Town Travel with DM

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Chaos-Shaman
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Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

in a creative mood, I thought for a moment on how DM could traverse a town. with another sip of wine and crows at my window I decided to try a creative endeavor that may well make town travel a bit more feasible. using the info screen and its buttons I thought maybe some arrows just might work for movement. with 4 buttons being taken up as movement it left 3 buttons for buildings or whatever. with some creative thought and art I do believe this is possible to do. I used it already once with the info screens, flicking around each screen. so I'd like to know what others think about this type of town movement. I did a quick shot to show what I did just 15 mins ago. i'll implement this idea in motion and see how it works. hopefully it will make outside town travel a bit easier.

Image

battles are not possible while in 640x400, but they can be set to happen outside the info screen, something like the way the original Elder Scrolls worked. when a house is clicked on, it'll take the party in the house or building, cave or dungeon, whatever the designer wishes. this is early thoughts, I could run into snags, but so far it does seem to work. it will greatly increase the size of a dungeon, not that it matter because todays games are in the 10s of gigs. what do you think guys?
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by zoinkers »

Ever looked at the old SSI games like Pool of Radiance, or the old Bard's Tale games? Bard's Tale was quite painful, as to get from A to B in the town involved lots of tedium. the SSI games however I think did it quite well.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Gambit37 »

I tried something like this when I was experimenting with RTC years ago. It certainly works, but it doesn't really add anything interesting to the gameplay in my opinion. And consider the amount of views you'd have to render to make it look believable: it's an awful amount of work!

It's probably simpler to present an overhead map and let the player click on the buildings they want to visit, then drop back to the normal 3D view and teleport them into the building.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I remember those old games zoinkers, I am very confident that other games like them can all be done with RTC. a ton of ideas are flowing in my head right now, all those older games are based on this method. if only there were more buttons

I've already got all the views I need, crude though, Banville is a test. it should not be too difficult to plug in the buttons as homes and it is even possible in theory to be able to pick up an item in those infoscreens, like a sword. it should work. so a town can consist of 10 to 40 movements, each button can be assigned easy enough, each move is a counter value, easy enough. about infoscreen file size, well if the screens are indexed down to 10 to 20 colours, they can be reduced to a size of 15 to 20 kb , which I just tested and that's how small those screens are, adds very little size. I am pleased with that aspect, didn't want to make a dungeon too big, but the ai is only 2 meg in total so it's not that big altogether.

there will be an overhead view (map) just before entering the town that will describe the location. an advantage 3D has even though it is not 3D, using it to design is down right awesome. a compass can be placed on this map.

fights in the town will be brought into an arena of some sort, but perhaps when the party choses to fight if given the choice might end them up in the town jail, dungeon, cell, or dead right away :twisted: so always save before entering a town.

this idea I think is adding the one thing DM needed, outside travel that is appealing and not head spinning confusing as many have had trouble with playing with only a view of 3 tiles.

hopefully it all works out and the community wants it. it's hard to tell what everyone wants here, so please if there is anything others would like to see or potential problems that I may face, let me know.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I'm nearly complete phase 1 test. it works perfectly so far. i have many things to test out to see how the engine can be manipulated. so far it was very easy to do. graphics is needed. the programming is done. i couldn't believe how easy it was once i put my mind to it. at first i thought it may take me weeks, and it may for the graphics, but the programming can be done in no time at all. i should have an example next week when i target the homes. not sure on how to go about it, there are a lot of ways to do this. it would be great if the community would have a look and bring forth ideas next week if anyone is interested after the demo. it really reminds me of Elder Scrolls.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

This sound interesting. Adding more sites to visit will be great to extend new missions around DM world.
Need more button to the engine! It seems to complicated to me to understand the process but Is there anyway to play with the code to add more?
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

hi Clodius one. I'm very happy you're getting better.

the project is going very well. I didn't think it'd be a good as it is to be honest. mixing the two methods together really is weird, it sure does give new meaning to towns. today I did my first home target. it works by clicking on the house, it takes the party from info screen movement back to dungeon movement and then back again. oddly enough it works out. I am using the dungeon mode differently as well, really screwed around with it :lol: :shock: :o :lol: 8)

buttons are infinite on each other, but only 7 can be displayed at once, so one opens up seven each opening 7 more, CRAZY :roll: 8)

all the programming works, it's the damn graphics that is slow. I need to create a jail for those who get caught trying to break into homes :twisted: , the party gets thrown in jail with inmates as the only way out, or time, or pay off, get out of jail free card :lol:

help with the graphics, so desperate. it's a time issue more than anything, that and artistic ability which I am lacking still, but learning it.
my video card is 5 years old, it can't handle todays programs, I am thinking on getting a new video card, you may need to as well Clodius if you are thinking on 3d applications. I am thinking to get a GTX980, costs 6 bones, that hurts so it'll have to wait.
i'll have a demo this week, may look rough but the concept is there.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

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A refubished GTX680 at Newegg for $260

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... MgodrxgAig
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

thanks Paul, I have been looking into them, I figure if I wait it out, save for a few months that it would be better to get the 980. then by the latter half of the year will replace motherboard and chip which is still an I7, and might as well replace the ram, it's only DDR3. so it will be a DDR5 video card hooked to DDR4 ram, that should do for a few years. then there is the graphic specific devices that i'll need if I ever learn enough of it. I do this all for DM, I really don't play games much, or even need to know graphics or programming, but i'll do it for DM :D did I mention I was addicted to DM :lol: . I saw a DM coin for sale for 90 bucks :lol: good thing I have one that didn't get tossed out with the other jar of old coins like probably most have.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

Hi everyone,

For those who didn't know, I had a pinched nerve in my neck and arm bugging me for months :( . Bad news, it was my writing hand then I had to stepped down my work but now I back on work :D . Thanks CS.

CS: How is it going with DM village's home setup? Do you have something to show us? You told me you are using Sketchup to create 3D graphics. What extension your program is using? My son and I experimenting Blender. It's free and working fine on my 4 years old computer. We want to know if it's compatible.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

yeah, I think Blender can be compared to Gimp, so yes. I found it a bit too much at first, fooled with others, did you try Zbrush? a sculpting program that is kind of neat to play with.

Banville is coming along, I am having issues with the jail of the town, will get by it. right now I can say teleporters can really get to me. I think I found a bug dealing with teleports and triggers, spent a day and half debugging it, so far I think it is a bug. no big deal, i'll do something else just as interesting 8) I also programmed monster ai from scratch, limited though, just enough to give a flow to a few monsters. I did not work on graphics, i'll leave that to last, maybe someone can help there. I'm going to work on it this afternoon and tonight and see if I can finish the jail cell.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I've been plugging away at it, found some bugs and learned a few more things about RTC engine. it'll help with future programming. so far so good. the jail is nearly complete. I had to redo the clock, time is 10 times faster than normal. I spent most of the time on the jail.

does anyone have a place where I can find some town sounds? it really needs some sound effects to help bring in the feel.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

The demo of town travel which you made is brilliant. Undoubtedly, with the sound effect, it is more realistic :D . The view in full screen gives a wide vision of the setup is fantastic and the switch with the game set, work well. nice work 8) . I would like to see the entire DM map done this way. Another important door have been forced open in DM world. All fans need to see :D .
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

yes, Clodius, I'd like to see that map done, too. it should not be that hard to do, and if you want to make a change on your map, the 3D map can be cut and pasted, so no problems here. I finished the 40 houses, now they lead to a house but they still need to be built to match who lives in them. I still need sounds and will make a few wallsets that match the houses. it's a test town, first one of its kind. I like the idea of party alignment. I figure each character can come with alignment values when they join the party that targets a counter to be read by further relay actions being good or bad. this affects what can be done.
I am waiting to hear back from boyflea. I know there was a few missed speeches, now fixed. keep up the great work Claude.

oh, I think that was a smashing town character Christmas Card, loved it.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

I still have not heard back from anyone over the holidays, but I am still working on this town. progress is being made, finally got a few thousands sound effects to play with which should make some difference. it would be quite grand if it were play tested more vigorously. ideas, more ideas. I have a tall ship but am missing the star to guide it by. are there any souls interested in the many changes made to RTC? It's so different that I need ideas as to what to do to it. being a first attempt demo of town travel gives me the need for opinions. this DM needs opinions from the community of Dungeon Masters.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

What I would like to see in Banville:
A inn of course, where we can meet people, listen stories and legends from the city. the capacity to drink all kind of alcohol beverages and get drunk :D . A church to learn some spirit skills. A doctor's house to cure your wounds. A special store to buy and sell stuff like your merchant ambulant. Some place where you can work and earn money to spend all around like a blacksmith where you can trade and buy special weapon and repair horse shoes or a lumber mill to cut the wood for houses.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

Inn, no problem, i'll need the characters for it, the jail is much like an Inn and this should be fun to do. definitely will be different beverages to drink, some good, some not so good. getting drunk might get the party in trouble, then again it might lead the party to a house or place that the party may need to do.

church, absolutely. might make it difficult to heal unless either the party has a priest or they visit the doctors or church. could make a disease or wound not curable unless they go to the church or doctor.

special stores, no problems with that. I have already worked on travelling merchants, this should be easy to do.

I guess finishing quests would do as a sort of work thing, like finding 1 tree and cutting it down and then bringing it in to sell in town, or maybe an animal hide or meat, or some sort of ore.

money will be very important, unlike DM2 where money was not so important. I never used it to finish it. without money, it will be hard to do much of anything in town other than STEAL which will change alignment. this I am very excited about playing with.

these are all good things to do, and you can bet i'll be using the lovely graphics you're doing Clodius.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

You could use your merchant for now for the inn. he's great looking for that job. Just give him an apron :)
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

:lol:

we could, or we could just copy and paste it from DM2 and rearrange it. then give all the guards aprons, red lips and blue eyes, a shape of an hour glass with the mentioned scent of passion fruit. how'd we draw that one :lol:

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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Clodius_one »

You could ask the gardener to put a few trees and install a water fountain or a mill water. Give Banville some life; make some crowd walking outside.
Last edited by Clodius_one on Tue Jan 06, 2015 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

that's just it Clodius. that is what I am waiting for. in the next town built i'll do all of that in 3D. this time around I could not, my graphics card just could not hold enough to handle it so it is bare for that reason, I stopped working on it when It was taking too long to load every time I changed the view. I expect to have a new card soon, 4 gig card should be able to smoothly do those graphics. I was working from a window that was around 650 x 410 and it was still slow. I stopped wasting my time on it for now and just ploughed ahead to design proving it can be done is what I was doing, next town will be much more detailed, i'll know the program better as well. Banville will have a feel like it is alive, that is the intention.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

after consultation, I will post the demo of town travel shortly, need to look at it again, have stopped working on it and have to make sure that the idea is conveyed enough. if there is anyone that wants to lend a hand or know what was done just let us know.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

THE TOWN OF BANVILLE, test.

creating this example was a lot of fun. there was a lot to learn on info_screen manipulation. the first 2 homes were worked on, the rest is left to be done, I don't know who lives in the town, I don't know the purpose of the town, it's the mechanics that was fooled with. this example is quite different than other dungeons. it shows the potential that is possible. it would be wonderful to get some creative feed back, after all this is DM, we're all dungeon masters. suggestions are welcome, critique it, all replies are welcome. graphics and story are needed. I hope that everyone will give it a try.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by boyflea »

found it, will look at this. really cannot figure out how to search forums. :)
The stonework walls? Pristine. The floor? Level. The waterworks? Flowing. Central heating? The Dragon in the basement was grumpily heating the pipes. Lord Chaos consulted the blueprints again, looking for the bathroom. #playmygame!
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by boyflea »

Right then:-
First off, this is a great demo of what you can achieve using the graphical interaction screens in RTC.
The prototype shows some good core ideas, but my gut tells me it is in need of some honest words: it feels a bit baggy, could be leaner.

Yes it is a terrific graphical trick and really shows promise, it is a pre-alpha, so of course all the houses are just placeholders: Nami's house and the acid-vial quest from prison cell show the sort of 'talk to X get object for Y sort of progression that is possible.

However, that does imply a LOT of criss-crossing the city:

RECOMMEND: get a MAP:
here are two mock-ups for navigation I would recommend:
http://marvl.in/ab9ch4 option 1, interactive map
http://marvl.in/308e86 option 2, map as an off-screen option

Map COMPLIMENTS navigation, so user is free to explore still.
Also, on Option 1, you will see houses are signposted: seriously did not know to click on these on my first playthrough.
Option2, where the map is seperate, means you can limit this to 'fast-travel' only to key places, reduce the overhead on each screen and force the user into some exploration.
Depends how you feel.

GAMEPLAY: Recommendations: [takes deep breath]
Now, the mechanics:
Pick-locks never seems to work. So not sure if implemented or just broken. Interested to see how that bit works.
Entering a house, as seen for Nabi, offers small quests. Great.


GUARDS
Guard Patrol arresting player randomly just forces me to quit and reload. Seriously.
Alternatives...
is to have this as a key / door blocker instead. Post message saying "Nearby guards stop you entering this building..."

Or maybe that's too close-minded: so this random thing can be cool, reminds me a bit of 'The Wild Bunch'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yl4RWXf-XY

If the user is railroaded into prison, you have a problem: limited coins, unlimited arrests. At some point , player is stuck..
Which is a bit of a pain.

So a logic check perhaps: no coins = no arrests!

Or if have no coins, caught and condemned instead of prison: Banished, teleported to a dungeon clearing outside of city to fight spawned monsters? [which when defeated, you can teleport back to city gates]


or some old classic like 'Perilous Swamp' - offer the players the old 'run, fight or bribe' options
http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html
1/ offer to bribe guards, sure, til the coins run out.
2/ perhaps perform a sidequest, like kill lots of rats, to earn their trust.
3/ kill all guards? seems harsh (though currently you can kill the house inhabitants...) perhaps kill the unloved sheriff and take his badge?
Currently, the mechanism is too intrusive, I've no time for it. Sorry.

WHAT AM I DOING IN BANVILLE?
Q: Why am I trying to break into people's houses?
Appreciate you are being all open-world, but really could the city of Banville work better as a linear quest?

MAKE IT LINEAR? WHY? a rambling example...
complete quests for nabi: he direct's you to wuuf, deth and halk's house, for example. each house has an item. meanwhile all other houses locked (perhaps guards auto-arrest you).
nabi happy on getting all three objects. offers you sheriff's badge, guards no longer issue on 3 more houses. remaining houses can be reached but are locked.
get 3 more objects gained from the unblocked houses, then you can enter central building. ... and so on...
great stuff. linear, but still invoves exploration right?

MAP EVOLUTION OPTION...
option 1... segmented city.
ok, so you reach a key poitn, eg, central building, and MAP EVOVLES: perhaps north part of map now accessible.

option 2... same locations, different states.
Alternatively, Each time you sleep, map alternates between day version and night version. Certain houses are locked, some unguarded.
perhaps guards only arrest at daytime, and you can use lockpicks at night?
Suddenly exploration deviates from going A to B, now timing is a factor too... you need some trick here as navigating a beautiful city is nice but is not fun unless player feels involved somehow (and combat is not an option?).

Anyway, something to add some dynamic to the mechanism,
Otherwise - yes it is a pretty map, and I did say 'wow' when I first saw it, but it has to then deliver on it's promise of a thriving city full of people, give me direction of where to go and not become a chore to traverse.
It has potential, really it does. Hub areas are a good solid gaming mechanic. You could really tell a good NPC story and have the players running all over town (perhaps work for two powerful NPCs, Guild of thieves versus Duke of Banville, etc)

Lot of rambling feedback, so to summarise:
this is DUNGEON MASTER: that's the best bit, so use the city map screens to get between dungeons in a fun and interesting way. Walking around the city itself is not a fun replacement.

aye aye aye (re-reading, this is such a negative-sounding post!) - look, this is POSITIVE feedback, but I'm blunt when it comes to game design. Have had to be.
The stonework walls? Pristine. The floor? Level. The waterworks? Flowing. Central heating? The Dragon in the basement was grumpily heating the pipes. Lord Chaos consulted the blueprints again, looking for the bathroom. #playmygame!
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

DAVE, thank you so much for having a look, all the feedback is exactly what I suspected to see. wonderful. before I continue to break down everything into segments I want to tell you that every point you made can happen, that all those things you think are possible with no trouble at all. this is proof of concept, that's all it is. as you can see anything is possible. ok, now for the breakdown, I may have to break it into a few messages.

the maps posted are pretty close to the design, very close. each one of those tiles are connected to a counter, in the GUI it looks just like you portrayed it, that's to make it easy to figure out where things are. the graphics for the sign posts and stuff are not there, it's a blank sheet.
Banville town is nothing but a download of a town someone else threw together, took very little time to do, a day to get all the angles. the good part is it is VERY easy to make towns with sketchup, easy to change, easy easy easy, but this is not about graphics, this is about concept. so graphical changes and additions are needed, I did not want to spend time on any of that, which is why it is barren. but now I have a GTX 980 graphics card, I can spend time on that stuff, but what is important is the game design concept, not the graphics.

- pick locks, now this requires design. I can do that in so many different ways it is actually funny :) but how I did it was a test, first of all it breaks a rule in order to have use of the hands. that part was tricky. in order to use the lock picks it works by checking counter, the more the successful break ins, the higher the thief skill, if you get caught it takes away the thief skill. if you put the rabbits foot in your left hand, it will increase your luck\thief skills by five. since we can add and subtract counters, this will prove to be very interesting as designing will be much more complex. currently I have not done that, but thanks to terkio, i'll have fun with this. it is easy, just confusing to look at, mentally it is easy. so once the character GG has a level 10 thief skill, he can use the lock picks (not set up yet), the lock pick counter can be checked later as alignment now available. if the party\character does not have the right alignment good\bad then they can't do that quest. bad guys and good guys scenario, any skill can be made using counters that can now be added and what not. this to me is a god send in the programming. if the guards catch you (works by percentage for now but can be designed in many other ways) you'll be thrown in jail which is not a bad place to be if one wants to turn bad and interact with the inmates. when it comes to dialect interaction, yes yes, all that needs to be done. I did not spend that much time on that, this is a test of concept. anyone who wants to help with the project can do whatever they like, that part is up to the designer, I just wanted to slap it together to show how info screens work in town exploration.

The Wild Bunch game example, yes, we can do anything like that, that's easy to do. if you have checked out the AI demo you'll see how menus can be brought up at any time, in dungeon or info screen, this is not something I have seen done in any other dungeon, and to me this was a break through in design. this makes interaction a BUZZ. I have not even begun to play with that yet, and I can't wait to do it.

Jail, hmm, not sure if youplayed with that enough. in jail you can give a stone to golem, he gives you a silk shirt, put the shirt on and click on the guards through the jail bars, he'll make a deal with you and tell you how long you'll spend in jail if you don't make a deal. if you give him a gold coin he'll wait until the other guard leaves and let you out.
if you click on the merchant twice, he'll give a message first click, and the second one he'll open up a menu with an option to buy an acid potion. I thought the menu info screen was great, not sure you found that, click on everyone, offer money to them, you'll see.
I was fooling with time concept, needs to be fixed but my idea is to speed up time, seems logical since we can't spend a real hour if we get stuck in there. but if the party runs out of money or shirts or acid to escape, the party will have to stay an hour, or six minutes in real time. I need to hack with that more. again that was a learning thing for me. do recheck the jail, you can click on guards on the other side of the bars :) your ideas are also possible, anything can happen, RTC is limitless, it's just needing to be explored more with open mind concept.
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by boyflea »

yay! glad you enjoyed the feedback.
it's hard to review a demo without notes, but know why you would limit documentation so as to see what people think.

yes, not worried about the graphics, but keen to see what you finally do with the city.
if there is a way to quickly navigate the map from the gui then that would be cool

the dungeon demo you shared with me, similar to SU's lynchgate map, but more detailed, that was cool and I should probably re-visit, though having lord chaos command skeletons is cool, not clear what else I need to do in that demo (is there a thread for this map somewhere?)

Didn't knwo about the pebbles and the golem, but otherwise did manage to get acid from merchant, use coins to brie guards etc - so the prison does have lots to do. Seems you are already planning this out as a mini-game in itself, so I trust you on that one. :)

lockpicks, random arrest etc - I think you need a way to show the player what the risks are and what the % to succeed are: currently with no feedback, it's hard to know progress. You do something similar with scrolls - any way to add to this screen?

cheers then, ping me if you ever do an update :)
The stonework walls? Pristine. The floor? Level. The waterworks? Flowing. Central heating? The Dragon in the basement was grumpily heating the pipes. Lord Chaos consulted the blueprints again, looking for the bathroom. #playmygame!
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

WHAT AM I DOING IN BANVILLE?
Q: Why am I trying to break into people's houses?
Appreciate you are being all open-world, but really could the city of Banville work better as a linear quest?

this is to lower your alignment, become bad, you don't have to break in, I only did the first two houses and they are not complete either, proof of concept. eventually some houses will can be entered without breaking in, some will not be able to break in. this all needs to be set up, it's a blank slate right now, but you can see the potential. I am not even sure to use that method, it's an example where I broke some rules to do it. if you enter a house by knocking, it can be made to increase your alignment to the good side, but that's not done. I need to know what people want. anything can be done, all dungeon masters need to do is say what they want, it will be done. I personally don't play games much at all, so i'll need the communities ideas to move forward. RTC is truly a neat, cool, powerful programs, the potential is there, I can see it. I dream it :)

MAKE IT LINEAR? WHY? a rambling example...
complete quests for nabi: he direct's you to wuuf, deth and halk's house, for example. each house has an item. meanwhile all other houses locked (perhaps guards auto-arrest you).
nabi happy on getting all three objects. offers you sheriff's badge, guards no longer issue on 3 more houses. remaining houses can be reached but are locked.
get 3 more objects gained from the unblocked houses, then you can enter central building. ... and so on...
great stuff. linear, but still invoves exploration right?

no problems, this can be done, anything one wants, I don't know the story, this is what Claude and the mysterious beowuuf knows. they know the story.

MAP EVOLUTION OPTION...
option 1... segmented city.
ok, so you reach a key poitn, eg, central building, and MAP EVOVLES: perhaps north part of map now accessible.

option 2... same locations, different states.
Alternatively, Each time you sleep, map alternates between day version and night version. Certain houses are locked, some unguarded.
perhaps guards only arrest at daytime, and you can use lockpicks at night?
Suddenly exploration deviates from going A to B, now timing is a factor too... you need some trick here as navigating a beautiful city is nice but is not fun unless player feels involved somehow (and combat is not an option?).

yes, again this can be done, it's a matter of design which I am still trying to figure out, but without the community telling me what they want, I can't do it. tell me and it will be done.

Anyway, something to add some dynamic to the mechanism,
Otherwise - yes it is a pretty map, and I did say 'wow' when I first saw it, but it has to then deliver on it's promise of a thriving city full of people, give me direction of where to go and not become a chore to traverse.
It has potential, really it does. Hub areas are a good solid gaming mechanic. You could really tell a good NPC story and have the players running all over town (perhaps work for two powerful NPCs, Guild of thieves versus Duke of Banville, etc)

when it comes to the AI, there is 100% control, no worries mate. I did that last year, and I am much more efficient at it. I ran into some snags that I did a flip flop to get it to work. if GG would come out of his hiding spot and help out, we'd all be happy about it. I am disappointed in him, leaving me to hang has really taken the wind out of my sails, I fill ignored, and I am upset about that, but that's the way life goes, I am thankful he did what he did, I can work out the rest by going around the problems I face. I only learned more and I think that may have been his intension, make me suffer and learn only to know his engine better.

*Lot of rambling feedback, so to summarise:
this is DUNGEON MASTER: that's the best bit, so use the city map screens to get between dungeons in a fun and interesting way. Walking around the city itself is not a fun replacement.

oh, I differ on this. I only slapped that together, you have not realized the potential yet. not all the angles were done, I left out the turn around arrows, and did not even add town folk, or animals, or anything, it's a blank sheet as I intended. that part will take graphics that are already in sketchup, I could not do it because I had a five year old graphics card, but that has changed, now Clodius's work will be put to use in the future. this part has not been touched and is left out until we're ready to move in on it. I have things to test on it yet, so many things to try. unlimited using info screens, future designing

aye aye aye (re-reading, this is such a negative-sounding post!) - look, this is POSITIVE feedback, but I'm blunt when it comes to game design. Have had to be.

all is welcome, I did not read any of it as negative, I expected those remarks. I know what it needs, the question is about CONCEPT.

Thanks a bunch Dave, i'll need your help and everyone elses who can see what is going on here. I can only hope they can see past everything and just get DM back on track, one of my wishes.
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Chaos-Shaman
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Chaos-Shaman »

damn, you replied to that message before I could finish :lol:

there is more in Banville that was not mentioned, which is why it needs to be tested over and over. i'll leave it for another day.

"yay! glad you enjoyed the feedback.
it's hard to review a demo without notes, but know why you would limit documentation so as to see what people think."

correct, that is why I say nothing, I'm glad you see that. some might figure it can't be done or something like that, but I'm looking for what they feel which is far more useful if they do it on their own.

"yes, not worried about the graphics, but keen to see what you finally do with the city.
if there is a way to quickly navigate the map from the gui then that would be cool"


of course, but that would take away town travel, don't forget you won't be able to walk the town without talking to other characters, that part is not there. I could have easily created a map to just click on and there you go you are there but that is not my intension. I see no need to do that, it takes away the feel of town travel. the town is a blank slate, clean sheet. i'll show you in time.

"the dungeon demo you shared with me, similar to SU's lynchgate map, but more detailed, that was cool and I should probably re-visit, though having lord chaos command skeletons is cool, not clear what else I need to do in that demo (is there a thread for this map somewhere?)"

ahh, no, nothing to do with Lynchgate, but you can find his project in the RTC dungeons I think. he is busy working out his new job. this project is working off the map Claude and beowuuf's map and story.

"lockpicks, random arrest etc - I think you need a way to show the player what the risks are and what the % to succeed are: currently with no feedback, it's hard to know progress. You do something similar with scrolls - any way to add to this screen?"

sure can, any stat like that is easy, I thought I made it clear though, if you try to use lock picks the message says you can't use them unless in your left hand, put them in your left hand and it tells the party\character their score level, if the rabbits foot is in left hand it will increase the luck of picking the lock. all needs to be worked on, I didn't do much on it, it's proof of concept only.
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Wizard Zedd
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Re: Town Travel with DM

Post by Wizard Zedd »

My curiosity got me after reading this thread and I downloaded the Banville file. So pardon my ignorance here...but can someone tell me how to load it and play it?

Thanks!
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