tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post6712904371521864389..comments2023-09-24T07:49:19.084-04:00Comments on Games By Design Has Moved!: AVWW Update: Windstorms, Fast-Travel, Vengeful Ghosts, Strategic Overlay, Citybuilding, Character Selection/Stats, Caving, Boss TypesChristopher M. Parkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16719365007524426389noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-65002119857870416762011-09-16T11:41:49.098-04:002011-09-16T11:41:49.098-04:00I hear your points, and that's a possibility, ...I hear your points, and that's a possibility, but I will say that not one out of a dozen plus testers has mentioned it. There's not really a need to tell players what will happen on this, as they figure it out. When they die, the ghost appears and it tells them. When they go back, the ghost is still there. Etc.<br /><br />When the four is reached, a message gets shown to them saying that a mysterious force has banded the ghosts together, and they are now headed for your settlement. You see the ghosts on the world map, and this is not an unusual sort of event as bandits spawn periodically anyhow and come for your settlements, so the ghosts are just yet one more example of something pre-existing.<br /><br />There have been a number of places in the alpha versions where there was initial confusion and we had to make things clearer for the subsequent batches of testers, but this isn't one that anyone has ever brought up.<br /><br />It might be something we look at later, but right now I have a long list of things that testers actually think should be changed, and we're focusing on getting those things cleaned up prior to beta.Christopher M. Parkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16719365007524426389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-81617159299379678502011-09-16T11:34:25.018-04:002011-09-16T11:34:25.018-04:00I think I understand the principle, you want to in...I think I understand the principle, you want to insure that ghosts are significant penalties, not ubiquitous etc.<br /><br />The problem is that having them march when they get to four is something that makes sense in computer-logic terms but not necessarily in world-logic terms.<br /><br />It's like having a high score table that wraps round and has some other effect when it aproaches some high power of two. That might make an elegant program, but why should anyone playing the game expect that?<br /><br />It's not simply a matter of telling someone it will happen in some manual or starting tutorial, as it's quite an unexpected quirk.<br /><br />So this trigger of four probably needs some cues to remember it, and more importantly some story in the world to have it make sense.<br /><br />The tricky part to my mind is the danger of forming a barrier to the non-technical. You probably want people to be able to get into the game and understand it as a world.<br /><br />More generally, I feel like games that are more intuitive to play allow you metaphors to understand their structure, and remind you of those metaphors by various things in the UI or world, even when that specific event is not happening.<br /><br />You could do something like have the ghosts appear on the "select new character" screen, in such a way that implies the max number etc.<br /><br />To be honest I think the ghost mechanic is a very cute one even if they do stay where they are, and I think it has a lot of potential for development (eg slightly randomise their location to make speed running more difficult), but depending on how you set it up, this swarming bit could be very interesting too.Josh Wnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-40048208348065173192011-09-14T16:17:39.695-04:002011-09-14T16:17:39.695-04:00Thanks! And yeah, this is a huge project. But, l...Thanks! And yeah, this is a huge project. But, like with AI War, it's also something intended to be a multi-year project. By the time we hit 1.0 the goal is to have the bulk of the cool stuff in there, but to keep really pounding on this for a long, long time to come. I think that's the only real way to do something massive and new, at least as an indie. I love how Dwarf Fortress does that, and we've done a form of that with AI War in a different genre, and now we want to do that here, too.Christopher M. Parkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16719365007524426389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-76890355849869522352011-09-14T16:13:20.654-04:002011-09-14T16:13:20.654-04:00Sounds great, then. Very interested to see where t...Sounds great, then. Very interested to see where this goes--you guys are dreaming big and I really hope you're able to accomplish all you desire with this game, as it is one of the most exciting ideas I've seen recently.Robert Mohrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06743186445657692368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-41128219631651139982011-09-14T15:10:31.488-04:002011-09-14T15:10:31.488-04:00Cocoarico -- Thanks for the kind words. For the m...Cocoarico -- Thanks for the kind words. For the moment we're going to stick with the way that we have it, as it seems to make a lot of sense in practice and with our alpha testers so far. But I expect the system to grow.<br /><br />Wolf Ninja -- Likewise, thanks for the kind words! And in terms of some characters becoming immune to turning into a vengeful ghost, Keith and I definitely have talked about that. Ideally once someone is a certain amount of a great hero, they would be immune. Someday we want to have things like festivals when jerks die, or funerals when heroes die, etc, and this sort of thing would fit into that. Those are just broad ideas, of course, but I think that something along those lines would be fun to do once the core game is further along.<br /><br />Oh -- and, thematically-speaking, there is a very good explanation for the ghosts, though I won't tell you what it is. Right now the game just kind of hints at it, but that's going to be one of those mysteries you will be able to piece together about the world as you explore. :)Christopher M. Parkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16719365007524426389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-25798520809645142162011-09-14T15:00:29.488-04:002011-09-14T15:00:29.488-04:00Sounds very awesome. This sort of "unlimited ...Sounds very awesome. This sort of "unlimited adventure" game is actually something that occurred to me as a cool idea when I played some of the Fable games (as in, "wouldn't it be cool if there were this type of game but you could have endless adventures by going to different continents and such?"), and AVWW thus massively interests me. Looking forward to seeing what you've accomplished.<br /><br />On the ghosts--mechanically they sound neat and certainly are a nice "death penalty" to replace the more arduous "death run" that's annoyed me since I played MMOs, but is there a world/story explanation for them or a way to not become a ghost other than the "protected region"? <br /><br />It seems a little odd that every hero, even the purest goody-two-shoes nice guy who spends his whole life helping everyone out, becomes a murderous ghost out to slay humanity when he dies unless he's in a specific protected region. It might be nice to (later) include some way to ensure that your heroic do-gooder doesn't become a psychotic murderous spirit even though he is exploring dangerous regions. Some sort of "righteous soul" idea or something that makes him move on regardless of where he dies, or maybe even act as a protective spirit for travelers in that region (there's actually a lot of neat stuff you could do with good and evil ghosts).Robert Mohrhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06743186445657692368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-52340657420756465412011-09-14T00:49:35.644-04:002011-09-14T00:49:35.644-04:00Great post and a lot of information that whetted m...Great post and a lot of information that whetted my appetite for the beta. On the topic of ghosts though I agree with Josh W that it seems a little forced considering when the global number hits four they immediately band together and seek revenge. I'd prefer it if there was a cause for the ghost to rise up, for example the death of a fairly successful character calling the others to his side, or a large group of weaker ghosts that were created by less then noble deaths (ie. shooting yourself in the foot.) At the very least I'd prefer a little bit of surprise for when they come instead of counting my deaths and anticipating them. Either way the game is looking great and I'm sure whatever the team decides will suit the overall tone.Cocoaricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17122901285745528264noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-92014063487858789472011-09-13T19:31:22.484-04:002011-09-13T19:31:22.484-04:00Well, "calling the ghosts" would actuall...Well, "calling the ghosts" would actually really be a bad idea, for the most part -- it's very much a penalty for them to come after you. Four is a special number because that's how many units tend to be in a strategic unit.<br /><br />There's no general memory cost at all to having ghosts way out in the world, although I guess if there were thousands it would start to be a problem. But the main thing is, if you die in some little chunk and then can just speedrun through it, the ghost was meaningless. Or if you die repeatedly in a boss room, and it's chock full of ghosts, that may have just become unwinnable, which is way too mean.<br /><br />The ghosts advancing on you is both a mean thing and a nice thing on our part, and it generally keeps stuff more balanced in general.Christopher M. Parkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16719365007524426389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-47241491553318957352011-09-13T19:26:18.687-04:002011-09-13T19:26:18.687-04:00Very interesting stuff!
I have a suggestion on th...Very interesting stuff!<br /><br />I have a suggestion on the ghosts though:<br /><br />They seem perfect as a consequence when they stay in one place, marking the point where you died before. It is resonant and interesting, as well as having tactical consequences.<br /><br />I don't see what is special about there being four of them that should change their behaviour, and if there is something special, this should probably be signaled to the player.<br /><br />First off what is the problem with someone killing off hundreds of random wanderers in the local area? Leaving hundreds of ghosts? Why are you limiting the total number? Presumably there is a memory toll, but I can't imagine it's very high compared to the persistent world being generated all around them. I would suggest that instead the problem is that someone walls themselves in with all these ghosts, making it very difficult to progress.<br /><br />So how about you let the players make the choice when there are too many ghosts? What if you call them back to the settlement, to have their revenge against the settlement they died for, or be killed on route?<br /><br />You could call them in on the strategic map, and have them be marked there, acting similarly to bandits. They would also automatically stop when they have killed a person each in the settlement, or the settlement is empty, allowing players who do really badly to restart from slightly lower than scratch.Josh Wnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439941893980599296.post-18451677334321865472011-09-13T15:38:09.168-04:002011-09-13T15:38:09.168-04:00Wow, that's a lot of information. Thanks for k...Wow, that's a lot of information. Thanks for keeping us posted. I can't wait for the beta!RagerXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15951412475743667608noreply@blogger.com