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I don't think it's a good idea for the spell to be able to be used on enemy units. If it is to be used, I would recomend it only dominates x number of units in a radius of n, or y units(which ever is smaller)...Quote:
Originally posted by Zaei
Casters could then use a "Domination" spell, to bring the creature to your side (the spell could be used on enemy units as well).
Just my $0.02
-D
Well I tried my hand at D3D, not my cup of tea if you know what I mean, the tutorials always manage not to tell you that one little thing... And then bam, everything is gone (especially your dignity.) Dennis I agree with you, don't allow 'em to cast on enemy units. Also Zaei in the last engine I think the snow was WAY WAY too big.
So Dennis, do you want to work on the OGL version of Divinity engine?
Sure, I'll give it a try. What do I have to do?(Not 100% on what that engine really is)
Yo, Cam, Cam the Man that Can!
Can you mail some of the screen shots to me please or at least get the dev area of your website up and running so I can look at them.
I can't get any attachments off the VB-forums any more and it's beginning to irritate me.
Of course, you could also mail me what you've got so far as an exe so I can have a play.....
eMail addr. [email protected]
I'm quite interested in how you're getting along.
Okay I will send them.
Also I am thinking of devoting the day to the website, so you can see them at http://times.of.war.tripod.com/ very shortly, maybe in 2 hours.
You'll know it's the new design if the sidebar is gold not paper.
I'll be sure to check that out later.
I've just got your mail now - I'm gonna have a look.
Dennis Zaei is re-writing the base engine (D3D) and commenting it. Then you and Psyvision can work together to do the same stuff in OGL. Therefore we can let the users pick from both APIs.
Whatever is fine, just send me some code when ever needs be, i have a dialogue box done for my own engine that allows u to select the resolution, and color depth / fullscreen too. Maybe we can extend this to change graphics (ogl or d3d) ??
Sas,
I've had a look at the graphics and I'm quite impressed.
Some of the concept sketches are great and should be included in the manual (ala Blizzard manuals).
I'm not so sure about the icons though, some look rather vague that small. I'd have to see them in the game - which reminds me...
The screenshots are interesting. Is the terrain undulating there? If so, this leads me to all sorts of questions to do with pathfinding, the way the spells will work, line of sight etc.
Oh, and you must have forget to send me your latest version as an exe. I know you're really busy but I'm sure you'll find time to send it me for tomorrow...
Ta muchly!
The unit icons are taken directly from the concept art. The foreground is sharpened and the background blurred. Then it is bevelled to create that effect.
I have a thought...
Units, I believe, will be using food as sustenance. If the food runs out for too long, the unit will die. Heroes will be the last chosen to die.
I believe as well that units should consume as much food as possible, as in 'real life'. (As opposed to what? False life?)
Id est:
You have ten units, and ten food. Each unit eats one food per interval.
You have ten units, and thirty food. Each unit eats three food per interval.
You have ten units, and fifty food. Each unit eats five food per interval.
You have ten units, and one hundred food. Each unit eats ten food per interval.
Now, you may be wondering, "What are the benefits of this overeating?" A valid point! Eating less than the optimal food level (to be determined) will result in research and development penalties. Eating more will result in benefits.
Perhaps if they eat too much, they should lose their benefits?
What think you?
I think two food things should be the required amount(without any loss), while three food things boosts your energy, and four food things gives you the maximum amount of energy, although anything above four will reduce the amount of energy you have. I think this is based more on a "real life" situation, as if you eat too much in real life, you will get sick and not be able to do much for a while.
-D
not only that but eating four rations a day should also give them a better attack and if your eating 1 ration then your attack should be weekend by a little. thats also what happens in real life. and i think its a good idea. but it would be alot more functions/subs which ever u perfure. im working on a tile engine on my spare time since i dont know what needs to be done in vb. and in doing it just to **** around with it.
to whom ever is doing the tile engine: how r u going to load the maps for the different levels for the tile engine.
Remember that people don't generally choose to overeat (with the possible exception of the Romans and Vikings). You only accidentaly overeat and even then, not often.
An entire army of troughed out troops is very unlikely to happen. Even less so with the military than peasants as they tend to be on rations regardless of the food situation unless they in the barracks.
Erm, sorry - you didn't actually ask for my contribution did you.
I'll get my coat.
Nah Arbiter, stay a while. ;)
It's my opinion that we should reduce micromanagement wherever possible, it isn't generally liked. I think there should be something that allows you to set a top for food. For example, you could set this to '4 rations a day or whatever managed.' Then say you had 5 troops, and 55 food. 20 food (5x4) would be eaten, and 35 food could be saved for either storage in case there is a shortage the next day, or trading for more money.
In this same scenario, if you only have 11 food, you round that to the nearest multiple of 5 (10 in this case) and then you get (10/5) 2 rations this day. After that (11-10) you have 1 ration of food left.
This would allow the best management of food with no real hassles.
Oh, and another thing. What do you think should happen when there's not enough food even for 1 ration each person?
I think it would come down to one of these three:
1. Higher troops eat first (king and down).
2. Soldiers are fed.
3. Nobody is fed.
I think 3 would be nice, as it would fit in with my next idea -- But of course in this situation the general course of action would be to trade something for more food, so you can do this and get all of your troops fed fine.
sas i dont know what ur idea is but number 1 sounds nice to me although we could do some good things with number 3.
My next idea is the sentence after the --
Bagpipes sound great! Hey Tommy did you get my e-mail, please reply so I know its correct, Ill try to type the bloodline story up just in case you want to make any changes to it. Cause I love it when people gimme suggestions, make my work alot better..
I think that the higher-ranking units should eat before the lower-ranking units.
King
Heroes
Level III Spell-Casters
Level IV Military Units
Level II Spell-Casters
Level III Military Units
Level I Spell-Casters
Level II Military Units
Peasants*
Level I Military Units
(It wouldn't be fair to kill the means of production outright; how else will one obtain food?)
On the "Domination" spell: My idea for the "Domination" Spell would be a one creature/unit per casting. It would also be very expensive (say, 75% max mana per shot).
To wazup: there is a LoadMap function already implemented.
As to food: All of your ideas sound great. To look at history, any king that we today would consider "evil" would ALWAYS eat the best food availible, no matter that others went hungry. On the other hand, there were good leaders who would eat only what thier troops ate, nothing more, and sometimes less.
On the subject of the king: Will this king be a unit? If so, we could use a random number at the beginning of the campaign, to determine the type of king you get, and it would affect the moral of all units (positive as long as you win, but it declines VERY fast when you arent). If your units are displeased, they can kill the king, and put another unit in in his place (a coup)
On AI: My current ideas for unit AI are based around moral. various factors affect moral, from number of units killed to date, number of units attacking the unit at once, type of king, etc. Further, units are divided into groups, which also have a moral, based on things like number o units in opposition, any units running from group, any units on the other team running, especially. Basically, each tick, units make a moral check. If they fail, they try to run away. When one unit runs, all units in the group must check, and lose moral as well, while the opossing group automatically passes all checks, and gains moral. From my initial tests, it should work very well.
I may be able to post a bit later, otherwise, think over this stuff, post, etc.
Z.
I agree with your king and morale ideas, Zaei. Morale has not played enough of a role in games to date.
Also, I have worked on symbols for each faction. Using an encyclopaedia of symbols, I have procured one for each faction that is based on the factions' gameplay.
Id est: The Fortress faction gets an ancient symbol for protection from evil.
I got all of the symbols from www.symbols.com and thus, they are copyrighted. As I am not the most proficient at graphic design, I was wondering if anyone would like to copy these symbols onto a similar medium (.gif, .jpg) in black with a white background.
I will e-mail the pictures to whomever accepts.
Perhaps we could let the player ration the food if it is needed for trade. (If the player has little other resources, the player could set the rationing level to two until the economy was prospering again.)
Yeah, you can set a cap on food. Zaei I also think your morale model sounds good. Also the site is getting a bit delayed but I'll have it working on my computer then I'll upload it.
Perhaps, Zaei, we could limit the king's unit possibilities to units of the faction's specialisation or the unique unit.
Damn this ****, MSN is so gay, all the ****ing servers are down graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Theres a lot of thought lol which is good from u guys !!
That sounds good, Jorj.
Have any of you ever played Oregon Trail 3? If Morale is low(somebody just got bitten by a snake or food is low) people start losing health very quickly, maybe we can incorprate something like that into the game.Quote:
Originally posted by Jorj
I agree with your king and morale ideas, Zaei. Morale has not played enough of a role in games to date.
Firstly, I made some changes to the faction list.
Lastly, the subject of constructed units (ships, war machines) have been indirectly mentioned, but never fully discussed.
I believe that we should make an attempt to create realistic ships and war machines.
To scale. Or at least better than in Warcraft II or Age of Empires.
I also believe people should be required to operate these units.
Agree? Disagree?
Post Scriptum
I think units should be able to desert when morale is low. Perhaps I'm dreaming (bad non-programmer!), but they could run away into the forest like good little rebels and start their own little kingdom which would grow and grow and grow et cetera.
Sorry. I got carried away.
Just another good extension to the morale idea. They could desert to the enemy, or start thier own kingdom, etc.
Z.
I've got a question... You're in a team, do you switch players and control all of them yourself, or are they other team members controlled via AI?
all the ideas ive read today r good i agree with everything so far. morale is a real life situation. i think when a units morale is low enough they sould be able to rebel and start somthing like in robin hood but im just thinking no one has to agree but if were going to have real life situations in the game it would be somthing we should give some thought to.
noel u got my email wrong i dont know what u put but i have two emails. your aim is bloodlineshope right. heres my email addresses
[email protected]
[email protected]
oh and has anyone been able to put the tile engine into motion yet.
i have somthing else to say i have a drum set i dont know how much it can help but ive created a wierd sound if anything it could be used for somthing. and that hurt my hands nasty playing it. sas if u want i can record it and put it as an attachment but its up to u.
Right now I'm trying to learn how to use DirectMusic Producer, so I can help with the music when I get a little better...
-Dennis
It all sounds good, but I think the rebels should flee to other existing rebels or whatever, as to not have too many kingdoms.
Also I think that there should be 0-2 existing rebel kingdoms at the start of the game, no more. Then rebels could trek to these kingdoms, and when they fall, they could make their own, but the amount of kingdoms would never go above 2.
The game would start out with a bandit faction, unable to produce peasants because of a lack of a Town Square-like structure and houses.
Units would desert to this bandit faction, and, if peasants, start building it into a nation-state by building a Town Square and houses.
i would like to know how far away can u build somthing from another building u own.
There wont be a limit, it's just very inefficient to do so.
I've got a question... You're in a team, do you switch players and control all of them yourself, or are the other team members controlled via AI?
I THINK you are talking about allies in single player games? I think it's best if they were controlled by the AI.
Also, Jorj and I have worked and worked and got a general system for the bandits. It goes like this: There are 0 - 2 bandit camps around the map at the start. Each player starts with a leader unit (basically a normal unit with a name and pumped up stats), peasants and a caravan (stores your resources on-the-go) and then you would go and build your base. Then the bandits and raiders would go and do a hit-and-run to get more resources (gold mostly) so that would make you get a good army in the start game.
Just our thoughts.
Yeah, that's what I was talking about, I would think it best be controlled by AI too, the player controlling each member would be hard to play and hard to code...
Sounds great!Quote:
Also, Jorj and I have worked and worked and got a general system for the bandits. It goes like this: There are 0 - 2 bandit camps around the map at the start. Each player starts with a leader unit (basically a normal unit with a name and pumped up stats), peasants and a caravan (stores your resources on-the-go) and then you would go and build your base. Then the bandits and raiders would go and do a hit-and-run to get more resources (gold mostly) so that would make you get a good army in the start game.
Speaking of AI...
Here is a beginning of an AI Script. It would select a starting location and build a town square and three houses.
Enjoy!
I have statements regarding naval and siege warfare coming soon.
I can't work any more on the AI Build List until I get a full, current list of either units, buildings, or technologies. As far as I know, none of these are ready, so I'll just write the rules for now.
Everything is looking good from what i am seeing. I am going to have a lot of work to do when i get back =).
On bandits, the camps might not want to be actually on the map, because the maps still wont be all that big, but every map should fit into a part of the world (ie, its a continuous world), and some maps might have bandits on them. Other ideas might be a Baldur's Gate approach, where we only deal with a part of the entire world in the game, and the bandits are on various maps of an area.
On scripts: Scripts will be compiled. This means that they will have to be written in low level code (ASM-ish), so that each operation can be assigned to a single number. This should be no problem, even for you non-programmers, if you want to give it a try. A sample script might look something like this:
Also, let me know if anyone might have a use for strings in a script.Code:var DWORD x
mov x 10
echo x
mul x 10
echo 10
..output..
10
100
Z.
I can help on the script interpreter thing... I just need more info on it...
BTW, just out of curiosity, how much ASM do you know?
Can I Do Anything At All To Help ?
PsyVision: Do you know if we are going to be doing the script interpreter thing in VB? C++? Inside a DLL?
I think (and I know Jorj will agree with me) that making scripts like that would be too much work. Since Jorj wants to make these scripts, I say we have a preprocessor change Jorj's scripts into what you want them to look like. Right now, this is the template we have:
Then you can just look at the rest of Jorj's AI script...Code:$unit=marksman
$player=red
# this is a comment
# $ defines the default for a category. If no unit, player, etc. is selected they will be taken from this list. If there is no default then it will cause an error.
Psy and Dennis when Zaei's new engine is finished he'll give it to you guys to make an OpenGL port. (make sure this is compatible with VB we're still doing everything else in it!)
ok, eek shall have to talk to parks bout that, com shall prob be needed.
COM? Oh, I'll have to read up on that..!
Psy: You're talking 'bout Mike(Parks), right? He doesn't know COM :(
I do have a friend though, who is pretty good in COM and he can help me out a bit..
On ASM: a little, but enough to do basic things. I use it for the menu system, so that you can specify a function to be executed on a menu click.
On the engine design: Sas, what exactly do you want the engine to do? Why does it need to tie into VB? This is probably the most important quesiton ive asked.
On the scripts: The reason scripts need to be in an ASM-ish form is because walking through uncompiled scripts takes a long time. For example, drawing 25 lines on a picture box using the Win32API, from a script takes about as much time as drawing 25 lines on a picture box in vb using the .Line command, with a "Sleep 25" and a "DoEvents" in between each. What we can do though is to use Jorj's version for pre-game startup stuff.
I should have an engine design finished at some point (ive been pretty busy). All components will have a "lifetime" value so that they will be removed from memory at the correct time. All objects will use a system similar to the current PSystem, so we will be able to set a function to be performed every game tick, in addition to what is actually in that update.
Z.
Well I was thinking about having the Engine be in C++ and everything else in VB but it would be too complicated... and yes before the game it will load the scripts and process them, I think it'll take about 5 seconds per script on a decent computer.
hey, i have got MSN to work again, i have had a virus that is blocking me though my cleaner cant get rid of it. So, i have a new username, so i can get you all back on my list my new name is:
[email protected]
this one now works unlike my old one which the virus is being gay over.
I'll scan the acolyte tomorrow and should be coming to a mail
service near you if not Ill post it here. Dont forget when units
die they rot in a decaying order, from flesh to skeleton and then disapear.
That's definately going to happen.
hey, could I help with the AI?
Do you know C++? If not, you can work on AI Algorithms. Because if you've waded through the ten pages, we've decided to use C++ for the game.
But sure, help is always accepted!