I am making a space rpg similar to escape velocity, or flash trek broken mirror ( or if you dont know what those are, a single player top down view EVE/ ?)
I just want peoples general opinions on things
1: Death system: Do you want to load an older game after you die?, or do you want games to auto save, and reset you back to using starter stuff ( a small ship )( but maybe you get to keep your money )
2: Do you like a time limit on when to complete the end objective ? ( fallout 2 time limit to find the GECK is the closest example I can think of) or no limits?
( these can be very lenient as well, but since there is a lot of traveling I wanted to maybe give some kind of repercussions for zipping back and fourth across the universe willy nilly
I guess thats it for now, il probably come up with more questions
I think it would be better to mod a game rather than make it from scratch. You get a decent engine, graphics etc. most of the work is done for you. I hear Titan's Quest is very moddable.
The time limit in Fallout 2 was rather vague. From my experience though, people generally don't like time limits in games for any reason. RTS games are different that way though cause you have no choice but to hurry it up. But in an RPG, no. I do understand concerns regarding free travel all over without any consequence, however. But be careful if you do impose some kind of time limit that it does not seem too contrived. Fallout 1 and 2's time limit made a bit more sense just because either water was running out or the village was dying from lack of resources.
I think it would be better to mod a game rather than make it from scratch. You get a decent engine, graphics etc. most of the work is done for you. I hear Titan's Quest is very moddable.
This seriously is your response to his specific request for feedback?
Experience derived from making a game from scratch is generally more valuable. So it depends on what you want to do with it.
1. I'm more used to save-load systems. But, if you do implement an auto-save system, reverting to starter status sounds too extreme, even EVE doesn't do that. You could have auto-saves and throwing you back to those auto-saves with w/e ship you had at the time.
2. Time limits are OK as long as they are tied to the play time. For instance, in Oblivion, you spend a lot of time traveling/waiting (especially a vampire), so putting time limits in that game is dangerous, or they should be unrealistically large. Time limits in EVE do not bother me at all.
Time limit on end objective sounds a bit confusing. If you can zip back and forth, that suggests the game has some sandbox elements, so not giving players the ability to use those elements as they wish sounds counterproductive (most hours playing Oblivion are spent doing something other than the main quest). If the game is linear, time limits lose significance since you have nothing better to do anyway. So, I would say no.
I also found Fallout 1's get-water-to-your-vault thing terribly annoying and disruptive. I don't know anything about the game and there's already a time limit above my head.
I also found Fallout 1's get-water-to-your-vault thing terribly annoying and disruptive. I don't know anything about the game and there's already a time limit above my head.
Disruptive how? First time I played that game, getting the water chip was pretty easy and I had plenty of days left to spare. Best part was, it wasn't even the end of the game. After the water chip mission, you have all the time you want to explore and finish the rest of the main storyline.
I wanted to walk around my Vault and stuff, and overall have fun, not be like "crap where can I get water wtf is even considered a source of water in this game? How much time will I need? 5 days, 30 days, all 90 (or however was there) days?" E.g., instead of enjoying the game I had to rush to w/e part seemed most important in the game to get the water stuff.
Then I finally found water and apparently you have to get it again the next time from a different source. And the way I got it originally was cumbersome enough. At that point I just said "screw this" and ragequit.
After the water chip mission, you have all the time you want to explore and finish the rest of the main storyline.
I didn't even know there was a chip. Nor did I know how soon it was going to be. The utter lack of knowledge is the part which made it extremely unpleasant for me.
DID SOMEBODY JUST TALK ABOUT MOTHERFUCKING ESCAPE VELOCITY?
That game was awesome, and I miss it.
Anyhow, combination of both for the death system.
Make a hardcore mode for people who want to be punished for fucking up, basically they lose the ship they were flying, and are transported back to the starting area. Don't wipe their whole character/all their possessions of course, just the ship they were flying at the time.
And then the obligatory quicksave/load/whatever system for pussies.
I definitely liked how the time limits worked in Escape Velocity, they made it so you couldn't just rack up 10 or so missions and bang them out at once, you actually had to commit to missions.
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Quote from "Sixen" »
"One in every 10 million people can potentially have a headache from this pill." God forbid she is the 0.000000001% of having a headache.
Mmmm, thought it was a pretty incomplete explanation, so went back and edited the shit out of it.
I still stand by the fact that "QUICKSAVE/LOAD LOL" is a horrid system that makes games way too easy, though. Checkpoints are even worse as well, having to replay entire sections of the game if you found one too hard to do, so I dunno about an autosave system either. It's really tough to strike a balance between freedom and actually punishing players for sucking at games :/.
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Quote from "Sixen" »
"One in every 10 million people can potentially have a headache from this pill." God forbid she is the 0.000000001% of having a headache.
This seriously is your response to his specific request for feedback?
Well I figured other people would help him. I haven't played any of the games he mentioned and there aren't many options for the first request... I guess I would go with autosave out of those, Mr. Siaynoq.
I still stand by the fact that "QUICKSAVE/LOAD LOL" is a horrid system that makes games way too easy, though.
Dunno, I never found this to be true. If you can't go through a part, you can't. Diablo 1 SP had a save-load system, but no amount of saving and loading would kill the dogs for you.
Save-load system is generally a bit meh for RPG games, at most.
Besides the checkpoints, the other alternative is the non-die system aka when you "die" you just lose "something". Aka MMO's like EVE. But not Hardcore, that's a more specific mode.
I wanted to walk around my Vault and stuff, and overall have fun, not be like "crap where can I get water wtf is even considered a source of water in this game? How much time will I need? 5 days, 30 days, all 90 (or however was there) days?" E.g., instead of enjoying the game I had to rush to w/e part seemed most important in the game to get the water stuff.
Time only passed if you traveled between cities or rested. And resting was seldom necessary. So upon visiting a town, you could spend way more time there than was even necessary to figure things out.
Then I finally found water and apparently you have to get it again the next time from a different source. And the way I got it originally was cumbersome enough. At that point I just said "screw this" and ragequit.
There is one other time in the game besides the water chip you can get water. And you don't even have to do it. You can do it as an option to buy yourself more time to find the water chip. I easily found the chip without ever having to buy myself more time with the water merchants. I guess you had to pay more attention to what you were actually doing in town.
I didn't even know there was a chip. Nor did I know how soon it was going to be. The utter lack of knowledge is the part which made it extremely unpleasant for me.
LOL
They mention the water chip in the very opening cinematic. The Overseer mentions several times about how you need to find a water chip and he gives you some possible locations where can begin your search. Sure, you play detective a little but I thought it was just challenging enough to have fun without getting frustrated over it.
Time only passed if you traveled between cities or rested. And resting was seldom necessary. So upon visiting a town, you could spend way more time there than was even necessary to figure things out.
Yeah, I didn't want to visit town. I wanted to walk around the vault and kill RadScorpions. I am a bit anal about my map exploration so I prefer to explore the entire area via traveling before I move on, which spent a tremendous amount of time.
There is one other time in the game besides the water chip you can get water. And you don't even have to do it. You can do it as an option to buy yourself more time to find the water chip. I easily found the chip without ever having to buy myself more time with the water merchants. I guess you had to pay more attention to what you were actually doing in town.
I guess I like having fun and "worrying" about water chips is not part of that. And I don't know how the game works so paying attention to town consisted of numerous very careful save loads to make sure I don't screw up since I have no way to deduce what a "screw up" is.
They mention the water chip in the very opening cinematic. The Overseer mentions several times about how you need to find a water chip and he gives you some possible locations where can begin your search.
I played enough RPG games where "find this item to cure yourself" turned into "you have to give the cure to this guy here who's more important than you and then search for the cure again". Considering that me finding water sounded very much like that 2nd scenario I got very annoyed and I wasn't convinced the chip existed and didn't get destroyed after the fallout or something (I had a lot of questions about the Overseer and vault and it all didn't make a lot of sense to me so I wasn't too confident about what they told me). I also played plenty of RPG games where "go here" ended up as "also go here, here, here, and here".
Since I don't know how long it takes I have to do it as fast as possible or I get paranoid.
It's just not something I like, that's all. I dislike fatal time limits. I'm OK with non-fatal time limits on conveyor missions but not something of the "if you don't do this you die" nature.
Yeah, I didn't want to visit town. I wanted to walk around the vault and kill RadScorpions. I am a bit anal about my map exploration so I prefer to explore the entire area via traveling before I move on, which spent a tremendous amount of time.
Well, as I stated before, time only really passed when you traveled using the map or when you rested. Once you were at a location you could hang around there forever. In a given location there were only so many enemies to kill anyway. I wonder though if you are referring to exploring the desert in the non-labeled squares of the map. If you were doing that most the time then sure I guess you would get worried about the time limit eventually.
I played enough RPG games where "find this item to cure yourself" turned into "you have to give the cure to this guy here who's more important than you and then search for the cure again". Considering that me finding water sounded very much like that 2nd scenario I got very annoyed and I wasn't convinced the chip existed and didn't get destroyed after the fallout or something (I had a lot of questions about the Overseer and vault and it all didn't make a lot of sense to me so I wasn't too confident about what they told me). I also played plenty of RPG games where "go here" ended up as "also go here, here, here, and here".
Interesting. I never got the impression that the water chip was a red herring of some kind. What I liked is that I thought finding the water chip would mean beating the game. But then after I retrieved it I found out I had a whole new objective. One that had no time limit at all. So I guess for me the only misleading thing about the water chip was that it was the main event of the game.
It's just not something I like, that's all. I dislike fatal time limits. I'm OK with non-fatal time limits on conveyor missions but not something of the "if you don't do this you die" nature.
For the most part, I don't like it neither. I just disagree with you over how it was executed in F1.
Thanks all for your great feedback,
I did want to mod titan quest, but it wouldn't run on my computer.
Plus this game is about 93% done, I just need to polish it up.
An other alternative I forgot for the main quest time limit thing is it just gets harder, you don't auto fail it if you run out of time, but it just gets harder the more you avoid it o.o
How would you feel about that?
Yeah as long as time limits aren't there for an arbitrary reason, but are tied into the plot then they're far more bearable.
function reason: so people dont zip to the farthest stretches of space willy nilly because that takes more time
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
another reason being there is no fuel supply, you have infinite jumps, without having to refuel, but it might be too advantageous to warp to certain places without repercussions, and if the nemesis is getting stronger over time they might think twice
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
Sounds like scaled leveling to me. Just don't make it sucky like in Oblivion. I makes enough sense in Oblivion if other humans, elves and orcs are also leveling up. But like, a cave rat? A goblin? A bear? They shouldn't be leveling up.
another reason being there is no fuel supply, you have infinite jumps, without having to refuel, but it might be too advantageous to warp to certain places without repercussions, and if the nemesis is getting stronger over time they might think twice
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
Yeah, depending on the enemies. Like I said, it's logical enough if some enemies are getting stronger. But I don't know what your game is about really or what kinds of enemies we're talking about here.
I just want peoples general opinions on things
1: Death system: Do you want to load an older game after you die?, or do you want games to auto save, and reset you back to using starter stuff ( a small ship )( but maybe you get to keep your money )
2: Do you like a time limit on when to complete the end objective ? ( fallout 2 time limit to find the GECK is the closest example I can think of) or no limits?
( these can be very lenient as well, but since there is a lot of traveling I wanted to maybe give some kind of repercussions for zipping back and fourth across the universe willy nilly
I guess thats it for now, il probably come up with more questions
This seriously is your response to his specific request for feedback?
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
1. I'm more used to save-load systems. But, if you do implement an auto-save system, reverting to starter status sounds too extreme, even EVE doesn't do that. You could have auto-saves and throwing you back to those auto-saves with w/e ship you had at the time.
2. Time limits are OK as long as they are tied to the play time. For instance, in Oblivion, you spend a lot of time traveling/waiting (especially a vampire), so putting time limits in that game is dangerous, or they should be unrealistically large. Time limits in EVE do not bother me at all.
Time limit on end objective sounds a bit confusing. If you can zip back and forth, that suggests the game has some sandbox elements, so not giving players the ability to use those elements as they wish sounds counterproductive (most hours playing Oblivion are spent doing something other than the main quest). If the game is linear, time limits lose significance since you have nothing better to do anyway. So, I would say no.
I also found Fallout 1's get-water-to-your-vault thing terribly annoying and disruptive. I don't know anything about the game and there's already a time limit above my head.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
Then I finally found water and apparently you have to get it again the next time from a different source. And the way I got it originally was cumbersome enough. At that point I just said "screw this" and ragequit.
I didn't even know there was a chip. Nor did I know how soon it was going to be. The utter lack of knowledge is the part which made it extremely unpleasant for me.
That game was awesome, and I miss it.
Anyhow, combination of both for the death system.
Make a hardcore mode for people who want to be punished for fucking up, basically they lose the ship they were flying, and are transported back to the starting area. Don't wipe their whole character/all their possessions of course, just the ship they were flying at the time.
And then the obligatory quicksave/load/whatever system for pussies.
I definitely liked how the time limits worked in Escape Velocity, they made it so you couldn't just rack up 10 or so missions and bang them out at once, you actually had to commit to missions.
Nice edit, Zhar. You were about to receive flak from me.
I still stand by the fact that "QUICKSAVE/LOAD LOL" is a horrid system that makes games way too easy, though. Checkpoints are even worse as well, having to replay entire sections of the game if you found one too hard to do, so I dunno about an autosave system either. It's really tough to strike a balance between freedom and actually punishing players for sucking at games :/.
Well I figured other people would help him. I haven't played any of the games he mentioned and there aren't many options for the first request... I guess I would go with autosave out of those, Mr. Siaynoq.
Save-load system is generally a bit meh for RPG games, at most.
Besides the checkpoints, the other alternative is the non-die system aka when you "die" you just lose "something". Aka MMO's like EVE. But not Hardcore, that's a more specific mode.
There is one other time in the game besides the water chip you can get water. And you don't even have to do it. You can do it as an option to buy yourself more time to find the water chip. I easily found the chip without ever having to buy myself more time with the water merchants. I guess you had to pay more attention to what you were actually doing in town.
LOL
They mention the water chip in the very opening cinematic. The Overseer mentions several times about how you need to find a water chip and he gives you some possible locations where can begin your search. Sure, you play detective a little but I thought it was just challenging enough to have fun without getting frustrated over it.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
I guess I like having fun and "worrying" about water chips is not part of that. And I don't know how the game works so paying attention to town consisted of numerous very careful save loads to make sure I don't screw up since I have no way to deduce what a "screw up" is.
I played enough RPG games where "find this item to cure yourself" turned into "you have to give the cure to this guy here who's more important than you and then search for the cure again". Considering that me finding water sounded very much like that 2nd scenario I got very annoyed and I wasn't convinced the chip existed and didn't get destroyed after the fallout or something (I had a lot of questions about the Overseer and vault and it all didn't make a lot of sense to me so I wasn't too confident about what they told me). I also played plenty of RPG games where "go here" ended up as "also go here, here, here, and here".
Since I don't know how long it takes I have to do it as fast as possible or I get paranoid.
It's just not something I like, that's all. I dislike fatal time limits. I'm OK with non-fatal time limits on conveyor missions but not something of the "if you don't do this you die" nature.
Yeah, to each his own. And I guess I also like having fun and I was never THAT worried about the water chip cause it was really quite easy to get.
Interesting. I never got the impression that the water chip was a red herring of some kind. What I liked is that I thought finding the water chip would mean beating the game. But then after I retrieved it I found out I had a whole new objective. One that had no time limit at all. So I guess for me the only misleading thing about the water chip was that it was the main event of the game.
You're really sweet. Working fast to save all those people.
For the most part, I don't like it neither. I just disagree with you over how it was executed in F1.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
I did want to mod titan quest, but it wouldn't run on my computer.
Plus this game is about 93% done, I just need to polish it up.
An other alternative I forgot for the main quest time limit thing is it just gets harder, you don't auto fail it if you run out of time, but it just gets harder the more you avoid it o.o
How would you feel about that?
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
function reason: so people dont zip to the farthest stretches of space willy nilly because that takes more time
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
another reason being there is no fuel supply, you have infinite jumps, without having to refuel, but it might be too advantageous to warp to certain places without repercussions, and if the nemesis is getting stronger over time they might think twice
Plot wise: the enemies would obviously get stronger over time, just as you do.
Sounds like scaled leveling to me. Just don't make it sucky like in Oblivion. I makes enough sense in Oblivion if other humans, elves and orcs are also leveling up. But like, a cave rat? A goblin? A bear? They shouldn't be leveling up.
That's perfectly sensible.
Yeah, depending on the enemies. Like I said, it's logical enough if some enemies are getting stronger. But I don't know what your game is about really or what kinds of enemies we're talking about here.
Siaynoq's Playthroughs
No, you can select a system, and go to warp speed, and bing, your in a new location
Nah, only the main plot quest ships ( space ships ) they might get better equipment upgrades etc