03:13:07 pm
Just to clarify, are these tags shown to players directly?
They are not! And I don't think they will be; as with most things, I want to minimise, in many ways, the level of extra-diegetic elements that point things out to the player, or note down "stats", things of this sort. To some extent that's impossible, but I do want to keep those to the lowest possible level.Yeah, that's basically what I've heard - a lot of mystery solving and interaction. That's great, but I hope it can be more of a simulation of the realistic world you can be part of. Like I can do something about those laws, be a judge maybe or something like that. A whole new level of gameplay and immersion.
Oh yes, I'm very concerned by the simulation of the world; however, I don't necessarily see the player climbing up the game's social structures especially, unless that could be beneficial to their pursuit of the central quest. I see the player character, to quote a reply I left on another forum a while back, "more as a roaming, ever-adapting traveller, rather than someone who will stay in one place long enough for something like that".
Re Tags: Really glad to hear - I was sure that they weren't going to be displayed, but I just wanted to check! That being said, I think it'll need to be quite clear to the player when they're being annoying. I'd also suggest that you never have it that repeating questions leads to more information - whilst that isn't 'realistic', it would otherwise mean a player would have to ask everything twice just to be sure they got everything.
Re Simulation: If possible, i'd really like to see the ability to take up a profession/role to some extent. This might be off from the main quest, but would allow you certain abilities depending on what you've chosen. For instance, if you're an accomplished merchant, then there will be obvious benefits when conversing with merchants and trading for items. Similarly, a career soldier will gain easier access to military matters. You'd need to flesh these out with actual tasks, but even if they were relatively simple ones (a soldier might assist with a raid, a merchant might have a trading quota) they'd make the world feel a lot more involved.
Post by: Haspen on July 21, 2017, 04:01:07 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 25, 2017, 03:19:12 am
Re Tags: Really glad to hear - I was sure that they weren't going to be displayed, but I just wanted to check! That being said, I think it'll need to be quite clear to the player when they're being annoying. I'd also suggest that you never have it that repeating questions leads to more information - whilst that isn't 'realistic', it would otherwise mean a player would have to ask everything twice just to be sure they got everything.
Haha, yeah, I want to display as little as possible, have as much as possible take place in the player's mind. As you say, though, it needs to be essential that it's clear to the player (from the phrases currently generating, I feel it is). And oh yes, repeated questions *never* lead to more info; that's just a recipe for tedious grindy rubbish.
Re Simulation: If possible, i'd really like to see the ability to take up a profession/role to some extent. This might be off from the main quest, but would allow you certain abilities depending on what you've chosen. For instance, if you're an accomplished merchant, then there will be obvious benefits when conversing with merchants and trading for items. Similarly, a career soldier will gain easier access to military matters. You'd need to flesh these out with actual tasks, but even if they were relatively simple ones (a soldier might assist with a raid, a merchant might have a trading quota) they'd make the world feel a lot more involved.
Mmmm, that's fair enough - and the model of how-that-might-work which you've just described feels very feasible to me. It would need to be professions or roles that can continue to deliver benefit to the player as they move around the world. I'm... not opposed to the kind of thing you've suggested, but I would have to think it through some more!
PTW, because I actually never did!
Good choice, my friend!
Post by: Retropunch on July 25, 2017, 04:00:24 pm
Mmmm, that's fair enough - and the model of how-that-might-work which you've just described feels very feasible to me. It would need to be professions or roles that can continue to deliver benefit to the player as they move around the world. I'm... not opposed to the kind of thing you've suggested, but I would have to think it through some more!
I think the key would be to have very general professions and keep the benefits broad, basic and simple to understand.
If you're an apprentice merchant of the Combine Honete Ober Advanced Mercantiles, you might get a boost to the friendliness of all allied tradesmen and merchants and the ability to charter land transport cheaply. After you've gotten to the rank of journeyman via a number of successful trades and small tasks, you gain access to the guild libraries, with maps which show you trading ports and outline customs in far flung places along with preferential rates. Becoming a master through earning a certain amount and completing more tasks would would give you access to loans and the ability to charter guild ships etc.
I'd imagine the tasks would be relatively similar to the main game mechanics - you know there's fantastic jewels for sale in a city, but not sure which. You find out its the city of Pesto, but realise they'll be hostile to selling to anyone outside of the great Pesto culture/civ, so you have to integrate well enough for them to think you're a wealthy Pestolian who has been abroad many years making his fortune.
I'd imagine the 'bonuses' would also align with the general game goals (charting ships, gaining intel etc), but also give you the ability to just roleplay. I think a great, great many people will be just as interested in roleplaying in the worlds created as actually following the main quest. Whilst you obviously have a strong narrative goal in mind, I feel that you can easily cater to all by adding in a few 'professions' to help people play it the way they want to.
There's also an interesting gameplay decision - does the player spend time building their influence in a guild in the hopes they'll help more than if the player just struck out on their own. If the artefact you're seeking happens to be in the hands of a mercantile faction, then it might make things much easier. If in a scholarly faction, then your time might have not been invested as wisely.
Post by: Scoops Novel on July 26, 2017, 07:45:27 am
Not that you can't earn brownie points with factions; but let's not give into scope creep.
Post by: Retropunch on July 26, 2017, 12:30:03 pm
My suspicion is the game will happen on two small a timescale and too long a distance for you to meaningfully progress in your profession. All the examples you give don't seem that realistic as advantages to be gained.
Not that you can't earn brownie points with factions; but let's not give into scope creep.
I was under the impression that the time frame of the game was over many years, and that actions took 'real time' (so crossing an ocean would take a few weeks) - I could well be wrong though as the timeframes weren't certain last time it came around, and Mark hadn't decided on if there was going to be a hard cutoff point in the game. I also can't imagine the distance thing would be a big thing - there would surely be representatives of the big guilds in each major city that could verify whatever needs verifying.
Whilst my examples/benefits were crude, I was trying to illustrate that it'd be possible to have benefits that would help you advance in your main quest - like chartering guild boats more quickly than waiting for a passenger boat to be going along that route where it might stop off on the way.
I definitely don't want to encourage scope creep, but it depends how sandboxy/open Mark wants the game to be. If he wants it to be that the player can get immersed in the world then professions/guilds are a good way to accomplish that without it being that the player has spent so long doing random side quests that they struggle to move forward with the main quest. If the world is simply a backdrop to a major narrative and the player is a special protagonist above everyone else, then there's no need for that kind of thing as they're just pursuing the main quest.
Post by: NJW2000 on July 26, 2017, 12:52:11 pm
Post by: Retropunch on July 26, 2017, 03:00:48 pm
I vaguely recall stuff about a time limit on the mystery, but that might be my imagination or old news.There was/is a time limit on the mystery, but it was never made clear (or hasn't been solidified) how long the time limit was, if the time limit ended the game or if there would be a mode/ability to play without it.
From the discussions there were, I believe Mark was somewhere on the 'there will be a time limit, but it'll only apply for 'world actions' not just general walking around'. So if you travel across the ocean, it'll count as however many weeks that'd take but wandering around cities and the like won't have much of an impact on time.
I imagine it might also be possible/preferable to only have some parts that are time dependant, and others where it isn't.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2017, 12:21:51 pm
If you're an apprentice merchant of the Combine Honete Ober Advanced Mercantiles, you might get a boost to the friendliness of all allied tradesmen and merchants and the ability to charter land transport cheaply. After you've gotten to the rank of journeyman via a number of successful trades and small tasks, you gain access to the guild libraries, with maps which show you trading ports and outline customs in far flung places along with preferential rates. Becoming a master through earning a certain amount and completing more tasks would would give you access to loans and the ability to charter guild ships etc.
That's a nice idea: create some international bodies that one can join (maybe you can only join one, like a god in DCSS?) and each one gives you significant global advantages (and disadvantages?).
I'd imagine the tasks would be relatively similar to the main game mechanics - you know there's fantastic jewels for sale in a city, but not sure which. You find out its the city of Pesto, but realise they'll be hostile to selling to anyone outside of the great Pesto culture/civ, so you have to integrate well enough for them to think you're a wealthy Pestolian who has been abroad many years making his fortune.
Yes!
I'd imagine the 'bonuses' would also align with the general game goals (charting ships, gaining intel etc), but also give you the ability to just roleplay. I think a great, great many people will be just as interested in roleplaying in the worlds created as actually following the main quest. Whilst you obviously have a strong narrative goal in mind, I feel that you can easily cater to all by adding in a few 'professions' to help people play it the way they want to.
Oh, I agree, and that's an ok outcome; my priority is crafting the larger experience, and that will always have to come first, but I'm open in the longer-term future adding in those kinds of possibilities.
There's also an interesting gameplay decision - does the player spend time building their influence in a guild in the hopes they'll help more than if the player just struck out on their own. If the artefact you're seeking happens to be in the hands of a mercantile faction, then it might make things much easier. If in a scholarly faction, then your time might have not been invested as wisely.
Exactly!
My suspicion is the game will happen on two small a timescale and too long a distance for you to meaningfully progress in your profession. All the examples you give don't seem that realistic as advantages to be gained.
Not that you can't earn brownie points with factions; but let's not give into scope creep.
Yeah - brownie points with factions = good, scope creep = bad. There's a balance where relatively little effort will yield some really strong results on the first side, I think.
I was under the impression that the time frame of the game was over many years, and that actions took 'real time' (so crossing an ocean would take a few weeks) - I could well be wrong though as the timeframes weren't certain last time it came around, and Mark hadn't decided on if there was going to be a hard cutoff point in the game.
Quite possibly; I do want travelling to be a meaningful, serious decision. I'm debating having time simply move faster outside of settlements than inside; it's not a totally and entirely perfect solution, but might be the simplest ones which intersects with other systems and gives some good decision-making to the player each time they "strike out" again. There will, I think, be a hard cut-off though.
I vaguely recall stuff about a time limit on the mystery, but that might be my imagination or old news.
Yesssss. (There will be a time limit, of some sort).
From the discussions there were, I believe Mark was somewhere on the 'there will be a time limit, but it'll only apply for 'world actions' not just general walking around'. So if you travel across the ocean, it'll count as however many weeks that'd take but wandering around cities and the like won't have much of an impact on time.
I imagine it might also be possible/preferable to only have some parts that are time dependant, and others where it isn't.
Yeah, that's where I'm leaning at the moment. Undecided right now, though, but I am leaning towards a model of slow-time passing in settlements, fast-time passing outside. But we'll see!
Post by: Zireael on July 30, 2017, 12:36:41 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 30, 2017, 12:56:11 pm
Speaking of long lists of words, my own game has made yet another switch, this time to Python. One of the ideas that keeps niggling at me is having procedural languages. Python lends itself very well to this since it's already used for analysing real languages :) I guess I'll work my way up from phonemes to syllables and then to words, and word order...
Heh, good luck!
----
Here's last week's blog entry:
This week I’ve basically been playtesting everything that I coded in the previous three weeks since development actively restarted: this meant playtesting the mood system, playtesting NPCs becoming annoyed with you, making sure NPCs can say a tremendous range of things when you ask repeated questions (as ever, variation and believability are central here, and the two go hand in hand), and then seeing what happens when you ask NPCs all the questions you can ask, and making sure they can give some kind of logical response to them. NPCs should also be able to end conversations, make appropriate comments when they don’t want to respond something, choose what to not respond to, and so forth. I’d say pretty much everything in this selection seems to be working now! Here are some nice screenshots, all taken with one person from one civilisation for each demonstration. You’ll note the [thing] sections remain ambiguous, which is one of the tasks for the coming weeks, but hopefully here you can begin to see how NPCs give you reasons for not responding in various ways, or commenting when you say the same thing too regularly:
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_2-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_3-1.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_4.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_5.png)
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/24_7_6-1.png)
Some more work still needs to be done on the “naturalness” of what people say, and ensuring variation of all sentences, and so forth, but you can immediately get some idea from these about how things are shaping up with some of their more detailed responses, and the variety in responses, and there’s also of course a vast amount shown here with unique responses for certain classes, certain questions, certain questions asked to certain classes, asking certain classes from certain nations about certain topics, and so forth. As above, my goal is always to ensure the player might be able to see a new kind of statement in a new context, something that makes the conversation system feel truly deep and open-ended and potentially-infinite, whilst also being able to understand the many factors and many elements encouraging the NPCs one meets to respond in the ways they do. (One might also note a strange name for one NPC – need to fix that! I also got one NPC called “Son of Sluts”, which was pretty great – I’ll be sure to add that to the list of excluded terms). These screenshots have also shown me I need to find a way to add more facial variation to people from the same racial background; although in a global sense the variation is still huge, people will be spending significant blocks of time in one area, and that needs to vary more. I won’t be doing that in 0.8, but probably in 0.9. Next week: more conversation programming! Will be focusing on expanding “uninterested”, “stupid” and “suspicious” responses, people giving political or religious reasons or whatever for not answering things, and how to handle repeated insults and repeated compliments. See you then!
Post by: Retropunch on July 30, 2017, 03:29:20 pm
However, a few things:
Whilst it's an almost unbelievable improvement over every other games conversation system, it still feels as though you're interrogating the NPC rather than just having a conversation. Part of this is because the NPC isn't asking anything back, and part of it is because the player doesn't respond to what's been said before. If it was possible to apologise for a previous question (which might relax tensions/raise opinion back up, but only to a certain limit) or thank them for telling you etc. it would help a lot.
I understand there's a gameplay balance in terms of that the player might find adding in random platitudes and whatever slightly tedious, and it might be that if you get a positive response, you automatically prefix the next question with a list of affirmatives ('interesting', 'thank you for telling me that', etc.) These could be randomly put in, and maybe only trigger if you started asking about a previous question group from the last question. That would therefore mean you could add something like 'thank you for telling me about the armour of your people, could you tell me about how many artefacts your civilisation holds?'
Secondly, some of the word orders are a bit strange - 'What manufacturing quality is the armour you at the moment have' doesn't really sound right. Same for a few others.
Lastly, in the question about armour, the NPC says he doesn't have any armour and then responds with the armour type. Would it be possible to block off that line of enquiry to the player if they'd already responded to say they don't have whatever it is?
Post by: NJW2000 on July 30, 2017, 04:28:03 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on July 30, 2017, 06:17:02 pm
"For the last time, I have already told you that <Answer>, stop wasting my time"
or thereabouts, as a final resort before ending the conversation. This would be more likely if the NPC wants to still continue the conversation but is exasperated by you asking the same thing over and over.
(Also has the gameplay mechanic of letting the player see a response again if they can't find the original answer in the long conversation, but at the penalty of annoying the NPC)
Edit: Also maybe some minor confusion if you ask things twice, like "Huh? I just said it was..<blah>" before the "you're wasting my time moron" kicks in
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 31, 2017, 01:55:41 pm
That's looking really impressive!
However, a few things:
Whilst it's an almost unbelievable improvement over every other games conversation system, it still feels as though you're interrogating the NPC rather than just having a conversation. Part of this is because the NPC isn't asking anything back, and part of it is because the player doesn't respond to what's been said before. If it was possible to apologise for a previous question (which might relax tensions/raise opinion back up, but only to a certain limit) or thank them for telling you etc. it would help a lot.
I understand there's a gameplay balance in terms of that the player might find adding in random platitudes and whatever slightly tedious, and it might be that if you get a positive response, you automatically prefix the next question with a list of affirmatives ('interesting', 'thank you for telling me that', etc.) These could be randomly put in, and maybe only trigger if you started asking about a previous question group from the last question. That would therefore mean you could add something like 'thank you for telling me about the armour of your people, could you tell me about how many artefacts your civilisation holds?'
Secondly, some of the word orders are a bit strange - 'What manufacturing quality is the armour you at the moment have' doesn't really sound right. Same for a few others.
Lastly, in the question about armour, the NPC says he doesn't have any armour and then responds with the armour type. Would it be possible to block off that line of enquiry to the player if they'd already responded to say they don't have whatever it is?
Great thoughts!
1) You will absolutely be able to reply, and they will absolutely ask you questions soon; just probably not 0.8, depending on how things go (if not, definitely 0.9). I do want to get 0.8 out as fast as humanly possible from this point onward.
2) Apologising: great idea. I'll figure out a way to add that option.
3) Saying "thanks" and then asking for more info; that's awesome and a brilliant idea. If you get a positive response, you'll say "Thanks" or whatever; if you get a "I don't want to talk about that", you'll say "Ok" or "Understood" or "Apologies" or whatever before your next comment. Yeah, that's a brilliant idea!
Nice! Looks really cool, though the "I don't want to give an answer to that enquiry" spam is a bit awkward.
Mmmmm. Need to add more variations to prevent that :).
One little suggestion I have is that an NPC might sometimes repeat the self like
"For the last time, I have already told you that <Answer>, stop wasting my time"
or thereabouts, as a final resort before ending the conversation. This would be more likely if the NPC wants to still continue the conversation but is exasperated by you asking the same thing over and over.
(Also has the gameplay mechanic of letting the player see a response again if they can't find the original answer in the long conversation, but at the penalty of annoying the NPC)
Edit: Also maybe some minor confusion if you ask things twice, like "Huh? I just said it was..<blah>" before the "you're wasting my time moron" kicks in
If they have previously answered, they do say "I've already told you that", "I've given you all the information I want to give you" and that type of thing. I think with a "search" function in the future you prooooobably shouldn't need to ask again to find out? And I like that, a confused possible response first time you ask again; I'll add that.
---
Lots more coding this week! Let’s get to it:
I’ve implemented what happens when the player repeats compliments and insults over and over again (I have previously implemented the repeating of “general statements and questions”, i.e. almost everything, and repeating greetings, which are handled differently). When one says a compliment over and over, the NPC will appreciate it, and express their appreciation, but if you do it too much, they will begin to be a little bit puzzled; there are also some unique responses for repeated greetings being offered to particular classes of NPC. In the future I want to enable some greetings to be met with less positive responses if one greets repeatedly someone who might come from a culture which doesn’t especially like or appreciate the greeting in question.
If you repeat the same insult again, the NPC will quickly become even more annoyed than if you had simply said the insult once (which is itself a guaranteed mood drop) and will tell you to stop saying it, threaten you, become exasperated and ask why the hell you keep saying that, and so forth. Given that insults are unequivocally, well, insulting, this was a pretty easy group of phrases to code. I have also made it so that three or more insults in a row always has a 50/50 chance of ending a conversation: so be capable who you have a go at!
There was a bug with repeated comments; sometimes the game would seem to forget that you’d just asked something ten times, and if they answered, then said “why are you still asking this?” nine more times, on the eleventh time they would suddenly reply again. That was from the simplest of typos where the game was decided what kind of “why are you still asking this?” response it would give, where very rarely the game would select one which didn’t actually exist, and therefore default back to the previous sentence. This is now fixed.
The game previously only checked if someone’s mood had dropped to 1 or 0 to decide whether or not to end a conversation; this meant that if an NPC’s mood dropped from 2 or more to -1 or less, the game wouldn’t catch it, and they would go on talking and hating you, but not ending the conversation. This has also been fixed, and NPCs will end the conversation with you regardless of how low it drops. (It should be noted, the conversation does not literally “end” at this point; I need to add a dialogue box saying “This NPC has walked away” or whatever, and “Press Enter” to then end the conversation. I’ll be doing this before 0.8 is released, and shouldn’t really be too difficult; I’ll also need to add something when you talk to an NPC who has rejected you again, such as “I’ve told you, I have other things to do”, and the like).
I’ve given each civilization a list of reasons they might not want to respond to questions about particular topics. So people from an Isolationist nation might be disinclined to answer national or political questions because they are very wary of outsiders; someone from a theocratic nation might be disinclined to answer a religious question because that’s a matter for the state; and so forth.
Fixed a range of grammatical errors with the construction of sentences ,and discovered that in some cases, sentences were going through the system that varies each sentence for each culture twice, which was a big problem. That has now been fixed, shifting the “sentence varying” part of the process to something which only takes place once, and before. Before release I will need to spend quite a bit of time talking to every NPC I can find and dealing with every grammatical error I can possibly hunt down, but it’s a work in progress; the speech generation system is so complex, and so much varies, that it’s hard to pin down too much in any one sweep.
If people don’t want to respond to the questions you’re asking for personal reasons, there is now a set of responses in place for them explaining that they don’t want to respond for political reasons, or for religious reasons, or whatever. There are also some unique responses if you’re asking particular classes, so an inquisitor might mention it’s particularly suspicious if you keep asking about heresy. What this means if that there are many, many layers of questions and answers that the player will rarely, but sometimes see, and should provide a lot of variety. In this case, you need to ask someone something, it needs to be a topic they would be willing to reply to, and know something about, but they don’t want to talk about, and they decide not to talk to you about it, and they’re of a particular class and asking a particular question, you’ll get a unique response. I want these chains to be as long as possible, to maximise the chance of the player encountering a new response, no matter how long they’ve played the game.
I’ve put a lot of work into these responses, which take three forms: “uninterested” (the person doesn’t fancy talking about the topic), “stupid” (they think it’s a dumb question to be asked), and “suspicious” (they are troubled by you asking something).
In the case of the “Uninterested” response, they will begin with a sentence along the lines of “I don’t want to answer that” or “I don’t feel like talking about that”. After that, they will follow up with a comment that might be a general comment, or a class-specific comment. If it’s a general comment, they might say “It doesn’t really interest me”, or “I don’t think about such things”, or “Aren’t there other more interesting matters to discuss?”, and so forth. Class-specific, meanwhile, might be something like a miner saying “I should really get back to the seam…” or a priest saying “I would really prefer to speak to you about [god]”, or things of that sort. These have a nice variety, and I was able to think of at least three options for every class, as well as many general variations, all of which will of course vary across culture as with all sentences, so there’s a huge amount of variety here in the kids of responses one will get out of NPCs.
With the “Stupid” response, NPCs will instead open with something like “What a weird question” or “What a strange thing to ask me”, and then proceed to again, either give class-specific or general responses. General responses might be something like “Am I really the person to ask about this?”, or “That makes very little sense”, or “Why are you even asking?”. For the class-specific responses, they will reply in a way that emphasises why this was an especially daft question to ask that NPC class. If you ask a jailer about geography, they might say “My work is in here, and always will be”; if you ask a Concubine about war, they might say “What could I possibly know of battle from in here?”; if you ask a doctor about politics, they might say “Diseases and ailments care not for one’s political allegiance”; and so on. These should help the player to think about what kinds of things they should be asking different kinds of NPCs, what classes and questions make sense together – as well as what classes and questions definitely do not make sense together – and, as ever, dramatically increase even further the variety of things people might say to you in the URR world.
For “Suspicious” answers, they start off the same as the “Uninterested” answers, by saying “I don’t really want to speak on that” or whatever, but then things change. For each tag (“political”, “religious”, “geographical”, etc) some NPC classes have special responses, and all have a set of general responses. For example, asking about politics to a concubine might have them ask if you if you’re only asking because of their closeness to a ruler; for other classes, they might say “Politics is a strange topic for you to be asking me about…”, or equivalent. If one asks an individual question, a clerk might emphasise their personal life has no bearing on their work, or an inquisitor emphasises that their purpose is simply to pursue heresy, not to think about themselves. If one is asking about military matters, an officer might question why you want to know about potentially classified material, whilst someone from a militia questions why you’re interested in the defence of their homeland. There are then also some responses based on national ideologies, too, which will sometimes be thrown into the mix. Again: maximising number, maximising variety and difference, maximising the potential for the player to always be discovering new possible responses.
For this week’s sole coding screenshot, here’s a bunch of the “defaults” for the uninterested answers (which are picked at random, then varied for each culture according to procedurally-generated constraints and norms, as usual):
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/07/uninterested.png)
Next up: in the coming week, my objective is to finish fixing any remaining bugs to be found in the above set of points, and then start – I anticipate this taking several weeks – putting into place a structure for filling in the “[god]” and “[nation]” and whatnot parts of sentences, i.e. the parts that vary every time they get uttered and cannot be stored, but have to call reference to a wide range of different saved elements of the game world. I have no idea how fast/slow this will go, but all I can do is get started, so I’ll be doing that next Saturday/Sunday. See you all next week for the first steps into this crucial part of the conversation system!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 08, 2017, 03:10:00 pm
- Most centrally, I’ve finished the task of moving the code that exchanges default words for the preferred word of a given civilization. In some cases this was being called twice, and in other cases not at all, and even though in some cases it was correctly being called once, the range of situations this was being used in were making it all rather unclear. I’ve finished making this shift, which required moving around quite a bit of the sentence generation code and adding some new code to re-handle things like punctuation and capitalisation, but I think that’s now done and working correctly.
- I’ve been going through and removing a lot of phrases, and a lot of word orders, which sound strange. As several people have pointed out, sentences could sometimes come out rather strangely; I’ve tried to fix as many of these as I can. At the same time, though, some of the interesting but logical sentences are generated from the same sources as the interesting but illogical sentences; it’s tricky to strike the right balance here. As ever, I think this will just need lots of playtesting.
- Just stated sketching out (on paper) a list of the bugs and small issues that need to be resolved before 0.8 is released; I had a bunch of smaller lists of this sort, but I hadn’t really collated them into one place before. For some of the bugs I’ve decided they don’t need fixing until 0.9, and some of them I decided it was easier to simply remove the thing that caused the bug (temporarily) than to fix the bug now; as I’ve said several times, I’m really trying to do the absolute minimum now required to get 0.8 released, and putting some of this stuff off until 0.9 is definitely the way to go.
I’m afraid that’s all for now, folks. Should get a full day to code next week, so should be back with a larger update next time around. See you all next weekend!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 09, 2017, 10:38:08 am
Re: clunky phrasing: I guess in the end it's largely a matter of just seeing what works best in the most situations
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 18, 2017, 03:26:36 pm
Good to hear things are going well!
Re: clunky phrasing: I guess in the end it's largely a matter of just seeing what works best in the most situations
Thanks - and agreed! Definitely needs more refining, but definitely improving, too...
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This week has been a week of consolidating everything that was in place so far, continuing to test and refine and test and refine over and over the speech generation and the flow of sentences, moving around some of the code so that it can be handled more efficiently, and thinking about handling sentence variables in the future, which is to say, the parts of sentences which are things like “[god]” or “[nation]”, and therefore have to vary every time the same sentence is uttered. As such, here’s this week’s fairly substantial update:
- Thanks to some great suggestions left in the comments list in the blog post from two weeks ado, I’ve added in a number of new responses. If you’re asking someone about a potentially suspicious topic, and you’re in a region with guards, they might (if they really like you) say something like “You shouldn’t ask such things, the guards will think you’re a spy!” or something of that sort.
- Equally, if you’re asking a particularly “academic” rather than “practical” topic – the difference between “what is the nearest mountain range?” and “what is your religion?” – they will sometimes, very rarely, say “I don’t know, but you should go and ask [expert]”. I think these are both great changes, and again, add even more speech detail to the potential library of sentences the player will actually encounter. However, again, to prevent farming, there’s now basically a hidden counter, which varies significantly from iteration to iteration, and affects how often people will recommend that you go and talk to somebody else about the topic in question; equally, you need to be talking to people who both a) have the knowledge and b) have the inclination to recommend an expert, which will be a fairly small number of NPCs.
- I then spent quite a bit more time developing the above in order to maximise the detail that people can offer the player, the variation in the sentences the player will read, and integrating all of this will knowledge and mood modifiers. So, now, if you hang around in a shop, and then a random person comes in, and you ask that person about the currency of their nation, for example, if they don’t want to respond they will point you towards the merchant in that shop, knowing that a) they and you are in a shop and b) you are asking a question that it would be relevant to talk to a merchant about and c) there is also a merchant in this shop.
- These responses also vary depending on whether you’re in the nation or church relevant to the person you’re speaking to. So let’s say you ask someone something, and the relevant answer would be “You should ask a noble”. If you’re in the mansion of a noble from their civilization, they’ll say “You should ask a noble, such as the one in this mansion” or whatever; but if you’re elsewhere, they’ll say “You should ask one of our nobles, who dwell in accommodations like these”; if you’re right nation but outside and in the right district, they’ll say “You should ask a noble; several have their mansions here”, or in wrong distract, they’ll say “You should ask a noble; many dwell in our richest district”. Equivalents in a foreign nation would be “You should ask one of our nobles, who dwell in a district much like this”, or “You should ask one of our nobles, who inhabit the richest part of my home city”. The game can therefore now generate appropriate sentences both based on the player’s location – right building, right district, or just overall right region, or overall incorrect region – and the relationship between the person you’re talking to and the area you’re talking to them in (especially relevant when you run into people who aren’t native to the state they live in, for example).
- I have to be honest and say that I’m extremely happy with how this context-specific recommendation system has developed; I’m really hoping this will produce some strikingly specific procedurally-generated sentences for the player to encounter in appropriate situations, and as ever, just generally provide greater variety in the conversation system. There are also a bunch of sentence possibilities which might be generated that I know are currently impossible, but might become possible later once the potential actions and schedules of NPCs expands further.
- Going back to repeating questions, if you ask X, and then you ask X again, sometimes on the first repetition people will now be confused rather than annoyed or bothered; they’ll say “Didn’t we just discuss this?”, or “That’s strange, didn’t I just answer that?” or something like that; the potential mood drop will be the same, I think, but it’s just another little bit of detail for some NPCs.
- Thanks to an outstanding suggestions left on the Bay12 forums, there is now a little bit of extra conversation detail in there which I hadn’t thought of. If you ask something, and get a positive response (they answer your question), when you say the next thing you say, it’ll normally start your next question with “Thanks” or “Understood” or “I appreciate you letting me know” or things of that sort; equally, if they didn’t reply, your next thing will often start with “Apologies” or “Ah, okay” or things of that sort. This adds a nice little bit of extra flow to the conversations; naturally even more flow will be added once they can ask you questions back, but for the time being, putting these in 50% of responses definitely makes everything look a little more human once more.
Next week’s blog entry will be a little different: I’m in the final fortnight of the extension period on my first book, and this week’s absolute priority is finishing that off. Next week I’m going to have the first non-URR entry since development restarted and write up some reflections on writing such a long piece of work about games, what I’ve learned from it, my future writing plans, and so forth; there’s just no way I’ll have more than a little time in the coming week for programming, and I’d rather return with a blast the week after. See you all next week!
Post by: Scoops Novel on August 19, 2017, 10:04:25 pm
Got any thoughts on group conversations? Can the NPC's chat amongst themselves?
Will the game note how voices sound?
Post by: FakerFangirl on August 20, 2017, 12:08:34 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 01, 2017, 10:36:22 am
Have you considered using different fonts for different languages/accents? Maybe the same 3 fonts for upper/lower/middle class, with the option to toggle a custom font for each language instead? I know you want the diction to stand for itself but it's easy to say pretty verbose stuff in a pretty brummie way.
What an interesting idea. I hadn't considered that at all, but that's a really cool and interesting notion! Hmm. Heh, I kind of like that idea, actually. Let me think about implementation!
Got any thoughts on group conversations? Can the NPC's chat amongst themselves?
Yes, although for now that just means "standing in a group with each other for some period" with the implication of conversation taking place. You cannot eavesdrop (yet!).
Will the game note how voices sound?
Nice idea - I hadn't thought of that, but I'll definitely see how I could add that in. There are definitely a whole bunch of ways I could convey sound/mood/accent (words, colours, fonts) and I definitely want to hit on the best combo before I implement any of it.
The updates are keeping my interest piqued!
Haha, I'm glad!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 03, 2017, 12:08:15 pm
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/08/bip.png)
For example, “[holybookauthor]” would refer to who wrote the holy book of a particular religion (if known); “[monasteryfield]” would refer to what particular kinds of books a monastery produces (when we have books implemented!); “[mercyears]” refers to how long a mercenary has been a mercenary (that is “merc years”, not “mercy ears”!); “[armyrole]” refers to what a particular soldier the player is talking with does in the army; and so on. Whenever anyone tries to say one of these, the game needs to be able to look up what exact phrase it should use, which means a unique set of look-ups in the game’s databases for every single one of these. It might mean checking something to do with that particular NPC – such as their age or simply what religion they worship – but it might also require the dredging-up of information from a religion, a culture, a geographical location, a series of historical events, and so forth. Given the central role of the speech system to the game and to the player’s abilities to actually gain access to the information they need, it was clearly going to be vital that these systems are detailed, comprehensive, and sufficiently varied to maintain interest over what can be a long playthrough. Equally, as above, almost all of these are going to need unique bodies of code designed to pull out the correct bit of information – and it is this I’ve worked on this week.
The most challenging task this week was, frankly, reminding myself of how the code for sentence generation works, and finding the right “place” in the code to switch out “[god]” for “the Grey Goddess of the Mountains”, or whatever. Whereas for all the last few weeks I have been primarily or entirely adding more content to (or on top of) existing systems, here I was developing some new systems. I had a bunch of comments, and most things have quite logical labels, but there was still a certain bemusement looking at the sentence generation code again and working out how everything actually slots in. Once I’d figured all this out, however, it became clear how I needed to implement these elements, and what elements should be stored and retrieved from which places in the code and the game’s data structure. Last week, I shifted the code that I vaguely call the sentence-converter, which is to say the code which takes a default sentence and then makes it sound different for each nation. This week I’ve also shifted the code which handles these new variables away from where it originally was, which didn’t make a huge amount of sense, and put it alongside the other. Now, when the game cycles through each word in a sentence to choose the correct cultural version, it will also find the sentence variables in the same process, and decide what each one should become at the appropriate time. This is a good foundation for building on next week, and I’ve already begun to sketch out some of the functions that will select the appropriate words and terms for relevant parts of sentence generation.
I have also decided that the system whereby an NPC looks at you and draws judgements about you – see this entry for more – is something that will appear in 0.9, not 0.8. This is because although one can add and remove clothing at this point, one cannot actually gain access to the clothing of other NPCs yet, because a) we have no shops or currency and b) there’s no way to ask people for clothes, have people give you other clothes, even attack people for clothes, etc. So, for now, everyone will just (correctly) believe you are from your home nation. I’ve therefore implemented a placeholder function with space for a full assessment of who they think you are, which can be easily expanded in 0.9.
Lastly, as part of this, some different NPC classes will also give you different greetings; this is part of the placeholder above, and will be expanded in 0.9, but there are now some variations in greetings according to what kind of NPC you’re talking to. A priest, therefore, is likely to comment on religion when they say hello; a servant or slave will be especially shy when they greet you; and so forth. Again, this will be expanded in 0.9 to integrate with the NPC’s judgements about who you are when you talk to them.
Next Week
Next week: with the system in place, I’ll start working on handling the variables themselves, and drawing on the appropriate information, in appropriate contexts, to complete these square-bracketed parts of NPC speech. See you all then!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on September 03, 2017, 05:40:15 pm
Post by: Zireael on September 04, 2017, 02:03:37 am
Quote
“[mercyears]” refers to how long a mercenary has been a mercenary (that is “merc years”, not “mercy ears”!);
Haha, and I read the variable as "mercy ears", too :D :D
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 27, 2017, 05:54:06 pm
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Just a short one this week, to say: my apologies for the silence over the last month. A combination of an unexpectedly high workload (five different paper revisions to complete in a short time-span), along with caring for an extremely ill relative, and preparing to move 4200 miles across the globe in around three weeks, has been quite challenging. I also managed to send myself on a trip to the Accident and Emergency part of my local hospital, which was all totally excellent, but has put me in bed recovering for quite a few days. And, to top it all off, a side-effect of the far more serious illness I got several years ago has just manifested; it’s not life-threatening, but it’s intensely dispiriting and depressing. I’m still alive (barely) but just absolutely swamped under everything right now; the injury and the new medical issue are both just extra things I could really, really, do without. I thought the past couple of months would be the proper restart on URR’s development, but apparently that isn’t going to happen just yet.
Nevertheless, I’ll be back to 0.8 as soon as possible. Things have to stabilise sooner or later… right?
Post by: Mephansteras on October 21, 2017, 02:31:25 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 04, 2017, 01:57:00 pm
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Hello everyone! It has been a little while since the first Interlude, so I thought it would be appropriate to post a sequel.
Firstly, thank you all so much for the amazingly kind words on the other blog entry (and which I’ve had through email, Facebook, etc) – they really mean so much to me, and they are deeply deeply appreciated.
Secondly, I’ve now successfully moved to Canada, found a flat (or rather, an apartment), signed the contract, and done the majority of all the admin and bureaucracy stuff that comes from moving to an entirely different country; I still need to get a mobile phone that functions in this country, and there’s one or two University-admin things I need to complete, but otherwise I’m settled, moved, I’m “in the system” in the Canadian bureaucracy, and I’m getting ready to officially begin this job just a couple of days from now. This has been a pretty huge task in the last fortnight, but it’s now coming to an end.
Thirdly, on the health front, the physical symptoms are improving, and the psychological symptoms are (more slowly) also improving. Things are still tough, but I’m making some good choices to improve the newfound psychological difficulties this complication from my older illness has dumped on me. In the short-to-mid term, I think things might be on the up (slowly), but it’s always so hard to know.
Fourthly, here’s the cover for my upcoming book with Bloomsbury. I’m so happy with the design! I should have more information soon about an exact publication date, but there’s lots of roguelike-y goodness in there to be had.
(http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/files/2017/10/DM9aBpPVAAEvXCf.jpg)
Fifthly, any of you folks who are interested in Twitch and live streaming might want to read this paper I recently published about it – you can find a paywall-free version here - https://tinyurl.com/y8adblsk. In it we explore the backgrounds of live streamers, the everyday work and labour of being a professional live streamer, and their hopes and fears about the future of their practice. This is part of a larger project on Twitch I’ve been developing alongside my colleague Jamie Woodcock in the last year, and we should have some more exciting stuff on this front to announce soon. Stay tuned.
So yes, that’s everything for now. I’ll hopefully be able to post more again once I have some kind of stability. I’ve also been thinking over some pretty fundamental questions about the website, how I blog, how often I blog, my general online visibility, these sorts of things, so there might be some big changes coming in the future (once I feel a little stronger). In the mean time, take care, everyone.
Post by: FakerFangirl on November 05, 2017, 07:37:01 am
Post by: ventuswings on November 05, 2017, 08:21:54 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on November 05, 2017, 10:29:29 am
Post by: FakerFangirl on November 23, 2017, 02:26:40 am
Post by: Ehndras on November 23, 2017, 08:33:06 am
However, to prevent abuse (or just shenanigans), itd make sense that joining any faction would get you a negative to factions who happen to not like them ;)
I would LOVE to see this game turn more into a sandbox RNG open-world experience where you can choose to play in "free mode" and just do whatever the hell you want. I know every dev wants some sort of "point" to the game, but to be honest... Replay value is a huge thing, and allowing a sandbox options opens the door to so many players who would otherwise not find much interest in the game.
Me, for example. I'll definitely try out the main story schtick but once that gets boring, I can put in thousands of hours into just wandering the world, building up my characters' backstories, writing RP AARs about it on forums/reddit, watching the world revolve, and getting in with my hardcore crafting addiction.
...Speaking of, funny how many people are obsessive crafter/hoarders on Bay12 o.O That little poll thread we have running is a massive list of people who love to make and acquire random junk. :P
Post by: mete on December 18, 2017, 08:03:57 am
Post by: dennislp3 on December 22, 2017, 10:54:42 pm
About the earlier suggestion of joining major/minor factions/guilds/etc, a beautiful idea.
However, to prevent abuse (or just shenanigans), itd make sense that joining any faction would get you a negative to factions who happen to not like them ;)
I would LOVE to see this game turn more into a sandbox RNG open-world experience where you can choose to play in "free mode" and just do whatever the hell you want. I know every dev wants some sort of "point" to the game, but to be honest... Replay value is a huge thing, and allowing a sandbox options opens the door to so many players who would otherwise not find much interest in the game.
Me, for example. I'll definitely try out the main story schtick but once that gets boring, I can put in thousands of hours into just wandering the world, building up my characters' backstories, writing RP AARs about it on forums/reddit, watching the world revolve, and getting in with my hardcore crafting addiction.
...Speaking of, funny how many people are obsessive crafter/hoarders on Bay12 o.O That little poll thread we have running is a massive list of people who love to make and acquire random junk. :P
On this general point...I find it baffling how many large games do not offer an open "free roam" game mode either as some sort of bonus for beating the game or just a type of mode you can play.
Just strip the main quests/forced events/time limits/etc and plop the player down to roam.
Post by: Retropunch on December 23, 2017, 10:27:55 am
On this general point...I find it baffling how many large games do not offer an open "free roam" game mode either as some sort of bonus for beating the game or just a type of mode you can play.
I think think free roam is great as a reward for beating the game, but I know a lot of devs feel that free roam mode will ruin the intended experience. I tend to agree with that, as a lot of people will try that, exhaust their enthusiasm and then never get to the 'best' bit.
Post by: Ekaton on January 03, 2018, 12:04:05 pm
Post by: Scoops Novel on January 31, 2018, 08:17:54 am
Post by: FakerFangirl on March 01, 2018, 02:07:48 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 07, 2018, 08:31:26 pm
Finish 0.8 damnit!
I would like that of all things...
Thank you for the update! Hope Canada treats you well, and you fully recover without problem.
Thanks my friend! I've just posted a new blog update (see bottom of this big reply) with some info...
Glad to hear you're getting better! And I like that book cover!
Thanks! I have to say, I absolutely love it. I'm so happy with what they've done!
Give me updates... >:(
See bottom of this message!
About the earlier suggestion of joining major/minor factions/guilds/etc, a beautiful idea.
Agreed, definitely something I want
However, to prevent abuse (or just shenanigans), itd make sense that joining any faction would get you a negative to factions who happen to not like them ;)
Also, agreed
I would LOVE to see this game turn more into a sandbox RNG open-world experience where you can choose to play in "free mode" and just do whatever the hell you want. I know every dev wants some sort of "point" to the game, but to be honest... Replay value is a huge thing, and allowing a sandbox options opens the door to so many players who would otherwise not find much interest in the game.
Me, for example. I'll definitely try out the main story schtick but once that gets boring, I can put in thousands of hours into just wandering the world, building up my characters' backstories, writing RP AARs about it on forums/reddit, watching the world revolve, and getting in with my hardcore crafting addiction.
...Speaking of, funny how many people are obsessive crafter/hoarders on Bay12 o.O That little poll thread we have running is a massive list of people who love to make and acquire random junk. :P
I... am still not sure how I feel about this idea! Of course, I just need to finally get 0.8 out first and then take stock of what on Earth I should do and where I should go from here, so let's not get too far ahead, but... I'm still, personally, inclined away from the pure sandbox option. But we'll see. One step at a time :).
any news on this?
Hopefully some in this message and the blog post at the bottom!
On this general point...I find it baffling how many large games do not offer an open "free roam" game mode either as some sort of bonus for beating the game or just a type of mode you can play.
Just strip the main quests/forced events/time limits/etc and plop the player down to roam.
Interesting; I don't think I totally agree per se, but for some worlds, I definitely do.
I think think free roam is great as a reward for beating the game, but I know a lot of devs feel that free roam mode will ruin the intended experience. I tend to agree with that, as a lot of people will try that, exhaust their enthusiasm and then never get to the 'best' bit.
Yeah - this is kind of my main concern, too!
Do you plan on letting the player create something (like opening a workshop or sth) or pursue a profession (like a trader, lawyer or a priest) and interact within the existing economic, legal or religious system and perhaps changing it to some degree?
Perhaps; again, "one step at a time" is where I am right now, but I would only be thinking of implementing those kinds of ideas if I thought they would significantly enhance, in some sense, the core game...
Judging by his last post on his site, everything's gonna be moved to a new flashy site and i doubt he'll keep posting here.
Oh no, I will always cross-post updates here and in other locations :).
Hurry up I need something to sink my teeth into.
I hope these replies and this post give something!
---
And as promised, here's an update: http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2018/04/08/april-2018-update/
Post by: Kaje on June 08, 2018, 01:28:42 pm
Post by: Dorsidwarf on June 08, 2018, 07:34:18 pm
Having read the update from April, I just wanted to wish you all the best and hope that you find time/energy to continue developing this incredibly ambitious project.
That reminds me, there was a general site update yesterday about how he’s starting to get back into the coding mindset and practise a bit more which is cool.
http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2018/06/07/i-did-some-programming/
Most importantly though his health is getting better so I suppose my prayers of “don’t dead” were highly effacious!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 09, 2018, 02:19:53 pm
Post by: Zireael on June 10, 2018, 11:31:53 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 25, 2018, 02:06:14 pm
I'm very glad to know you're health is getting better, that's the most important thing.
Thanks friend :).
So I have some news! Firstly, I've now shifted over to a brand new website at www.markrjohnsongames.com, which will FAR better accommodate all the stuff I do, and was hand-designed for me to be something that that stand the test of time and allow me to fit everything I do into a single site.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Website2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Website3.png)
As part of this, I'm also now resuming monthly blog posts! August's is now up on both the old site - http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2018/08/25/new-website/ - and the new - https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2018/08/25/new-website/.
AND, finally, I am still coding the final fragments of 0.8, slowly but surely...
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 26, 2018, 04:52:21 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 26, 2019, 04:36:40 am
Firstly, 0.8 is back in development, finally, and things are being finished off now! Just some tweaks to go until it's ready to release; been putting in consistent coding hours regularly for the past month or two, really "back into it", and things are coming together. I'll have more to say on this soon.
In other news, my book is out, where I talk about lots of PCG stuff! You can read about it here...
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2019/01/23/the-unpredictability-of-gameplay-is-out/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2019/01/23/the-unpredictability-of-gameplay-is-out/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/9781501321627.jpg)
...including a sample chapter. It would be awesome to get any thoughts on this! A big URRpdate is coming next month, and I'll be back with that in a couple weeks :). Hope everyone is otherwise doing well!
Post by: FakerFangirl on January 26, 2019, 08:30:48 pm
Firstly, 0.8 is back in development,YES!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 28, 2019, 06:33:51 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2019, 05:27:46 am
YES!
I KNOW!!!
The text in the book sample was somewhat weighty for my unacademic mind, but I found the topics covered to be quite interesting?
I'm glad! It was a weird one to write, as I wanted to really dig into some concepts, but make it as accessible as possible, but do so without sacrificing detail, BUT also give it a wider readership than academia... you get the idea. I don't know how well I pulled it off, but I'm glad you found it interesting.
Update coming tomorrow or the day after!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2019, 04:33:22 pm
Nevertheless, here’s a rough log of the things I’ve done since resuming development, quietly, slowly, in the background:
– Names of artworks now generate, and NPCs can talk about them.
– Names of books and poetry now generate, and NPCs can talk about them.
– Names of relics now generate, and NPCS can talk about them.
– Everyone can name and talk about the rulers of their nations.
– Friendly NPCs will warn you to be wary when asking potentially sensitive questions.
– Rulers have appropriate titles and sets of roles and responsibilities.
– Asking a soldier or officer about their job no longer results in a crash.
– Removed the ability for the player character to change dialect; if implemented, this will be a 0.9 feature.
– Monks and abbots can tell you about the history of their monasteries and what they produce.
– NPCs can tell you appropriately about their past, their upbringing, etc.
– Servants and slaves correctly discuss whoever they serve.
– Officers tell you about their histories and how they were promoted.
– Shopkeepers will tell you what they have in stock (for, er, once they have items in stock!).
– Removed the possibility of NPCs recommending you talk to someone else (i.e. an expert on the topic you’ve asked about) instead of them; again, if implemented, that’ll be 0.9.
– The mood of NPCs talking to you declines more slowly than before, even if you ask them daft things.
– NPCs can talk about their current and past jobs, and their backgrounds and origins.
– Guards will tell you about what they guard, who they guard it for, who is allowed in, and so forth.
– Mercenaries will give you ample information about their skills and abilities if asked.
– Relevant NPCs have lots of information about their religions, holy books, festivals, and so forth.
– Military figures will tell you about their armed forces (if appropriate).
– Mercenaries, military figures and other relevant NPCs can tell you about weapons, armour, how their people fight, etc.
– NPCs can talk about travel, where they’ve visited, where they were born, where they grew up, etc.
– Farmers can tell you about farming (which, I’m sure we’ll all agree, is absolutely vital).
– Innkeepers and jailers tell you about their jobs and the histories of their taverns or jails.
– Various titles for rulers and religious leaders and the like are handled correctly whenever an NPC needs to talk about them.
– Prisoners will tell you all about their crimes (which they may well insist they didn’t commit, of course), when they were imprisoned, and when they will get out.
– NPCs can tell you about the plants and animals found in their areas, and what plants/animals (if any) might be sacred to their people.
– Handled a number of broad answers for big questions, which now serve as placeholders until more detail can be added.
– Checked that a number of bugs relating to speech patterns have been fixed.
– Added a lot of new information about civilizations and religions that NPCs can talk about, mainly preferences for/against certain things.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Circletest-1024x676.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Circletest-2-1024x675.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Circletest-1-1024x675.png)
Where does this leave us? Well, the conversation system is more complete than ever, and more bugs have been fixed. As before, I’m now not giving deadlines or anything, but the 0.8 version of this mad sprawling worldbuilder is finally on its way in the not-too-distant future. More soon!
Post by: Retropunch on February 12, 2019, 05:10:05 pm
if there is a 0.9, I’ll return and fill in the blanks then with a much smaller release.
It sounds as if 0.8 may be the last release we see of URR? This would be a real shame for a number of reasons, especially as I think you're only a very short amount of work (especially compared to what you've done) away from having a game for the history books.
Post by: Mephansteras on February 12, 2019, 07:46:14 pm
Post by: FakerFangirl on February 13, 2019, 12:48:39 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 24, 2019, 03:54:20 pm
All seems very impressive as usual!if there is a 0.9, I’ll return and fill in the blanks then with a much smaller release.
It sounds as if 0.8 may be the last release we see of URR? This would be a real shame for a number of reasons, especially as I think you're only a very short amount of work (especially compared to what you've done) away from having a game for the history books.
Firstly, that's incredibly kind of you :). Re: future releases, I'm not sure - if I do, they will be SMALL. Like, say, 0.9 would be just adding graphics for weapons, armour, plants and a few other things, and some more conversation options, say. Nothing more. Then if there was a 0.10 it would be equally small. I haven't made a decision yet - I just need to get this out first and then take stock! There are also hopefully some good changes going to happen in my life in the next 6 months (fingers crossed) which could, COULD, free up more time.
Nice to see that you're able to pick this up again!
Thanks my friend! It's such a pleasure to see the final few things coming together now.
Greetings from the monastic nation of Ghofonma.
And to you!
Post by: Retropunch on February 24, 2019, 07:26:00 pm
Firstly, that's incredibly kind of you :). Re: future releases, I'm not sure - if I do, they will be SMALL. Like, say, 0.9 would be just adding graphics for weapons, armour, plants and a few other things, and some more conversation options, say. Nothing more. Then if there was a 0.10 it would be equally small. I haven't made a decision yet - I just need to get this out first and then take stock! There are also hopefully some good changes going to happen in my life in the next 6 months (fingers crossed) which could, COULD, free up more time.
Glad to hear you're not thinking of abandoning it completely! If you did find time to do future releases, I'd really suggest some sort of...gamifaction of it - even if it was something as straightforward as 'find the 10 secret relics hidden around the world' which you could find through clues in conversations etc. It wouldn't need to even have proper quest giver NPCs or the like, you could just have them as an 'achievements' screen (visit the 5 temples of Ghof, find the 10 secret relics, make contact with the Ghofona tribe...) which would get ticked off once you'd achieved them.
As it looks from my perspective, you obviously had all sorts of incredible (and ambitious!) plans a few years back, and at the time it made a lot of sense to concentrate on the world building and the mechanics as you were planning pretty much the most detailed sim ever created, and so there was no point in doing 'quests' and the like because of all the potential for natural, interlocking mechanics and the like. However, as that's no longer really on the table in the same way (which is completely understandable) then I'd hate to see it fizzle away due to it not really having any goals/things for the player to do - I think this is a real risk because as much as people will enjoy wandering around the world, it's often difficult to really get absorbed without any sort of purpose (regardless of how basic that purpose is).
Regardless, can't wait for 0.8!
Post by: George_Chickens on February 24, 2019, 09:08:50 pm
Post by: Shonai_Dweller on February 25, 2019, 04:04:07 am
I would argue that this isn't necessary. There's enough of a fanbase (such as "the two of us and that guy in the corner" can be called a fanbase ;) ) that are happy to play follow-the-devblog for decades to come. The plan is there on the page, we know an actual gamey game will occur eventually if progress continues. The devblog shows that something is happening and the occasional release featuring more stuff helps to remind us that we're not crazy (not entirely, anyway). Mark is a visibly active person on the Internet, not some faceless corporation promising Half-Life 3.Firstly, that's incredibly kind of you :). Re: future releases, I'm not sure - if I do, they will be SMALL. Like, say, 0.9 would be just adding graphics for weapons, armour, plants and a few other things, and some more conversation options, say. Nothing more. Then if there was a 0.10 it would be equally small. I haven't made a decision yet - I just need to get this out first and then take stock! There are also hopefully some good changes going to happen in my life in the next 6 months (fingers crossed) which could, COULD, free up more time.
Glad to hear you're not thinking of abandoning it completely! If you did find time to do future releases, I'd really suggest some sort of...gamifaction of it - even if it was something as straightforward as 'find the 10 secret relics hidden around the world' which you could find through clues in conversations etc. It wouldn't need to even have proper quest giver NPCs or the like, you could just have them as an 'achievements' screen (visit the 5 temples of Ghof, find the 10 secret relics, make contact with the Ghofona tribe...) which would get ticked off once you'd achieved them.
As it looks from my perspective, you obviously had all sorts of incredible (and ambitious!) plans a few years back, and at the time it made a lot of sense to concentrate on the world building and the mechanics as you were planning pretty much the most detailed sim ever created, and so there was no point in doing 'quests' and the like because of all the potential for natural, interlocking mechanics and the like. However, as that's no longer really on the table in the same way (which is completely understandable) then I'd hate to see it fizzle away due to it not really having any goals/things for the player to do - I think this is a real risk because as much as people will enjoy wandering around the world, it's often difficult to really get absorbed without any sort of purpose (regardless of how basic that purpose is).
Regardless, can't wait for 0.8!
I follow Aurora 4X, Unreal World, Dwarf Fortress and URR. In some ways it's much easier to be invested for the long-term when updates are years apart.
So, please do as you think best, Mark (and let us know if you decide to throw in the towel, of course). But know that some of us don't need to be hooked on "gameability". We've already got one madman providing that for us in Toadyone.
Post by: Retropunch on February 25, 2019, 04:29:34 am
I would argue that this isn't necessary. There's enough of a fanbase (such as "the two of us and that guy in the corner" can be called a fanbase ;) ) that are happy to play follow-the-devblog for decades to come. The plan is there on the page, we know an actual gamey game will occur eventually if progress continues. The devblog shows that something is happening and the occasional release featuring more stuff helps to remind us that we're not crazy (not entirely, anyway). Mark is a visibly active person on the Internet, not some faceless corporation promising Half-Life 3.
I follow Aurora 4X, Unreal World, Dwarf Fortress and URR. In some ways it's much easier to be invested for the long-term when updates are years apart.
So, please do as you think best, Mark (and let us know if you decide to throw in the towel, of course). But know that some of us don't need to be hooked on "gameability". We've already got one madman providing that for us in Toadyone.
I agree that's the case if Mark is planning to continue development (even if in the long term) - however, if he's going to pretty much finish up (which it's unfortunately sounding like) and there won't be an actual gamey game at the end of it, then I'd encourage something to wrap it all together.
This is mainly because otherwise URR will be relegated to 'the game that almost was', rather than something that's a finished game. I'd imagine a finished product would be more helpful to Mark (in terms of him having a fully released game under his belt) and get the game a wider player base which is always good for everyone. Other than the DF crowd, I feel most of the gaming community would say 'this is a fantastic world but...what do I do?'.
Obviously if Mark ever wanted to come back to it, he could rip out any quest stuff he didn't like or incorporate it into some sort of 'explorers guild' without too much trouble.
Post by: FakerFangirl on February 25, 2019, 06:23:34 am
Post by: Retropunch on February 25, 2019, 09:10:07 am
I think the most fulfilling achievements are the ones that affect the world. Going down in history for killing a monster, fighting for territory, upgrading or destroying structures, or having my name and achievement written down in public. Dwarf Fortress's death and retirement mechanics are really fascinating, inspired by Angband tombstones. Being a founder of something and coming back to see it still there is also really cool. In Dwarf Fortress I made families of endangered species and retired them in my forts.
Certainly agree and all of those would be good, but quite a lot of work to implement I imagine. I feel that a quick list of world 'achievements' (which could just be going to all the xyz's or picking up x of y) that you could tick off would be enough to give those that want a bit of guidance whilst they enjoy the fantastic world that's been created, whilst also being easy enough to implement.
It all boils down to how much time/willpower Mark has left to continue URR - a decent trade system would be just as good, as would all sorts of adventure-y things which would give the game focus, but my main fear is that such a fantastic achievement as URR already is gets lost to the realms of 'unfinished games' just because it didn't have anything structured for the player to do, and I feel that's what the wider gaming community will see it as.
Post by: ChrisLeJohn on February 26, 2019, 03:17:13 am
In Dwarf Fortress I made families of endangered species and retired them in my forts.
#goals
Good luck on URR, been keeping up for a while!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 26, 2019, 06:05:25 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 12, 2019, 12:38:40 pm
Glad to hear you're not thinking of abandoning it completely! If you did find time to do future releases, I'd really suggest some sort of...gamifaction of it - even if it was something as straightforward as 'find the 10 secret relics hidden around the world' which you could find through clues in conversations etc. It wouldn't need to even have proper quest giver NPCs or the like, you could just have them as an 'achievements' screen (visit the 5 temples of Ghof, find the 10 secret relics, make contact with the Ghofona tribe...) which would get ticked off once you'd achieved them.
As it looks from my perspective, you obviously had all sorts of incredible (and ambitious!) plans a few years back, and at the time it made a lot of sense to concentrate on the world building and the mechanics as you were planning pretty much the most detailed sim ever created, and so there was no point in doing 'quests' and the like because of all the potential for natural, interlocking mechanics and the like. However, as that's no longer really on the table in the same way (which is completely understandable) then I'd hate to see it fizzle away due to it not really having any goals/things for the player to do - I think this is a real risk because as much as people will enjoy wandering around the world, it's often difficult to really get absorbed without any sort of purpose (regardless of how basic that purpose is).
Regardless, can't wait for 0.8!
Yeah, I would definitely like to add some (small) quest, ideally similar to what I originally had in mind, although more contained in scale. I think the sort of achievement screen you describe is what I'd go for - maybe you have to find a certain set of cathedrals, castles, people... something like that, something which isn't so small as to be trivial, nor so large as to be impossible, and sufficiently varied to be interesting.
And, also, *thank you* for the second paragraph - it's very kind, and understanding (and accurate). Like I say, I do agree that I need something in there for people to be driven or inclined to do...
Aww, damn. That's kind of depressing. If you ever have to completely stop working on the game, or if it becomes completed, will you ever open source it so that the community can add what was never able to be finished?
I'm afraid I have no intention to open source, but I do want to "cap things off" nicely :).
I would argue that this isn't necessary. There's enough of a fanbase (such as "the two of us and that guy in the corner" can be called a fanbase ;) ) that are happy to play follow-the-devblog for decades to come. The plan is there on the page, we know an actual gamey game will occur eventually if progress continues. The devblog shows that something is happening and the occasional release featuring more stuff helps to remind us that we're not crazy (not entirely, anyway). Mark is a visibly active person on the Internet, not some faceless corporation promising Half-Life 3.
I follow Aurora 4X, Unreal World, Dwarf Fortress and URR. In some ways it's much easier to be invested for the long-term when updates are years apart.
So, please do as you think best, Mark (and let us know if you decide to throw in the towel, of course). But know that some of us don't need to be hooked on "gameability". We've already got one madman providing that for us in Toadyone.
Damn, friend, thank you for such a great and kind comment. Towel isn't going in just yet!
I agree that's the case if Mark is planning to continue development (even if in the long term) - however, if he's going to pretty much finish up (which it's unfortunately sounding like) and there won't be an actual gamey game at the end of it, then I'd encourage something to wrap it all together.
This is mainly because otherwise URR will be relegated to 'the game that almost was', rather than something that's a finished game. I'd imagine a finished product would be more helpful to Mark (in terms of him having a fully released game under his belt) and get the game a wider player base which is always good for everyone. Other than the DF crowd, I feel most of the gaming community would say 'this is a fantastic world but...what do I do?'.
Obviously if Mark ever wanted to come back to it, he could rip out any quest stuff he didn't like or incorporate it into some sort of 'explorers guild' without too much trouble.
All of these thoughts make complete sense :). I really appreciate the comments in this thread, and it's clear I do need to implement some kind of nice quest system, even just something simple and minor. Maybe relic hunting or something... either way, I totally get what you're saying about the need for a "finished game".
I think the most fulfilling achievements are the ones that affect the world. Going down in history for killing a monster, fighting for territory, upgrading or destroying structures, or having my name and achievement written down in public. Dwarf Fortress's death and retirement mechanics are really fascinating, inspired by Angband tombstones. Being a founder of something and coming back to see it still there is also really cool. In Dwarf Fortress I made families of endangered species and retired them in my forts.
Yeah, I like these ideas; that's definitely a direction I'll look into once 0.8 is done.
Certainly agree and all of those would be good, but quite a lot of work to implement I imagine. I feel that a quick list of world 'achievements' (which could just be going to all the xyz's or picking up x of y) that you could tick off would be enough to give those that want a bit of guidance whilst they enjoy the fantastic world that's been created, whilst also being easy enough to implement.
It all boils down to how much time/willpower Mark has left to continue URR - a decent trade system would be just as good, as would all sorts of adventure-y things which would give the game focus, but my main fear is that such a fantastic achievement as URR already is gets lost to the realms of 'unfinished games' just because it didn't have anything structured for the player to do, and I feel that's what the wider gaming community will see it as.
I really do want to add a trade/currency system: the idea of PCG coins is incredibly apealing to me, I have to say, but I'm definitely leaning in the direction of what lots of you have suggested, i.e. some kind of achievement system to create a sense of guidance over this huge/complex world...
In Dwarf Fortress I made families of endangered species and retired them in my forts.
#goals
Good luck on URR, been keeping up for a while!
Hahaha. Thanks friend!
I appreciate the sense of exasperation that Wof As Pofonma felt as a stranger walked up to him and greeted him ceaselessly
Ah, don't we all?
Also, I think I have failed to post not just one, but two updates here in the last little while! Terribly remiss of me, I will get them transferred over here soon...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2019, 07:10:15 pm
– Fixed an issue with leaders failing to generate correctly at night; leaders of civilisations temporarily disabled.
– Fixed a number of issues with synonyms for words in certain dialects producing some very strange linguistic outcomes.
– Fixed some word variables not correctly being replaced with the right words or phrases because of where in the code those particular sentence are generated.
– You now cannot talk to NPCs when asleep; if 0.9 happens I will likely implement a simple process for waking NPCs, but angering them in the process.
– NPCs who have special things you can do with them, besides talking, such as smithing (with a blacksmith) or worshipping (with a priest), no longer crash the game when you select them.
– Guards and soldiers and the like now spawn with armour (although the armour has no pictures – again, if 0.9 happens, that will be a priority).
– A few issues with farmhouses are now fixed.
– NPCs of a certain sort – who are finite in number, but not always important enough to be generated when the world is, such as some priests, some monks, most prisoners – no longer display a range of bugs when they are “normal” rather than “special” versions of those NPCs.
– Fixed (I think) issues with some buildings in tribal societies, and also hospitals in military districts should also now be issue-free.
– The guidebook has been updated with a number of new entries for this new release detailing language, speech, and so forth.
– NPCs can now properly end conversations when they say they’re ending the conversation, instead of just saying they’re done talking, and then continuing to talk by just repeatedly saying they don’t want to talk.
– Fixed a wide range of issues and minor bugs with language generation, grammatical structure, the correct “calling” of other pieces of information, and so forth.
– Resolved a bug where certain kinds of religions didn’t generate backgrounds for their holy books, and then relevant NPCs asked about those books caused a crash when they couldn’t work out what to say.
– Fixed an issue with certain kinds of NPCs spawned in rare circumstances not being able to respond to the “What was your previous job?” question.
– Some guidebook entries no longer display incorrectly in rare circumstances.
– Certain name generation techniques no longer (I think) mix up the genders of the characters they are trying to produce names for.
– Many more questions can now be answered completely, and a handful of others have been given acceptable placeholder responses for the time being.
– NPCs are now generally more willing to talk to you, as until now this was definitely balanced too much in favour of NPCs keeping information private.
– A couple of rare world generation issues have been fixed, primarily involving the creation of names for things like relics (primarily), artworks, books, and the like.
– Fixed issues involving guard schedules within military districts, and the guards not knowing where to go or what to do.
– All ranks of soldiers are now much better at telling you what they actually do.
– Some ranks of soldiers (and some wandering soldiers in cities) didn’t have the “Soldiering” conversation option; this has been fixed.
– Resolved issues with armour for NPCs from nomadic civilizations.
– Fixed a problem with substituting certain words in certain conversation responses if the word was followed by punctuation marks, specifically “!”, “,”, “.”, and “;”.
– Fixed a major and long-term bug involving too many servants or slaves trying to spawn into a mansion if you first set foot in the building at night when everyone is sleeping.
– Clerks and diplomats in embassies now correctly have appropriate old jobs to talk about.
– You can no longer force someone into talking to you again after they end the conversation – they will instead now ignore you.
– Asking people about nearby nomadic or tribal civilisations no longer just involves them telling you about nearby feudal societies…
– Fixed an issue with entering parliamentary buildings sometimes causing clerks to spawn off the map, and therefore have no way to path, and consequently result in a crash.
– Many more linguistic fixes.
– Characters can now accurately tell you what embassies from other nations, if any, are nearby.
– Solved a gigantic bug which took me a long time to figure out, where sometimes there weren’t enough guards being able to spawn in castles. It took many hours to trace it back, but it turned out the game was registering a passing guard outside of the castle as being one of the castle’s guards (incorrectly), and then that cascaded through the rest of the code to tell the castle to spawn fewer guards than it should, and then some places were not being filled up, and so the game collapsed. This was probably the hardest bug to find since resuming development – and had a guard not been passing through the castle district while I was testing other, completely unrelated things, I would never have even known this one existed!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/URR-2-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/URR-2-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/URR-2-3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/URR-2-4.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/URR-2-5.png)
Post by: Mephansteras on April 14, 2019, 07:15:05 pm
Post by: High tyrol on April 14, 2019, 10:35:43 pm
Post by: EuchreJack on April 15, 2019, 02:21:35 pm
Post by: Showbiz on April 16, 2019, 11:58:33 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 17, 2019, 12:42:04 pm
Looking really good!
It looks pretty cool
I actually hadn't know that the game could be set in 1700 or have firearms. That is interesting.
Wow!
Thank you all!! And yes indeed, it's much more set around the Renaissance / Scientific Revolution than "medieval" times.
And here's the latest update:
--
Continuing to chop down the list of URR stuff to be checked before 0.8’s release! Here’s what has happened in the last couple of weeks:
– Resolved some strange issues with churches, especially if you approach them at night. Priests weren’t sure where to spawn or where to sleep, and random worshippers kept appearing off the map and finding no way to path in to the map, rather than being where they should be. I’m not entirely sure what the cause was – and, indeed, I feel this was working fine a while ago – but these strange behaviours have all now been fixed.
– Fixed a number of conversation options not working correctly when talking to nomadic speakers.
– Fixed a number of conversation options not working correctly when talking to speakers from tribal civilisations.
– Merchants were not always spawning correctly in their shops in town; this has been fixed.
– Merchants also could not always describe to the player what kind of product they sold – the problem was different for merchants in cities, towns, and fortresses, but all three kinds can now correctly tell you about their wares.
– When you insult or compliment someone several times, they no longer say you “asked me that” several times, but instead say “you told me that” (or some close equivalent).
– Asking about laws on violence has distinctive answers now for nomadic and hunter-gatherer civilisations, with particular kinds of concerns and laws relevant to them.
– Asking about laws on trade has different outcomes for nomadic and tribal civilisations.
– Asking about laws on religion has different outcomes for nomadic and tribal civilisations.
– Helmets do not appear correctly when you select someone who is wearing a helmet (no picture yet, but relevant text).
– Tribal people respond correctly to questions about money; all peoples respond correctly to religious questions, especially if they don’t have a specific religious belief; and NPCs correctly state when they aren’t wearing a necklace, rather than trying to tell the player about a necklace that doesn’t actually exist.
– Starting to ask an NPC stuff before saying hello will get them to say something like “Oh, hello there”, or “Oh, good morning”, before they give you the full response.
– All guards (there are at least twenty sorts of places a guard might guard) definitely now correctly talk about their respective charges correctly.
– Fixed obscure bug with some feudal NPCs being unable to remember the correct punishment for certain religious crimes.
– Resolved an equally obscure bug where game would sometimes choose “Monastery” as the word to describe the church of a certain culture (a la “Church”, or “Pagoda”, or “Priory”, etc), thereby potentially generating confusion with actual monasteries.
– Farmers no longer sometimes possess access to teleporters when they really, really, want to get to bed quickly.
– Fixed a number of issues with random NPCs in buildings (other than religious buildings) sometimes spawning at -1,-1, and therefore being unable to path or do anything.
– Fixed a problem with some church generation algorithms which didn’t produce interiors containing sufficient options for NPCs to always work out where to go.
– Improved the generation of insults, greetings, farewell and compliments by removing a number of weird grammatical mistakes (still more to do here).
– Fixed a strange bug where unseen NPCs very very rarely fail to complete their scheduled tasks at the right time in another part of the world map and instead crash the game – this is another where I don’t understand the cause, but it has definitely been resolved.
So, the list continues to shrink, and I’m now basically just checking out schedules and fixing bugs in the conversation system. I must say, though, that it is a little dispiriting that I keep encountering new bugs while trying to fix the old ones, but I take a lot of reassurance from the fact that the speech system has gone from “almost every possible question might lead to the game crashing” (a month ago) to “no question causes a crash, and just a handful of questions are still a bit inaccurate or strange in their responses” (now). Progress is continuing to happen at a pace I’m very comfortable and very pleased with, and I should have more to show in, again, some time later in April. I’ve been travelling a ton for work lately (week back in the UK, week in Sydney, and soon another week travelling in Canada), which has stretched this update out a little, but things are still moving at a nice speed. Thank you all for reading, and see you all soon!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 17, 2019, 08:41:27 pm
Impressed by the update, this is such a long and fascinating project
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 20, 2019, 11:12:37 am
New bugs always replace old ones! You know it’s working when the new bugs don’t make everything explode, heheh.
Impressed by the update, this is such a long and fascinating project
Thanks Doris! And ha, yes, indeed so; although I am pleased to note that the regularity with which new bugs arise in the testing process is definitely shrinking :)
Post by: FakerFangirl on April 21, 2019, 05:39:01 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 21, 2019, 08:02:20 pm
Neat. I live in Canada and my best friend is in Australia. (We don't meet up often.)
Huh! Yeah, I know a couple of Australians in Canada, and vice versa, too; I don't think I'd quite expected the connection between the two to be as strong as it is (although in hindsight, I probably should have?).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 25, 2019, 12:02:13 pm
– Fixed a complicated bug which spent a long time to hunt down, and involved guards trying to exchange positions with other guards. Normally if you enter a map grid, relevant NPCs will spawn and play out an appropriate number of actions before you gain control of your character. For example, if a guard entered the map grid twenty turns before you enter the grid, then the guard needs to catch up with those twenty turns in the real grid rather than in the abstract grid. Normally it is possible for a guard in that “interim” period of movement to find the guard they should exchange positions with and exchange positions with them; however, in some cases this wasn’t happening, and both the new guard and the old guard were standing on top of each other once the player properly entered the map. This, er, shouldn’t have been happening. I eventually discovered it was because in very rare situations, the “old” guard would spawn later than the “new” guard, and so the new guard would walk to where the old guard should be but not find the old guard, then the old guard would spawn on top of them. The new guard is not then programmed to detect being on top of the old guard (as that should never happen!) and so the two would just stand still doing nothing. This has now been fixed! Upon moving the new guard into position, if the new guard is where the old guard is shortly going to spawn, the new guard just takes two steps back; then once they’ve spawned the new guard will meet the old guard properly, and everything will work correctly.
– Resolved an issue where sometimes a set of guards or equivalents, upon returning to a building after leaving that building to sleep, would not be able to figure out where to put themselves if the player entered the map containing that building long after they switched back over with the previous set of guards (I know, it’s a complicated one). I’m not entirely sure what the cause of this was, and I actually think there’s a good chance this was caused by my own playtesting (and fiddling around with saving/loading to test other things) rather than a bug in the game itself, as I’ve never encountered this issue before, and the save file I was testing stuff on I had been playing around with a lot before this bug emerged. Nevertheless, redundancies are important, so I have now implemented a system whereby a generated building stores the initial locations of all guards or equivalents, and if a later guard ever cannot figure out where to return itself to for whatever strange reason, then the guards will look at this master list, find a location which matches their class (Guard, Knight, Sodier, whatever), and an x/y/z coordinate set which hasn’t yet been occupied by a different returning guard, and put themselves there. Sorted.
– Found another issue related to the above where sometimes you would get two guards trying to go to the same location if you returned to a location after a long period away, because one of them would have recognised it was where their guard “partner” was stationed, while the other would see it as a free spot. This has also been fixed.
– Resolved a minor issue with NPCs selecting homes in appropriate districts under certain conditions, particularly if the player has previously been in that map grid.
– Fixed quite a few points where words could be duplicated, such as “that is not a question I want to give an answer to to”, and I’ve now hopefully got to the bottom of the last of these.
– Handled a bug slowing down NPCs who were trying to find a path to staircases in larger buildings, yet spent most of their time dithering around and examining walls in great detail.
– Fixed issue with some soldiers being unable to properly about their ranks with appropriate grammar.
– Handled a very strange issue where iron bars, such as those in jails, dungeons, or between an audience and an arena, very rarely become invisible.
– Handled a problem where Tellers don’t spawn correctly in banks if you first enter the bank after the first day of world generation.
– Changed the name of the speech category “Past Life” to simply “Life”, as this is far more descriptive (since you can ask them about their current job and things like this).
– Fixed issue where plants could not spawn inside a nomadic citadel, and crashed the game.
– Resolved a problem with NPCs who spawn in town halls in towns not having any idea where to go, and getting stuck in an infinite loop of uncertainty.
– Resolved a problem involving NPCs in barracks in towns, not knowing what to do when they decide to go for a wander (unlike in military districts in cities, where there is always something for them to do). These NPCs can now always find something relevant/sensible to do when they decide to move.
– Fixed an issue with some NPCs in taverns being unable to find their way to the door when they’re done drinking (and I do appreciate that there is an obvious comedic interpretation of this particular bug).
– Soldiers in castles no longer crash the game as a result of not knowing what to wear.
– NPCs are now even less likely than they were before to clog up a doorway and thereby block you or anyone else from going through it (I thought this was completely fixed before; it wasn’t; I now once more think it is completely fixed…)
– Wandering versions of important NPCs like priests and the like can no longer be asked questions which would make them crash, such as “what relics are there here?” while they’re walking through the streets and therefore nowhere near any relic of any sort.
– Finally, resolved a bug where sometimes reloading the game, going immediately to fast travel, and taking a particular path (NE or NW after moving N, SE or SW after moving S, etc) will take an infinite amount of time, and the game will attempt to perform 9999999 turns before giving up. I am not entirely clear why this happened, but it no longer does. No infinite hikes for anybody!
So: more progress, getting closer and closer! My list of buildings and conversation possibilities to check is getting shorter and shorter as time goes by, and it has now been well over a week since I found any large bug. This means I’ve almost exhausted everything I know I need to playtest, and once that’s done, I’ll be onto polishing things like menus, displays, information, and the like. More coming in early May!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/NURR-1024x674.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/URRNT2-1-1024x679.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Townhall-1024x672.gif)
Post by: Little on May 12, 2019, 11:56:58 pm
Post by: Sebastian2203 on May 21, 2019, 02:58:22 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 21, 2019, 12:25:23 pm
Always love reading the updates!
Thanks my friend!
Posting to watch, you are awesome btw.
Aw, thank you! So glad you like the project.
--
Welcome to May’s URRpdate! Things are still moving along, and rather pleasingly, it has now been a full month of coding since I discovered any more major bugs. Now, maybe that’s tempting fate, but I choose instead to read it as a very encouraging step forward. It does actually seem now that only small bugs remain, and many of these are not even crash bugs. Nevertheless, in the past couple of weeks I’ve manconqaged to resolve more issues, and I feel like we are very nearly now at the stage where I’m just polishing the front-end of things like menus tooltips and the like, in preparation for the final release. It’s all very exciting! But without further ado, here’s the latest:
– You can now properly talk to non-religious NPCs from all kinds of civilizations about their beliefs, and none of those conversations cause the game to crash. Individuals from “free religion” civilizations can also intelligently give different answers depending on their preferences.
– Priests no longer always spawn (for some reason) on the same tile as the altar within their religious building, thereby making it hard to find the altar unless you know the priest is standing on top of it.
– Prisoners can now properly tell you that they are prisoners when asked about their “job”.
– Prisoners can tell you everything about their past crimes, their sentence, when (if ever) they expect to get out, and so forth, without ever trying to generate a sentence they can’t figure out.
– Jailers no longer crash the game when you ask them about whether any particularly important or interesting prisoners are interred at their jail.
– Jailers no longer sometimes just decide they fancy a career change, wander out of the jail they are in charge of, and immediately crash the game because they have no idea what to do once they get outside.
– Entering a building which will (in a potential 0.9) house a regional representative in a democratic nation no longer crashes the game from time to time.
– Mints and Banks no longer sometimes crash the game when you enter them at night (I think?).
– Fixed a few more double-word issues (yep, I hadn’t actually caught all of these last time, but now I think I have… again).
– Handled a bug which made world generation, in extremely rare cases, get stuck in an infinite loop of trying to generate certain aspects of a civilization’s culture.
– Found an extremley rare issue where sometimes an NPC can sometimes find themselves off the road in a city district and fail to figure out what to do or how to get back onto the road. I’m not entirely clear what causes this issue and I’ve only encoutered it once, and this was just because the NPC in question was screaming in the debug log while I was playing. As such, I’ve added in a new bit of “catch-all” code at the end of NPCs deciding where to walk next, which – if they somehow find themselves in that situation – will encourage them to walk back onto a road and resume normal behaviour. I also inserted a catch-all after that which states if finding their way back is also for some reason impossible, then once the player leaves their line-of-sight, they will just despawn.
– Handled a few more buildings where it is possible for furniture to spawn in such a way that someone sitting on a chair, for example, can block a door and then all the people who in the building can no longer find their way out. For any 0.9 I will definitely implement a more general solution here allowing NPCs leaving or entering a building to walk “through” someone sat in a chair, but this solution will do for the time being, and should deal with the issue.
– Removed a handful of special NPCs who were being generated at world generation but not spawned in the world; this shouldn’t have caused any issues (famous last words), but it’s better to be safe than sorry for the time being.
This is a slightly shorter update than last time because I have also been hard at work on a chapter for a forthcoming book (alongside a number of world-building luminaries!) about world-building. In it I talk about how important I think social, political, economic and cultural detail is to creating a convincing and “breathing” fictional world, looking at Ultima Ratio Regum but also other game series which have always stood out to me in this regard, such as the earlier Command and Conquer games (the Tiberium series, that is), many of Paradox Interactive’s games, the Deus Ex universe, and several others. Although I’m really enjoying writing this – and the book about world-building it’ll be a part of will, I think, be something quite special – this has taken up some of my coding time in the last fortnight or so.
Now, the rest of May is pretty busy at this end – I’m going down to Washington DC to talk at this year’s International Communication Association conference to chair a panel on live streaming and talk about Twitch and the games industry. As such, the next update will be some time in June. See you all soon – and the journey is nearly at its end!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/URRNT-1024x677.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/URRNT2-1024x675.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 23, 2019, 12:07:45 pm
– Fixed some more crash issues surrounding people not being able to tell you they are not currently wearing any jewelry.
– Monasteries can no longer spawn on rivers, thereby preventing some very strange generation of their local maps if the player decides to explore one.
– Fixed an issue where one of the guidebook entries was too long, and consequently “leaving” some of its text on screen even after the player navigated away.
– Non-religious NPCs can now definitely always correctly respond to religion-based questions.
– NPCs from a religion not based in the nation they currently live in no longer tell you their cathedral is in their current nation / city, rather than the place it genuinely is.
– NPCs without armour no longer sometimes tell you they have armour and then crash because they can’t find information about it, and NPCs with armour no longer sometimes tell you they don’t have armour. AND NPCs with armour no longer sometimes tell you they do, and then in the next sentence (from the same NPC) tell you they don’t.
– Asking certain NPCs for their perspectives on religious heresy no longer leads to a crash if they don’t really care about it.
– Fixed an issue with clerks who spawned at random in places like parliaments incorrectly thinking they were important, and thus behaving in a manner inappropriate to their station.
– Resolved another strange issue with banks at night and tellers appearing when they should be asleep, and similarly, an issue with tellers not appearing in the day time.
– A rare bug with NPCs attempting to leave the grid the player is on, while the player is also leaving the grid, has been solved… I think?
– Relatedly, fixed a very complex and strange issue where if two or more guards are moving off a grid at the same time, then sometimes they get confused about where to go because they look at each other as potential guard exchange partners (i.e. the guard they switch guard duty with), and then they freak out and don’t know what to do. Pretty sure this is fixed now.
– Fixed a timing bug which could trigger if you left a grid and then returned before the predicted time it would take, in the abstract, for an NPC to reach its next objective; this would cause the game to just lock up as it tried to figure out the NPC’s movement.
– Similar and related to the above, also resolved a problem where sometimes an NPC couldn’t make it to where they were supposed to be (hypothetically, in order to estimate how long a particular path would take), and now the game notices if they’ve got stuck one tile away from their target, and ends the counter there, just adding “1” to whatever the total was to represent what the final step would actually require (for example, if an NPC is currently blocking the way, but will not be in the future).
– Confirmed that a wide range of buildings – such as taverns, churches, cathedrals, jails, and others – do not crash when you spawn them in day then return at night, or in the next day.
– You can no longer travel into the ocean; I will shortly be adding quick alternatives for getting across the sea.
– Fixed a bug where an NPC already on their bed will try to find their bed, and without thinking to look underneath them, will cause the game to lock up as they search, desperately, for somewhere to sleep.
– Fixed a similar bug where sleeping people were sometimes being transported through walls; this must have been rather distressing.
– Talking to someone in a tribal civilization about religion, laws and money no longer leads to a crash.
– Fixed some name generation things which made certain items of clothing too long.
– NPCs now properly tell you what is special about their armour (which is to say, nothing, because I haven’t coded that yet).
– Added information about policies which haven’t previously had clear effects or impacts.
– Fixed a bug which I had not noticed until just a couple of days ago, but now I see it would have actually affected a huge number of religious buildings in city centres and potentially elsewhere as well: guards for archives are no longer selected at world generation if there is no archive beneath the cathedral, which is almost always the case, and so this bug would have applied to almost all cathedrals when the game later tries to find a place for this guard, only to discover there is nowhere for them to go…
– Removed a bunch of irrelevant chaff from the “Load Game” screen.
– Hunted down and resolved a pretty large bug where, again, guards might be sitting on top of each other and the one who was supposed to go home wasn’t sure what to do. I’m not sure why this bug was still sticking around, but I’ve put in some catch-all code in case this ever happens, and this should really never be a problem again.
– Fixed an issue where servants or slaves, in a mansion that had been spawned or previously visited at night, wouldn’t know quite how to get back to work in the daytime.
– Resolved a rather complicated issue, whose cause (again!) I don’t fully understand, where after walking around for a long period of time and then returning somewhere guards had previously been spawned, one of the guards was on the roof. Of a different building. I have absolutely no clue how this person got up there, but I’ve now implemented a system which checks for guards (or equivalents) who are on rooftops (???), and then looks at guard locations on that map grid, finds the empty one belonging to the appropriate civilisation, and moves the guard there before the player gets a look at their strange behaviour.
– Related to the above, the game can now notice any guard out of position and put them back in their rightful place, which should catch any potential future errors of this sort which I’ve never even observed (if they exist).
– Fixed a bug where certain conditions would try to remove a bed as an option for an NPC to move to, but if the bed wasn’t already in their list of valid movement targets, it would crash trying to remove it (since it wans’t there). Again, not entirely sure what caused this, but it has now been dealt with.
– Made sure that priests in castles which contains priests of multiple religions (with particularly open-minded rulers) all behave correctly at night and in the day.
– Servants or slaves in castles, when you have spawned the castle in the day but then return at night, now correctly spawn in / move to the appropriate beds instead of becoming paralysed with indecision on the ground floor.
– Handled issue with priests not turning up correctly in their beds in districts containing multiple religious buildings.
– Fixed a problem with buildings in hunter-gatherer settlements sometimes being spawned just a little too close to each other, and thus potentially blocking off an entrance.
– Handled an issue in religious districts with some random NPCs, at night, not really knowing how best to worship in the religious building they have selected.
At this point there are only two “major”(ish) bugs I haven’t fixed: one involving multiple ambassadors trying to sleep in the same bed (although one imagines this would do wonders for diplomacy), and one involving mints still crashing if you go back into them later. These both seem to be fairly big tasks, but I aim to tackle them in the coming days; I believe the former will be easier to deal with than the latter, but we’ll see how it goes.
So, that’s everything for this month. The rest of June is pretty clear at this end, aside from one academic paper I need to finish writing (about Super Mario Maker: this has become a rather exciting side project I’ve been working on for a couple of months now, particularly focused on troll and “kaizo” levels and the communities of players who both design and play these monstrosities / masterpieces). At this point, however, I’m really trying to push URR 0.8 out. There’s so little left to do now, so little left to check: of course I’m going to miss some bugs, and I fear, maybe even a couple of crash bugs, but I’m doing my absolute utmost to make this as stable, complete, and finished a product as I possibly can. Next update hopefully soon!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Three-1024x673.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/umat-1024x676.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/URJ-1024x676.png)
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Post by: Dorsidwarf on June 23, 2019, 05:07:40 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 24, 2019, 12:05:08 pm
Very nice. I liked the bugs about the piggy-back guards and the clerks who decided they were nobility.
There have been some good ones recently!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 23, 2019, 01:17:40 pm
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2019/07/23/new-job-new-country-new-continent/
Post by: Muz on July 25, 2019, 09:52:17 pm
Hi everyone - I have some awesome news to share this month which isn't completely game-dev-related, but is pretty life-changing for me. More URRpdates next month!
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2019/07/23/new-job-new-country-new-continent/
Congrats! I used to study at UNSW. Unisyd is pretty elite and full of smart people. Great step forward.
Post by: mendonca on July 26, 2019, 12:10:36 am
Nice one Mark, enjoy down under we’ll miss you in blighty.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 29, 2019, 10:59:54 am
Congrats! I used to study at UNSW. Unisyd is pretty elite and full of smart people. Great step forward.
Wow, congratulations what an achievement and opportunity!
Nice one Mark, enjoy down under we’ll miss you in blighty.
Thank you so much, my friends! I appreciate it a ton :):). Hoping to move around end of September, start of October, all being well...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 24, 2019, 01:09:26 pm
– Handled a puzzling issue where sometimes two general (i.e. “unimportant” and not saved by the game) NPCs would sometimes be on the same place with the same objective, and wouldn’t know what to do; if this happens, the game pushes one of them to one side, and then gives them a new objective.
– Fixed a range of grammatical issues with people talking about nations or cultures.
– Resolved a problem where certain kinds of buildings didn’t always generate correctly if they were building on ice as well as snow within a polar biome.
– Made sure that a few more buildings couldn’t possibly generate with furniture in the way of a door, which might therefore wind up blocking that door for NPCs who need to get through it.
– Altered and improved a few of the guidebook entries to make certain aspects of the game much clearer, and to stop a bug where looking at a certain entry caused a crash.
– Improved handling the names of relics, especially when people talk about them, and NPCs should no longer add in extra words at random times to describe them or their names.
– Put in some groundwork for future NPCs of classes that do not currently spawn in the game, such as inquisitors, royals and various other sorts of leaders, high-ranking soldiers / officers, and so forth. (This is a 0.9 thing if I develop a 0.9, but doing this also helped me clear up some of the code for existing NPCs)
– Resolved a weird and very rare bug involving saving the game at a certain point on the travel map after a particular set of moves, and then reloading the game, which would cause the game to crash when you tried to move again.
– Dealt with a problem where sometimes all the buildings required in a town didn’t correctly spawn if it took a while to place them intelligently.
– Handled a couple of remaining problems where wandering versions of certain classes, such as priests, would find themselves unable to talk about the things they should be able to talk about, by virtue of not being attached to a particular religious building (or equivalent for other NPCs)
– A couple of buildings which sometimes had weirdly high or weirdly low numbers of NPCs present seem to no longer run into this problem, although this is something I should keep an eye on.
– Without doubt, all problems around NPCs discussing the armour they might or might not be wearing have been fixed, and likewise all problems regarding NPCs telling you they are not wearing a necklace, nor any rings (as these have yet to be implemented in the game)
– Discovered that over time guards in certain districts tend to disappear, which I think must be due to some issue in how they move in unloaded areas when the player isn’t present. This doesn’t seem to cause a crash, which is great (and indeed it was coded precisely in this way, so it’s pleasing to see this works), but obviously this shouldn’t be happening. I’ve put in some new code to try to resolve this and “catch” guards before they somehow disappear into being stored in some place the game can’t retrieve them, and hopefully this will have improved matters.
– Checked a few buildings I originally missed when seeing whether buildings generated in one period (day or night) still work correctly and have the right NPCs when you return later, and I’m now very confident this is working correctly for all buildings (except embassies and mints, which I am aware of and need to resolve)
– Improved the grammar and listing when an innkeeper tells you about the (procedurally generated and region-specific) drinks they have on offer.
– Resolved a couple of remaining issues with certain questions being asked to either nomadic or tribal NPCs, who were unable to give sensible answers.
– Slaves and servants in castles were sometimes getting mixed up when the game tried to generate them, and thus causing confusion about which floors each should be sleeping on (the servants tend to sleep on the ground floor, but slaves sleep in subterranean floors) – this should now have been fixed.
– Very rarely a non-“guard” guard, by which I mean an NPC which isn’t of the “guard” class but was carrying out guarding actions (such as soldiers or knights in certain civilizations) didn’t function correctly, precisely because they were not “guards”. I believe I have fixed the last few places where this either caused a bit of NPC confusion (at best), or the game to crash (at worst)
– Fixed an issue with certain kinds of buildings in towns sometimes causing the generation of houses to stop weirdly early, leaving a strange eerie town almost completely devoid of actual homes and people, yet filled with roads.
– Spread out some of the loading symbols on the world generation page so it doesn’t look like the game might have crashed (when, in fact, it did not).
– Handled further issues with religious districts at night time, in particular people struggling to figure out how to worship, and priests behaving strangely when they can’t figure out how to get to a bed.
– I have also added some important new content! Since you can no longer, er, walk across the water, entering a “Dock” district in a city, or a new “dock” building in a town, now allows you to be transported to another city or another town! There are screenshots of this down below. This also causes time to pass – not much time right now, but that’s fine for the time being.
– Even better, when you get into a ship it now gives you a little story about your travel! This mentions something about the ship, the destination, your fellow travellers, what you see on the voyage, and so forth; these elements draw on a range of information about relevant nations, cultures, and locations, to generate a unique little paragraph for the player to read while the player is transported to their final destination, and while the required time passes for that journey to occur.
– For the time being you can reach any place with a dock via any other place with a dock, even if (as in the below map) there are different oceans; this will be changed later, but for now, it significantly helps with navigating the game world.
So: the last two months have brought much more polish, more bug-fixes, and some quality of life changes, such as allowing you to move quickly around the game world through the use of docks and the like. I’m really excited by how this is all coming together. Aside from URR updates, in the last couple of months I’ve also done almost all the remaining work for making my move to the University of Sydney at the end of September, finished writing a journal article about Super Mario Maker I’m excited to share in the near future, presented a whole bunch of work at this year’s Digital Games Research Association Conference in Kyoto, talked about Twitch and disability at the European Sociological Association, and spent some time with the family back in the UK. That said, though, it’ll be nice to get back to Canada for one final month to catch up with friends and colleagues before the move itself…
So: with all of this done, in a week from now I’ll be back in Canada and back to being able to work hard on the game, so I hope to have another solid update some time in September. The list of remaining tasks is pretty much only resolving two long-running bugs (involving ambassadors and mints), handling a few more issues around sentence generation, adding a little bit more polish here and there… and then… that’s it?! See you all soon!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Oceanroutes-1024x1024.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dock2-1024x675.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Dock1-1024x671.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Spinel-1-1024x673.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 26, 2019, 11:53:06 am
As a question, the screen says "Ships which are in right now", does this mean eventually you'll be able to book ships in advance? A timecrunch within a timecrunch if you booked an expensive passage, perhaps...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 03, 2019, 10:08:14 am
Great to see that taking ships is added!
As a question, the screen says "Ships which are in right now", does this mean eventually you'll be able to book ships in advance? A timecrunch within a timecrunch if you booked an expensive passage, perhaps...
Heh, yes! That was the longer-term idea; you could book ships in advance for low price, or the closer you book them to when they depart, the higher the price becomes. That is for if/when money is implemented and if/when 0.8 is not a final release, of course, so we'll see :).
Post by: High tyrol on September 17, 2019, 11:44:42 pm
Post by: FakerFangirl on October 13, 2019, 05:20:50 pm
Post by: ( Tchey ) on October 15, 2019, 06:34:05 am
Post by: Man of Paper on October 15, 2019, 07:48:16 am
Post by: Aoi on October 15, 2019, 05:21:04 pm
Well shit, I was single when this thread started. I’ve been married for a month now. It feels strange when I put it that way. I haven’t stuck with a project for that long, that’s for sure. And I’m glad you have!
According to Google, this thread was established 2,927 days ago, or a touch over eight years. And hopefully, your marriage will be your longest lasting project? :D
Post by: FakerFangirl on December 08, 2019, 09:02:35 am
Dev, plz.
Post by: Ekaton on January 26, 2020, 06:37:16 pm
Post by: Minstrel on February 19, 2020, 03:53:40 pm
Still, in the latest post he says he's gotten much better and to expect some kind of news on the URR front this month.
If you're reading this, Mark, I'm happy everything worked out and you're getting better! I hope you like it down under there in Australia!
Post by: FakerFangirl on February 25, 2020, 04:02:28 pm
Post by: ( Tchey ) on September 20, 2020, 07:49:40 am
Someone knows something about what’s going on, if something is going on ?
Post by: Robsoie on September 20, 2020, 07:56:08 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2020/08/10/an-update-for-strange-times-iii/
Quote
September 2, 2020 at 2:19 am
Yeah, there is some Windows 10 issue that needs resolving, which is something I’m looking into at the moment.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on September 24, 2020, 09:51:56 am
Googling around, last i noticed was early september in the comments of this article :
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2020/08/10/an-update-for-strange-times-iii/QuoteSeptember 2, 2020 at 2:19 am
Yeah, there is some Windows 10 issue that needs resolving, which is something I’m looking into at the moment.
I imagine as a new university lecturer/professor he's become very busy this month
Post by: Robsoie on October 23, 2020, 04:19:50 am
He also focused october into a lot of bugfixing work on URR as you can see from all his blog posts this month :
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/blog/
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2020, 05:57:32 am
I want 0.8.
We all want it.
I would check back tomorrow or at most the day after, my friends...
Well shit, I was single when this thread started. I’ve been married for a month now. It feels strange when I put it that way. I haven’t stuck with a project for that long, that’s for sure. And I’m glad you have!
Haha, congrats! Such a period is certainly the upper limit of my project-sticking sanity.
According to his personal blog, Mark suffered a head injury and consussion sometime last year. Part of his recovery was limiting screen time, which naturally limited the time he could spend coding URR and responding to forums threads.
Still, in the latest post he says he's gotten much better and to expect some kind of news on the URR front this month.
If you're reading this, Mark, I'm happy everything worked out and you're getting better! I hope you like it down under there in Australia!
Thank Minstrel! Sydney is fabulous, especially for a nature lover like me; I live pretty near the city centre but all I have to do is go outside to see wild parrots, ibises, kookaburras, possums, lizards, fruit bats... amazing stuff. My head is indeed doing better, although the psychological impact is going to be a while longer.
Hello,
Someone knows something about what’s going on, if something is going on ?
It seems that the author fortunately recovered from his health problem, that's great.
He also focused october into a lot of bugfixing work on URR as you can see from all his blog posts this month :
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/blog/
Indeed! I have been actively coding again on and off for the last year but most seriously in the last 4-5 months. 0.8 is actually done, and I'll be releasing it tomorrow (probably) or if not, the day after.
!!!!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2020, 03:26:55 am
It is with immense pleasure that after around five years (!!?!) of development, including a year "off" when I thought / feared I might never return: Ultima Ratio Regum 0.8 is done!
Main features:
Procedural generation of potentially millions of possible NPCs in all settlements within the game.
Several dozen different NPC types, each with their own schedules which play out alongside the player's actions.
Face generation with significant variation for genetics and culture.
Detailed conversation system, with several hundred potential lines of enquiry, and answers / detail of answers / willingness to answer determined by a range of social and personal factors, leading to millions of possible conversations.
Procedural clothing generation for almost all possible items of clothing, differences in clothing between cultures, and also major differences in clothing between culture types (feudal, nomadic, tribal, etc), and unique clothing styles for religions.
A large number of general optimisations, improvements, new visuals for various things, and so forth.
You can download it at https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/.
I have no idea whether this is the last version or not, but it's done. And more importantly it contains everything I hoped for and everything I wanted; a living breathing talking moving world, with vast numbers of people, procedurally-generated dialects and speech patterns, faces, clothing, NPC schedules, and a million other things I probably mentioned somewhere back in the blog's history but forgot about, in the long period between then and now. Although I don't know whether any game can really meet expectations after five years: I do, sincerely, hope you all find something interesting in this world and its people. As long as that's the case it will have been worth the time spent.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final1-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final9.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final7.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final8.gif)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final4.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final10.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Final6.png)
One final note: this is the largest and most complex release I've ever done. I've spent well over two years bug-fixing and attempting to make everything run correctly, but I'm sure I've missed things, despite the hundreds of hours I've put into exhausting testing everything I can find myself and nearly a dozen other people also performing playtesting duties. (I have also fixed another bunch of minor bugs from the previous blog post which I found in the process of final playtesting this week.)
Anyway, what this means is: if you find a bug, especially a crash bug, please report it to me with maximum information: where were you, what were you doing, had you previously been saving or loading, was there an error message, etc etc. In fact, any information you can give me about everything you'd done in the game up to then - had you stayed in one district, had you entered lots of houses, had you traveled the world, etc - will also be of immense value. As well as the trackback, the more information you can possibly give me, the easier it will be to hunt down what went wrong. You can use the contact form on the website, or leave a comment on this blog post. Thank you!
(However, if you find some weird phrasing in NPCs' speech, please actually don't report that - I already know that the sentence generator comes out with something weird from time to time).
And thank you all for sticking with me, or for coming back: either way, it's wonderful to have people here for this, and it means a great deal to me. I wish you luck in the world of URR!
Post by: EuchreJack on December 27, 2020, 03:46:11 am
Post by: Haspen on December 27, 2020, 04:26:29 am
Post by: Robsoie on December 27, 2020, 04:35:40 am
Congratulations for all the work done there.
Post by: Heretic on December 27, 2020, 11:05:39 am
Post by: ( Tchey ) on December 27, 2020, 12:56:47 pm
I followed your first blog post years ago when it was only a concept.
In the meantime, me, i did "nothing" hehe...
I hope to see a Linux PC version soon too !
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 27, 2020, 01:21:31 pm
Amazing! It's been a long time coming, glad to see you finally made it to a point where you were happy with the world!
Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this over what's been to my knowledge a difficult and busy few years for you.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 27, 2020, 09:19:04 pm
Wow
I know!
Congratulations on the release!
Thank you Haspen!
Great !
Congratulations for all the work done there.
Thanks Robsoie :).
Just WOW!
Thanks Heretic!
I didn’t try it yet, but i’m amazed.
I followed your first blog post years ago when it was only a concept.
In the meantime, me, i did "nothing" hehe...
I hope to see a Linux PC version soon too !
Haha, thank s Tchey, I appreciate the comment :). A linux version hopefully soon, though I'm told this one works well under wine!
Amazing! It's been a long time coming, glad to see you finally made it to a point where you were happy with the world!
Thanks for all the hard work you've put into this over what's been to my knowledge a difficult and busy few years for you.
Hahaha, thanks Doris :). I appreciate the pic a lot. And thank you for the kind words. Seriously.
Post by: FakerFangirl on December 27, 2020, 09:48:17 pm
Post by: FAA on January 02, 2021, 08:40:51 am
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 03, 2021, 01:31:01 pm
So, can you do anything besides exploring?
Not really, the goal of this update cycle (long, long delayed due to unfortunate events and a desire to bugfix heavily) was the procedural generation of cultures, cultural styles and individuals within those cultures who you can prod to get a better idea of the country you've wandered into, as well as taking architectural and design cues.
Post by: Salmeuk on January 04, 2021, 03:12:23 pm
So. . . what next? :P
Post by: Mephansteras on January 05, 2021, 01:41:34 pm
Post by: ArchimedesWojak on January 05, 2021, 02:15:27 pm
Post by: mendonca on January 06, 2021, 10:20:51 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 07, 2021, 08:23:19 pm
Ever since your paper on procedural game narrative (I believe that was the topic? I honestly read it years ago) wherein you used DF as an example, I have been interested in your own attempt at game-making and an avid follower of this forum thread. Congrats on the release! Creating a feature-complete game is impressive, and to see a project as unique as this come to fruition is simply awesome.
So. . . what next? :P
Thank you Salmeuk! I very much appreciate the message - it has been a while since I published anything on PCG stuff, although I do have something new on that front in the works :). Next is a bugfix release, and then we'll see...
Hey, awesome! Looking forward to checking out all you've done with it!
Thanks Mephansteras!
Awesome, congratulations on the release!
Thank you mendonca!
Post by: High tyrol on February 09, 2021, 05:18:20 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2021, 10:02:58 pm
I am excited to see all the features I had seen written about in your dev logs in a playable game. I am planning to stream it sometime in the next week in my first play on this version.
Thanks tyrol, that would be amazing!
I have also just released a very bug-fixed 0.8.1 :)
Post by: High tyrol on February 18, 2021, 04:10:46 pm
I will probably be streaming for about 4-6 hours, if anyone wants to watch but the time doesn't work for you let me know and I may be able to adjust it.
Post by: hops on February 26, 2021, 03:04:56 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 03, 2021, 02:19:50 am
Ultima Ratio Regum 0.8.2 released! A ton of bug-fixes and a host of new or expanded features, and including the return of generated crypts, graves, sarcophagi, etc. https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2021/03/03/ultima-ratio-regum-0-8-2-released/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/082b.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/082c.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/082e.png)
Post by: ( Tchey ) on March 03, 2021, 06:16:27 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 03, 2021, 06:59:33 pm
I honestly don’t know if it’s actually fun te play, but this rogue-like is excellent to look at, one of the best i’d say (ie, i love Cogmind aesthetics too)
Thank you Tchey! :)
Post by: ArchimedesWojak on March 08, 2021, 12:13:13 pm
1. Is Alchemy a thing in URR
2. Where do i download this?
Post by: hops on March 08, 2021, 07:08:25 pm
Post by: Frumple on March 08, 2021, 09:25:03 pm
... ngl, I mostly stopped paying attention at that point, heh. What's been done seems pretty impressive, but it's like the historical mystery novel of roguelikes... and like historical mystery novels, I've no interest in reading it :P
e: Any case, the download link seems to be here: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
Post by: hops on March 09, 2021, 12:51:01 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 09, 2021, 11:23:19 pm
i have not read through the entire thread but i have two questions
1. Is Alchemy a thing in URR
2. Where do i download this?
It is not, and Frumple kindly posted the link!
I don't think URR has magic.
Indeed not :). Once planned, but now I'm going for (essentially) realism.
like historical mystery novels, I've no interest in reading it :P
Fair enough!
Early in development URR was a lot of things and looked more like Incursion than the culture sim it is now.
Indeed, it was a whole bunch of things (this is what happens when you're making your first ever game) but the historical mystery rogeulike is now about right :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 09, 2021, 07:34:34 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giIIoIKntnw&ab_channel=AIandGames
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EyhwROsUUAEMoll?format=jpg)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 17, 2021, 06:17:13 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Coingen.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 18, 2021, 02:29:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 18, 2021, 09:24:39 pm
Oh, very nice! Coins are always an important way of learning about culture... one way or another :D
Thanks :) - and how true!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 19, 2021, 08:59:24 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CUL.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 29, 2021, 07:31:12 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PCg-Booze-2048x1227.png)
Post by: Frumple on May 29, 2021, 08:15:55 pm
Also, if the designs can't generate skulls, I'm afraid the procgen has failed, in this case. I didn't see any skulls in the example images! Randgen booze isn't booze unless some of them have skulls on the label.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 30, 2021, 07:34:07 pm
... so does some of it just outright blind you or somethin', or is the effects of drinking it all the same? How bad can the bad hooch get?
Also, if the designs can't generate skulls, I'm afraid the procgen has failed, in this case. I didn't see any skulls in the example images! Randgen booze isn't booze unless some of them have skulls on the label.
Haha, I'm not sure about effects just yet! 0.9 is focused on items, trade, money, buying/selling, these sorts of things, so implementing them as objects is the first thing. And ha! Touche. Maybe that can be a super super rare generation, only one alcohol type per generated world...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 12, 2021, 09:13:07 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Thrones2222.png)
In turn, of course, a throne must have a name so that people can talk about it, the person who sits on it, etc. So, for instance, that first throne might be “The Glowing Chair of the Duck” or “The Auric Throne of the Ruby Duck” or “The Gold Seat of the Pond” or “The Gilded Duck Throne”, etc. The second throne (going clockwise) could be “The Platinum Chair of the Moon” or “The Lustrous Moon Throne” or “The Nocturnal Platinum Seat” or “The Silver-Blue Moon Chair”, etc. The third throne could be “The Jade Labyrinth Seat” or “The Winding Jade Chair” or “The Jade Throne of Confusion” (I like that one!) or “The Jade Throne of the Diamond Labyrinth”. The fourth throne might be “The Chestnut Moth Chair”, or “The Fluttering Bronze Throne”, or the “Burnished Moth Throne”, and so forth. You get the idea!
Post by: Ekaton on June 20, 2021, 11:21:39 pm
... so does some of it just outright blind you or somethin', or is the effects of drinking it all the same? How bad can the bad hooch get?
Also, if the designs can't generate skulls, I'm afraid the procgen has failed, in this case. I didn't see any skulls in the example images! Randgen booze isn't booze unless some of them have skulls on the label.
Haha, I'm not sure about effects just yet! 0.9 is focused on items, trade, money, buying/selling, these sorts of things, so implementing them as objects is the first thing. And ha! Touche. Maybe that can be a super super rare generation, only one alcohol type per generated world...
Does this mean that a trader/caravaneer would become a playable profession in the game?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 28, 2021, 02:16:37 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 26, 2021, 07:09:29 pm
(https://i.redd.it/v6dym1bj4kd71.png)
Post by: Knave on July 27, 2021, 08:04:03 am
How are we to find evil cursed death books if there are no skulls? :P
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 27, 2021, 08:48:09 am
Post by: Lidku on July 27, 2021, 09:29:49 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 28, 2021, 03:53:58 am
Will a wiki for this game ever be released?
I think once 1.0 is out that would be appropriate :). (Aiming for 0.9 this year and well on target, then 0.10, then maybe 1.0 the year after?!)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 04, 2021, 08:51:54 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Feudal-shields.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Nomadic-shields.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Tribal-shields.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 05, 2021, 09:09:48 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 09, 2021, 02:56:58 am
Those proc shields are very nice. Don't see enough decorated shields in media, developers are obsessed with the "boards nailed together and exposed" aesthetic" or they're shiny spiky metal (haha)
Thanks Dorsi! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 10, 2021, 12:06:13 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Monies.png)
Post by: Knave on August 10, 2021, 08:40:29 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 10, 2021, 07:19:00 pm
Man, the stuff you do with ascii is nothing short of art. Always looks so good!
Thank you so much, Knave! :)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on August 12, 2021, 06:02:52 pm
Do you have a "Feature plan" for what you want to achieve for that 1.0 play release? Or is it still too early to say as you work on .9?
Additionally with the addition of working currency and trading, It might be interesting to hear about coins, how they're generated, what kind of identifying marks specific currencies might have. (Like, do they have minting years/ ruler names on them? That's always something fascinating)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 12, 2021, 07:56:33 pm
Great update, Mark! I'm overjoyed to hear that you've been having fun with this massive ol' project again coding for 0.9.
Do you have a "Feature plan" for what you want to achieve for that 1.0 play release? Or is it still too early to say as you work on .9?
Additionally with the addition of working currency and trading, It might be interesting to hear about coins, how they're generated, what kind of identifying marks specific currencies might have. (Like, do they have minting years/ ruler names on them? That's always something fascinating)
Thanks so much Dorsi! Yeah, it's wonderful. Releasing 0.8, and all the feedback and enthusiasm, basically completely rekindled me. That, coupled with the fact that I am now going to do yearly releases *no matter how "finished" what I had planned is*, I think will also really help, and I've really reworked in my head how and when I do updates, and that's a big psychological help too.
1.0, basically: the key objective. To follow clues and trails in this cultural / religious world to a number of secret items hidden around the map. 0.9, however, will be the first to have a kind of "informal" objective, i.e. basically accrue as much money as you can! Later that will be one of several instrumental objectives to help you navigate the world and find what you're after, but it'll be the "objective" for 0.9. Essentially what needs adding now is all items, a completion of the speech system, all the remaining NPCs, and then the implementation of the core objective - and that, essentially, is it. Roughly speaking I am expecting a 0.9 (2021), 0.10 (2022), 0.11 (2023), and then a 1.0. Being *genuinely* realistic about my time, and the work required, I think that is a fair and viable schedule (assuming no further health crises, of course, and so on).
Re: coins, I love those ideas, though for now the coins are just staying how they look at present! I do not dislike that idea though, it's not impossible I might generate the obverse of the coins later on...!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 22, 2021, 04:56:43 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Maps-post.png)
Top set are for the "world map" (very zoomed out, rivers, mountains), etc, bottom set for "local map" (specific tiles, e.g. on a volcano's side, inside a building, by a coast, etc)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 31, 2021, 09:42:14 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Heavy-Weapons-1.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 25, 2021, 09:15:48 am
What sort of "clock" should Ultima Ratio Regum have?
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2021/09/25/what-clock-should-urr-have/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Watchgif.gif)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 28, 2021, 08:41:29 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAYXw-LVEAkdoIC.jpg)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on September 29, 2021, 04:13:45 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 30, 2021, 12:33:30 am
Interesting stuff! Left a comment on the blog about my thoughts on "clock types" and some sparse ramblings on ways in which they can interact with the player's actions without being infinitely extensible.
Thanks Dorsi! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 10, 2021, 08:56:23 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/PCG-games.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 14, 2021, 03:45:46 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/ORnow.png)
That was fine of course, especially as this was partly an under-the-hood thing that players didn’t percieve too strongly, and in 0.8 ships were free to travel on and simply served to help the player get from one part of the world to the next. Now, however, as we begin to implement mechanics around time, money, and travel, ships needed to be made a little more detailed. Firstly, of course, real-world ships in the sort of 1600s-to-1800s world URR exists in, did not all go with exact trade routes. You would get plenty of variation depending on winds, the seasons and the time of year, which way you were going, and of course sometimes ships travelling to and from similar directions might take different paths for political reasons or other causes. As such, I started by reworking this a little bit into a system that would still group ships in certain areas, but allow also for a diversity of paths to and from similar destinations. That yielded something like this:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/LoadD.png)
So you’ll see this looks a lot more organic and realistic – there are still clear, most optimal paths that many ships take (in the real world these would of course be shipping lanes, essentially) but there’s also a lot of variation from ship to ship, even those working in the same sorts of areas. I think this is great. Now, if we transform this into a heatmap showing us how many ships go along a certain path, where red = one, yellow = a few, green = several, blue = lots and violet = a massive number, we get this…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/LoadD-1.png)
…which I am very happy with! Some obvious and busy shipping lanes, some less plied routes, and some in the middle. The next step was to generate the ships themselves, give them images, personalities, names, histories, crews, and so forth (and of course speeds and prices) and thus make the selection of ships and travel routes something to actually think about and weigh into your movement around the world, instead of something that takes place instantly and requires no real consideration. I set about building a ship name generator, and after a little while, you can see some of the debug outputs from this generator here, as well as their coordinates, and the length of their paths. Keep in mind the world map is 250×250 tiles, so < 25 is a short journey, < 75 a middling journey, anything > 75 a long journey, and anything over, say, 125 or so generally means you’re really going to the other side of the world.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/LoadD-2.png)
Would you sail on the “Red Kraken” or the “Grief of the Ocean”? I know I would! As part of this ships also now possess traits, some of which are active in this release and some of which will come soon in 0.10. Again, the goal here is to add more strategic depth to selecting which ships you go on, and I hope will actually get the player remembering and thinking about specific ships they’ve found to be especially useful: maybe a ship that goes between the two cities the player is spending much of their time in, or a ship that is especially fast or cheap, or a ship that gives a discount to a particular demographic the player is in, or a ship that is well-armed and helps the player travel through regions of piracy (coming later…), and so forth. Here’s the current list (you might need to open the image in another tab, depending on how you view this website), and their effects:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/LoadD-3.png)
The availability of these traits is of course determined by the policies and other traits of a civilization, so for instance only a civ with the “Literary” trait can have the “Poetic Ship” possibility, only one with the “Theocracy” trait can have the “Holy Ship” possibility, and so forth. There are some really interesting combinations which should yield interesting strategic choices. You can see these when you go into a dock in a city or a town and look over the available ships. Whereas in 0.8 you just had a list of destinations and clicked on the one you wanted, the ship selection screen has now been massively overhauled! You can see the list of destinations and what ship will take you there; text (white if you can afford it, red if you can’t) showing you the price of passage, where the ship is now, and how long it will take you to reach that destination; who owns that ship, where it travels from, and so, and so forth; an image of the ship (procedurally-generated, naturally!); and a list of the ship’s traits, which are colour-coded depending on what they apply to (e.g. religion, armament, cost, ship-board culture, and so forth). In terms of ship traits I estimate there are around 150,000 possible ships that can generate with different combinations of traits, and I think that should keep things interesting for some time!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Shippe.png)
In docks, as elsewhere, you can now enter currency exchanges where you are able to switch currencies you possess for currencies you do not. Each dock will only accept the currency of its home nation for travel (though maybe I’ll change this later and have some cultural trait, e.g. “Internationalism”, allow you to spend any currency in that port?) and so one of the strategic elements of the game will come from building up stores of required currencies, and planning ahead. Whenever you trade currency you lose a little bit of overall value from the currency you are trading out of (as in the real world) and so you’ll want to exchange currencies rarely and in large volumes (again, as in the real world). Again, I’m sure I will add traits later on for slightly better or slightly worse exchange rates, and other things of this sort.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Capi.png)
Once you’ve got your money (this next screenshot is obviously from a different world / port), some of your travel options will show up as white rather than red:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Shipper1.png)
And then you select your ship and the game gives you a final confirmation you want to spend that money.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Shipper1-1.png)
Once you say yes, you are given a little story about your time on the ship (as in 0.8 ) and you are ferried to your new location.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Shipper1-2.png)
I have more to write about this later, but I have made massive optimisations to the speed of the game in 0.9, and thus travel no longer takes many seconds for the game to calculate, it is instead now (effectively) instant, as is travelling on the world map! But more about this at a later date. This was an update about ships and docks and currencies, and I hope you all enjoyed it. See you all soon for another update for what should be a (31st of) December 2021 release!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on October 15, 2021, 05:50:05 am
One thing I'll note about the ships however is that they seem to fall into "dwarf-fortress-itis" in their naming schemes. "The <adj> <noun>" and "The <Noun>'s <noun>" appear a lot in your examples. Is this just some coincidence from a small sample size? The names of, say, towns or people seemed a lot more widely varied / culture dependent.
I don't know if ships being named after people/saint(or godly) figures/places is plausible in URR, but its extremely common in real historical shipping, where a majority of ships often only have single-part names (Ie:Antellope or Messenger or Margaret rather than all being ie Fierce Antelope, Holy Messenger, or Solid Whale)
Food for thought, but I'm always excited to see your work anyway.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 17, 2021, 12:52:17 am
Really interesting stuff! You gotta love these ships and shipping routes, and im glad to see a fleshing out of the uses of money (And conversion costs!).
One thing I'll note about the ships however is that they seem to fall into "dwarf-fortress-itis" in their naming schemes. "The <adj> <noun>" and "The <Noun>'s <noun>" appear a lot in your examples. Is this just some coincidence from a small sample size? The names of, say, towns or people seemed a lot more widely varied / culture dependent.
I don't know if ships being named after people/saint(or godly) figures/places is plausible in URR, but its extremely common in real historical shipping, where a majority of ships often only have single-part names (Ie:Antellope or Messenger or Margaret rather than all being ie Fierce Antelope, Holy Messenger, or Solid Whale)
Food for thought, but I'm always excited to see your work anyway.
Thanks Dorsi! As ever, I really appreciate your thoughts and feedback :).
Re: names, this is a fair point and an interesting topic. So I did actually debate having one-word names (there is more variety than that screenshot shows, there's a bunch of different archetypes) but thing is twofold. Firstly, there are LOTS of ships being generated, so we need something that can create a sufficiently large number, and secondly, I didn't want to generate confusion by one-word names potentially overlapping with generated people, animal species, places, these sorts of things. However I really like a religious ship name archetype, I hadn't thought of that and will add it in!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 26, 2021, 06:43:42 pm
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/09Items-2048x1860.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on October 29, 2021, 03:38:39 pm
I'm in awe at the procedurally generated working pocket watches, my goodness.
Post by: Robsoie on October 29, 2021, 04:15:42 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 01, 2021, 08:05:58 pm
Amazing stuff!
I'm in awe at the procedurally generated working pocket watches, my goodness.
Thank you Dorsi! :D
That's an impressive collection of procedural graphics, fantastic work !
Thanks Robsoie!
Post by: casserol on November 01, 2021, 08:58:44 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 28, 2021, 08:33:48 pm
Still havn't found time to try the latest releases but I am always very happy to see screenshots because they are so damn beautiful ! Really love the graphic style.
Thanks casserol! I really appreciate it. As it's already almost December and the next big release is in a month, I'd just wait until then and then give it a shot :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2021, 07:43:33 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2021/11/29/procedurally-generating-treasure-maps/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maps19.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 07, 2021, 01:30:25 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2021, 06:27:21 pm
This and the buying/selling information are very interesting!
Thanks Dorsi! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 31, 2021, 08:16:39 am
Released!
Blog post: https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2021/12/31/ultima-ratio-regum-0-9-released/
MAJOR FEATURES:
Procedural coin generation has been implemented, and the player now starts with a solid amount of money from their home civilization. Coins can be found in various locations and coinage can be acquired through trade (see below) and coins can be exchanged into other currencies via currency exchanges for a slight loss in overall value. All exchanges, merchants and NPCs give change.
A vast range of trade goods and other items now generate (all with massively varied PCG images), spawn in markets, and can be purchased, sold, and moved around the world; different civilizations prize different things and are particularly noted for creating different things. Different merchants will accept different sorts of goods, and there are new conversation options to help give you information about this - merchants give you good prices for goods they sell or goods close to what they sell, and worse prices for less related goods.
You can now buy and sell from merchants as long as you have the appropriate currency; a large number of factors affect the prices merchants give you. The inventory system has been updated and reflects both what you have on your person, and also trade goods waiting for you to move between locations.
You can ship items to other civilizations when you purchase an item. This lets you can add it to your inventory (which takes an item property called "weight") or ship it to another civilization to later sell there (which takes a property called "space"). Upon travelling to that other nation you can access and sell all your stored items. Finding what nations are most eager to buy what items of what types, and from what other civilizations, is key to building up your wealth. In 0.10 there will be a lot more things to spend your money on, but for now the challenge is to see how much you can make!
Docks now contain a range of new information and options, with specific ships being generated to ply specific trade routes. Each ship has its own set of characteristics (which will be further fleshed out soon) and a period of time it takes to make its journey. Each vessel is tracked as it moves around the world and the docks give you a sense of how long the vessel will take to transport you, how much it will cost, and so forth.
The encyclopedia has been improved, updated, and nuanced. Rather than discovering a new civilization for example immediately gives you all the information on that civilization, data is acquired gradually as you actually find it out, e.g. you must see evidence of their religious policy in order to know their religious policy. This applies to everything in the game now, and there are now specific messages in the message log that tell you when something has been "Discovered", which means it has been added to the encyclopedia.
Major improvements made to the speed of the game's various calculations when you are moving around on foot, and when you are moving around on the world map. The former has been almost halved in computation time and the latter has been reduced to only around one quarter of its previous weight - with no loss of gameplay or relevant things being computed. This has led to the whole game speeding up massively and becoming a much smoother and easier playing experience. There are further optimizations I hope to make in future releases, but these two have already done a lot to make the game run much faster.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/General-1.gif)
MINOR FEATURES:
A new religious policy – “Cultism” – leads to the generation of a number of different “micro-religions” (I’m inspired here by the polytheism of ancient Rome or early Mesopotamia) the game calls “cults” whose altars or places of worship are scattered throughout a civilization. These might involve worshipping a particular species of bird, a particular historical figure, a particular location in the world map, and so forth. A cultist civilization will possess between 3 and 5 cults. These do not feature traditional religious buildings but rather shrines (sacella) you’ll find all over the place in various locations, in homes, in towns, in parks, etc. These of course have a new visual generation algorithm which is very distinct from the previous religious stuff, and show visually what the cult in question worships. Appropriate new phrases etc for NPCs have been implemented.
A new cultural policy – “Pastoral” – leads to the generation of more farms around cities and around towns, the appearance of “Naturalist” shops in marketplaces with an appropriate sign, a smaller central capital city, and a general appreciation of all that is environmental.
“Slavery” is now an economic policy rather than something else which didn’t really fit into the policies framework, and hence now comes with appropriate phrases and comments from citizens.
All three of these new policies of course have appropriate images with them.
The world generation screen now has a (if I do say so myself) rather gorgeous new generator for the images you can look at while the world is generating. My procedural art skills have, er, somewhat improved in the last 8+ years and I wasn’t happy with the screen players were shown while the world was being created; this is far more striking and should give a much stronger first impression.
The “choose a civ” page has now been replaced with a page where you can choose which policies you would like in your starting nation, and then the game matches you with the nearest fit.
The encyclopedia now also lists ships, mines, monasteries, cults, and currencies, with whatever information you might have found out about them up to that point.
The “Religious Freedom” policy icon has been lightly altered.
The “Vassalage” policy now has a new, and far less visually displeasing, icon.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Stor.gif)
BUG FIXES / OPTIMISATIONS / ETC:
Fixed a bug where very rarely a jailer would not be able to tell you how many prisoners were in their jail (thereby raising serious questions about their suitability for such an important job).
Fixed a bug with the colours of some clothing items being incorrectly selected when the game tries to print their full images.
I have re-enabled some aspects of the menu screen landscape generation which I had apparently disabled at some point in the past, but can no longer remember the rationale behind. Say hello again to rolling sand dunes and moonlit oceans!
Fixed a problem with farms sometimes not spawning around towns.
Slums no longer sometimes lead to a crash when they generate in an unusual location and cannot find a nearby city wall to attach themselves to when generating.
Pressing Enter again when looking at an NPC or yourself no longer cycles you back to the top of their list of clothes, rings, etc.
Town generation no longer sometimes crashes when trying to place cults in a civilization with the “cultism” policy.
Demonic-style religious altars are now shaded correctly.
Town generation has been slightly increased back to the point where it “should” be.
I really, really think I have fixed the player/house bug this time, but please do check that the house you belong to (looking at yourself and going to the allegiances screen) matches one of the houses for your civilization (in the encyclopedia).
Resolved a long-standing issue where some people give you incorrect directions to the cathedral of their religion; this should now be fixed.
Fixed a visual bug with coastlines sometimes appearing too brightly in the city district view when you’re travelling.
The ages of monasteries no longer result in very strange sentence structures when you ask monks about their home.
Visual problems with “snow” and “sand” terrains have been fixed (another Python 3 conversion issue).
Fixed a graphical bug with the main-menu image under rare conditions.
Fixed an issue where isolationist towns, trying to spawn their town walls on a “curve” in a road, couldn’t quite generate their walls correctly and wound up producing loads of weird negative numbers that caused the game to crash.
Added a "Loading..." thing to screens where it was definitely needed.
Resolved an issue with clothing that had been added as a result of the introduction of armour, causing the game to very rarely not be able to correctly define an item of clothing or phrase a sentence with that clothing in it.
Sorted out a rare bug where particular kinds of travel could cause the player’s “@” symbol to repeatedly show up on the human-scale map while walking around, hence leaving a trail of perfect copies of the player character.
Resolved (I think) a potential crash when entering a crypt outside a city.
Going into a city dock from an outside city gate no longer crashes the game, and going into a dock in a city on foot from a gate inside a city also no longer crashes the game. Both also now display visuals correctly if you move into the dock to consider travel, but then change your mind.
You can only use a dock to use ocean trade routes that actually connect to that dock, rather than any trade route anywhere in the world. (In essence this means that docks often have fewer options and you’ll have to use other ways to seek out other parts of the world).
Crowds of people no longer slowly fizzle away the longer you spend in an area.
A mysterious plant known as the “leek” (???!!) no longer very rarely appears on isolated farms and in doing so crashes the game, because URR cannot at present work out what a leek should look like. (Who can?)
Docks give you proper information about the keys you can use to navigate the menu, and for exchanging currency as well.
You can now type in the conversations in order to narrow down a set of questions to the one you want to ask. This was actually there back in 0.8.0 but not at all obvious, and I have added a prompt to let you know this can be done, and I have also updated and improved the system.
Fixed an issue where, in extremely rare conditions, a sufficient number of embassies could not be spawned in a city centre, causing a crash.
Towns can no longer very, very, very rarely appear right next to a city, which makes the city's own generation then go a bit peculiar and the whole thing just doesn't work.
Fixed a very strange bug where a small number of roads outside of some cities did not properly register as being roads, and hence did not generate entrances to that city.
Fixed a bug where the rings of religious characters (priests, monks, etc) would sometimes generate with a random religious symbol instead of the appropriate one for their preferred belief.
Questions about weapons and armour specific to a civ now accurately reflect all the updated generation and variation in this area.
Fixed a bug where a small set of religious buildings generated in such a way that the walls surrounding the altar blocked off the player’s access to the rest of the building.
Leaving a city and them immediately returning can no longer cause the game to miscalculate how much time should be elapsed during those movements.
Have resolved and upgraded quite a few name generators that had extremely rare, but not impossible, permutations that the game couldn’t usefully handle. I only found these in fewer than 1/100 generations so they must be highly unusual, but nevertheless, they have now been fixed.
Fixed a problem where entering a city, leaving the city, attempting to re-enter, and then deciding not to, THEN leads to a crash when the game tries to place the player somewhere appropriate on their next map tile.
Fixed a super rare problem where sometimes the game would continually think you were entering or leaving a city even when there was no city in sight.
Resolved an issue with the field of vision sometimes not computing totally correctly when you took particular actions at the edge of a map tile.
Sorted a minor issue with some of the graphics in the guidebook sometimes not correctly appearing in the right location.
Fixed a typo and a layout issue when saving the game.
Nomadic individuals can no longer generate with conversation options that (at present) have no “solution”, and hence cause the game to crash.
Hunter-gatherer individuals can no longer very rarely try to spawn with clothing that isn’t appropriate to their civilization, and hence cause the game to crash because it’s trying to find civilizational characteristics that are not actually present.
Added in a number of new key options for navigating various menus and the like.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Clothes.gif)
PLAY IT:
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/games/ultima-ratio-regum/
As before, the game is made for Windows though I do plan on Mac / Linux versions one day, probably after / alongside 1.0 in a couple of years. For Linux I recommend Wine, and for Macs I've seen a range of different solutions.
Python executables are (unfortunately) known for generating false positive virus reports, and URR is no exception. I've worked hard to try to find a solution to this problem, but haven't succeeded yet. There is, obviously, no nastiness in the executable, so you'll just need to tell your antivirus not to worry about it.
If you find bugs (or, you know, have a positive comment to leave!), please do comment here or send me an email or a DM on Twitter or a carrier pigeon or some semaphore, or whatever. Assuming there are enough bugs of sufficient severity to merit a 0.9.1 before a 0.10 (e.g. multiple crash bugs, for instance) I will be releasing a 0.9.1 soon; if there are only relatively minor bugs such as typos or minor graphical graphical issues, those might be left until 0.10 (this time next year).
THE FUTURE:
I am now working on 0.10 and enjoying this “one year” turnaround time for major releases. It’s large enough that I have the time to do something of meaningful scale, but also small enough that it keeps me to a schedule and to focusing on the core essentials. I therefore anticipate a 0.10 this time next year, then a 0.11, then probably 1.0 after that (!!) as we are finally getting close to having all the pieces in place. 0.10 will be generating books, finishing and further developing and improving the conversation system, and adding more stuff to spend money on; I’ll be posting more about this on the blog in a month or two once any 0.9.x bugs have been dealt with and I can properly started to focus on it.
In the meantime, I hope you all enjoy 0.9! I will be interested to see how much money people can accrue, since it is meant to be somewhat tricky – but I’ll be keen to get any feedback possible for thinking about future balance changes. Have fun exploring and trading your procedurally-generated items, everyone, and I hope you all have a lovely new year!
Post by: ventuswings on December 31, 2021, 08:59:57 am
I'm also happy to hear that you have concrete plan towards 1.0, which means I only need to wait three or four years for 1.0! (which honestly isn't too long in game development)
Post by: fatcat__25 on December 31, 2021, 01:11:44 pm
I guess computers have no taste, if they threw fits about generating leeks. :D
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 01, 2022, 05:16:11 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 01, 2022, 07:45:06 pm
Nice update, accumulation of money is always a good goal :)
I'm also happy to hear that you have concrete plan towards 1.0, which means I only need to wait three or four years for 1.0! (which honestly isn't too long in game development)
Thanks ventus! Haha, yes indeed, .10 -> .11 -> 1.0 is currently a realistic plan. I'm excited...!
Looks amazing. I'll have to try understanding how to play again.
I guess computers have no taste, if they threw fits about generating leeks. :D
Thanks fatcat! And hahaha, you are so right...
My goodness! It's been a very long time coming, and it's more than welcome to finally arrive! Cant wait to check this out, thanks for all the cool progress updates so I know what to check out too :P
Thanks Dorsi! :)
Post by: Kaje on February 15, 2022, 06:14:39 am
It looks astonishing and I've followed the development since page 1 of this thread, and now it looks like a great time to jump in I'm a bit daunted!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 06, 2022, 04:37:38 am
Sorry to ask such a bloody silly question - but is there a 'how to' or 'beginners guide' to playing URR?
It looks astonishing and I've followed the development since page 1 of this thread, and now it looks like a great time to jump in I'm a bit daunted!
Hi there Kaje! Right now the beginners guide would be: walk around, 'l'ook at stuff, 's'peak to people, and make sure to use '?' to look at the guidebook!
Also, hello everyone :). 0.10 is now in active development and my first update in a rather long while will be appearing soon...
Post by: Great Order on October 06, 2022, 04:45:48 am
Not really my thing I think, but the procedural generation always seemed impressive.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 06, 2022, 05:06:22 am
Huh, I'd forgotten about this game.
Not really my thing I think, but the procedural generation always seemed impressive.
Thanks friend! It has actually been back in active development for a few years now, but I still struggle to make development truly *regular* and routine. It's one of my big challenges for the coming years.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 06, 2022, 06:50:38 am
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E6O-wlqUcAEn4fz?format=jpg&name=medium)
This was always intended to be a central part of the game - I want to get the game generating texts that were logical and meaningful and connected closely to the game world, and to get the player reading these as a central part of learning about the world and finding the clues to the core mystery. However, as readers will know to some extent, 2022 has not exactly been the year I was hoping it would in terms of my health, and while things might be picking up now, I often feel like I'm in a perpetual back-and-forth between "unwell" and "getting back to where I was before I got unwell again", with little time to actually build something and build on what I've been doing previously. I'm now back in the "gbtwiwbigua" phase (as we call it) once more, but I don't know what the rest of the year holds. This is important because the generation of the book contents is something I've made some progress on - some incredibly exciting progress, actually - but realistically there is no way I can now finish it before the end of the year. Even if I didn't have a full-time job to consider, and even if I did literally nothing else for 0.10 except the book contents, I still don't think I could get it finished in time. I really don't want to half-arse the book generation as it's something that really excites me, but I also am now determined (as discussed in past blog posts) to keep to one major release a year, no matter what.
So, instead, 0.10 is going to be the "everything I wanted to put in 0.7, 0.8 and 0.9, but didn't have the time to" release! I've been making some good progress easing myself back in, building some new code and some new content, and refamiliarizing myself with everything, so here's what has been added so far in the past couple of months:
New Items
To begin with, we have some new items! These appear in a variety of logical shops and are items that contribute to your navigation of the world and to surviving in the world (see below). The first of these is the compass, which (like everything) can be found in various qualities and various shapes depending on the civilization you buy it from. The compass reduces how much water the player consumes when moving through desert - the logic being that you can more accurately plan your movements instead of stumbling around uncertainly. The quality of the compass - low, medium, high - determines how accurate it is and thus how much water is saved, with the lowest quality saving the player 25% of their water, the medium quality saving 33%, and the highest quality saving 50%.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Compasses.png)
The second of these is the binoculars, which increase your viewing distance as you move around the world map using the "travel" function. The lowest quality binoculars will give you one extra map tile around the player as you move; the medium-quality binoculars will give you a few more extra map tiles in each direction as you move; and the highest-quality binoculars will give you a few more map tiles in each direction than that. It's hard to describe, but think of a circle where each quality level adds on a couple more tiles at the edge of the circle than the one before it.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Binoculars-1.png)
Pitons are the equivalent of the compass, but for your use of supplies in mountainous or polar terrain, rather than your use of water in the desert. Pitons can be used to reduce your use of supplies in mountainous and polar terrain by 25%, 33%, or 50%, depending on the quality. Unlike the compasses and the binoculars pitons will very slowly be used up, but at a rate that still makes them a very profitable purchase compared to just using larger volumes of supplies.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Pitons.png)
We also have canes! These reduce food use in all of what I'm now calling the challenging terrains - desert, polar, and mountainous - by 25%, 33%, and 50%, again depending on quality. These can be purchased at carpenters' shops and like the pitons will eventually wear out, but only as an extremely slow pace. On a side note I have to say I'm particularly happy with the generator I built for these, as it is (un?)surprisingly difficult to think of many ways to vary and make interesting and item that is, essentially, a stick of wood. Nevertheless, I think I did pretty well here!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Canes.png)
And, finally, we have grenades! Modelled after pre-gunpowder and early gunpowder historical grenades, these will be available in powdermaker shops in civilizations with the appropriate technologies and policies. Shown here from left to right is a hallucinogenic grenade, an explosive grenade, and a smoke grenade, and I'm working on a couple of other types as well. As I've said before, I really am excited about working on combat when that starts coming into play, and these are a category of item I've been looking forward to adding into the game for a while now.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Grenades-1.png)
Speech
Part of what I have planned for this release is really expanding and developing the speech options. As part of this, therefore, you can now ask NPCs open questions of the type "What do you think about [X]?". This means you can now question NPCs about any alcoholic drink, any prisoner (if you're talking to a jailer), any historical event, any ship (if you're talking to a sailor), any monastery or monk (if you're talking to monks or priests), any political party (in relevant nations), any major family (in feudal nations), any gladiator (in relevant nations), any feudal nation, any tribal nation, any nomadic nation, any known disease or plague, any religious relic, any religion, any individual, any city, any town, any area of the world map, any animal or plant, any weapon, any artwork, any book, and any political ideology. Here's an example of these sorts of questions in the list of questions, and then an example of how it currently looks when you're selecting what to ask:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Spaach.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Spaach-1.png)
One of my next tasks, of course, will be to develop the responses to these questions! More on this soon.
Survival
I've always hated the minutiae and the constant need to keep yourself from dying in most "survival games" - eat food every few minutes, drink water every few minutes, etc. It's tedious and repetitive and doesn't really add a great deal (except in a few rare cases where it is so tightly integrated into the game design, as in something like Don't Starve). By contrast, the survival mechanics in a game like The Curious Expedition, which was one of my favourite games from last year, struck me as very different. In moving survival from the constant to the strategic, the question in TCE is instead framed far more as "planning for an expedition" and making sure you have enough to survive, making good use of your resources, planning ahead, and so forth. These sorts of framings really attract me and really fit in with the sort of thing I'm looking to do in URR. It shouldn't be something the player is thinking about every second of the day, but given the game's focus on exploration and the size of the game world, I'm really attracted to the idea that in order to push out from one's base city you need to make sure you have what you need to survive, and that to push out into more challenging terrains (desert, polar, mountains, etc) you need to ensure you've got what you'll need to be able to properly explore them.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Fud1.png)
So, progress has begun on the "planning for expeditions" side of things by adding three meters into the game which you can see now on the sidebar on the left - food, water, and equipment. None of these are required in cities, towns, and on ships, but to head out yourself, you'll need to stock up on supplies. Food is consumed each day you're out of a settlement / ship; water is consumed each day you're in the desert (the assumption is that outside of the desert you can find abundant water sources), and equipment is consumed each day you're in polar or mountainous regions (again, it's assumed this is easier elsewhere). These can be bought in cities when you enter/exit through the city gate (which is the part of this I'm now working on). These are pretty cheap goods, but naturally if one runs out and isn't in a settlement or a ship, bad things might begin to happen - which should be pretty fun to code. More on this soon!
Thrones
Thrones - despite having been generated over a year ago - now, actually, appear in-game when you look at a throne. So that's nice.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Cheers.png)
Bug fixes
I've also completed a number of bug fixes, such as:
-Resolved an issue where pressing ‘@’ to look at your character didn’t properly give you the same navigation option for looking at your character that pressing ‘l’ or ‘;’, and then manually looking at yourself, would.
-Removed a debugging option in the “Export” menu that I’d accidentally left in the game – whoops!
-Hopefully fixed a problem with the world generation sequence very rarely freezing (not crashing) if you move the “focus” on your computer away from it to another app; I think this has been resolved, but it might need a little more testing.
-Fixed bugs where several speech options resulted in crashes.
-Fixed a bug where pressing the “Exchange” option in a conversation would lead to a crash (though I will be coming back to this in more detail later).
-Fixed a bug where the game would crash upon going up stairs (!).
-Fixed some typos in the generation of monastery names.
-Changed the name generator for mercenary guilds, since some of the generated names were a little bit... iffy.
-Fixed a problem where sometimes asking soldiers about their armour caused a crash.
-Standardised the spelling of “civilization” to the American English version – most words in the game are British English, but I’ve always liked the look of the ‘z’ in that word (I blame Sid Meier) so I decided on that one instead.
-Fixed shading on signs outside buildings in city centres.
-Fixed a bug with a crash upon entering a fortress.
-Fixed bug where a cult ring would sometimes try to generate for a non-cultist civilization, resulting in a crash.
-Fixed a BIG and long-running crash bug with some towns on the coast not generating enough homes for people to live in, resulting in a crash! This was because the game couldn’t find somewhere to put a dock in time, and then ran out of “can I place a building?” cycles before it was able to get to placing houses (which come after the larger, more important buildings). I'm really pleased to have finally solved this one, as this now means there are very few remaining known major bugs - in fact, only really one.
-Fixed a bug where turquoise mines did not display correctly in the encyclopedia and caused a crash, and also sometimes appeared as “metal” mines instead of “gem” mines (even though I am quite sure turquoise is not a metal).
-Fixed a bug where looking at a mine in the encyclopedia belonging to a nomadic, instead of a feudal nation, caused a crash because it was trying to print the wrong kind of flag.
-The list of ships in the encyclopedia now shows the images of the ships alongside their names, destinations, owners, traits, etc.
0.10 Begins
So: I'm pleased to say that 0.10 is now going to be a release focused on the stuff I couldn't get into the last few releases, plus a load of new items, some new mechanics, plus a load of polishes and refinements and fixes for bugs and things of that sort. Again, I think it's really important for me to settle into a regular annual release schedule of any size, rather than focusing on huge releases across any time period. I just don't think after being pretty unwell for eight months that four months - even four months of focus - is simply enough to do credit to the book generation ideas I've started working on, and that I'm excited to deploy. With that said I'm sure I will be continuing to do a bit of work on book content generation, since that excites me and I'm incredibly keen on developing this system I'm building for this - which I think is distinct from others? - and seeing where it can go. However, my priority will be on this 0.10 content, building on 0.9, polishing, fixing, improving, developing, and fleshing out, what's in the game right now. 0.11 might be book generation; it might even be combat; it might be some combination, or something else; but 0.10 is going to be a release of significant size, deepening both the gameplay interactions in the URR world, and the game world detail, and I'm excited to get working on it.
Thanks for reading everyone, and I'll see you in a couple of weeks - I promise! - for the next update! :)
Post by: AlStar on October 06, 2022, 10:58:49 am
Post by: ndkid on October 06, 2022, 01:59:11 pm
Just wanted to say that the ascii art you produce is, by far, the best I've ever seen - those books are gorgeous!
This comment makes me wish this forum had an upvote mechanism, rather than me having to make a "ditto" post.
Post by: Dorsidwarf on October 06, 2022, 04:45:47 pm
I think the systems as stated also have good potential for tweaking down the line for balancing / adding "extreme" conditions to encourage extra preparation / purchases, even if that's not currently in scope (Compass reducing the travel-slowing effect of a theoretical "fog" condition for example, or "blizzards" increasing Equipment usage while climbing to the mountainous location of the sought treasture...)
Putting off book content generation in order to ensure that you don't feel under any time crunch so that you can do it justice is a good idea I think.
Can't wait to see what other interesting things await!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 09, 2022, 06:21:22 pm
Just wanted to say that the ascii art you produce is, by far, the best I've ever seen - those books are gorgeous!
Thank you AlStar, that's super kind of you! I really appreciate it :).
This comment makes me wish this forum had an upvote mechanism, rather than me having to make a "ditto" post.
Haha, thanks ndkid!
I definitely like the new resource consumption mechanics - Being well-prepared for an expedition really helping with expeditions but not strictly required if you cant manage to source a good bit of kit & arent going into too much danger.
I think the systems as stated also have good potential for tweaking down the line for balancing / adding "extreme" conditions to encourage extra preparation / purchases, even if that's not currently in scope (Compass reducing the travel-slowing effect of a theoretical "fog" condition for example, or "blizzards" increasing Equipment usage while climbing to the mountainous location of the sought treasture...)
Putting off book content generation in order to ensure that you don't feel under any time crunch so that you can do it justice is a good idea I think.
Can't wait to see what other interesting things await!
Thanks dorsi (have responded on my site as well!), I'm so glad you like it all! Getting back to coding is always an exciting thing; I just need to master the art of doing things bit-by-bit across the year, rather than in some single mad burst towards the end of a year. I had that mastered in the past, but it *is* something that has eluded me in more recent times...
Post by: sageleaf on October 17, 2022, 02:44:15 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2022, 04:16:08 am
the navigational resource system sounds amazing, and the items are gorgeous as well. I am curious on if there would be a system of gaining familiarity with a location to make travel easier, or hiring local guides?
Thanks sageleaf! Hmmm, that's an interesting question - maybe, maybe. Maybe certain areas reduce in food consumption the more often you pass through them, for instance. It's an interesting area and I do not dislike it!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 02, 2022, 07:58:43 pm
Banking
To begin with, you are now able to deposit any amount of your money into the bank in a given civilization, which will then – slowly – accumulate income over time. Right now the system will be that you can deposit any currency into a bank, but the currency of that bank’s home nation will accrue income much faster than other currencies. I’ve been doing a bit of experimenting with compound interest calculations, and thinking about how fast the player moves around the map, how fast in-game time passes, all of these sorts of things, and I think an interest rate of around 1-1.5% per month for home currency will be appropriate; it’s obviously high (on a level we could only dream of in the real world under normal circumstances!) but there will be many demands on the player’s expenses, and banks in the URR world are local, not global (so you can only get your cash out in the right nation), and it will be a strategic choice to sacrifice the immediate use of your money for later income further down the line. This will obviously be something to playtest, but for now I’m adding the ability to deposit money, of any currency, and a 1-1.5% interest rate monthly for the home currency (and around a 0.5% interest rate for non-native currencies) in banks. All of this should – in time – add another nice strategic layer to the game world and the player’s actions, purchases, movements, and so forth. As such, I’ve now built the interface here for the player to both deposit and withdraw coins in various volumes, and to cycle through coins. You’ll also notice on the left-hand side of the below screenshot that each bank has a procedurally generated “special offer” which takes the form of “Do X to get Y” – one example is shown below. These will have quite significant benefits (this one, for example, would allow the player meeting the condition to buy any five items in that city’s shops!) and so I’m hoping these will also make interesting strategic considerations as well.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Bankage-2.png)
Holy Books and Ingots
Despite all the time and effort I put into working on the generation of holy books for religions as part of 0.9, I realise now that they (generally) don’t actually spawn at present! It is possible for a holy book to spawn in a “general store” but the odds are extremely low, given that anything can spawn in those stores and books are only one category, and then even within “books” there are many categories of which holy books are only one. I’ve therefore taken it upon myself to get holy books spawning now in religious buildings, where they appear on tables and sometimes appear having been left on chairs by previous worshippers. In 0.10, therefore, a few holy books will now appear in their appropriate religious buildings, which the player will be able to look at. In the future, of course, when systems for handling stealing and reputation are implemented, you might be able to grab them with reckless abandon, but now they are just there to look at. This is also the case for ingots, where I coded the graphics and the item information for them but never actually got around to putting them in the bank vaults in banks, mints, etc. They can therefore now be found in both – again, they cannot be picked up yet, but they just give a little more detail, and soon you’ll be able to do a bit more with them than you can right now. Holy books and ingots can therefore now both be found in their sensible in-game locations, and the effort I put in to generating their images is no longer going to waste!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Holy.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Ingert.png)
Relic generation
In the existing version relics are hidden under-the-hood and never really appear, even though you can see reliquaries in religious buildings. The current relic generator is very generic and although it can produce a huge number, they tend to be of a few standard sorts, e.g. a bone of some description, a weapon of some description, and so on. Given that in a future version relics will be generated as in-game items that might be important for solving clues (or might just be worth a great deal of money, of course, or might be worth something else if given to the right person…) I decided to go back and just take a couple of hours to update the generator. There are a number of religion “archetypes” in the game that at least partly determine some of the traits of the religion and what its altars look like, and I’ve come up with over twenty different relic archetypes, such that now every religion will have a unique category / “type” of relic. For example, one religion’s relics might all be golden statues of animals; another religion’s relics might, indeed, all be bones of ancient saints; another religion’s relics might be mysterious metal cube etched with eldritch designs; another religion’s relics might be sacred feathers from ancient birds; or whatever. The game therefore now assigns a relic type to every religion, and generates a bunch of relics for that religion to have – one per normal religious building, one per cathedral, and a number that are perhaps lost, or buried, or in private hands, etc. This doesn’t do a great deal right now, but is setting things up nicely for later.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/TGIADH2.png)
Building memory
One of the problems with URR has always been speed. I don’t claim to be the most technically skilled programmer on the planet, but I have been continually improving the game’s speed as much as I can. A significant improvement took place in 0.9 where I upgraded the rendering engine for the game’s world (particularly the larger outdoor areas rather than the smaller indoor areas) to the point where it was around 40-50% faster than it had previously been. I’m working on further upgrades of this technical sort for the future, mark my words, but I also want to speed up the player’s ability to navigate the world. One place where this has long stood out to me is in getting back to buildings; when you enter a district or a town you have already visited, you always start at the edge of that map grid and have to walk, again, into the area in order to find the shop or tavern or whatever it might be. Well: no more! The game now keeps track of every structure you’ve seen in a map grid, and from then on, whenever you return to that grid, the game now lists all the structures you know, and you can so straight there instead of having to walk the whole way through the grid again! After some playing with this it is clear that this is frankly a huge time-saver and really makes the game feel far faster to navigate and get around. I intend to later add the ability to add your own “checkpoints” for this system – e.g. if you know there’s something important hidden in a particular house in a particular district, you can put in a checkpoint outside that house, and then later when you return to that map grid, the checkpoint will be another option you can go straight to instead of walking back through it to get there. For now, though, I’m really happy with this addition, and it really speeds things up an astonishing amount, and streamlines the player getting things done to a huge degree. Without exaggerating I’d say it speeds up the time going from a bank to a shop by around 90% (assuming you already have both the locations), if not more – this is a huge improvement.
For these more informal areas, the game now identifies particular areas and ways of facing that would be good to “start” at a park, for instance – maybe on the right-hand side, facing left, and looking over a bridge – and then when you fast travel to a park, a memorial, or other comparatively amorphous outdoor areas, the game looks through these saved starting point, picks one, and puts the player there.
This has actually been the main thing I’ve been working on in the last couple of weeks since the game needs to be able to handle all kinds of buildings, in all kinds of areas, and to place you in logical locations for these buildings, and to accurately deduce how many steps should be iterated as you fast travel to them, etc etc – but it’s now done, and my goodness, it speeds the game up. This is a really fantastic addition in terms of what people these days like to call “quality of life” in game design, and I’m so glad to finally get it in there.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Brewer1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Brewer1-1.png)
Bug fixes / polishes / etc
- Resolved a problem where buying some kinds of rifle balls / pistol balls would lead to a crash because the game couldn’t figure out what to call them.
- Noticed that weapon prices were not being appropriately modified based on their quality level (low/medium/high) and made it so that they will be.
- Fixed a crash bug with a certain (rare) class of book being unable to figure out what book cover it should be showing on screen.
- Added metaquestions for “What do you think of [plant]?” and “What do you think of [animal]?”, which also appropriately populate themselves with responses based on what the player knows about.
- Going from your inventory into a specific level of your inventory (e.g. “weapons” or “maps” or whatever) now correctly darkens the background inventory image.
- Fixed yet another problem with mines in the encyclopedia crashing the game sometimes – this should really, really, be resolved now.
- Using the keypad’s ‘5’ instead of ‘Enter’ no long causes a crash on the world map (!!!).
- Using the keypad’s ‘5’ now works fine for going up and down stairs, just like ‘Enter’ does (alongside the usual ‘<‘ and ‘>’, of course).
- Fixed an issue with some types of history books not correctly listing the name of the thing they are recording the history of, but merely the type of thing, so one got “Arena: A History” instead of “Redtooth Arena: A History”, or whatever it might be. These books now have the right titles.
- Fixed a far less common issue equivalent to the one above but for prisons, rather than arenas.
Next?
One of the problems with creating this kind of world is always the gaps. One creates a world map and thinks “but where are all the settlements?”; one creates settlements and thinks “where are all the people?”; one creates people and thinks “what can I actually do with them?”; and so on. This has always been a struggle for me psychologically as well, always feeling like new additions only suggest future additions, instead than standing on their own two feet. With that said, though, with this 0.10 release I’m finding a lot of satisfaction in going back and closing a lot of the “gaps” in the game world. The world is now already looking more polished, more complete, with fewer strange “gaps” in its nature, and with far more ease of navigating, exploring, seeing things, and just generally getting stuff done.
As such, for the next week or two I’ll be working on more of these improvements; more closing of the gaps; more polishes and improvements and optimisations; and generally just continuing to polish and more fully flesh-out what’s already there. Expect another update, all being well, hopefully some time in the middle of November!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 04, 2022, 11:55:07 pm
Lots of new developments again, so let’s take a look:
Buying supplies
When you enter or leave cities you can now stock up on supplies. These take four forms – canteens, food, water, and equipment. Canteens, food ration bags and equipment have generated images while water is a slightly more abstract image. In the case of canteens, these are empty containers that can be filled up with any liquid, and the player starts off with a canteen filled with ten units of water (which allows for ten days spent in desert). The images are of course generated with around a million or so permutations I believe – so hopefully you’ll never see the same canteen, as they are handmade after all! – and are pretty expensive items, but they have a lot of value for exploration so I think that’s justified (again, as more and more gameplay elements come in through 0.10 and 0.11, all of this will need balancing later on). Food is the only one that is needed in the everyday for moving around outside of settlements (except when on ships) and is consumed at a rate of one unit a day, and you buy food in blocks of ten; food, like water and so forth, is not needed when you’re in settlements, but only when you’re out in the wild. The image used here is an alteration of the graphics used for the gunpowder bags, and I’m sure I’ll find some more value for the “bag” image archetype further down the line. Water is bought separately and can be used to fill up canteens, and is again fairly cheap, and required when exploring desert in order to avoid dehydration and sunstroke (see hopefully my next update for info on these sorts of ailments etc!). Finally, equipment is the equivalent of water but for polar and mountainous regions, consumed at a rate of one per day, otherwise frostbite and hypothermia will be lurking just around the corner. I don’t see many games that model interesting conditions and illnesses and I think these will make for interesting strategic considerations (with some light alterations from how these work in real life), but that’s all to come later. Finally, as part of this the player now also starts the game with a supply of food, and a canteen filled with water, but not with any equipment nor any additional canteens.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Supplies.gif)
Location discovery
As part of what I discussed last time – building-specific fast travel – I have also made changes to how locations are recorded. In 0.9 simply setting foot into a map tile would immediately tell you (on the world map) what was in it, i.e. entering a market tile and then going into your world map would tell you precisely what shops were on that tile, even if you (the player character) had not yet actually seen them. This worked fine for a while as a basis but given the new stuff I’ve implemented above about allowing you to fast-travel to specific buildings within a map grid, it seemed to make sense to also go back and make this fine rather more finely-grained than it is at present. To do this there is now a system in place that, while rendering an outdoor area, takes note of any doors you happen to see and then looks over those doors to see whether any of them are noteworthy doors (i.e. they don’t just belong to normal homes, for example). If the game finds a noteworthy door within your line of sight on a particular turn, it then checks to see what that is a door to (e.g. a shop, a cathedral, whatever) and then checks whether or not that building has already been stored in the player’s knowledge of building. If it has then it does nothing, but if it hasn’t, then the game adds it in and posts a little message in the text log below along the lines of “You have discovered a new X”, after which you will then be able to fast-travel back there next time you are on that map tile. URR therefore now keeps track of every important structure you find, and when coupled with the above, this makes exploration – and moving back and forth – almost ludicrously faster than it once was.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/SS-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/SS-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Archery-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/UQ4.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/UQ4-1.png)
Image improvements
I’ve improved a couple of the old generated graphics in the game that just weren’t up to the current standard. Firstly, archery targets are now correctly shaded, which brings them a little more “up to date” with the quality of the other procedural graphics in the game; I’ve also optimised the image code here to make them generate / draw faster, as they were painfully slow. These are an extremely rare thing to see in the game – though now that I’ve put in the time to improve them like this, I am certainly incentivized now to make them appear in a few more places! – but they no longer stand out as a very poor graphic. Similarly, fountains have also now been significantly enhanced in order to bring them in line with the quality of the generated images in the game. These are rather more common so I think this was far more time well-spent, as the player (currently) starts in an upper-class housing district full of fountains, and many of the most interesting areas of cities and the like have fountains. These were not hugely time-consuming things, but I’m glad to have them done; readers will remember that in the 0.9 release I redid the graphics for the world generation because the original graphics were very outdated compared to the quality of visuals I’m making now, and it didn’t really do for the first thing the player sees to be something so rubbish! I’m not sure whether these meet my quality standards for the long-term, but for now updating these just adds a little bit of polish and smooths off a rough corner remaining from the game’s much earlier days.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Fountain.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Archery-2.png)
Flavour messages
As further part of making navigation of the in-game world both easier and more interesting, I’ve taken a leaf from the book of games like NetHack and introduced messages that appear when you enter a new area. Naturally in NetHack (and other games that do similar things, like Spelunky and Noita) the idea is partly to warn the player in advance of something coming up in that area or acknowledge an unusual procedural generation choice, whereas here it is partly about flavour, but also partly about letting the player know that a particular thing might be present in this area which they might want to take note of. At the moment this takes two forms. Firstly, an “introductory” message will now always appear when you enter a district of a city, a town, a fortress, a settlement, and soon on things like mines, universities (see below), etc. This will give you some flavour and will also point you towards important things. For example, upon entering a lower class district in a city, it might say – depending on the cultures / policies of the area – something like…
“You enter the lower class housing district. As you watch the people in this area, you see items and goods often being traded from hand to hand. In the distance to the north-west you see a tall building with barred windows.” (A “barter” nation, and a prison with its location identified)
“You enter the lower class housing district. A call to prayer is being sung out from the north-east, and to the south you hear the roar of a crowd.” (A location hint for a religious building, and a location hint for an arena)
“You enter the low class housing district. You hear people talking about the outside world, and notice that their comments doesn’t quite match up with your ideas of lands beyond this one.” (An “isolationist” nation)
…and so on. By my calculations there are many hundreds of thousands of these possible messages across different locations with different sets of combinations present, and just from doing my own playtesting around the world these add a real lot of texture and feel to the world, and give a sense of greater weight and consequence to each particular area the player might go into. When coupled with the discovery messages mentioned above, the message log in URR is now far more full and far more active, and has things constantly being told to the player rather than just an endless sequence of “it is a new day!”, which can seem a little bit silly sometimes. I think these are a really important addition for, again, speeding things up, helping the player have a sense of where they might want to go in that area, and also deepening this sense of the world being a little more alive and a little more active as you walk around it.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Expl-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Expl-2.png)
The other sort is what I’m calling “ambient” messages show up every x turns since the last message has showed up, and take a similar form to the above messages, giving you information but on a much smaller scale. So, for instance, in a city centre district you might see messages like…
“You hear nearby an argument between some clerks about taxation for the outer areas of the empire.”
“You see in the distance an individual wearing fine clothes, who seems to be an emissary of some other land.”
“You notice a fine ring on a local passerby, marking them out as a person of high rank.”
…and so on. These again depend on the specific of each nation but are far less general than the first kind and don’t point to anything specific, but give a lot more life to each area. I’ve written a large number of these, including allowing them to vary and change depending on the specific place and context, and there’s also code in place to make sure that they don’t repeat too soon. Both of these systems are relatively small additions, but I’m actually really happy with how they’ve come together, and they give a heck of a lot more life to the world! Also, in the case of these ambient messages, the game keeps track of which ones have been recently used and doesn’t recycle until a large number have been gone through; it also slightly randomly generates the precise wording of each one in order to boost variation; and the time between these messages gets longer the more time the player spends in an area, in order to make the full selection last longer and because a player spending quite a while in one map area is probably working on something specific, rather than necessarily exploring. I think these are another really nice addition, and while the database of these isn’t finished as I write these – though there’s already hundreds! – I’m really happy with how these have worked out so far.
(A large number are shown in these testing screenshots, but in practice, they are far rarer, and have more variation in phrasing!)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg3.png)
Starting Relic Generation
One of the objectives for 0.11 will be generating religious relics. These will be very important items, having a lot of value (obviously) to particular religions, but also a lot of trade value if you can find the right people to sell to, a lot of potential for religions to become very pleased with you if you are able to return a relic that perhaps is being sold in a distant land, and relics will also sometimes be the rewards that one can get for figuring out the location being referred to in a treasure map. I’m really keen for these all to be very interesting, striking, distinctive items, that really get the player’s attention and signal clearly that this is something of high importance. As such, I have begun laying out the basic foundations for generating the images of the relics. As mentioned previously there are now several dozen different archetypes for religious relics, some tethered to particular archetypes of deity or religion (e.g. a “Lovecraftian” relic or a “Demonic” religion) while others can appear for any religion type, or most of them. I have posted a bit about how the image generation process in URR works before – both in the sense of “how do I design them?” and the sense of “how does it work under the hood?”, and I’ve just been making a little bit of progress beginning to sketch out some very basic initial text grids. Even without the slightest degree of colour or shading or anything else, some of these initial drafts are already giving a sense of how interesting and colour and distinctive some of these items are going to be, and I’m really happy with this initial groundwork I’ve been laying now for next year.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Twer-2.png)
University planning
I’ve made a major decision here for the game – given that the game is / is going to be about information, discovery, exploration, reading, cryptic puzzles, etc, I’m not sure any more how much sense it makes for the player to begin the game in an upper-class district, or to begin the game in any way as part of a noble house. I’ve also been thinking for a while about adding in “university” areas to the game, similar to “towns” or “fortresses” or “mines” and so forth, and the more I think about it, the more I like this idea. I think starting the player off in a university would be a very novel opening; would enable me to develop a very cool and interesting little opening cutscene (which I will say no more about until I start working on it); and would give the player a very clear framing about what sorts of thing this game is about. It would also be a logical way to get the player started on the main quest and to give them a few initial items – maybe a book or two, a note or two, a cryptic item or two – to help them out on the start of their journey.
My current thinking right now is that universities will contain classrooms, halls, student accommodations, libraries (maybe you can pay to access any book there, but it costs more than finding the book in the wild and buying it? Would be strange in the real world but makes more sense in gameplay terms!), study rooms, maybe a museum of some noteworthy items (the University of Sydney, where I’m based IRL, has a number of these), and I think an observatory will be a cool addition as well (but I won’t say any more about that just yet). They will also vary, of course, across nations depending on their policies. For example, the university in a nation with “populist” politics is probably going to be quite limited (no intended commentary on the real world inverse relationship between educational attainment and voting for populist candidates should be inferred) whereas a university in a nation whose culture is far more focused on intellectual and cultural attainment will likely have a far larger university. Nevertheless, all nations will spawn with one university – for the player to start in – while I might perhaps have more intellectually inclined nations to have an extra university or two elsewhere in their territories. Like towns and mines and the like, these structures will be outside of cities and will be found somewhere in that nation’s territory (though I’m going to set them to generate near to the city to encourage new players to head into the capital city of that nation first when they depart the university starting location).
Anyway – at present I’m not sure whether this will be something for this 0.10 release, or for 0.11, but I’ve begun sketching out the initial code required to generate these areas, populate them with people, etc etc, and I’m really keen on this rather more novel start than what we currently had. More on this in the near future, I am sure!
Bug fixes / tweaks / etc
- Resolved a long-standing bug that somehow neither I nor any player had noticed for years (!) in which, rarely, the last letter in a sentence in a multi-line message would be chopped off and not displayed in the message window. In fairness URR has until now had very few multi-line messages, but I still can’t quite believe how long this one survived for!
- Fixed a bug with animal-archetype religious altars barely having any colour distinction between the background and the foreground of the altar and the design on it – it was very hard to make out the image, but is now much clearer.
- Given that I’m actually looking to do a big overhaul of the dialogue system to make it far more fluid and “human”, I’ve temporarily removed the variable questions (“What do you think of [X]?”) with the intention of coming back to them in 2023. - - The initial work on the questions and the replies however will still be useful – it just won’t be in this release!
- Fixed an issue with certain items very rarely not possessing the properties required to draw them correctly when in the player’s inventory, but only if they were added in a very specific manner.
- Dealt with a bug that very very rarely caused world generation to crash when it was trying to figure out embassies in city centres for certain kinds of civilizations (or rather, civilizations in certain contexts).
- Put in a few more optimizations and improvements to the systems that draw the terrain around the player when the player moves; I am keen to really improve this further in the future, but another little set of small refinements here again supports the objective of making the whole game a bit faster, a bit smoother, and a bit easier to navigate.
What next?
I’ve decided to shift releases to January instead of December, because releasing between the 25th of Dec and the 1st of Jan doesn’t really get much visibility because people are, generally, busy during that time. I’m therefore going to try a model of instead releasing “some time in January” the default going forward, and we’ll see how that goes. My next objective is to working on food / water / equipment consumption out in the wild, and start programming in some dreadful maladies to befall the player should they venture too far beyond their means; I’ll also in the next few weeks be working on bug-testing and refining these above systems and the ones from the previous updates, and working to clear out more bugs and polishes on my larger list of these as well. Next update in a couple of weeks, everyone!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on December 06, 2022, 08:11:17 am
I think the new fountain style is a real improvement, but even just the shading on the arrow butt has a great deal of value.
Being a university student with just enough money/supplies to begin definitely makes more sense than being the scion of a noble house! I think that's an aspect that URR's sorely needed for "adventure initiation" until now.
The (Exciting-sounding) religious artifact recovery concepts sound amazing. Something about the idea of being contacted by a priest who tells you that his religion's sacred icon is being auctioned in a rival city in thirty days just strikes me as such a "call to adventure" style thing, you know? It could even be tied with the religious artifacts thing, with them always taking other religion's artifacts off your hands, but offering less money than a private sale and offending said religion more in return. The line between archaeology and tomb-robbing was always a thin one classically...
Thanks for another great update Dr Johnson
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 07, 2022, 08:27:57 pm
I think I saw this update on the blog but extra thoughts:
I think the new fountain style is a real improvement, but even just the shading on the arrow butt has a great deal of value.
Being a university student with just enough money/supplies to begin definitely makes more sense than being the scion of a noble house! I think that's an aspect that URR's sorely needed for "adventure initiation" until now.
The (Exciting-sounding) religious artifact recovery concepts sound amazing. Something about the idea of being contacted by a priest who tells you that his religion's sacred icon is being auctioned in a rival city in thirty days just strikes me as such a "call to adventure" style thing, you know? It could even be tied with the religious artifacts thing, with them always taking other religion's artifacts off your hands, but offering less money than a private sale and offending said religion more in return. The line between archaeology and tomb-robbing was always a thin one classically...
Thanks for another great update Dr Johnson
Thanks Dorsi!
sorely needed for "adventure initiation" until now. - well said! This is something that's so important in the next couple of releases as I build up to 1.0.
Something about the idea of being contacted by a priest who tells you that his religion's sacred icon is being auctioned in a rival city in thirty days just strikes me as such a "call to adventure" style thing, you know? - yes! Some relics will show up in churches, but others might be found as part of treasure, some might be in private hands, etc. This more broadly is going to require a bit of code for "unique items" which don't currently exist yet, such as keeping track of their locations, enabling people to talk about them and discuss them, enabling them to (later) be mentioned in books that give you hints to their locations, etc...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 17, 2022, 08:02:17 am
Supply consumption and use
I have now implemented an initial working draft of supply consumption use as you walk around the game world. So first off, here I am after a few days of walking around in a city (exactly 24 hours / one day increments each time you change map tile, whereas it’s in moving around on a map tile that moves time forward on a minute-by-minute level) and you’ll see that there are no messages in the message window talking about the fact I’m consuming food, and the counters for my three types of supplies in the sidebar are greyed out. Whenever you are in any kind of settlement – city, fortress, town, monastery, even a farm or a mine or (later) a university, you will not require supplies, the rationale here being that you’re able to get food and water in the place you’re staying.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-2.png)
However, I’ve now moved out of this city and two immediately important things are happening. Firstly I am using one ration of food per day as I move around (see the message log on this), and also the relevant part of the sidebar is now lit up to emphasise that these supply considerations matter because the player has now journeyed outside a settlement of some sort.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-3.png)
Later I find my way to a town, and although I’m not exploring it in foot, entering it is enough that my next movement will not cost any food (or water or equipment were I in desert, or polar / mountainous, terrain) because I’m in a settlement.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-4.png)
I then leave again and keep exploring, and two important things happen here. I find a desert, and roughly as I enter the desert, I use up my final food ration and the game gives me a warning to let me know that I’ve used up all my food supplies, and that unless I eat soon I’ll be in danger of two illnesses. A lack of food, a lack of water, and a lack of equipment, now all come with two potential dangers. A lack of food can bring on malnutrition (weakening the player) or starvation (potentially fatal); a lack of water in the desert can bring on dehydration (weakening the player) or heat exhaustion (potentially fatal); and a lack of equipment in polar or mountainous regions can bring on frostbite (weakening the player) or hypothermia (potentially fatal). I’m still working out the exact gameplay impacts of each of these – while also keeping in mind that combat will be coming soon and so I need to think about some of these in terms of effects to the player character’s body, abilities, etc – but this message is the warning that the first of these might be on its way before too long.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-5.png)
A few days later – note again that the messages are telling us we’re using a water ration with each step we take in the desert – we also run out of water, and are now in danger of both malnutrition and dehydration. Oh dear!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-6.png)
The same is also true for your use of equipment in mountainous or polar terrain:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Crossh-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/C2.png)
There are still a few minor bugs I need to iron out here involving some potentially unusual map movements always correctly consuming supplies, and making sure that the sidebar is always correctly grey / not-grey depending on where the player is, but this is all coming along nicely.
General messages finished
Next, I’ve now finished the general messages that can appear when you’re just wandering around. This had several parts. Firstly there were a number of message contexts that I hadn’t finished writing out when I posted the last update, particularly potential messages for if you’re out in the wilderness (i.e. you are not in a settlement of any kind) and also potential messages for some of the more obscure cultural possibilities and combinations within a given civilization. Secondly I needed to implement a system to make the initial words in each one actually vary, and so rather than them all saying “You hear people” or “You hear someone” you will see in the screenshots below way more variation here in how the messages are actually framed and presented by the player. Thirdly, I needed to add a system that keeps track of how long it has been since you entered an area, and how long it has been since you’ve seen an ambient message, and to have that tick up over time as you’re going around and doing whatever you’re doing in a given area. This took a little while but wasn’t too difficult, and the game now works hard not to repeat these messages and also not to swamp you with them. Fourthly and lastly, and related to the last bit of the above, there is also now a system to prevent the same message from appearing twice even if the exact wording would be slightly different, so you can’t get “You hear a distant argument” and “You find yourself overhearing a distant argument” in immediate succession. I’m very happy with how these are working, and they definitely bring some nice extra life to the game world!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-7.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Msg1-1.png)
Bookmarks
You can now save your own bookmarks in any area in order to fast-travel back to that bookmark! You can do this by pressings the ‘B’ (or ‘b’) key and in each area you can, at present, place up to five bookmarks of specific tiles; when you do so the game asks you to select a description from a large number of presets (rather like the messages system in From Software games, except without quite so much potential for euphemisms) and to say what direction you should begin looking when you come back to this area. You might, therefore, save a bookmark as “Mystery Plant” or “Strange Statue” or “Important House” or “Cheap Merchant”, or whatever it might be. Any bookmark, once saved, is then added onto the end of the list of fast travel locations when you re-enter that district, so you can go straight to a shop, for instance, or instead go to the bookmark you placed in a location where you think something important might be buried, or which might be outside the home of an individual you think might be very consequential. You can also place bookmarks in areas that aren’t even settlements, so if later on you find something strange in the wilderness and want to come back to it later, you can put a bookmark on that. I really like this system, and again, it’s just another little quality of life thing that will start paying dividends more and more in the coming years or two of development. I haven’t yet programmed in the ability to return to them (that’ll be coming shortly), but the ability to save them is now fully implemented. So first you press ‘b’ and select a tile with the crosshair, shown here to the right of the player:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Crossh.png)
Then you put in the name for the bookmark you want:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Bookm-1.png)
And then your bookmarks, up to a maximum of five per map grid, show up on your map:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/NEWQ.png)
I’m really happy with this! In a game that is going to be all about information, discovery, exploration and the like, the more systems I have for the player to keep track of things, the better.
Plants
Now, let’s talk about plants. For several releases now the game has had appropriately generated images for plants in farms, with an appropriate range of permutations and the like. Although these were actually pretty early in the whole procedural graphics thing, I remain very happy with how these look (especially as a lot of standard farm vegetables and grains are surprisingly hard to make into interesting ASCII-esque graphics).
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Planties.png)
However, this doesn’t cover procedurally-generated plants which should be filling the game world, varying according to area and climate, and (like everything else) potentially being a part of a puzzle (e.g. maybe a riddle directs you to a place where a specific plant grows in immense numbers?). The original intention (And by “original” here I mean “in the early to mid 2010s”) was for plants to be important things that one could pick up and use to craft various things (this is obviously a common idea in many games), and back when URR was essentially a Dwarf Fortress clone, I was really inspired by the use of plants in things like Ancient Domains of Mystery and Skyrim, and felt this would be an interesting addition. I seem to recall I even – although sadly I can’t find the documentation now, ha – that I developed some interesting systems in my head for how plants would spawn, spread, potentially interbreed creating new strains, all these sorts of things. However, as URR moved away from “Dwarf Fortress clone” to “procedurally-generated clue-finding mystery”, I abandoned this and binned it. Nevertheless plants could appear on the map, denoted by a different symbol to the normal grass or savannah terrain or whatever it might be, and the game would generate names for plants that would be found in appropriate local areas. However, at some point I removed plants from the maps altogether – I think they were causing generation issues of some sort? – and somehow after five years I haven’t got around to putting them back in. This is particularly strange because the presence of plants as a terrain “type” was actually quite important for making some areas – such as city centres and upper-class housing districts – look a little bit swankier or more interesting, and without them some areas do actually look surprisingly sparse. Then, finally, because I just wasn’t sure what role if any plants would play (wanting to avoid implementing any kind of mechanic that encourages tedious grinding or searching around for valuable plants in a see of useless ones), I just shrugged and decided that I would figure out what the heck to do with plants at some later point.
Well, that time has finally come, and now plants have returned to the game-world and are merely decorative aspects to make parts of the world a bit more interesting. They now show up on the map and make areas look, frankly, a lot more interesting with these involved. It took a surprising amount of wrangling old code to get them to appear again, but here they are:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Somepl-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Somepl.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Somepl2-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LSX.png)
Don’t they add a ton of colour to the world?! Even better, though, is the fact that we also now have an image generator for all in-game plants! Whereas previously this was limited to the plants in farms – which have a relatively small number of possible visible permutations – this has now been extended to all of the game’s generated plants as well. Each plant essentially has three generated components based on the name of the plant. The first word – e.g. “lush” or “bristling” or “budding” or “broad-leaved” – determines what the stalks of the plant look like, how many leaves they have, their size, their number, these sorts of things. The second word or the first half of the second word – e.g. “azure” or “sun” or “somber” or “copper” – determines the colour of the flower, and also the colour with which this plant will appear on the human-scale map (as above). The third word or the second half of the second word – e.g. “lily” or “cup” or “flax” or “thistle” – determines the shape and size of the flower that the plant has. Combine these three, add in some general variation in stalk colour and some low-level grass and turf in front of the plants, and, kaboom! We have procedurally-generated plants, where the name of each plant and its geographical / climate distribution is determined during world generation, and you can now find them in the game itself.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Plantos2.png)
The stuff at the bottom also varies of course based on the terrain the plant spawns in, so you might get things like this:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LSX-4.png)
There are many thousands of possible generated plants, and as with everything else these will potentially be mentioned in clues, hints, riddles, and so forth, and I’ll be working on other ways to give you information about the local flora (and later fauna) too. Again, as well as adding lots of life and colour to the game, these – like everything else – will be in the pool for potential clues, such as hints pointing you towards areas where a certain plant grows, or areas where the plants are certain colours, or even second-level clues like one that mentions the plants researched by a particular scholar, and you need to study that scholar to discover the plant they studied, and then use that to discover where something might be located. And so here, finally, are some examples of the player in-game checking out some of the local plant life:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Rose1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LSX-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LSX-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/LSX-3.png)
I have to say I’m incredibly happy with these, and with them appearing on the map again, they really add a ton of new life into the game world.
Bugs / polishes / etc:
- Given that black markets don’t actually appear or generate in game (and maybe never will, we’ll have to just see whether I can think of an interesting and worthwhile way to integrate them), they are no longer listed as appearing in districts.
- Resolved a number of lingering issues with several of the fast travel mechanics in cities, such as a Currency Exchange building in a market district adding to your fast travel list multiple times, the homes of noble families not adding correctly, castles failing to place you at the correct door when you fast travel to them, and various other minor issues.
- Fixed a bug where farmhouses would appear surrounded always by some other kind of terrain rather than the local terrain of the map grid they’re on. This was a rather strange one and I’m not entirely sure what triggered it, but it has now been resolved.
- Fixed a bug where sometimes a mysterious plant would appear in farms called “livestock” and the game would utter the immortal sentence “this is a clump of livestock”, which makes absolutely no sense at all.
- Cult shrines in cities no longer take a random potential shape for their basis, but instead use the appropriate shape that their home nation likes to use in its aesthetics.
- Fixed a laughably long-running (and often reported!) bug with the area of vision around the player being just one tile miscalculated when you’re facing in one of the four cardinal directions. I can’t even imagine how long this one has been here, but it’s gone now!
- As well as ‘?’, the Guidebook is no longer accessed via ‘B’ or ‘b’ (as those are now needed for the bookmarking function), but rather by ‘G’ and ‘g’.
- Fixed one of the last lingering bugs from the conversation from Python 2 -> Python 3, which is that (for some reason) the colours of water in the game (rivers etc) are all basically an identical blue, rather than a nice variation of lighter blues and cyans and so forth. This has now been resolved, and water looks rather lovely again now.
- Also done the equivalent of the above for lava, and now lava (on the rare time one actually, er, climbs a volcano?) shows up as a nice mix of red and orange colours that change each turn, rather than a uniform dull red.
- Fixed a bug where you could very rarely get on a ship without actually having the required money to pay your way.
What next?
Next I’ll be working on the illnesses and ailments that you can get while out exploring the world, polishing how supplies are used (in both gameplay terms and data management terms), and starting to look at how we can get some more optimizations out of the game, both in terms of map generation when you enter a map grid, and in terms of showing that map on the screen. Looking at the code now with my old (early 30s) eyes I see my earlier (early 20s) attempts to be, frankly, abysmal, and I’m sure that there are huge improvements to be made here. Again, 0.10 is a release for making everything faster, smoother, easier, and this is a big part of that. More in a couple of weeks!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 26, 2022, 07:48:18 pm
Field of view / map drawing optimizations
The first place I found to improve matters was in discovering that the fov computation was going significantly beyond the actual scope of the area the player can see. In URR you have a directional field of view, so what the player is able to see is dependent on which of eight directions (i.e. the eight main compass directions) they are facing, with a roughly 140 degree range of sight. Given the range of the sight coded into the game, this realistically meant that the player can see around 18 tiles in any direction at any given time. By this I mean they can actively see what is going on there, i.e. that area is lit up; of course if the player has previously explored some larger area they can see what buildings and terrain and so forth are there, but they are not actively seeing it, i.e. they are not seeing whether NPCs are moving around in it. Here are some examples of what this currently looks like:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b.png)
So, even though the player cannot see things actively beyond eighteen tiles or so in any direction depending on what direction they are facing, I discovered that the fov calculation was using numbers more like 25 in each direction. So when the player is facing north, they can see a maximum of 18 tiles to the north and fractionally under 18 tiles to the west and east, meaning that the extra 7 or so in each direction are being unnecessarily calculated each turn. I recognise that I implemented this because we need a small buffer of tiles outside the player’s vision range to ensure that a tile which was visible the previous turn, but is now not visible, is correctly rendered not visible – but that needs to be only one tile (or two tiles to be absolutely confident), not seven. The initial and quite rapid improvement I was able to make was therefore really tightening the area around the player where these calculations are taking place, leaving only the slightest buffer of tiles which might have changed between this turn and the last. This saved a little bit of time on each calculation, but there was clearly more to be done.
The second optimisation was to notice that in the field of view code, a particular calculation was being done twice. There were some lines of code which in essence asked “if [calculation] < x, then do y”, and then if that was returned as a false, the next line was “else if [calculation] > x, then do y” – but it was doing the calculation again. This is a common mistake I made as an early programmer and lots of this code is literally a decade old or close to it, and was of some consequence here as this was a relatively computationally-demanding calculation that was definitely slowing things down by virtue of being unnecessarily run twice. It was therefore a trivial fix to just have a single calculation done for each tile and then have the outcome of that referenced twice, instead of doing the calculation anew each time. This again saved a handful of milliseconds on each fov calculation, but there was still more to be done.
The next optimisation was the realisation that there is actually a significant chunk of area which does not need calculating again each time. Take this diagram for instance (I’m doing all these diagrams in desert areas as they are the most devoid of stuff that gets in the way, and hence the clearest):
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FOvA-1.png)
In this diagram imagine the red circle as being all the potential areas that the player might be able to see in (with a tile or two of buffer), and the green being the only area that needs to be calculated on this specific turn, i.e. the part of that red circle that the player is dealing with, as well as a small buffer on each side for any tiles which were visible and now should not be. My next big realization was that unless the player just changed height and some things might now be hidden over a hill that were previously visible, or the player has just entered a map tile for the very first time and hasn’t yet moved around within the map tile, or the player has just turned around and is looking at something that wasn’t in the green rectangle from the previous turn, then nothing within the blue square needs to be calculated each turn!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FOvA-2.png)
This seems a bit counter-intuitive, so let me explain. The player enters a new map grid and everything within the green rectangle is calculated and presented – all well and good. Then the player takes a step forward – whatever they might see has already been calculated within the green rectangle precisely because it has that 1-2 tile buffer around what the player is actually seeing that turn, and therefore it is the edges that need calculating again (as the green rectangle moves onto previously untouched tiles) – but not the middle. More broadly, generalising this to all directions, we could note that once the yellow rectangle is calculated on a given turn, anything within the blue rectangle does not need to be calculated on the following turn (again unless the player is changing height on the map, for example). This then looks like this…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FOvA-4.png)
…and all of this led to this realisation that because the buffer is always being calculated around the edge of what the player can see, whenever the player moves into those already-calculated areas (i.e. they become part of the blue rectangle), they’ve already been calculated! This was a big breakthrough, although it took a while to implement all the exception cases as mentioned above – the player first entering a map grid, the player changing height, and the player changing their facing direction, all require the blue rectangle to be calculated afresh. Nevertheless, this overall reduced by half the time it takes the time to calculate field-of-view stuff for the player! FOV calculations started at around ~15-18ms per turn; the previous optimizations had reduced it to something like 13-15ms/turn; and this reduced it down to around ~4-6ms/turn, and around ~10-11ms/turn when the player is, indeed, changing height.
With all of this done, it was then time to turn my attention to how the game prints this stuff on the console for the player, i.e. the actual playing of specific characters with specific colours. There was one obvious initial improvement to be made here – much like in the field-of-view context, the game was printing (and therefore re-printing) characters in slightly too wide an area compared to what might actually be changing on a player’s given turn. I reduced these numbers to just take in the barest of margins with a small buffer and this bought us a few extra milliseconds of grace on each calculation – but again, this was only the start. Looking over the code with a fresh eye I then noticed that there were a number of places where “player.z+1” and “player.z-1” were being calculated over and over and over, so I again just made that a pair of initial calculations, which between them maybe saved us a millisecond (but every little helps!).
I then discovered a piece of code that was actually completely superfluous under the new developments and improvements that I’d put in. There was a calculation being made for – I think (!??) – checking whether something was not in your fov but was a little bit outside of it and needed updating (I’m genuinely uncertain what this ancient code was for), but I discovered that disabling it changed absolutely nothing (I tested this at length!) and saved us another few milliseconds, so that mysterious line of code was out. I also then found that when the player was facing in a diagonal direction, i.e. northwest / northeast / southeast / southwest, a small optimization could be added by identifying the corner of the screen that is opposite from the direction you’re looking and automatically assessing that as an area that by definition must be out of vision, rather than doing a relatively complex calculation over every tile which would lead to the same conclusion. Again, removing this mysterious bit of ancient code another millisecond or two on average saved.
So: when I started work on this it was taking ~20ms to calculate the field of view each turn, and ~60ms to print what the player saw (and then on top of that it had to take the time to have all the NPCs in an area have their turns, etc). After about a week of work it now takes around ~5-10ms to calculate the field of view each turn and around ~30ms to print what the player is seeing. This is a more than 50% optimisation! I confess to being very, very happy about all this. My skill in programming is – to put it mildly – not to be found in this kind of deep optimisation / clean code sort of stuff, and I generally find it quite dull to work on this kind of deep-level stuff and it’s relatively unrewarding in m brain, as well as being the sort of programming that just doesn’t really resonate well in my mind compared to the more creative stuff. Given that general orientation to this kind of work, I’m actually pretty proud of myself for finding the brain space and energy to get this done; for finding so many solutions for improving the speed with which the game runs; and for the overall result and the > 50% saving of time in the fov calculations which the player has to encounter every time they take a movement. A lot of this release is about optimisation, about small improvements, smoothing off some of the rough corners and making the whole game just a smoother and easier experience to play and to navigate and to find your way around in, and the game really does run so much faster on the back of this. I’m very satisfied with all these improvements and all the workarounds I was able to find here, and I really think everyone will find the world a far more pleasant place to navigate as a result, especially when coupled with all the new options for fast-travel and all the new options for bookmarking and all the map generation optimisations I’ve also put in this week (see below!).
Map grid generation optimisation
My second main target for optimising the game’s speed came in the last week via working on map grid generation. To begin with we would note that this shares two main characteristics with the turn-by-turn rendering of the game world: this was code I generally wrote around a decade ago, and this is code that is incredibly slow for what it does. When I started work on this the average map grid took around 12-20 seconds to generate which is absolutely shocking for an ASCII game. Each map grid does admittedly consist of 40,000 tiles (200×200) but that should honestly barely take any time at all for a modern computer to create and fill with stuff according to some appropriately-scaled code. My goal was to get everything down to under five seconds and the lighter map grids – such as those which are just wilderness without buildings and NPCs and all this other stuff – to ideally maybe three or four seconds. I am unbelievably pleased to say that this has now almost been completed, with every map generation certainly now taking below eight seconds, and wilderness maps generally only taking five seconds – and there are certainly more optimisations for come. For now, though, I’ve managed to hugely speed up map generation in three major areas:
Terrain Dithering
Firstly, one area which I found was taking between two and five seconds (!!!) to generate for each map grid was the dithering of terrain on the edge of a map grid. What I mean by this is that if you enter a map grid which is savannah, for example, but the map grid next to it is a different type, such as tropical or desert or temperate, then the game will dither the terrain at the edge of that map grid in order to ensure a sense of a smooth and gradual blending between the two areas. This generally looks something like this, with the other terrain type becoming more and more pronounced closer to the edge of a map grid:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b-3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b-4.png)
To my absolute horror I discovered that the method I developed for this when I was 22 and had barely finished the Python roguelike tutorial was to have the game go over the entire 40,000 tiles, calculate a random chance on every single one, calculate what possible terrains it should be on every single one, and then decide which of those terrains (if any) the existing default terrain for that map grid should be changed to. This is frankly atrocious and uses a staggering amount of wasted time engaging with tiles, and doing calculations on tiles, that don’t actually have anything to do with creating the intended dithering effect, especially if the dithering is only required on one side or even one corner of the current map grid. Instead, I have now created large sets of tile lists for each possible dither (each side, each corner, so eight in total) and if that side or corner needs to be dithered, the game goes through that set and dithers the tiles in that set. This means that no unnecessary tiles are touched by the algorithm, no calculations have to be performed over and over, and the final effect is literally indistinguishable from the earlier version. This has taken the time required to dither from potentially as long as 5 seconds (5000 milliseconds) all the way down to 0.1 second (100 milliseconds), with no loss of functionality! This is a massive improvement and I honestly can’t believe that such a catastrophically awful and time-consuming section of code has remained in there for so long – but either way, it’s good to be rid of it.
Spawning Plants
The next thing was to take a look at how plants were spawning. They had a similar method to what I’ve just described above and were carrying out a ludicrous number of calculations on every map tile, especially when we consider that relatively few map tiles actually end up having plants, especially in areas like deserts and tundra regions. These were therefore reworked in the same way as above, giving us a list of potential plant locations – where the list is of a sufficient size – in order to skip the tiles that don’t actually need to be addressed. This process took an unconscionable five seconds or so under the previous model, but now takes between 100 and 200 milliseconds (a tenth to a fifth of a second). Another huge improvement! Reworking how plants spawn also required me to interact with some other systems for spawning plants with certainty in specific places, such as gardens or other arrangements in upper class, middle-class or city centre districts, rather than (or as well as) just spawning them randomly. Some of these were actually fairly efficient already, but others needed a little bit of refactoring – again generally just changing them to a list of potential tiles, instead of iterating over every tile on the map – and this saved us a little bit of time here and there again.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b-6.png)
Spawning Trees
The third area I’ve found so far for making huge time gains during map generation is in the placement of trees. The existing model was, again, alarmingly similar to the plants and dithering model – go over the entire map, do loads of calculations on each tile to decide whether a tree should be appearing there, and then eventually place the tree itself. Instead, therefore, I deployed a new model where the game now has a set of lists of potential locations for trees, and for plants. There’s a large enough number of these lists (and more than enough other stuff that varies with each map grid generation!) that I can’t imagine a player will ever spot when it’s repeating, but essentially it’s a long list of tuples – e.g. “(125,17)” – where trees or plants might spawn. A new map grid coming into existence selects one of these lists and then attempts to place some trees and some plants by looking at each tile according to the list (which totals only a small percentage of the total tiles on a map grid), rather than iterating over every tile on a map grid and running some randomization decision about whether or not some kind of plant should be appearing there. In other words, the old version tried to place a tree 40,000 times per map grid; the new version tries, at most, 1,500 times, and each of those attempts is more efficient than each attempt in the 40,000 attempt model. I think it’s not hard to see how much snappier this now is! The original version took 3-4 seconds while this new version is down to around 0.1 second, again with no change in the final effect or how things look when the player explores a given map grid.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SS1b-5.png)
Fast travel within a map grid
I’ve also been further refining the fast travel system. You can now fast travel to any of the important areas you find in a map grid (all the areas in your starting civilization being as pre-explored) but I’ve also now implemented a model whereby you can fast travel within a district. Pressing ‘T’ to travel, but then not moving outside your current district or town or whatever and just pressing enter instead, will again bring up the list of potential fast travel locations. You can then pick one and the game will quickly increment the required turns to get you there, and put you in the appropriate place, without having to reload the area. This again will help you get around faster (as I’ve said before, a lot of this release is about speeding everything up and making the whole game faster, easier, smoother, more user-friendly) and is a really nice improvement to assist in getting yourself around the map. Here’s are two gifs of me doing this in a town and in a city:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Walkies.gif)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Wallies.gif)
(If these gifs seem slightly “slow” given all that I’ve been hyping up speed improvements, don’t be alarmed – the gif recording slows things down, and there are debug messages playing in the background, but without both of these the in-district movement is genuinely *cracking* along!)
Farms, fences, hedges
With plants now fully implemented I want to start laying some early groundwork for animals. As such, I spent a couple of hours preparing some areas in the game’s generated farms. As well as plants and orchard areas, plants can also spawn with “blank” areas, i.e. fallow fields with nothing currently growing.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Farm1.png)
Half of these are now labelled instead as “livestock” areas instead of “blank” areas, and the first thing to do was to wrap a fence around them. A little bit of work quickly generated a system that could easily identify the limits of one of these farm quadrants:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Farm1-1.png)
And then a little bit more work enabled me to generate and place one of two new feature types, either fences or hedges. Here’s an example of a fence…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Farm1-2.png)
…and here’s an example of a series of fields enclosed by some hedges:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedgeyboi.png)
(And yes I know there’s a minor fov error in one of these screenshots, but it has since been fixed!). Each of these now finally implements the graphics for these that I’d generated during 0.9’s development cycle, so you can check those out as well:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedoig.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Fonce.png)
This is all obviously just a very minor addition, but one that didn’t take up much time, adds some more variety, and prepares things for a later release as well once animals (wild animals, domesticated animals, horses the player can hire / ride, etc) come into being.
Bookmark fast travel returning
Lastly, in the previous release I described how the player could now place bookmarks of their own – up to five in a map grid – in order to then fast-travel back to custom locations such as the places that particular NPCs are, or a place where they think something might be buried and they need to come back with the appropriate equipment to dig it up, and so forth. I’ve done some more work on this and there are now a number of developments moving this feature closer to completion. Firstly, the actual act of placing the bookmark has now been limited substantially, ensuring that you cannot place a bookmark on a tile that you have not explored, and you also cannot place a bookmark on a building or some other structure. I immediately realised this would essentially be a tool that could be used to essentially teleport the player onto a rooftop or onto some previously-unseen part of the map, so this really needed resolving. As such, in the below screenshot, you can only place a bookmark on somewhere that has been explored, and somewhere which is the not a building (you will also see the two possible errors messages that can generate when you try to place a bookmark in an inappropriate location). I’ve marked excluded areas in red to illustrate what this looks like:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedgeyboi-1.png)
You also cannot place a bookmark on top of something like a tree trunk, a hedge, and so forth. The next thing was to not just have bookmarks appearing when you look at something on the world map, but also have them appear in the fast travel list as something you can warp to. The first part of this, however, was to rework part of the world map. Currently the game only shows you stuff that you’ve found if you’re in / hovering over looking at a city…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedoig-2.png)
…but not if you’re doing the equivalent for a town or a fortress:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedoig-1.png)
A few changes later, however, and the world map now gives you a proper description of what you’ve discovered in a town or a fortress (or anywhere else for that matter) and you can view these much as you would in a city:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedoig-3.png)
There is still a minor bug in this screenshot – it should of course say that you have explored it! – but this screenshot nicely demonstrates how the map now looks, telling you both what is there and telling you at the same time what sorts of things you might be able to fast-travel to when you enter that area (town, fortress, later university, mine, etc). With this done the next step was to get the custom bookmarks appearing alongside the standard bookmarks whenever you enter an area that contains both. I will need some extra code for entering a wilderness area that contains no standard bookmarks but does have some custom bookmarks, but for now I focused this on cities, towns, and fortresses, which will always have the potential for standard bookmarks but can also include custom bookmarks as well. After some work, here’s what we have (with some silly bookmarks just for testing!):
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Daniel.png)
You can now select any of these when you go back into an area you’ve placed bookmarks in, and much like the normal fast-travel locations, it will warp you to the place where you should be, and in doing so increment an appropriate amount of time. One thing did come up, however, which is that there is nothing visible which shows you where the bookmark is; if you were to mark out somewhere you want to dig, for instance, warp back to it, and then wander off to do something else just for a second (or even just leave the computer and come back!), it might not be immediately obvious where the spot is. So, to resolve this, I have also added a little feature that when you place a bookmark, the game prints a little message along the lines of “You have placed a bookmark with the label [XXXXXXXXX].”, and actually adds something new onto the tile where you placed the bookmark!
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Daniel-2.png)
This is a “feature” on that tile like all other map objects (e.g. plants, trees, terrain types, doors, staircases, vases, shop stalls, tables, whatever) but can obviously be walked through and walked over since it isn’t really “there”, it’s just in the user interface, but can be looked at as a feature which just tells you that you placed a bookmark here, what it is called, and when you placed it.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Hedgeyboi-2.png)
The game will also place a ‘?’ on the world map if you place a bookmark in an area that doesn’t have anything else registered, i.e. is not a settlement or a farm or whatever, in order to aid in recalling things that might be far out in the wild.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Choices-1.png)
I think these are nice little details and again, in such a vast world, should help the player to keep track of what’s going on and what they’re doing and when they did it. One of the next things to add is of course some way to see all of your bookmarks (this will probably be on ‘B’ whereas bookmarking is currently on ‘b’), and also a method to delete your bookmarks to free up room for others – I think these are all some very good additions to the fast travel system.
Ultimately it is clear to me that URR is, really, not very user-friendly at the moment, and so such a large portion of this release – speeding up every turn, speeding up generating every map, giving the player all these new options for fast-travel and custom fast-travel and everything else – is all in service to really trying to make the game a lot more approachable and a lot more accessible, and to give players all the facilities they might ever need for making sense of this vast world and its slowly coming-into-being mysteries :). I’m really happy with how all of this is coming along.
Bugs, miscellany, errata, etc
- Found a major issue with shops in towns sometimes not functioning correctly when you try to buy or sell something (unlike shops in cities which seem entirely unaffected by this) and causing a crash, but managed to resolve it after a fair bit of work.
- Fixed an issue where items that were not actually on stalls within shops were being counted as being “in” the shop and hence something you could purchase (and hence something the merchant would try to sell!).
- Pressing “P” now lets you press Tab to switch between information about the policies / culture of the nation you are currently in, and the policies / culture of your home nation, rather than just showing your home nation regardless of where you actually are in the game world. This now makes it a lot more useful.
- Fixed an issue with courts in appropriate civilizations not always generating correctly when the player tries to enter, and getting stuck in an infinite loop.
- Dealt with a bug whereby selecting unusual religion types in sufficient number during world generation could very, very, very rarely lead to a crash.
- General messages now accurately say “district”, “town” or “fortress” instead of (in some circumstances) always just saying “district” and assuming the player must be in a city.
- You can no longer just endlessly look at the same thing over and over – which tends to lag the game especially if you stack keyboard inputs – and instead you can only look at each thing once. This makes no gameplay difference except it stops some potentially quite significant lag if you press the same button repeatedly.
- Noticed that docks in towns were not correctly triggering with the new stuff in towns – i.e. intro messages didn’t mention them, they weren’t saving correctly as bookmarks, you couldn’t warp to them, etc – and resolved all of this.
- Resolved yet another bug that sometimes prevented docks from properly spawning in certain towns – docks should now always be able to appear no matter what.
- Fixed an issue with dock doors still sometimes spawning facing the ocean rather than facing the land – again, I was pretty sure this had been resolved before, but it has definitely (…?) been resolved now.
- Moving across a grid manually on foot, rather than with fast-travel, but not being in a city (so you’re moving through a gate between districts), now correctly handles things like calculating the initial field of view when you set foot for the first time in the next map grid rather than sometimes temporarily placing the player into a tiny shadow world for a few turns before allowing them to see the rest of the area.
What next?
My next tasks are essentially to continue working and finishing the systems already being implemented in 0.10 – fast travel, speed improvements, custom bookmarks, supplies and ailments, etc – and continue working through my list of known bugs, existing issues, small things that need polishing from earlier releases, and so on. I’m really happy with what I’m getting done here and enjoying the whole process just so much. As ever, if you enjoy this kind of detailed devlog, please do share it (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2022/12/26/ultima-ratio-regum-0-10-update-5/) around on social media or with friends you know who you think might be interested! More soon!
Post by: Robsoie on December 27, 2022, 05:54:38 am
The amount of thought and work put into this is as always really impressive.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 30, 2022, 07:24:39 pm
The level of amazing is through the roof !
The amount of thought and work put into this is as always really impressive.
Thank you Robsoie! I really appreciate it :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 06, 2023, 08:19:57 pm
Multiple purchases of supplies
To begin with, I have now implemented a ton more stuff in the “buying supplies” page which you can access whenever you enter or leave a city. The first thing you’ll notice are these five extra and appropriately colour-coded lines which tell you again what your current state of affairs is when it comes to supplies – how many canteens you have, how much water you have and how much space in canteens you have for more water, how many food rations you have, and how much equipment you have. Again, I’m not interested in what you get in many “survival” games where you have to eat every two minutes; instead, food and supplies here are strategic rather than constant concerns, and are much more about making sure that you have enough to safely get from one location to another, or you have enough to explore the wilds and try to hunt something down. You don’t consume anything when you’re in settlements (cities, towns, fortresses, mines, universities, monasteries, etc) – which is going to be a very large portion of the game – so it’s a very specific concern for exploration and nothing else. The supplies screen therefore does now give you a lot more info, not just those extra lines I mentioned but also the ability to stack how many of something you want to buy (the x1 and so forth on the right-hand side).
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/canto-1.png)
Pressing left and right (or 4 and 6 on the numpad, etc) will allow you to stack up how many of something you want to buy, and pressing enter will add or remove the total for that thing (i.e. the number of the thing multiplied by the cost of the thing) to how much money you’ll be spending. Confirming the purchase will then, just like in other shops, give you the option of adding each thing to your inventory or sending each thing off to storage in another nation. This is now an easy way to buy resources in bulk, and although obviously the precise costs of these things are certainly going to need some balancing in the future – this will become easier when smaller denomination coins are introduced back into the game, being one of the features that didn’t ultimately make it into 0.9 – this system is working pretty nicely at the moment. To help you decide what to buy you can also, by pressing ‘C’, access a screen where you can manage your canteens.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Solutions-2.png)
Here you have two options. The first to empty out whatever’s in a canteen and make it empty and free to get another liquid added, and the other is to combine canteens by pouring the content of one into another. When you purchase water (and this is generalise for any other acquisition of any other liquid later to be added) the game also now makes sure to fill up your canteens with water (and later on with any other liquids) in the most efficient way. If you have two canteens containing 0 water and one canteen containing 4 water and you acquire 5 units of water, for instance, it will always add it to the 4 water canteen taking it to 9, and leaving the other two free, instead of leaving you with a 0 canteen, a 5 canteen, and a 4 canteen. The game will always try to fill the canteens closest to already being full first, and then slowly work down from 9 to 1, and then only if all possible water has been put in canteens already containing water (or whatever the liquid is) will the game then start filling up empty canteens, and will of course try to completely fill a given empty canteen before moving onto another one. Nevertheless there are certainly scenarios in which canteens might be mixed and moved around a bit, and scenarios where you might want to pour Liquid X out of a canteen in order to make room for Liquid Y, hence the canteen management screen. With all of this added buying and managing your survival equipment is now way easier and way smoother than before!
More speed improvements
There are also a number of new and substantial improvements and optimisations to in-game speed to report on this week (as part of this release’s overall project of making everything smoother, faster, easier, etc). These new issues fixed this week all came again in the turn-by-turn functionality of the game. As I continued playtesting two rather annoying sources of time loss became apparent to me – one of them was taking place in cities, and the other was taking place in anywhere that wasn’t cities but contained people, so towns, fortresses, settlements, and the like. In both cases I was able to find a part of the set of functions that gets called each turn that was sometimes, or always, taking vastly longer than it should be taking. Both of these issues took quite a long while to resolve, but I’m pleased to report that URR is running even more smoothly as a result of dealing with both of these residual issues. As I’ve noted before this sort of very technical bug-fixing isn’t really my forte (nor my passion) but I’m pleased that I was able to hunt them both down and get them both sorted.
In the first case, we had a very rare but quite significant burst in the milliseconds used to iterate a turn that would appear when the player was walking around a city. This seemed to happen around one in every thirty or forty turns and would be a significant spike in time consumption that the player would notice as moving around; the player character would seem to just “stick in place” for a noticeable fraction of a second before coming loose again and continuing to navigate the area. In having the game print some debug logs in order to have a look at this, you can see the milliseconds consumed for each part of taking a turn (aside from rendering the field of view that the player can see), and the spikes in milliseconds that rarely appear here (in two categories, not just one) are very obvious. (And yes, I notice that one part of one turn apparently went backwards in time, but I assume this is just some strange artefact of how Python tracks these things, and is not actually indicative of my discovering time travel.)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Turnprob1.png)
So there were two possible spikes here, each one happening in a different part of the turn-handling sequence. The former one, i.e. the third from the end, took place during the game trying to take a turn for the NPCs who had already spawned in a map grid. The latter one, i.e. the second from the end, took place during the game trying to spawn a new general NPC, of the sort who just make up the general crowds in areas that keep things looking interesting. A little bit more investigation showed that the latter one was rarely an issue in cities – but when it was it tended to be a big issue! – whereas it was a ubiquitous, if slightly lower-level, issue in towns…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Turnprob1-1.png)
…while being even more (horrendously) pronounced in fortresses:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Turnprob1-2.png)
As you’ll see from the top screenshot in this section this was, in cities, rarely longer than the briefest heartbeat of time being consumed, and also often registered as a “0” in some cases as well, but in all kinds of settlements this could potentially generate issues. This was the first one I tackled because the spawning-a-new-NPC function is – relatively speaking – pretty simple compared to an AI actor taking a turn, basically because URR’s NPC AI is (reasonably) complex while spawning a new general NPC to be part of the crowd mingling around a settlement is a fairly short function. With that said, though, it took quite a bit more investigation until I was able to zoom-in on and really pin down where the issue was, which is to say the issue mostly appeared when the new NPC was trying to find a position where it could start, and when it was trying to find a position it should be moving to. The function for both of these, called pick_new_local_target(), turned out to be a block of code that I had clearly written in some kind of cataclysmic mental fugue. It was indicative of an issue that a lot of my early code had – thinking that something that might take, say, 10 milliseconds on average really wasn’t all that much, while neglecting to appreciate that a) this function being called multiple times in a given second, and b) the timing of this function is on a bell curve rather than a guaranteed 10 milliseconds, were both enough to add up to serious potential efficiency problems further down the line. The main issue in this function turned out to be how the game looks for a door either for someone to come out of (i.e. that is where they spawn from, and the game is pretending that they were always inside that building all along) or for someone to go into (at the end of their movement around the map). The game would basically pick a random x and y coordinate on the map grid (of 40,000 tiles)… and then just keep doing that, over and over, until it found a door. On some more sparsely-populated map grids this could take a while and is very indicative of the kind of
In the process, however, I discovered a secondary part of this was to be found in the act of creating the NPC itself, i.e. making an in-game object, giving it all the appropriate stuff (facial detail, clothing, items, political and religious alignments, and so forth), and sending it out into the world. Again a heck of a lot goes into this, but after some serious searching I found that the issue was in the assigning of clothing to NPCs, and specifically in the creation of rings (a character, including the player, can have one ring per hand). Only when a ring was being created were 10 milliseconds being lost, and again this seems like nothing, but when potentially being done in substantial volume and over a long period of time, and alongside other 10 millisecond delays that sometimes appear, the time losses do actually add up to noticeable jerks in the smoothness of the game. A quick bit of research later and I was able to ascertain why exactly rings were so slow to generate, and I fixed it – the issue lay in generating a location-based ring showing a local flag of a town or a fortress, and trying to find an appropriate location in a shockingly slow manner.
With all of these issues resolved, the timings on the turn now looked like this in cities, towns, and fortresses:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Three.png)
…which is an immense improvement over what we had before!
However, the second issue remained, and still needed sorting out…
…except it didn’t. I soon discovered that the rare huge jump in milliseconds in the other category had actually been solved by fixing the first category! I therefore think it was something to do with more unusually high times trying to find a location for an NPC to go to (possibly for a very rare kind of door?). I’m not entirely clear which of these various above fixes also fixed the other issue, but they did, and that’s fantastic. With all of these changes made, walking around the game world is just so much faster now and an infinitely more pleasant experience.
Wilderness general messages
I have now implemented general messages for all the wilderness areas! When you are in any settlement it currently totally overrides wilderness messages and doesn’t give you anything about the specific terrain or biome you’re in – I might change that later, but I think it’s good to have a clear difference here in terms of atmosphere – but when you’re outside a settlement you instead get appropriate atmospheric / background / general messages for the biome you’re standing in. There’s again quite a large set of these, though some biomes were much harder to write good messages for than others, but they again really help to flesh out and develop this feeling that the world is a little more alive. Here are some examples:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-4.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-5.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-6.png)
However, I also realised that we needed some different comments to come up on some more obscure terrain areas. When the player is on a river or a lake or a coastline, for instance, they should get messages appropriate to those as well as the terrain type (e.g. temperate, desert, etc), whereas on things like mountains and volcanoes the underlying terrain type is generally not particularly visible, and so it should focus on the mountain or the volcano instead. With a little bit more work, therefore, I implemented a system that would notice your presence on a river/lake and add new messages for that, and the equivalent for if you’re on a coastline (you’ll also see in one of these a time-specific message):
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny-8.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Thenight.png)
And then I went back and added words for volcanoes and mountains that override the usual set, instead of just being added to them:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Thenight-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Three-1.png)
Indoor speed optimisations
As mentioned in a previous blog entry, indoor speed rendering is also far too slow – this is especially unforgivable given how simple indoor rendering is because a) the areas are far smaller and b) the game never has to think about the alternative heights of things on an indoor map. I devoted a fair bit of time this week to working on this stuff, and I’m pleased to say the process of optimising the speed of the indoor rendering was, largely, the same as the process of sorting out the outdoor rendering. You can read about this is unnecessary extensive detail in the previous blog post, but essentially the problem here was the same set of issues that were taking place outside – rendering far too large an area, rendering the inner area unnecessarily especially if it might not be changing, failing to adequately define the area around the player that should be rendered, and going about some aspects of the whole thing in just a generally slow manner. I believe these have all been resolved, and the rendering speed of indoor areas is once again now cracking fast.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/J1.png)
Custom bookmarks without normal bookmarks
The game now correctly handles areas where they are potentially plenty of normal bookmarks – i.e. areas with no existing normal bookmarks the player might find such as buildings or other constructions and the like – but the player hasn’t found any of the normal bookmarks, but has found custom bookmarks. It now shows up correctly on the world map, and when you enter that map to start walking around:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny-5.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny-6.png)
Custom bookmarks in the wilderness
You can now add custom bookmarks to wilderness areas and can correctly fast travel to the. This took a little bit more work since a lot of the game is designed to handle a lot of this stuff only in settlements – cities, fortresses, towns, whatever – and so a fair bit of effort was required to integrate the ability to fast travel and present the player with useful menus, etc, when you’re just doing wilderness stuff. Nevertheless this now all works perfectly – and as mentioned last time a small ‘?’ symbol is added to the world map when you place a bookmark in the wilderness – and it’s all very fast and intuitive.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny-1.png)
Draining the marshes (for now)
There is a very, very rare biome type in URR which I call the “marsh” biome, and it can only appear in tiny numbers each world generation (if it even appears at all). By chance on one of my test runs I generated in a city with the marsh as the surrounding terrain, and was able to have a look around, and enjoyed reminding myself of how interesting and novel this terrain looks.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh.png)
However, it also became quickly apparent that because this biome is so rare – and having small ponds of water scattered through it, so very unlike every other biome – I have been unable to test it regularly with all the new content added in the next few releases, and there are some serious problems. For example, I walked into this slum and found a patch of water that was somehow on a higher z level than I was, and was therefore essentially floating in the air:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-1.png)
And, as you can see, deeper into the slum I saw that these lakes had basically destroyed the generation algorithm of the slum while the algorithm had nevertheless placed soil (instead of marshland) around them, resulting in some very profound weirdness going on:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Marsh-2.png)
As such, I have decided to remove the potential for the marsh / swamp biome to generate – but only for now. It’s novel and I’d like to include it, but that’s something to bring back later when I can a) have it generate in far higher volume so that it becomes a meaningful part of the world generation rather than a rare niche exception to the norm, and b) where I can test it extensively with all the different things that might need to generate on it. Farewell, swamp – you will one day return!
Vines
I noticed this week that vines in tropical areas, or rather how they appear in the look-up window, is absolutely dire.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vinny.png)
The terrain image generator is one of the earliest I ever made, and while the main generator itself is still perfectly adequate, these vines placed on top are… truly, truly shockingly awful in how they look. I actually couldn’t quite believe how bad these looked when I saw them again – what on the planet was I thinking allowing something so aesthetically repugnant to exist in the game, even back when I starting out?? Truly horrific. I have removed the vines part of the image generator and at some point in the future will update this to a modern-standard image, but for now, it’s just too awful to appear and so vines will appear on the map you’re actually walking around (as in the rest of the screenshot here) but just not in the lookup image.
Bugs and the like
- Fixed one of the handful of major long-running bugs in the game, with NPCs walking around and doing their thing in certain buildings being, very rarely, unable to figure out something to do and causing the game to get stuck in a loop. I think this is now totally resolved and I can no longer get an NPC frozen without a task. In the process I discovered the system for making these choices is appallingly inefficient, though since it still takes up so little time, it’s not a priority to change; but one I’ll keep an eye on for the future. (Seriously though: it’s shocking. I should have known better by 2017!)
- Fixed another major bug involving the game rarely deciding to crash when entering areas of the world – such as city centres, or towns with diasporas of foreign citizens, etc – which should be spawning NPCs from a range of different backgrounds. It would sometimes get confused between which name archetype to use in generating the name for each person (i.e. the archetype of the home nation) and which to use in trying to display their names (the archetype of the local nation). This might sound like a trivial fix but was actually surprisingly complex because of how it’s all handled, but this crash bug is now well and truly purged.
- Resolved a related issue where very rarely in other contexts the game would try to use the wrong name type to present an NPC’s name, potentially leading to a crash (e.g. if they didn’t have a middle name and the game was specifically asking for a middle name).
- Fixed an issue where holy books in religious buildings could spawn almost anywhere (including in reflecting pools and on top of an altar!) despite the fact that they should be only spawning on tables. They do now, indeed, only appear on tables.
- The game now correctly says “You have explored…” or “You have not yet explored…” on the world map, in a long overdue bugfix.
- Fixed a rare crash bug when, upon entering an area of a city containing a river running through that district, and doing so from a particular direction, the game would sometimes be unable to figure out where on that map grid the player should be placed, and would wind up just placing you nowhere.
- Changing the colour of water each turn no longer causes the leaves of trees to change colour (and mysteriously become liquid?) if the tile is water but some tree leaves are hanging over it.
- Fixed a problem with the game sometimes not being able to calculate the time it will take you to leave the map grid when using the travel function if you’re on a river tile, and the game can’t work out how long it will take you to cross to the other side. This is a pretty obscure one, and will have to be adjusted again once swimming is implemented, but for now it just doesn’t cause a crash – and that’s the important thing.
- You no longer consume ludicrous amounts of food while on a ship (we’re treating ships here as moving settlements, i.e. you are fed and have somewhere to sleep and get water and all that stuff rather than needing to purchase supplies to do all of this). Again, it’s only out in the wilderness that you need supplies.
- Some weird black bars no longer appear on the screen when you use the world map looking function to look at a city that you haven’t actually yet found / explored, which thereby allowed the player to figure out things unseen on the world map.
- Cult shrines no longer incorrectly appear as a ‘u’ or a ‘d’ on the map when you’re looking at them from a higher or lower z level than the shrine itself.
- Fast-travelling to a training ground in a city centre (which appears when the nation has gladiatorial combat as its method of justice) will now no longer cause a crash, and correctly puts you where you should be and facing in the right direction to see the training ground.
- Looking at certain types of rings on nomadic people no longer causes the game to crash.
- Entering a farm under very specific circumstances – when the game is looking to try to place a political delegate in a democratic nation, but cannot find one to place there – no longer causes a crash.
- Fixed another potential crash bug in farms where, very rarely, the game had not properly recorded the number of farmhouses there should be (I believe this only happened if no “important” farmer was generated, i.e. no NPC that the game absolutely must track even when the player isn’t physically present) and couldn’t work out what to do when generating a farm tile and it came to spawning farmhouses.
- Asking people about religious relics no longer sometimes causes a crash when they can’t figure out what relic they should be telling you about. The fix here for now is just a temporary fix before really enhancing and developing the in-game religions, but it gets the job done.
- The game can no longer assert that “You purchase 0 more storage space” in a civilization.
- The list of key commands in a dockyard no longer appears and disappears sometimes when you navigate around the menu.
What next?
Another update in a week probably, and that might well be the final update before release. Again, given that so much of this update is improving / optimising / tweaking I’m not going to make a big fanfare on this one, but I’m really happy with all the work I’ve been doing and how well this sets the game up for the future, for being so much smoother and more playable, and for not buckling under the weight of whatever features get added in next. Thanks so much for reading everyone! As ever, please do share about the devlog with anyone you think might be interested if you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you all in a week or so :).
Post by: Egan_BW on January 07, 2023, 06:43:56 am
Post by: Iduno on January 07, 2023, 06:11:14 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 08, 2023, 08:47:40 am
Tons of good work there, wow.
Thanks Egan! :)
Beautiful ASCII. Better than I remember from TOME 2 and ADOM, although hopefully *some* improvements have been made in the last few decades.
Thank you Iduno! I really appreciate it :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 22, 2023, 07:35:31 am
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been working on in the past fortnight:
Death
You can now die in URR! A tremendous addition, I think we can all agree. Upon death the player is given a record of everything that they achieved in that particular playthrough – how many cities they discovered, how many universities they visited, how many shipwrecks were uncovered (it’ll be fun to add these!), and also how many of what I think will be the three distinctive quest elements – how many secret locations you found, how many high-quality chests were opened (a generator I look forward to working on), and how many “puzzle pieces” were found. I’ve been working for a day or two now on this death screen and I’m actually really happy with how it’s looking at the moment! There might be more added here in the future (and I need to finish implementing all these collection systems for keeping track of the various things you can find or do in-game), but I think this does the job for 0.10 very nicely indeed.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-11.png)
(Also, whew, 1040 books generated in a single world! Working on generating the content of those books, and making it highly meaningful and logical and filled with potential game clues, is going to be a lot of fun.)
Number items and weight
The weight of canteens, food ration bags, and equipment packs, now changes logically as you consume the stuff which is in them. Food ration bags and equipment packs both have a weight of “2” – for having 6/7/8/9/10 rations / pieces of equipment in them – and now go down to a weight of “1” when they have 1/2/3/4/5 inside them. The same is also true of canteens, with a base weight of “1” but going up by 1 for every two units of liquid inside them, up to a maximum of a weight of “6” for 10/9 units (and “5” for 8/7 units, and so on down). These update and change whenever you use them and as far as I can tell this works in all contexts now that it should be working in. So for example, here are your supplies when you start a new game, i.e. a canteen with ten units of water and four packs of food rations with ten rations each:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-7.png)
And then after some exploring over half of the rations in this food pack have been used up, and so the weight (and the player’s total held weight!) have both reduced by one:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-8.png)
And then later after eventually finding our way to a desert and using up some of the canteen, it no longer contains 9 or 10 units or water (for a total of 6 weight, 5 per 2 units and 1 for the canteen itself) so now weight 5 instead (4 of which comes from the 7-8 units of water it holds and from 1 from the canteen). All of this also has the nice side effect that the more you explore on an expedition the more weight you’ll free up in your inventory to bring back what you find. This was a key mechanic in one of my favourite games from two years ago, The Curious Expedition, and I don’t mind admitting that I think it’ll work really very nicely here as well.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-9.png)
Religious issues
I also found a graphical issue with some religions in the “normal” archetype (i.e. not a “demonic”, “Lovecraftian”, “pantheon” or “Egyptian”-style religion – the “normal” archetype is generally use for around 75% of the religions in a generated world with a smaller number selecting one of the other types). This graphical issue was manifesting in two places, with the religious symbol on religious books sometimes appearing very strangely indeed (on the left hand side of this image) and the symbol on altars sometimes just deciding of its own free will not to be shaded at all, and consequently looking rather strange (on the right hand side).
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Relprobs.png)
It took a little while since it has been a long time since I did anything with this particular graphics generator, but I was able to hunt down the issue and deal with it. Incredibly this was a hangover frmo the transition from Python 2 -> Python 3 years ago and was – I hope – the very last thing that I hadn’t previously noticed as being a little bit amiss as a result of making the shift. I believe these are all now fixed though, resulting in some much nicer looking religious altars and holy books:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart.png)
At the same time I also noticed another bug, which was that the colouring of the religious robes for the priests in some religious buildings is incorrect. It seems to always be correct when it’s for one of the special religious archetypes, but for the “generic” religion archetype the wrong colour of robe was definitely popping up from time to time. For instance, here’s a book, altar, and robe for the religious building I was testing the above thing in…
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart-1.png)
…and one can pretty clearly see that one of these does not match (and one can also see that one of the image qualities here is much lower than the others and came from a much earlier time of working on procedural image generation, and will need updating to come in line with the image quality I’m working with now, but that’s a task for another time). A quick bit of fiddling and work later, however, and this problem appears to be solved, with the game now correctly giving priests the right (if aesthetically mediocre) robe for the religion in question:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart-3.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart-4.png)
I also in this process noticed that holy books were sometimes not spawning in appropriate numbers in some religious buildings. This issue seemed to be focused on the tables that might spawn in the branching sections away from the core of a religious building, i.e. holy books might spawn on tables in the middle of a religious building, but seemed very disinclined to spawn on tables in the branches (which in the generation system are placed later on). Again it happily wasn’t too much work to hunt down the issue here and get it fixed:
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart-5.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Iamsosmart-2.png)
On foot
A number of the new features and mechanics were working fine when used how the player will normally be using them, but were causing some lingering issues when being used in other contexts. These particularly involved doing things on foot rather than with the travel menu, which is always an option and needs to be appropriately catered for. The main two issues were the time of day iterating correctly when you were on foot – specifically when the day changed from one day to the next after passing through midnight – and the game giving you the menu to decide what you wanted to do at a city gate after unloading the current area but before passing through, leading to a crash if you just decided to turn back around and various other bizarre (both programmatically and visually) outcomes if you chose some of the other options.
In the first case the game can now correctly move from one day to the next by simply the time ticking over midnight – instead of the normal thing of moving one day to the next when you move across a map grid into the next one along – and doesn’t cause any weirdness with the visuals, nor incorrectly saying rubbish about you being in a town when you are not, actually, inside any kind of settlement. As a result of working on this I have also decided on a model where food and the like are only consumed when moving map grid – this might seem just fractionally strange ordinarily, but I think will work well under gameplay conditions, i.e. preventing scenarios where from the player’s perspective you are randomly charged a food or a water supply while you’re just walking around a map grid talking to people or doing whatever you might be doing. In the second case the game now gives you the menu you get at a city gate when you move into the city gate but before unloading the area you are currently in, allowing you to potentially turn back around and do something else without the game misbehaving, and allowing you to also use the other options (exchange currency, buy supplies, etc) and then be able to immediately go back to moving around the map grid you are on without a crash, a need to reload, or any other blasted weirdness.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Reckless.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe.png)
Fungus
The game presently generates large numbers of plants and animals – though only the plants at present actually appear in the game world with lovely new generated images in 0.10 – all of which are designed both to enhance and further the alive-ness of the game world, but also to serve as potential clues.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-3.png)
Maybe you learn a mansion with a garden full of plants with particular properties houses a great secret, and you need to research with herbalists and through books which plants possess that property, and hence which plants to look for in the gardens of local manors. Maybe you hear of a treasure buried in the area where the Two-Antlered Snow Deer performs its mating rituals; then you find a book about that animal and discover the exact location; and then you go there and try to find what’s buried. Although they might not appear for a little while, I’ve now also implemented a generator for fungi. I think these are mostly going to appear in cave / underground areas once those are implemented (though maybe also, far more rarely, above ground – or perhaps the more they appear above ground, the closer you are to a cave entrance?) but it was a really fun hour to design this generator and get these names implemented into the game’s tracking for future reference, future image generation, and future clue integration.
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trobe-1.png)
Bugs and the like
- General / walking-around messages in areas where the main thing is only in the centre of the map grid, such as monasteries and fortresses and towns (and later mines, universities, etc) no longer trigger if you’re at the edges of the map grid. This is a good change since it seemed a bit strange when you were talking through trees and the game said “Two people walk past you discussing [whatever]!”.
- Fixed, for what feels like the fifteenth time, the bug with priests sometimes perching themselves on top of altars like some kind of mad religious bird. I am now pretty certain priests will never stand on top of altars, and at most will stand next to them, regarding them with fervent awe.
- Entering the travel menu, moving into an exit from the city, and then choosing to turn back around rather than go through that exit, no longer results in a crash.
- Spawning a religious building, leaving and then coming back under a very specific set of circumstances, no longer causes the game to crash trying to figure out what the priest should be doing when you return.
- In anticipation of replacing reliquaries with the actual relics themselves in 0.10 (and because the reliquary as an item/feature no longer really works with the ideas I want to develop for religions), all reliquaries have now been replaced with offering tables in religious buildings, and will subsequently next year have relics spawning atop them.
- The text on the edge of the currency exchange screen will no longer sometimes get chopped off when dealing with currencies that have particularly long names.
- The starting year, month, and day of the game are now lightly randomised.
- Buying something or a number of somethings from the supplies menu now correctly and at the right time updates the sidebar showing your supplies of food, water, and equipment.
- Offering tables in churches now actually have different colours for when in vision, and outside of vision.
- Trying to place plants in a snowy biome can no longer sometimes lead to a crash; instead the game looks for plants that can spawn in that location, but if it finds none it selects a nearby area of tundra and uses the plants from that instead. Plants are also relatively sparse in snowy biomes compared to the others.
- You can now use the numpad 5 and the numpad enter to confirm things on even more menus which previously didn’t allow this (such as exchanging currencies).
- Indoor water now flickers and shimmers and changes colour each turn just like outdoor water does, and although one cannot currently find any kind of lava indoors, just in case this one day changes, the same would now work for indoor lava as well.
- Fixed a problem where monks would sometimes struggle to work out what religion they should belong to, and would instead opt for atheism, and crash the game.
What next?
Release!
Post by: Dorsidwarf on January 22, 2023, 02:46:06 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 22, 2023, 09:06:55 pm
Just skimming through but looks like some good stuff! Fixing ooold bugs has gotta be satisfying
Thanks Dorsi! And *yes*, absolutely it is, my goodness.
Post by: Lidku on January 26, 2023, 05:58:54 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 27, 2023, 05:47:09 pm
Will you add supernatural monsters to the game? One's that you can hunt down, or some that can turn you into a supernatural?
I'm pretty confident that nothing of that sort will ever be appearing! I'm going for a 99% realistic world, though with a few slightly weird things here and there, too :).
Post by: EuchreJack on January 28, 2023, 05:45:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 01, 2023, 08:55:44 pm
I'm reminded that city folk don't know what Cows look like, so Supernatural creatures are overkill...
Haha, well that is also true!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 03, 2023, 09:13:53 pm
So: barring the discovery of some game-breaking nonsense, I’ll release 0.10 next week at some point once a final few bugs have been squashed! See you all in a week 🙂
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10D.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10C.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10B.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/10A.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 04, 2023, 03:55:49 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 06, 2023, 12:21:45 am
Exciting! The adventure finally begins
Yes!!
Post by: Vivalas on February 07, 2023, 05:17:19 pm
Exciting! The adventure finally begins
Yes!!
Exciting indeed. I keep nagging you on your blog about this, but I might as well here too ;D
Any love for treasure maps, or are any of these quests you mentioned in your previous post implemented in any sort? Not as a critique but just to try to apprehend the state of things. I've tried just exploring the world a bit but it's hard for me to get engrained without some sort of "goal" to work towards, mechanically, anyways.
Either way it looks almost like a whole new game compared to 0.9 with the survival stuff, and 0.9 was a whole new game compared to 0.8 with trading and what not, so from a game design standpoint being able to drop updates like you are that make each iteration of your game feel completely different is pretty exciting and fascinating.
Is 0.11 going to be mostly books or will we see more "quest" elements and such? Great work as always :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 12, 2023, 09:42:07 am
Exciting indeed. I keep nagging you on your blog about this, but I might as well here too ;D
Any love for treasure maps, or are any of these quests you mentioned in your previous post implemented in any sort? Not as a critique but just to try to apprehend the state of things. I've tried just exploring the world a bit but it's hard for me to get engrained without some sort of "goal" to work towards, mechanically, anyways.
Either way it looks almost like a whole new game compared to 0.9 with the survival stuff, and 0.9 was a whole new game compared to 0.8 with trading and what not, so from a game design standpoint being able to drop updates like you are that make each iteration of your game feel completely different is pretty exciting and fascinating.
Is 0.11 going to be mostly books or will we see more "quest" elements and such? Great work as always :)
Thanks so much for this comment Vivalas! I *really* do appreciate it (and the kind words!). 0.11 is going to be a number of things, but WILL have an early draft of the central quest - I'm going to get the player starting off with a treasure map, and have something buried in the location the map points to. Later on I intend treasure maps being only one of many mysteries / puzzles, but it's the one I'm closest to implementing so I think giving the player access to treasure maps would be a really great way to engage people a bit more in 0.11 :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 13, 2023, 07:01:03 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/02/12/ultima-ratio-regum-0-10-released/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/02/12/ultima-ratio-regum-0-10-released/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Relics1-1.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on February 15, 2023, 04:16:39 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 18, 2023, 09:33:05 am
Exciting! I'll have to give it a good go this weekend.
Amazing, thanks Dorsi!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 26, 2023, 10:48:14 pm
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/02/25/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-1/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Relics1.png)
Post by: Duuvian on February 27, 2023, 01:23:12 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on February 28, 2023, 07:33:46 pm
I'll say, your artwork is outstanding.
Thank you Duuvian! I'm glad you like it :)
Post by: Salmeuk on February 28, 2023, 07:56:46 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 01, 2023, 07:58:22 pm
awesome to see this project still chugging along. I recall how you had written academic-level essays on game design, IIRC something about virtual worlds and simulation? anyways have you had time to write anything else in recent years?
Thank you Salmeuk! Well, in my day job as an academic I've published a hell of a lot in the last five or so years, but not very much on game design - my focus is far more game players / game workers (e.g. Twitch streamers). That said though I'm working on a book chapter about roguelites at the moment as a little side project for this collection - https://roguelitebook.wordpress.com/ (https://roguelitebook.wordpress.com/) - and once I've finished the full book I'm currently writing about Twitch it would be really nice to re-diversify my academic output a little bit. So: we'll see! :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 03, 2023, 11:38:18 pm
In the meantime though I'm pleased to say another update is on its way probably next week :). Really cracking along with 0.11.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 10, 2023, 11:21:22 pm
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/03/11/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-2/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/R2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Compa1-9.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Compa1-4.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on March 11, 2023, 08:46:21 am
The breaking-open system is fascinating, do you think there'll eventually be an equivalent for world objects like breaking open altars or tearing down tapestries to reveal secrets?
Also, will NPCs ever have a reaction to witnessing item destruction?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 11, 2023, 06:26:45 pm
Loving the rise of real interaction in the game!
The breaking-open system is fascinating, do you think there'll eventually be an equivalent for world objects like breaking open altars or tearing down tapestries to reveal secrets?
Also, will NPCs ever have a reaction to witnessing item destruction?
Thanks Dorsi! 100% re: destroying objects as well (though of course with consequences, if you march into a religious building and just start pickaxe-ing down their altar...) and reaction to item destruction is really interesting. I confess I hadn't thought of that. I think that's a great addition - it seems to me the normal reaction would be confusion, with rare very strong reactions (e.g. you destroy a book in front of an NPC who likes that kind of book, or you destroy a relic in front of someone belonging to that religion, etc)?
Post by: Caz on March 24, 2023, 06:54:53 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 28, 2023, 10:15:47 am
Every time I check on this game the ASCII gets more beautiful...
Aw, thank you friend! I really do appreciate it. I've got a lot more to show off soon where that came from :)
Post by: LASD on March 28, 2023, 12:35:21 pm
I tried the game for the first time ever and had a great time stumbling through a city, farm and a graveyard. I was unsuccessful at trading a book to the neighboring civilization and after marching across a desert into a third city, I heard the sounds of money being counted, but the game repeatedly saved and quit as I tried to walk through the bank doors. But I'm not deterred by that, it's kind of the nature of the beast with these type of games that some things get generated that don't sit well with the game.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on March 30, 2023, 09:13:39 am
Mostly commenting on here so I remember to check back on this fascinating project.
I tried the game for the first time ever and had a great time stumbling through a city, farm and a graveyard. I was unsuccessful at trading a book to the neighboring civilization and after marching across a desert into a third city, I heard the sounds of money being counted, but the game repeatedly saved and quit as I tried to walk through the bank doors. But I'm not deterred by that, it's kind of the nature of the beast with these type of games that some things get generated that don't sit well with the game.
Hey LASD, thank you so much for this comment! I really appreciate the feedback a heck of a lot. Re: the crash, damn, that's frustrating. Is there any way it produced an error log? And can you confirm - were you outside the bank and going in, and it crashed? Do you remember whether you were going into a bank or a mint? (Banks would be in middle-class housing districts, mints in city centres).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 01, 2023, 09:00:30 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/04/01/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-3/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/R2-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/sss2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Chesto-4.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on April 01, 2023, 09:25:30 am
Thanks very much for the update!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 02, 2023, 09:06:17 pm
Saw this blog post and came to say that not only are the artefacts and containers looking great, but looking at how the systems are functioning under the hood is also always fascinating!
Thanks very much for the update!
Thanks Dorsi! As ever I *really* do appreciate the feedback :).
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2023, 03:28:58 am
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Calt2.png)
Post by: Egan_BW on April 14, 2023, 01:41:53 pm
Post by: Inarius on April 14, 2023, 04:57:48 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on April 14, 2023, 10:59:47 pm
Fancy fancy! Is the symbol graffiti there generated as well? Might be interesting if it means something in the world... :p
Thank you! Yep, the loading screen now has a bunch of possible symbols and colours it can choose from (all the loading screens have some light PCG aspects, so wanted to get them in here as well). As for in-game, well, one of the unique things that a civilization might have will be these sorts of symbols all over the place on the walls of their buildings, and those symbols may, indeed, be important...
Oh ! I followed you yearrsssssss ago, but i thought you stopped. Very happy to see you are back in the project and well, too !
Thanks Inarius, welcome back into the fold! 0.11 is finally going to have a win condition, so these are exciting times :)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on May 13, 2023, 05:56:08 pm
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/05/11/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-4-buried-treasure/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/05/11/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-4-buried-treasure/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/sss233-2.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 10, 2023, 11:45:56 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/06/03/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-5-relics-crowns-and-buildings/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/06/03/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-5-relics-crowns-and-buildings/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Twitch-mockup.png)
Post by: Dorsidwarf on June 11, 2023, 08:56:27 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on June 12, 2023, 01:33:37 am
URR's new crowns are sure looking amazing! I imagine it wont be all that long before you can blunder into a room full of nobles and look over at one to suddenly realise he's wearing a crown and isn't pleased to be interrupted haha
Thanks Dorsi! And yes, yes indeed... 8)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on July 22, 2023, 08:57:18 am
Loads of new terrain, procedurally generated statues for all kinds of places, new religious relics, new aspects of city generation, and more!
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/07/12/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-6-relics-lands-and-statues/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/07/12/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-6-relics-lands-and-statues/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Statuez-1.png)
Post by: sofanthiel on August 08, 2023, 05:25:06 pm
It's mentioned in the conversations tab that the player can wake up sleeping NPCs, but how does one actually do that? Attempting to (s)peak just results in a "That person is asleep..."
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 09, 2023, 09:15:14 pm
Hey! I'm sorry if this is a very basic question, but I couldn't find the answer to it in the guidebook or on the internet.
It's mentioned in the conversations tab that the player can wake up sleeping NPCs, but how does one actually do that? Attempting topeak just results in a "That person is asleep..."
Hi Sofanthiel! This is a great question - and you're right, I don't think you currently can! Thanks for spotting this one. In 0.12 I plan to hugely expand the conversation system, so I've made a note that this is something I need to come back to later :).
Post by: sofanthiel on August 10, 2023, 04:03:59 am
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 18, 2023, 11:05:03 am
Thanks for the reply! Also, apologies for a part of my question being crossed out; I didn't realize square brackets with an "s" inside caused that :)
Haha, all good!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 26, 2023, 07:01:35 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/08/07/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-7-allegiances-eldritch-horrors-and-fast-travel/
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/08/07/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-7-allegiances-eldritch-horrors-and-fast-travel/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/status4a-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/status4b.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Old8.png)
Post by: Egan_BW on August 26, 2023, 02:25:32 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on August 26, 2023, 05:53:51 pm
Ia Ia!
The procedurally-generated goat of the woods with a random.randint(0, 1000) young!
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 23, 2023, 08:14:59 pm
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/09/09/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-8-faces-wounds-altars-travel-diseases/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/09/09/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-8-faces-wounds-altars-travel-diseases/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Emi1-6.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Emi1-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Ew.png2_.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Newaltar.png)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on September 30, 2023, 09:23:41 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/09/30/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-9-death-keys-statues-messages-weather/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/09/30/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-9-death-keys-statues-messages-weather/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Stat1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Key2s-1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Maraj.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Weather2.png)
Post by: Egan_BW on September 30, 2023, 01:05:42 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 01, 2023, 06:44:42 pm
Is there a minimum age to which the player's expected death date can fall? It would look a bit odd if the message for "you're about to die in your twenties because you drank 500,000 bottles of booze" is still "as you get older." ;p
Heh, that's a fun question! I honestly don't know yet. That said though, getting the money to buy an unlimited amount of alcohol would not be trivial, but if you're starting in your early twenties, I'd probably stop it from falling too far below... I don't know, early 40s? It's a great question though, I'll have to think about it!
Post by: AlStar on October 01, 2023, 08:47:34 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 06, 2023, 09:20:04 am
Those keys look great! I'm repeating myself, but your ASCII artwork just really just next level.
Thanks AlStar! I really appreciate it :). I'm glad you like them - I was really happy with how this second attempt at keys came out. I first (2014??) thought it was challenging to make a mundane item look interesting, but now I just see it really was a question of artistic competence...
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on October 21, 2023, 09:58:50 am
I'll be talking about how to procedurally generate cryptic, La-Mulana / The Outer Wilds, -esque puzzles. Should be good :). Do come along if you can! (Video will be up on YouTube later)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Slieds1.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Slieds1.pn4_.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Scrap.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Slieds1.pn4_.pngbbb.png)
Post by: Egan_BW on October 21, 2023, 06:52:49 pm
Usually games with a roguelike structure eventually get broken down by a motivated enough player who will start to recognize all the distinct elements of the generation. Unexpected things can happen, but often not in a way the developer could have foreseen or accounted for, which doesn't seem ideal for puzzles which should ideally make sense and be solvable.
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on November 18, 2023, 10:19:04 pm
I'll be excited to see if, indeed, you can. Because it sounds like a hard problem! ;)
Usually games with a roguelike structure eventually get broken down by a motivated enough player who will start to recognize all the distinct elements of the generation. Unexpected things can happen, but often not in a way the developer could have foreseen or accounted for, which doesn't seem ideal for puzzles which should ideally make sense and be solvable.
You are 100% right about this, Egan! The point about things getting broken down by the motivated player (or a group project like a wiki, and so on) is a really key one. I'm really trying in a number of ways to push this point as far back as possible in the puzzle generation, a lot of which I'll be talking about in future posts...
...and, speaking of which, here's the blog post version of my talk!
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/10/21/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-10-riddle-generation-1/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/10/21/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-10-riddle-generation-1/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/TR1-2.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Noot-1.png)
While the talk is here, for those who fancy a gander:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDWt6RGN9wM&ab_channel=RoguelikeCelebration (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDWt6RGN9wM&ab_channel=RoguelikeCelebration)
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 02, 2023, 03:39:07 am
https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/11/18/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-11/ (https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/2023/11/18/ultima-ratio-regum-0-11-update-11/)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Major.gif)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Rain.gif)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Doesanyonereadfilenmaes.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/GERD.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Bench1-10.png)
(https://www.markrjohnsongames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Flap2.png)
Post by: LuuBluum on December 09, 2023, 02:07:07 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 15, 2023, 08:36:48 am
Post by: Egan_BW on December 15, 2023, 03:29:30 pm
Post by: ventuswings on December 15, 2023, 07:54:10 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 16, 2023, 12:58:13 am
I'm not aware of anything like that. URR is a long road from being complete still.
Huh, the webpage says:
Quote
The latest major releases, 0.9 and 0.10, introduce currencies, procedurally-generated items, trade, and ship-board travel. 1.0 is coming soon - watch this space!
But hey, hearing that is good enough for me to download it :)
Post by: Micro102 on December 16, 2023, 06:56:46 am
How do I buy things? Also, any recommendations on what to do first?
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on December 19, 2023, 11:16:50 pm
Out of curiosity, have you played the game "The Case of the Golden Idol" that released this year? I have a feeling that, given the direction of Ultima Ratio Regum, that you would enjoy that game a good deal because it touches on very many similar elements that you're trying here with this game.
I have not - though it's on my Steam list! I'm definitely going to give it a look at some point.
I wanted to try this game but I read that the complete version is coming out soon? Does anyone know when that would be? Days? Months?
Days or months is optimistic my friend! It's a 12 year project so far but things are coming along nicely :). However...
Already stuck :(
How do I buy things? Also, any recommendations on what to do first?
...right now your key "objectives" are to explore the world, use 'l' or ';' to look at stuff, use 's' to speak with people, and try to fill up the encyclopedia! To get trading you want to head to a trade district in a city, or to a town, and find some shops - 'T' for fast travel will help :).
Yeah, there are still many things that are on the road map. Recent update does say next version is going to add procedural puzzles that require world travel for completion, so I guess it's going to be first version that actually introduces campaign objective to strive towards.
Yes indeed! Hoping even for a win condition in 0.11, but we'll see...!
Post by: Micro102 on December 23, 2023, 10:13:26 pm
Post by: Ultima Ratio Regum on January 30, 2024, 10:47:51 am
Ah yes I am at a shop. I mean when I go to purchase something I press Enter and it highlights it, but I don't see a way to finalize the purchase?
Got it! You should be able to scroll down and there's an option at the bottom to confirm the purchase?
In the meantime, just uploaded a nice little year-end summary on Reddit :).
https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1aepg8p/2024_in_roguelikedev_ultima_ratio_regum/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikedev/comments/1aepg8p/2024_in_roguelikedev_ultima_ratio_regum/)