Compass in UI

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 00:31:38

How easy it is to get lost? Not very easy, if one has a map and a compass. The compass, if we have any in game, will help player to direct his steps to nearest village but as I have understood, there is no real item 'compass'. It will be more like 'built-in'.
The thing is that if players have a navigation skill, the lay-out is interesting. What if the pointing arrow can mistake randomly, depending of the skill of character. There may be other things effecting the 'where's the north' situation. If you walk in dark but see the stars it will help you, if you know enough about navigation. Also, if you walk under blue sky, you can determine the direction from the sun. Furthermore one can see directions from nature, leafs towards sun etc.

The main thing is, that you can get lost if you have no good navigator in your party. This would make the roleplaying more interesting.

- Can we thrust him?
- We have to, we do not know the way.

Later..

- He has left us!
- Left here in the middle of nowhere... Well, do you know which side of a tree does an ant hill stand?

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 22:40:48
In-Reply-To: 397

Navigation in the game will be of these forms:

Nature navigation PRIMARY consists of:

SKY (sun,moon(s),stars) - requires a map with say a North direction on it to use the sky to navigate. Or directions to go north so long, etc...

LANDMARK - will be the MOST COMMON form of navigation. Player maps will most likely contain landmarks as the form of navigation.

NATURE - will consist of finding your way by following a natural feature like a mountian chain, or river, or coast line, or forest line. MYTH navigational aids (ant hills, tree leaves, moss on trees, etc.. are not to be used by players unless they want to end up lost and dieing.).

Magical Navigation (HIGHLY uncommon, mostly reserved for gods and sages)

Magical Compas, that points to a magical node or specific object always.

Sages will possess a detailed map and should magicaly always sense the direction of north.

From: Rakel
Date: 2002-03-12 19:39:41
In-Reply-To: 397

Just a thought... I do not really know how to use a map or a compass, but I have never got lost. As a kid I walked a lot in forests and I guess I have some innate sense of direction, cause I always knew how to get back to where I started walking. If there was some actual place I wanted to go, I also knew in what direction it would be (if I had been there earlier)

Based on this "gut feeling", could the "compass" have actually two arrows, one to point at your starting point and other to point to the place where you want to go. This would imo give players better feeling of actually being there.

From: namhas
Date: 2002-01-29 10:59:15
In-Reply-To: 397

GPS map system.

How about for those who have mapmaking skill could just hit a button to start recording (just like using RL GPS) as you walk and then hit a button when you feel like you've reached your destination and then you could name the destination.

Then people could read the map with navigation skill and the success in navigation would first determine how much information you could extract from it. For example, with low skill you couldn't perhaps even try to determine the distances or approximate travel times. With good skill you could see these too. Lower percent you have more chance you would have to "get of the track".

The GPS compass would show the direction you would need to walk (it would follow the track someone recorded) and it would also show distance and travel time and if one map has more than one location recorded them it would just show them all.

From: Zugreb
Date: 2002-01-29 09:21:49
In-Reply-To: 397

First of all we don't have to put oientig skill cause
players will not have out map :) (as I remember or am I wrong)

There maybe will be player created maps but nobody will now
if they are correct or not... or somthing of that sort...

From: Zugreb
Date: 2002-01-29 11:45:18
In-Reply-To: 404

This sub. has been discussed I think and automatic
map recording was found too accurate... god's don't
want accurate map's of the world to get out
there would be no room for myths :P

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 13:19:28
In-Reply-To: 405

True. And that is not.. just.. working. I don't like autoskills, at least in this case

But the most interesting part is the fact that traveling is dangerous if you have no precise maps and lack of knowledge in navigation.

The skill 'navigation' may still be replaced with knowledge if astronomy during nights or under blue sky and knowledge of nature while traveling in forests. The ants know..

From: namhas
Date: 2002-01-30 07:00:21
In-Reply-To: 405

Well, one wouldn't have actually to look at the map and it would depend on map reader's navigation skill to get anything out of it. Unless having maxed navigation skill, one could always miss the target a bit or something.

It would be also more fun to follow path that is going
turns all around than just walk forward. With bad navigation
skill just that would happen. And one would also need to
trust the map maker.

From: Zugreb
Date: 2002-01-29 13:49:51
In-Reply-To: 406

Well the travelling shuld be drangeruos that is the
hole point :) it's real world :P

And capability to navigate is the skill of the player
not the caracter so there is no need for that kinda
skill... like there is no need for wizdom skill cause
players knowledge is the one that counts :)

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-29 16:10:47
In-Reply-To: 407

why not give or make avaiable a general map of the island to each player, this map would basicly not very accurate but give them an idea theres two mountains and two other islands (that could be seen if they stand on the shore), so players that learn basic navigation skills, if we make like a "north star" and the sun rise and set in the proper quandrants of the sky, players can navigate on there own without any special skills. (except cloudy days.. heh) a magnetic compass wouldn't work on a flat world, so those are out the door, a satalite gps system would, but this is the midevil time so they didnt have computers... navigation should be done like it was done in midevil times, very inaccuratly, few people globaly traveled and those people quite often where never heard from again.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:23:58
In-Reply-To: 407

I think the compass should still reflect the skill of the character.. I don't think that players can (whether they are able by game mechanics or not) navigate with stars just by looking the sky.
It would be realistic if they could, but if the player wants to be a 'true ranger' and wants to play like one, but can't navigate.. well, IMHO the lack of skill of player should not prevent the character to be good at something. The truth is, on the other hand, that some skills are bound to skill of the player, like speaking, but that does not have to be same in this situation.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-01-29 16:30:08
In-Reply-To: 410

No, no, NO. No maps, no compasses, no fucking GPS. And it's medieval, not midevil.

From: yorkaturr
Date: 2002-01-29 16:14:48
In-Reply-To: 410

And where did the players acquire these maps from? And who cares if a magnetic compass wouldn't work in a flat world, it can work if we make it work. Maybe it's the Pink Blubbery Fish of Alunga-Sai weaving a sphere of temptation spell in the far north that makes the compass work.

Remember, science does not apply to Majik. Everything is so, because Gods want it to be so. GPS's would be magical, not based on computer chips.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:30:59
In-Reply-To: 412

If we want these maps to be, one of us can make one, while in game, and the map exists only in the game as item. We can use it, or hide it..

Hey, give me that!
Only one map in this bloody island! What a mess..

And the famous GPS.. If we really want a magical.. ..one, well, IMHO we should give it to sages no others.

From: origon
Date: 2002-01-29 16:50:15
In-Reply-To: 415

I think there should be compasses, i see no harm in having those, but they should not be a part of the UI unless you have it in your hand.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:36:58
In-Reply-To: 415

No maps in medieval?

'The compass' - I didn't mean it would be real, just reflecting the chracters ability to navigate.

f****ng GPS? what is it? The meaning would be more like 'The ability to feel the place in world' and only for sages and gods for example.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-29 16:47:30
In-Reply-To: 416

I didn't mean only one map.. lol
I ment maps could be bought from a npc shop or sages can sell them or something, but just a general vauge map that each beginning player has access to aquire one.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-01-29 16:41:59
In-Reply-To: 417

I mean "no maps" as in: no maps generated with skills, no maps generated by code.

If someone at some point implements writing and drawing on parchments, stone or whatever medium, players can freely doodle their own maps on them. Other than that, no maps.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-01-29 16:49:07
In-Reply-To: 418

yes, maps should be hand drawn and scanned into art then made an item. And the maps we start out with should be quite vauge, maps that hare detailed either would sell for alot of money or be kept just for sages and gods.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:46:03
In-Reply-To: 418

That is something I truly agree. No 'autoskills' no premade maps. Actually there were discussion earlier concidering the map drawing system and my suggestion was to give players list of pictures they can 'draw' to papers and so on.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:52:19
In-Reply-To: 420

Brouhgt by a sage, eh? Sounds rational. But the best part is that you can never fully trust 'home made' map.. More inaccurate, more fun.

And eventually the maps will get to shops for sale. This could be a real business for someone.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-04 18:45:46
In-Reply-To: 421

No. No premade maps includes drawn and scanned maps. If there are any kinds of pre-made maps at all in the world, they are taken as Gods' word. Everybody simply copies and follows them with all brain activity at zero.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-01-29 16:56:27
In-Reply-To: 421

This may be a bit arduous. It can be arranged more easily by doing all the 'drawings' in game.

Premade pictures are imported to engine and then players attach them to papers - so the actual drawing is made while you walk and see the mountans and the river.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-10 04:31:29
In-Reply-To: 422

compass in this case could be an artifact that would point to one constant location. Different artifacts would point to different points in the world, so common orienteering should be done by stars and landmarks... relying on hearsayings etc. Sages might have the skill to do these pointing arms (whatever) for different purposes. Nice source for small guest.

From: namhas
Date: 2002-01-30 07:03:28
In-Reply-To: 425

That would be fun indeed, if someone could create business out of creating maps. (he would need to have good map maping skill and some fame). People wouldn't just buy whatever person's maps.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-02-04 16:28:23
In-Reply-To: 427

Way to detailed, if there is an image mapping it will consist of a blank peice of paper, and a pen tool so they can draw it with there mouse and a tool for typing text to the map. It won't automaticly generate perfect maps of where the player walks.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-02-04 18:42:57
In-Reply-To: 443

There can't be a mapping skill, because that would require some form of auto-mapping.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-04 19:04:51
In-Reply-To: 534

No, there cant so we have to rely on hand-drawed ones.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-04 19:08:39
In-Reply-To: 535

See, there can be premade pictures like a house, willage, a river.. etc. But noThen folk can draw them, by actually 'gluing' the premade pictures to blank papers..

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-10 17:35:22
In-Reply-To: 541

We don't have to rely on hand-drawn ones. We can make automapping easily. Make a simple 2d-vector plane and place the texture on it. Then change the position of every vector a little in random direction depending on the mapdrawers mapmaking skill - you got an unaccurate map of an area.

And about compasses, I think that you should buy one. Or even better - buy two! Why would we need to set the compass to needle to point north? Let's make it so that a needle with a tip of mysterious material X points to some mystical mystical tower or something that has some kind of 'magical' power. While we're at it let's make it so that enchanted items always are drawn towards another point of the world. You can make up the story for that. With those two separate compasses anyone could find out their general position - unless on same line with these two points. :-)

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-02-04 19:10:13
In-Reply-To: 542

Error.. ???

But no whole maps. (There was.. A bug?)

Then folk can... blah blah..

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-10 18:55:20
In-Reply-To: 1051

I do not think compasses should point at different places, this because it removes much of the exploratiion part of the game. Maybe there could be one central place where the compass would point, but not several different. Otherwise we would end up with the interface of the average brainless action game; go here and blow up this building, we will then give you a new waypoint.

Sorry if I was repeating myself, just woke up :)

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-10 19:34:24
In-Reply-To: 1052

Do we want automapping?

The compass, it may be magical, yes, I like that idea. (The magic compasses are very rare and expensive though.)But I still suggest that every player has a' compass' of his own from very beginning. Not an item but a skill. It should reflect the characters ability to navigate. Think of a newbie player. He is completely lost if left without a smallest hint of direction. Even a common peasant is able to navigate with sun and stars somehow. And the compass should simply mean skill that determines how you can find your way.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-12 19:27:15
In-Reply-To: 1053

I don't know if we're talking about the same thing but what I meant that there would be two DIFFERENT compasses (or things that work like compasses) and would always point into same spots. A compass that would home to a person or place you define would be cool, but too suffeli (ie. out of scope in power).

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-11 07:36:02
In-Reply-To: 1054

Started as a short 10 line comment, but kept growing. Lots of mistakes. Enjoy.

For me this is soooo much fun... I just don't understand how this topic can raise so much debate, so I keep coming back... I read these comments rather frequently, but there just doesn't seem to be any real issue here.

I try to tip off the scale one final time (not actually promising anything). Creating a world, in which one can explore and wonder and feel amazed (please, feel free to insert some more elevating thoughts) does not include an automatic feature which will register and draw an image of the actual world.

If we have easy to produce and accurate maps, there is no fear of getting lost, no need to plan well ahead, getting the big picture of the world would take no time, no sense of space and adventure. All this will lead into a situation, where traveling will not be challenging anymore. Anyone can go about, come back and rely on the skill, as people would trek around constantly, soon everybody has high skill of navigation. Now, is that fun? Everybody just being able to walk where they want.

As I live in Taipei I often have the feeling of being lost, getting out of bus or metro brings me to totally new place and I need to locate myself in a jungle of chinese characters. This feeling of unsecurity and bevilderment would definately be an asset, I reserve an extra hour if I need to go a district where I have not been before. Even familiar areas often give troubles and often my travelling is determined by routes that I commute. So, I would like to see something like this with Majik. There might be a road from village to another and only fools or very adept navigators would take short cuts, because familiar route is always preferred. If we make navigation easy, to make actual traveling interesting (and dangerous) once again, we need to provide landscape full of dangers and that most likely leads into hacking and slashing. I would like to see working foodchains and this would probably lead into a situation, where the countryside would not be populated by dangerous meat eating monsters (Im scared already)

Newbie player should be lost, because if they have the illusion of being able to orienteer or do any other task with relative certainty, they just take the risk, without giving second thoughts... "Ahaa, so you say that the village of Maulin is 30 sights south from here. Hmm, I think I'll stop by there, anyway, its so close" Just one simple thing of not knowing where the south is, would raise the barrier for traveling considerably. Newbie player would have the need to really communicate, bond and make allies to survive. No more, "let's attack that colossal moving thing over there" -playing.

We could introduce a system that would have fixed stars, maybe the sun would be constantly in zenith and instead of circulating, it would fluctuate, making it hot and bright during the day (naturally) and during the night it would turn dim, letting other points of light in the sky appear. As the stars would be fixed too, some common knowledge about directions would soon arise. "Maulin is in the direction of that green star" or "The Old Red points to the north" So, when in doubt, wait for the night fall and take the risk of walking during the night or try to mark the direction of north and continue next morning.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-12 19:22:06
In-Reply-To: 1057

Heh. You're right that a newbie in OUR world in present day wouldn't be able to navigate well, but what about 1500 years ago? Back then a skill to navigate could be neccessary for everyone but the people living in biggest cities. Nowadays I wouldn't be able to navigate with stars almost at all... Only with the sun. But I'd require one thing that would help the people without navigating tools in sunlight : Some indication on time of day since with it, the sun and the knowledge of your whereabouts on the map (on order of 50kms in majik) will help you to determine the north even though unaccurately.

Also the navigating should be a skill because we are not playing as the guy who sits at the keyboard but as the guy who is walking on the screen. Skill could be implemented, for example, by a arrow that points north when some indicators are found. For example after looking at the sky for a couple of seconds with a player character who has some skill in navigation would see a arrow fading in from blackness of space between the stars pointing to the north.

And by the way. I think that we will have rotating stars around the majik would just for fun and neatness of it.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-12 20:45:41
In-Reply-To: 1071

Also the navigating should be a skill because we are not playing as the guy who sits at the keyboard but as the guy who is walking on the screen. Skill could be implemented, for example, by a arrow that points north when some indicators are found. For example after looking at the sky for a couple of seconds with a player character who has some skill in navigation would see a arrow fading in from blackness of space between the stars pointing to the north.

That is the thing I've tried to tell you! :) I agree to that.

And if char is not very good at navigation then the arrow will point a bit wrong..

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-13 17:36:11
In-Reply-To: 1072

There could be some spell that creates a beacon and a 'homer'. The homer would always orient to the location of the beacon. Beacons can then be picked up by anyone, and that would be interesting. I don't like the idea of compasses pointing to a static position (Tower of power or something).

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 21:40:29
In-Reply-To: 1073

I doubt you ever traveled great distances. Where talking hundreds of km here its far different traveling that distance, and by sea you have no visual aid to guide you, you couldn't just say "ohh its this way" because if you are in the ocean and close your eyes and spin arround, you have lost total direction, without knowledge of the sun and stars you'll be totally lost and might sail out into nothing and die. Then the problem is what if clouds block the sun and stars? how does one navigate then? :P

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-13 17:24:53
In-Reply-To: 1073

Then you can never get lost, and that sucks IMHO :)

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-13 17:30:54
In-Reply-To: 1074

What fun it is if the player themselves do not learn, why not instead make the stars position fixed and have a 'northern star'. The sky would look the same all over the world. This would make the player have a more active role, than clicking some button.
Arrows floating around are not fun.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-13 19:08:55
In-Reply-To: 1077

And now the question really is: Will players learn?

And of cource it is nice when you can look at the sky, but how about days then? Will there be something like:

Oh look, there is an ant hill, south is that way.
or
Ah, the leaves of this tree show me that north is there.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-14 08:51:10
In-Reply-To: 1077

fixed stars could be coupled with god specific stars, which could be used to guess Gods "mood". Star of Harum, might be, let's say, on the eastern sky and it had been observed - during thousands of years - to shimmer with green glow, when something strange was about to happen.

So, sort of a simplistic starlore to make life and stars more interesting. If stars actually variate in colour or brightness is of course irrelevant. Fixed positions would also save some coding and what is there to gain from rotation?

One more thing to defend my "fluctuating" sun is to say that it would give much stronger magical feeling to this world. It would, from the very beginning, really show that there is something different in this place.

I remeber (faintly), when I saw THE star wars for the first time (I was probably 7)... There was actually more than one moon (or was it sun:) on the evening sky... "whoooa that place is really far away", thought this young lad, then.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 21:37:24
In-Reply-To: 1078

Why not to a magical spring of energy, ie. a node. They are powerful wells of magical energy that spills into the mortal plane and thus a magical device could detect them even at great distances. :P

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 21:35:32
In-Reply-To: 1079

I don't see why an alchemist couldn't create some sort of device that would always point to a specific location, i.e. north, or a specific area of the map? The principals behind a compas isn't very complex. But if we have a flat world and no "magnetic north" then we'd have to point to a specific "magical" node or spot. If we have nodes, why couldn't we have a magical item that always indicates the direction of that node?

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-13 21:48:51
In-Reply-To: 1081

The only problem here is, that magic is rare. And rare is expensive - and hard to get. So most of players only dream of it. Still most of players should be able to navigate somehow, so at least we need something else too.

I see no need to think of some magical items under this thread because it is not what most players use. We can have them, and it is a good idea, but still, what would be the main navigation system? That we need.

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-13 22:10:10
In-Reply-To: 1082

You don't, you pray :).

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 22:02:15
In-Reply-To: 1084

I didn't say everyone would have them, and I am not fond of ploping a compas into the pockets of every player, or even haveing it as a UI thing. The sun will rise and set in the same whatever we chose (dosn't have to be E-W) and there will be a constent star (dosn't have to be N) in the night sky, there also would be other navigational things that where avaiable to people of the medieval time period, but compasas wasn't one of them. Players will have to learn how to navigate as a skill that is unique to them, NOT a skill made in the game. If a player wants to travel from point A to B and it involves going off the "beaten path" or known roads, then they will have to chance it or hire someone who knows the route to take them. Travel is supost to be dangerous, and difficult. A player wouldn't want to travel alone because some nasty monster or other npc race might kill them. I would like to see some nasty canibial npc race liveing arround that would kill and eat travilers if they where unwise enough to travel alone and not be properly armed. The world isn't HUGE in our standards, and thus we want it to be VERY difficult for a player to travel globaly. Most players might never leave Nemen! imagine that. And traveling by sea should be very dangerous. In this time-period it was VERY rare for people to travel by sea and the people that did, large prcentages did die. Thats what feed the belif of the world being flat and if you sailed off to far you'd fall of the end and die. Because the people would watch as the ships would sail away and they would eventlually dissapear, and they never returned because they got killed so they assumed they fell of the end of the world.

We don't want people at mass taking to the high seas and traviling globaly, so we don't want to give them a SUPER advantage of a UI compas or any other UI nagigational aid. They have to learn it them selves.

My two cents.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-15 21:37:52
In-Reply-To: 1086

We don't want people at mass taking to the high seas and traviling globaly, so we don't want to give them a SUPER advantage of a UI compas or any other UI nagigational aid. They have to learn it them selves.

Remember that we are playing characters on the screen. You sound like you'd like that the players themselves would learn to navigate using stars and stuff like that when in fact it should be the work of the player character. Why? Let's say that you start your adventure with some kind of ranger and learn to travel around... After that you die and start playing a dwarf who has lived his entire life in a cave. Fortunately the player himself knows how to navigate using majik stars so the dwarf rents a boat and sails away with the 95% navigating skill of the player.

This kind of stuff happens with other things too, but we'd like to minimize it, right? And UI compasses would come into play only when the player character himself has idea of directions. It shouldn't matter at all wheter the player himself knows where north is. The UI compass is just because it reflects the mind of player character. If the character is a dwarf fresh popped out of the cave complex then there won't be any UI compass. It shows what the player character is thinking, not the truth.

I hope you got my point now.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-13 22:12:45
In-Reply-To: 1088

thats exactly how i want it :)

All navigation be done by players and what they see in the game. No UI help. :P

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-15 21:41:21
In-Reply-To: 1089

I want all the navigation done by the little pixel characters on the screen, not by the guy who starts his 30th character and already knows every single important navigating thingy when he starts a new character.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-13 22:18:09
In-Reply-To: 1089

Allright, but a skilled person can determine the directions from nature, so is there need for this? I'd like to have it. When you know enough about nature you can navigate without seeing the sky.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-14 08:40:12
In-Reply-To: 1093

I agree. One little detail could be changed and that is the direction of north, maybe our flat world should have for example the sense of center, instead of other kind of direction. Players can of course perceive directions from the stars any way they want.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-14 08:44:07
In-Reply-To: 1098

Yes, we shouldn't explicitly define "NORTH" players can look at the sun and assign meaning to what direction it rises them selves.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-14 09:29:04
In-Reply-To: 1099

But there can be cultural things to determine where the sun is when it shines first time in the morning and last time in the evening. So we can have names for directions like 'Rising' etc.. I think folk have invented the directions for maps earlier.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-14 08:59:01
In-Reply-To: 1101

I think the majik world would have two moons, a greater moon and a lesser moon. (someone want to write storys about?) They sky should also contain constilations, (gods/ancient warriors/animals?) example the Yorkator constilation being of some war like figure the star represening his eye could normaly be a red giant star and glow red. (possibly it could change colors depending on his mood, and players may or may not notice this color?).

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-14 09:21:32
In-Reply-To: 1103

There is two moons in sky - and one sun :)

possibly it could change colors depending on his mood, and players may or may not notice this color?

That sounds iteresting, hmm.. why not?

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-14 09:32:33
In-Reply-To: 1106

Sort of thought that it would be fun for the Gods to give their opinions for the whole world and of course the world would wait eagarly.

Also such a small thing could be an incentive for a player to reach Godhood, there would be a new star on the sky. Maybe we could align the stars so that the God politics would be presented Good gods to the right and Evil gods to the left. New stars (gods) would be place according their orientation. This would be a nice map to check for the distribution of divine points. God gets more power and the star gets brighter. Constallations would thereby live according to what gods do and create a wonderful display for mortals. Heh, this would be a reason for lowly peasant to support some low rank god among Harum's harem :) in order to make position higher/closer Harum's.

Well, maybe this is enough for now

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-14 10:18:21
In-Reply-To: 1108

It would be nice if ancient writings didn't ever refer to directions as north or south, but used some other term for them, if it mentions directions at all. This would get players to have to decyper what the ancient texts really mean, and study them. Everything shouldn't be cut and dry.

From: darshan
Date: 2002-03-16 16:51:02
In-Reply-To: 1113

That player-oriented world information should avoid compass directions is a very good insight. We should be very very careful with that kind of texts once writing them becomes relevant.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-14 14:14:14
In-Reply-To: 1113

Yes. good idea. This large scale history production will probably be the next thing (after getting Nemen up and running) Texts should also be separated into different places as a result of disagreements between different religious factions etc. We could have certain things in history that are described bit differently by different cultures, so in order to know what really happened to that Holy Grail, one should roam across the country, visiting wisemen, libraries, storytellers... hmm, nice.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-14 10:24:18
In-Reply-To: 1113

Well, that is quite true. Sounds good to me.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-15 22:28:38
In-Reply-To: 1135

Hmm.. That's a good point. Maybe the compass should still reflect the character's ability to navigate after all..

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-16 15:00:04
In-Reply-To: 1135

well if you don't want players to learn how to navigate by the sky alone, then it shouldn't be possible to navigate by the sky. I'm sure players will write "how-to" docs on navigation and put it on there websites. And have screenshots showing how to tell where "north" is, and maps with directions, etc... :P

If you make it possible to navigate by the sky, then you will have players doing just what you don't want them to do. Why use a compas if its just inaccurate because your character dosn't know enough when you can just look up into the sky and tell exactly where north is.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-15 22:30:08
In-Reply-To: 1136

every single important navigating thingy when he starts a new character.

+ every little landmark in some areas too..

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-16 15:02:44
In-Reply-To: 1136

again, you gotta make it impossible to navigate. No riseing/setting sun, no rotateing stars. Otherwise a player will do just that, start a new character, have good enough knowledge of the world, sail his new character to where he wants, no need to learn navigation, he already knows how from just the sky.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-16 15:03:52
In-Reply-To: 1138

exactly, if a player learns all the important landmarks in the areas, he will be able to navigate with that too, and a new characer will find his way arround useing landmarks, and sky navigation, no need for a UI compas that is inaccurate.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-16 15:48:04
In-Reply-To: 1156

Well. We both seem to agree that there is uneven advantage for the player who has played before on the player who plays his first character.

Now, we can have two partial solutions for this problem :

1) As you said, let's make navigating harder for everyone. For example we could reduce the amount of navigational landmarks and other things.
2) Let's make navigating easier by using the UI compass.
This way we ensure that even a new player can navigate quite well with a character who should know it pretty well himself.
3) Do nothing.

None of these will solve the problem but I think that by going for the option #2 we can make the gap pretty small for newbies on new chars and experienced players with new chars.

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-17 01:56:55
In-Reply-To: 1158

I agree on this, learning that the stars / sun position can give you hits on directions do not take many travels to realize anyhow. I want the player to play the game, not only guide an AI.

From: origon
Date: 2002-03-17 02:01:23
In-Reply-To: 1159

So, are you going to shuffle around the islands and city every time a new player is born as well?

_including parts of other post i made_
learning that the stars / sun position can give you hits on directions do not take many travels to realize anyhow. I want the player to play the game, not only guide an AI.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-16 21:39:32
In-Reply-To: 1159

but the reward of many hours of play is being able to do things like navigation. There isn't anything you can take from your dead 10 year old player to your newbie player except your knowledge of the game. Possibly this is wanted because they have already spent the time to learn this stuff, there new character should be allowed to advance faster then a brand new newbie player's character.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-16 17:28:31
In-Reply-To: 1159

#2 is the best solution from those. It's the char who is navigating not the player.

From: Yendor
Date: 2002-03-16 22:50:56
In-Reply-To: 1178

Heh. But I still insist on 'internal compass' that shows the way that the character thinks 'North' or some other place is. It will be easier for the players who play the game for some first times, but it could be turned off or something if someone really wants to read the start based on his own experience.

Well... Games with permanent death really have all kinds of problems:
"Hi Xyzzy."
"Hi. Who are you?"
"My name's Baa Fur. So what about the quest you were talking about?"
"Huh? How do you know about it? I've never seen anyone like you before."
"Oh yeah. It's me, Cotlow the rock farmer. I died in those stupid caves northwest from here and had to start a new character."
"Ah. Too bad. Still remember where you hid all that stuff in case you die?"

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-17 06:11:22
In-Reply-To: 1180

possible some sort of npc race that is intelegent enough to "find" hidden valueables that players have dropped, and take them, either to "sacrafice" to a god or to sell.

From: Takomtor
Date: 2002-03-17 03:42:25
In-Reply-To: 1182

This is true. Having an UI compass/guiding system that would really restrict the player and let the character on the screen do what is should, would be possible only if player would be disconnected from actual guiding of a character. Now, what is the sense in having 3rd person UI where you cannot make your character walk to a shop, since the characters knowledge of the world is inadequate...

Oh, man... imagine our newbie character following our command from experienced players point of view

walk to shop "F+++, where is this character walking, Damn, the shop is over there.... yep, I'm outta here, stupid game"

Walk to Eldin "F+++, where is this character walking, Damn, Eldin is in the north.... yep, I'm really outta here, stupid game"

One thing that can be incorporated into UI is perception or speed and other things like that. These would make you actually see further (in game graphics) and run/climb faster/better/higher/ more is the cry of a mistaken soul, more than enough cannot satisfy the man. (or something like that)

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-17 12:38:09
In-Reply-To: 1191

Or just NPC guards/travellers take them to nearest city and sell.

Hmm, how about some bird that collects all shining things? This way dropped keys will not pass to next 'generation'..

The problem is, that players can hide them to chests (or bury underground?). Well, if we have an inteligent NPC enough, he can open the chest, so actually we can make a system that prevents players (in some limits) passing things to next char.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-18 01:03:53
In-Reply-To: 1200

thats what i was saying, an intelegent npc race that is just ingelegent enough to find hidden things. If someone burries a chest, it can be detected by the disturbed earth, so these little nasties will find freshing disturbed earth and dig there looking for something, heck they don't even need to open the crate/chest, they can just cart it off and sacrafice it to there gods, or sell a locked chest to another player who can then crack it open, and see what goodies await if anything.

Also if you bury an object the area you dug will sink slightly leaveing a depression after a while. that also can be detected by these little nasties and they will dig there too.. Also they would have a special ability to find objects, heck we can just code into them the ability to see all objects not held in possession of a player and they will try to take it. If it happens to be at your hose, and you have no guards, they will try to break into your house and take objects. This would be intresting IMO. :P

Because you have to guard against other players stealing and these little clepto imp like creatures (yea i already have a vison for what they look like. lol) that WILL find hidden treasure that a player has dropped in the wilds. Would be intresting if they "sacrafice" them to there gods, by tossing them down a big well or inside a cave have a huge hole with water in it, or a huge sink hole, like the aztech's (or someother central american culture did) they would sacrafice stuff to a large sink holes thinking this is where the gods live or something. and if an adveture where to venture down into this sink hole (if its not one filled with water) he would find all this "treasure" awaiting. Possibly they can think of it as a place gods dwell because some other creatures live down there, big nasty powerful ones, that these smaller creatures think of a gods.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-18 01:11:55
In-Reply-To: 1213

a sink hole into the netherworlds of majik. where big nasty creatures live, and its very dangerous, to venture there. And over time the "valueables" will collect and become great at these sink holes (big straight vertical holes that drop deap into the earth. impossible to enter." and players can lead out quests to recover this treasure. Heck these dumb little clepto imps can find lots of stuff they can target the most valueable stuff first in the area, say a player died and he left behind a bunch of gold and gems on his person, these imps will go get the gold and gems and whatever else they can carry before they go after the old rusty sword that is lieing in the river near the dead corpse. I think they should be coded with the "ability" to sense objects. This would solve the trouble of them trying to "find" them, and make it much much more dangerous to drop an object or burry an object because they WILL find it. Possibly there are some potions/chemicals/herbs that these little imps are scared of and won't venture to take an object if its covered in them. You can burry your chest of gold just dump a ton of these herbs on it, and be sure to get it before the effect of them wears off. Or even better plant the herbs all over the top of the soil where you burried it. Then they will never come dig it up, but it would be like sticking a flag on it, for other players saying, hey something valueable has been burried here before. Because this herb dosn't grow in a patch out in that part of the lands. so it only means one thing, that someone planted it there, to protect something they burried from the imps.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-18 16:30:25
In-Reply-To: 1214

Yes, I agree to that. This sounds an interesting solution for the 'next generation' problem.

But it can be little irritating if every item that has not been protected would disappear. And they should not disappear, they should end somewhere.. But where? Yes, the creatures could be like the legendary dragon that collects valuables to its nest.

How to make it be so that only items owned by killed people would disappear? If there is such a race, why not make it to get interested in items of dead people? (Hmh. That does actually sound a bit odd...)

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-19 05:46:16
In-Reply-To: 1235

they don't dissapear, they are collected by something, that does something with it. Some races can find them and sell them in there stores, or sell them to other stores. (wouldn't take much programing to make one npc sell its items or buy items from a npc store, from a player might be more difficult though. lol)

Some races could find them and sacrafice them to there gods, like i mentioned with the sink holes and other things. They can toss them into the sea off a big cliff, deposit them in tree tops, anything really. But the item dosn't dissapear, even if its at the bottom of the sea, one might be able to swim down and pick up something. provideing its not too deep, or maybe a magic spell that lets you walk in water and not die. :P

Anyway, these "item finding" ai npcs would serve quite well to rid the players hiding stashes of items/weapons incase they die. And if say a players house gets robbed, they can band together and go on a quest to find the npc monster(s) that broke in and reclaim there items. lol

Lots of things can be done with these little beasts.

And yea, they find items that where at once in possession of a person, so that a hunk of gold that naturally spawned in a mountain stream, they likely wouldn't target it. Some npc's though if they stumble on it would take it. I think that may also be a good way for rare valueables (gold,raw gems, artifacts) that "spawn" in places on the map to find there way into a town or be collected in mass inside some cave for players to launch into a quest to find.

But the creatures wouldn't target them, or have any gift to find a spawned item, only items that where once held by a player and is now on the ground or dead body would they have the magical ability to know where it is and try to get it.

If say we have some far away mountain stream that rarely large ingots of gold spawn in, these kind of monsters in the area would look for them and take them off to there "cave" where they sacrfice them to there idol god, and if a player where to fight down into the cave and get to this idol there will be tons of gold piled up arround it that these creatures have taken there, and other items they have found. They will have the ability to target items of high value that aplayer dropped first and thus the high value items will all end up concentrated in one areas (very hard to get too areas). never ending quests because they almost always will find treasure at these places.

Naww.. haveing them "target" items on dead people isn't odd, its an object lying on the ground not in possession of a liveing player. So its fair game for them to take. Generaly when a player dies they will have equipped some good items, and since they target high value items first, they will quickly show up to a dead body and strip it of valueables. This would prevent the player from makeing antoher player and trying quickly to find his dead body to get all his items back. likely they will all be gone when it makes it to where he died.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-19 15:58:59
In-Reply-To: 1249

Disappear, well they do disappear from the player who hid them.. But I have to say that this system works IMO.

The thing is that it is a reasonable explanation for items to disappear from ground. And they just not fade away but someone (or something.. ;) comes there and takes them, so then the friends of a player can save the items if he was carrying something unique and most valuable in game.

And I think that it would be better that the creatures do not come to cities or near buildings very easily, because, um let's say they fear noice of something. This way items would not disappear everywhere, only 'in wilderness'. And the items dropped by someone in cities do not stay there for long.. there will always be someone taking your stuff.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-20 00:48:25
In-Reply-To: 1261

yep sounds good, but if a player built a cabin in the wilderness, and its left unguarded, these nasties will try to get in. :P

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-20 12:43:24
In-Reply-To: 1264

True, and that's because there is not much noice around, so sounds reasonable. Agreed to that.

From: Nahl_Shadore
Date: 2002-03-21 22:24:14
In-Reply-To: 1276

heh, if anyone's ever heard of the Dragonlance books or games, this almost sounds like the kender race

but anyways, I like it. how about if you ever actually run into a pack of these thieves in the wilderness and don't do anything about it (ie. kill them)?
I say they'll pass by you without a care, but if any actually come too close you may be missing some gold or minor items.

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-21 22:34:03
In-Reply-To: 1292

Nope, never heard ;)

Well in that case, I think they'll run, so there is no fear of losing anything. Original thieves make that in cities.. After all these creatures are (?) quite timid.

Hmm, maybe someone wants to write somethin about them to WB?

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-25 13:10:04
In-Reply-To: 1294

they should run from people. And seeing them in the wild would be VERY rare, and likely limited to seeing them at a distance. They have not only the internal ability to find items on the ground but to sense where players are and avoid them.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-25 13:29:54
In-Reply-To: 1353

also there shouldn't be just one race that is like this, each region of the world should have some weird new race that is similar to this. Possibly two different races in the same area could operate, or one race can move and populate another area on there own, who knows.

More the better. :P

From: Archantes
Date: 2002-03-25 19:57:36
In-Reply-To: 1354

Well, I'm not sure about that. If we have some 'sewage worker' -race in every continent it may sound a bit.. odd. Maybe just two of them, and same kind of folk all over the world. Maybe a little goblin-like (but smaller and not so green?) able to dig, and some strange bird that collects valuables to its nest.

From: raeky
Date: 2002-03-29 00:39:33
In-Reply-To: 1359

i didn't mean the same race on each continent, but different races that act in the same mannor, collecting items droped by players and from dead bodies for some purpose and concentrating them in some areas that are very hard to access.

Goblin like creatures
Birds
Little green men
Etc......