Flash/C++ Game Project

[Cody]

Wow all I can think to say is this is sounding more and more awesomer and I kind of feel bad I'm not more knowledgeable in areas that would be helpful. But yes! Cool.

[Brad]

Yes, that's wiki material. Can you have comment threads with that wiki site?

Wikis have discussion pages which have comment threads and are tied to individual pages. So yeah it'd be a lot easier to discuss this kind of stuff.

[Nick]

Yes?

[Brad]

So I've finished the attributes post. After doing it I've realized I have the following problem:

Both strength and constitution only have one skill each which can raise them. Strength isn't as big a deal, but having constitution only tied to heavy armor makes it really difficult for light armor wearing characters to actually gain a higher max health points.

So... I need another skill which is tied to constitution (also known as endurance).

[Nick]

You could remove the distinction between strength and constitution and just merge them. You get more hit points then by being stronger.

[Brad]

I've come to what I think is a decent set of skills and attributes. I've posted them to the wiki pages. We can move discussion of individual aspects like that to the wiki talk pages. It's easier to follow then a thread with hundreds of replies probably.

http://wiki.randomland.net/index.php/Unnamed_RPG_Game

[Nick]

What! Organized, threaded discussion! I will have none of that! I demand a massive flat thread containing three concurrent conversations!

[Cody]

Being that I really don't know how to use the wiki talk thingy I'll just say here that I looked at the skills and stuff and it looks pretty good to me. There is of course the matter that using heavy armor in no logical way affects how much health you have... but then again for the sake of balancing it out to two for every attribute I say it's fine. Such is the way of video games.

[Cody]

In my boredom I happened to make another skill/attribute list for thinking about. Maybe it sucks, and maybe it doesn't. It's late and my brain isn't working all that great but here it is...

Strength â€" Affects melee damage and carry weight
     Blade â€" Affects damage of bladed melee weapons
     Blunt â€" Affects damage of blunt melee weapons

Dexterity â€" Affects Ranged weapons
     Marksman â€" Affects your skill in using ranged weapons
     Throw â€" Affects your skill at damaging enemies by throwing items?
            (We sort of talked about it right? Allows you to damage from a
            distance without having a ranged weapon?)

Agility â€" Affects armor and dodge chance
     Light Armor â€" Affects skill in using light armor
     Counter â€" Determines chance of successfully executing a counter attack?
            (Trying to be creative here…it could work)

Constitution â€" Determines your maximum health
     Guard â€" Your skill in protecting yourself and your allies
     Heavy Armor â€" Affects skill in using heavy armor

Intelligence â€" Determines maximum MP
     Destruction â€" Your skill with destructive magic
     Restoration â€" Your skill with restorative magic

Willpower â€" Affects resistance to magical damage
     Alteration â€" Your skill with magic that alters the state of things
     Conjuration â€" Your skill with magic that summons things

[Brad]

Thanks everybody for all the suggestions. I've decided to go with the attribute list currently on the wiki. I may change it in the future, but I've already gone through and updated the server and the text-client to use the new attributes.

So, up next is my battle system. First thing up is actually figuring out my stat system. Then I'll need to create a few weapons and armors as well as a couple of enemies to battle.

I've put both the list of classes and the list of races on the wiki, so feel free to offer any comments, questions or suggestions there.

[zourtney]

So, is there any concept of intellect / persuasive influence as it relates to dialog(ue?) with other characters? Or is there not going to be much of that?

[Brad]

The dialogue with NPCs is a fairly simple system. It's not really even a "dialogue" system, more "monologue". Basically each NPC has a set of things they will says each tied to set of requirements. When you talk to an NPC the game simply goes through the list of responses and finds the first one which has all the requirements met. So the responses with the most stringent requirements come first in the list, followed by the more general responses.

The requirements can be anything. They could be a check to see if the character is intelligent enough, of if he/she is the correct class/race. It could be check to see if you've killed 50 giant rattlegators. It could also be check for your current completion state of a quest.

The purpose of speaking to NPCs is to gather information, attain quests and to complete quests goals. It is also possible that talking to an NPC could lead to a "boss" battle.

I'm still writing the scripting engine for handling dialogue response requirements. It won't be complete until quests are also.

[zourtney]

So...how's the game coming along? I'm mulling over web-UIs, if we ever get that far. Let me know...

[Brad]

It's a coming. I'm working on all the server-side code for battles. Pretty much making up all the damage and hit % formulas off the top of my head. I'll have to refine them later by play-testing. Still got a ton of work to do on that then I'll move onto "effects". Oh yeah and the AI. Currently the AI is "attack the first enemy in the list". Not exactly world-class there.


If you ever get a hankering to write some code though, you should try and see if you can write some code to read/write the game packets. The packet format is set in stone at this point, and will not ever be changed (the data which is sent on the other hand....) Detailed information on how the packets work is on the Wiki (or it will be soon, as in today). You'll need to be able to convert integers into network-byte-order (big endian). So you'll have to figure out how to do that in PHP, Python, or any other P-language you are thinking about writing this in.

[zourtney]

PavaScript?