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[Ultima Ratio Regum]

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".

[Retropunch]

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.

[Haspen]

PTW, because I actually never did!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

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!

[Retropunch]

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.

[Scoops Novel]

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.

[Retropunch]

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.
 

[NJW2000]

I vaguely recall stuff about a time limit on the mystery, but that might be my imagination or old news.

[Retropunch]

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.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

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!

[Zireael]

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...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

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:













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!

[Retropunch]

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?

[NJW2000]

Nice! Looks really cool, though the "I don't want to give an answer to that enquiry" spam is a bit awkward.

[Dorsidwarf]

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