Guild - YABDR??

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Quoting Antoine <mail@guildgame.com>:
>Guild is looking alarmingly like YABDR (yet another born dead
>roguelike) at this stage. I'm not quite sure why, but it's received
>very little attention since it was first released

No source. A new RL has to have an utterly compelling concept for me to
try it without source to read. DoomRL made the cut; nothing else has.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Brieday, August.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

"Antoine" <mail@guildgame.com> wrote:
>Guild is looking alarmingly like YABDR (yet another born dead
>roguelike) at this stage. I'm not quite sure why, but it's received
>very little attention since it was first released - no discussion on
>RGRD or RGRM to speak of, only a few emails and not one single YAVP. In
>fact, I'm not sure if anyone but me has ever actually completed the
>whole game (or even the second quest???)

I haven't got as far as the second quest yet. So far, I haven't seen
anything to persuade me that I should bother, I'm afraid.

>I'd appreciate any feedback on
>-why Guild didn't take off

It appears to be a cross between Angband and a 1980s CRPG, but picking a
suboptimal set of the features of its parents.

>-from those who did try it, what they liked and/or disliked about it

It's too easy. Like Angband, it's feasible to advance in level for
essentially zero risk. Any time one runs low on resources, one retreats
to the town. The "dangerous cave" isn't dangerous. In many of the
CRPGs I remember playing in the 1980s, party death was an appreciable
hazard, especially in the early levels (although the significant risk
in The Bard's Tale of having your party gimped by Barbarians on the way
to spend your initial allotment of gold was a masterpiece of appalling
design).

I like the menu-driven town; it reminds me of several fondly-remembered
CRPGs published by SSI in the 1980s.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\_\/_/ in the metal and blood in the scent and mascara on a backcloth of
\ / lashes and scars in a flood of your tears in sackcloth and ashes
\/ -- Sisters of Mercy, "Flood I"

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Shedletsky <mylastname@stanford.edu> wrote:
> I don't *want* to. The unix-like mentally of many RL developers vis a vis
> useability makes the learning curve too high for a lot of games and kills
> the fun, in my opinion.

But it's a case of learn once, save time ever after. It only kills the
fun if you don't get past the learning curve.

Less keys to learn means more keys to press per action taken, or more
room for errors ('u'se potion, oh dear I meant to read a scroll...)

If I were aiming for mass market commercial success, then ease of uptake
might take preference over superior gameplay.

As it is, my own enjoyment of my game will be improved by having a
different keybinding for 'r'ead and 'q'uaff, and no mouse control, so
that's how it'll be.

Playing Nethack through Falcon's Eye, I first thought "Hm... pretty,"
and then two minutes later thought "pity about the mouse control and
graphical noise from the gameplay point of view" and went back to ASCII-
clean, expressive commands, and all the visual display abstracted to the
clearest possible form.

Diablo's UI was undoubtedly intuitive, no learning curve, but all that
damn mouse clicking and waiting to watch the animations caused me
to switch the game off after ten minutes and never go back.

Clearly this is just personal taste, and mine is atypical of gamers. I
don't think it's atypical of roguelike gamers, though.

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Antoine <mail@guildgame.com> wrote:
<post from Ilya Bely>

> Suggestion to use persistent dungeons doesn't seem to fix it, as going
> forth and back through the same empty levels is even more boring. I

Just responding here because I think I was the one who said that I liked
the absence of healing in the dungeon but would also prefer persistent
dungeons.
Indeed, the two would not work together at all. In the game's current
format, I like the idea of having to return to the town for certain
things (though maybe healing isn't the best thing to drive you to the
surface). If the game were to be restructured around persistent
dungeons, that would obviously have to be one of the first things to go,
unless you were to make Word of Recall available for no real cost very
early in the game.

That's not the direction the game is likely to go in, of course.

I'd like to reiterate something other people have said; if you have a
good vision for the game, follow the vision and in time players will
follow the game. A poor early response is to be expected for all RLs, I
think.

Thankyou for providing the email posts, it is especially interesting to
hear that RLs have a significant Japanese audience.

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At 8 Sep 2005 09:08:38 -0700,
Aquillion wrote:

> So I suggest that you add random quests. Random quests do have their
> limits, of course, and a lot of people don't like them; but diving into
> the dungeon to kill X monsters of type Y on level Z, to retrieve item X
> from from level Y, or to kill big monster X on level Y is at least a
> little bit more interesting than just diving in to get xp, and would
> give the player some sort of goals and a sense of accomplishment. The
> rewards for these quests don't have to be big... potions, handfuls of
> gold, spellbooks that may or may not be useful, whatever. The
> important thing is to give the player some sort of goal and to make it
> so things change, so they're not just exploring similar
> randomly-generated small cave levels over and over again. If the
> player could go into the tavern and pick up some random quests, it
> would satisfy this to some extent.
>
> Another way to keep things interesting and to add more uses for gold
> (which someone else brought up) might be to have random merchants
> appear at the tavern from time to time, selling things you can't get in
> the town's normal stores. This would add another interesting thing to
> do in town, and would break up the monotony of the early game a little
> bit more.

You could even join the two in some cases -- the merchant won't sell you
anything until you finish his quest... 😉

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(nn) 3 Grin
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

edward@lore.net wrote:
> Antoine <mail@guildgame.com> wrote:
> <post from Ilya Bely>
>
>>Suggestion to use persistent dungeons doesn't seem to fix it, as going
>>forth and back through the same empty levels is even more boring. I
>
>
> Just responding here because I think I was the one who said that I liked
> the absence of healing in the dungeon but would also prefer persistent
> dungeons.
> Indeed, the two would not work together at all. In the game's current
> format, I like the idea of having to return to the town for certain
> things (though maybe healing isn't the best thing to drive you to the
> surface). If the game were to be restructured around persistent
> dungeons, that would obviously have to be one of the first things to go,
> unless you were to make Word of Recall available for no real cost very
> early in the game.

In games with persistent dungeons and low (or nonexistent) respawn
rates, spells such as Word of Recall are tedium-savers. If Guild had the
option to bypass completely cleared levels, or something in the vein of
Darshan's Crawl patch's Travel Mode, persistent dungeons and the
inability to heal in the dungeon would make sense together.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

edward@lore.net a écrit :
> Shedletsky <mylastname@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>>I don't *want* to. The unix-like mentally of many RL developers vis a vis
>>useability makes the learning curve too high for a lot of games and kills
>>the fun, in my opinion.
>
>
> But it's a case of learn once, save time ever after. It only kills the
> fun if you don't get past the learning curve.
>
> Less keys to learn means more keys to press per action taken, or more
> room for errors ('u'se potion, oh dear I meant to read a scroll...)
>
> If I were aiming for mass market commercial success, then ease of uptake
> might take preference over superior gameplay.

Why do people always fell that an easy to learn UI will always end up
with a worse gameplay in the end ?

> As it is, my own enjoyment of my game will be improved by having a
> different keybinding for 'r'ead and 'q'uaff, and no mouse control, so
> that's how it'll be.

I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
by all means don't use it.

> Diablo's UI was undoubtedly intuitive, no learning curve, but all that
> damn mouse clicking and waiting to watch the animations caused me
> to switch the game off after ten minutes and never go back.

Animations are part of the gameplay in Diablo. But I agree with you, the
constant mouse clicking was annoying. I would take slower attack
animations any day and much stronger attacks just so that you don't have
to click so often. That's probably why I enjoy playing a sorceress more
than a regular warrior. Just cast 2-3 frozen orb in the general
direction of the monsters and enjoy the killing

I'd like to see a joystick controled RL once too/ There are a few good
RPG on consoles with a good enouth UI.

PS : Now I remember about Powder. I should try that one soon

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:
>edward@lore.net a écrit :
>>If I were aiming for mass market commercial success, then ease of uptake
>>might take preference over superior gameplay.
>Why do people always fell that an easy to learn UI will always end up
>with a worse gameplay in the end ?

Strong observed correlation, for one thing, and it's relatively easy to
exhibit specific bits of causation. NetHack's multitude of wear/wield/don
keys permits the ingenious secondary uses for objects that are part of its
gameplay.

>>As it is, my own enjoyment of my game will be improved by having a
>>different keybinding for 'r'ead and 'q'uaff, and no mouse control, so
>>that's how it'll be.
>I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
>your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
>by all means don't use it.

Evidently he means no required mouse control.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Brieday, August.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At Thu, 08 Sep 2005 17:34:21 +0200,
Christophe wrote:

> edward@lore.net a écrit :
>> Shedletsky <mylastname@stanford.edu> wrote:
>>>I don't *want* to. The unix-like mentally of many RL developers vis a vis
>>>useability makes the learning curve too high for a lot of games and kills
>>>the fun, in my opinion.
>> But it's a case of learn once, save time ever after. It only kills the
>> fun if you don't get past the learning curve.

>> Less keys to learn means more keys to press per action taken, or more
>> room for errors ('u'se potion, oh dear I meant to read a scroll...)

>> If I were aiming for mass market commercial success, then ease of uptake
>> might take preference over superior gameplay.

> Why do people always fell that an easy to learn UI will always end up
> with a worse gameplay in the end ?

Not always. It's often possible to improve UI without crippling it -- and
it's done constantly, as the games evolve.
But often you've got to make decissions and then it's natural to choose
the more efficient aproach over the one that's easier to learn.

>> As it is, my own enjoyment of my game will be improved by having a
>> different keybinding for 'r'ead and 'q'uaff, and no mouse control, so
>> that's how it'll be.
> I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
> your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
> by all means don't use it.

It's the same as the macros in Angband are supposed to prevent developing
more comfortable UI. It's of course arguable, but mouse control will
sometimes hide otherwise obvious UI design flaws.

> I'd like to see a joystick controled RL once too/ There are a few good
> RPG on consoles with a good enouth UI.
>
> PS : Now I remember about Powder. I should try that one soon

Dweller also uses kind of pad-controlled interface... 😉

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(Oo) 3 Eh?
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

David Damerell wrote:
> Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:

>>I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
>>your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
>>by all means don't use it.

> Evidently he means no required mouse control.

For what it's worth..... I would rather uninstall a roguelike
game than touch the mouse in order to play it.

Well, okay, that's a little too extreme. I might forgive having
to touch the mouse once or twice to do things like configuration
options that you only have to ever do once. But if it becomes
necessary for ordinary minute-to-minute play, or even for starting
each new game, forget it. To me that just wouldn't "feel" like
the game I want to be playing.

Bear

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:45:49 GMT,
Ray Dillinger wrote:

> David Damerell wrote:
>> Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:

> For what it's worth..... I would rather uninstall a roguelike
> game than touch the mouse in order to play it.
>
> Well, okay, that's a little too extreme. I might forgive having
> to touch the mouse once or twice to do things like configuration
> options that you only have to ever do once. But if it becomes
> necessary for ordinary minute-to-minute play, or even for starting
> each new game, forget it. To me that just wouldn't "feel" like
> the game I want to be playing.

Heh, how about mouse gestures to cast spells? ^-)

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(==) 3 Yawn?
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski wrote:

> At Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:45:49 GMT,
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>> David Damerell wrote:
>>> Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:
>
>> For what it's worth..... I would rather uninstall a roguelike
>> game than touch the mouse in order to play it.
>>
>> Well, okay, that's a little too extreme. I might forgive having
>> to touch the mouse once or twice to do things like configuration
>> options that you only have to ever do once. But if it becomes
>> necessary for ordinary minute-to-minute play, or even for starting
>> each new game, forget it. To me that just wouldn't "feel" like
>> the game I want to be playing.
>
> Heh, how about mouse gestures to cast spells? ^-)

Mouse gestures have already been done in a game as a gameplay feature. Arx
Fatalis I beleive. You have to draw the runes constituing the spell to cast
it.

There's also the other version of mouse gestures ( both can be considered as
nearly the same thing ) with radial pop up menus. Neverwinter Nights uses
such radial menus and casting a specific spell fells exactly like a mouse
gesture once you know where to find it. IIRC, The Temple of Elemental Evil
also makes great use of radial menu.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

In article <431f7618$0$22164$636a15ce@news.free.fr>,
Christophe Cavalaria <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:
>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> Success, when there's no compatibility lockin issues and
>> no "spin" manufacturers and no marketing and no etc, etc,
>> etc,.... usually is a pretty good indicator of merit, or
>> at least "fitness" in the evolutionary sense.
>
>I don't see success, I see a failed opportunity. That's what you don't whan
>to understand. Also, it would be very hard to argue that the macro system
>is an important factor of the angband "success". You could as well say that
>the amount of junk you can find in a dragon's treasure is an important
>factor too.

I would venture to say that patches to fix the issue of the amount of
junk you find in a dragon's treasure are, bar none, the most common
patches for Angband and its variants. I don't recall seeing any patches
to "fix" the macro/keymap system.

-Andrew ()

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Jeff Lait wrote:

> Christophe Cavalaria wrote:
>> Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski wrote:
>>
>> > At Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:45:49 GMT,
>> > Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> >
>> >> David Damerell wrote:
>> >>> Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:
>> >
>> >> For what it's worth..... I would rather uninstall a roguelike
>> >> game than touch the mouse in order to play it.
>> >>
>> >> Well, okay, that's a little too extreme. I might forgive having
>> >> to touch the mouse once or twice to do things like configuration
>> >> options that you only have to ever do once. But if it becomes
>> >> necessary for ordinary minute-to-minute play, or even for starting
>> >> each new game, forget it. To me that just wouldn't "feel" like
>> >> the game I want to be playing.
>> >
>> > Heh, how about mouse gestures to cast spells? ^-)
>>
>> Mouse gestures have already been done in a game as a gameplay feature.
>> Arx Fatalis I beleive. You have to draw the runes constituing the spell
>> to cast it.
>
> Black & White also used mouse gestures for all of its interface.
> Caused no end of frustration and anger.
>
> The greatest error is that there was no way to signal the *start* of a
> mouse gesture, so you'd accidentally send a different gesture half way
> between two attempts to get the right gesture.
>
>> There's also the other version of mouse gestures ( both can be considered
>> as nearly the same thing ) with radial pop up menus. Neverwinter Nights
>> uses such radial menus and casting a specific spell fells exactly like a
>> mouse gesture once you know where to find it. IIRC, The Temple of
>> Elemental Evil also makes great use of radial menu.
>
> It's odd you mention Neverwinter Nights. I found the *KEYPAD* to be
> the ideal interface to the radial menu. So much so I wanted to be able
> to hit the '5' key to bring up the radial menu over where the mouse was
> rather than hitting the RMB.

Yes, me too for some really repetive actions. But usually, I would put the
often used spells in the quick slots and use the radial menu to quick cast
daily buffs which were cast less often.

> The radial menu was, I thought, a good way of training me to memorize
> obscure keyboard short cuts like "2313" to cast one of my buff spells.
>
> The downside of radial menus is that for them to be useful, it is
> imperative that their order never changes. I had planned quad-radial
> menus for POWDER, but ended up ditching that for just plain lists.

You should check the temple of elemental evil. Their radial menu had much
more items than NWN and the keyboard navigation would have been too
cumbersome at that point but the mouse was still efficient. Still, NWN was
a better UI because not only the keyboard was efficient, the mouse was
efficient and the paradigms used by both were similar Brilliant I say.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 08 Sep 2005 17:29:22 +0100 (BST), David Damerell
<damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

>Quoting Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:
>>edward@lore.net a écrit :

>>>As it is, my own enjoyment of my game will be improved by having a
>>>different keybinding for 'r'ead and 'q'uaff, and no mouse control, so
>>>that's how it'll be.
>>I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
>>your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
>>by all means don't use it.
>
>Evidently he means no required mouse control.

I expect he means no mouse control. He specified "my own enjoyment of my
game" -- not any RL game, but *his* game. Why would he include mouse
control if he isn't interested in it?

--
R. Dan Henry = danhenry@inreach.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Andrew Patrick Schoonmaker wrote:

> In article <431f7618$0$22164$636a15ce@news.free.fr>,
> Christophe Cavalaria <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:
>>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>> Success, when there's no compatibility lockin issues and
>>> no "spin" manufacturers and no marketing and no etc, etc,
>>> etc,.... usually is a pretty good indicator of merit, or
>>> at least "fitness" in the evolutionary sense.
>>
>>I don't see success, I see a failed opportunity. That's what you don't
>>whan to understand. Also, it would be very hard to argue that the macro
>>system is an important factor of the angband "success". You could as well
>>say that the amount of junk you can find in a dragon's treasure is an
>>important factor too.
>
> I would venture to say that patches to fix the issue of the amount of
> junk you find in a dragon's treasure are, bar none, the most common
> patches for Angband and its variants. I don't recall seeing any patches
> to "fix" the macro/keymap system.
>
> -Andrew ()

Funny, I haven't seen a single patch to fix the amount of junk generated by
Angband, although I've seen various tries to create another tool with a
corresponding UI : the automatiser/autodestroyer/autoignore etc...

All in all, nobody as a definite solution for the junk generation problem
and so people go instead for the band aid. Which is what was done some
times ago with the macro system btw

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:
> Why do people always fell that an easy to learn UI will always end up
> with a worse gameplay in the end ?

It won't always, but there are tradeoffs to be decided upon. A game
whose UI is optimised for fast uptake (as most commercial games must be)
will often make concessions which damage gameplay.

I plan for my game to make the tradeoffs a little friendlier for
beginners than most roguelikes, but there will be an option file
allowing you to streamline the UI once you know the controls.
Just basic things affecting the minimum number of keypresses required to
drink a potion or equip an item.
Does using an item bring up the invlist automatically, or give you a
chance to just press the key because you know it? Does pressing the
inv_letter of an item within the invlist choose the item, or just move
the selection in the menu to that point until you press enter?

Those tradeoffs still exist, and if I were to keep even my basic
concessions to beginning users through to the thousandth game, it would
damage gameplay. Hence options.

> I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
> your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
> by all means don't use it.

Indeed, I mean no required mouse control. And I will not implement mouse
control at all in my own project, because it would add nothing and
would not fit in with the overall feel of the game.

> Animations are part of the gameplay in Diablo. But I agree with you, the
> constant mouse clicking was annoying. I would take slower attack

Animations look nice the first time you see them. Again, it sacrifices
long term gameplay for an instant "Oo, pretty" response. This will sell
your game but it won't make a good roguelike.

Of course, I encourage anyone to prove me wrong by making a good
animated realtime GUI-heavy roguelike. You'll probably still find me
playing Crawl and working on an ASCII roguelike project, because those
things make me happy.

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Jeff Lait wrote:

> It's odd you mention Neverwinter Nights. I found the *KEYPAD* to be
> the ideal interface to the radial menu. So much so I wanted to be able
> to hit the '5' key to bring up the radial menu over where the mouse was
> rather than hitting the RMB.
>
> The radial menu was, I thought, a good way of training me to memorize
> obscure keyboard short cuts like "2313" to cast one of my buff spells.

Me, too. And to open the radial menu on the player character, you press
'0' on the numpad. I don't know that it's documented anywhere, but it's
very handy when casting daily buffs.

I really hope NWN2 has a "cast buffs" quickslot possibility though, with
a list of buffs and the order in which to cast them.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

edward@lore.net a écrit :
> Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:
>
>>Why do people always fell that an easy to learn UI will always end up
>>with a worse gameplay in the end ?
>
>
> It won't always, but there are tradeoffs to be decided upon. A game
> whose UI is optimised for fast uptake (as most commercial games must be)
> will often make concessions which damage gameplay.
>
> I plan for my game to make the tradeoffs a little friendlier for
> beginners than most roguelikes, but there will be an option file
> allowing you to streamline the UI once you know the controls.
> Just basic things affecting the minimum number of keypresses required to
> drink a potion or equip an item.

It's not only the number of keypresses. I'm sure there are a lot of
computer users who would rather keep their hands on the arrow keys most
of the time because they would be more efficient like that. If you give
them a way to play your roguelike that way, you might have a novice
friendly user interface which doesn't harms advanced users. All that
without excessive config options

> Does using an item bring up the invlist automatically, or give you a
> chance to just press the key because you know it? Does pressing the

Why would bringing up the invlist be a problem if you already know the key ?

> inv_letter of an item within the invlist choose the item, or just move
> the selection in the menu to that point until you press enter?

I would advise against such behaviour. It's annoying for everybody.
Don't assume that novices always want confirmation for their actions.
Well, they might ask you to put a confirmation but it doesn't mean you
should I'm sure you can find a lot of stories on the web where some
user asked for a double confirmation against deletion because that same
user pressed the yes button too fast once.

> Those tradeoffs still exist, and if I were to keep even my basic
> concessions to beginning users through to the thousandth game, it would
> damage gameplay. Hence options.

Choice is good, too much options on the other hand can be bad. I'm sure
novices can handle a system with no confirmation to select an inventory
item. Always propting the user if he's right isn't a good UI practice
anyway. Instead, you should move the cursor cursor with the arrow keys
and select the item with enter key. That would be the prefered control
method for novices and I suspect for some advanced players in some
situations.

>>I don't see why the fact that there is no mouse control would improve
>>your enjoyment of the game. If you don't like the mouse controls, then
>>by all means don't use it.
>
>
> Indeed, I mean no required mouse control. And I will not implement mouse
> control at all in my own project, because it would add nothing and
> would not fit in with the overall feel of the game.

It's your roguelike, nobody will point a gun at you to implement mouse
controls

>>Animations are part of the gameplay in Diablo. But I agree with you, the
>>constant mouse clicking was annoying. I would take slower attack
>
>
> Animations look nice the first time you see them. Again, it sacrifices
> long term gameplay for an instant "Oo, pretty" response. This will sell
> your game but it won't make a good roguelike.

Animations give a visual support for the operations that take time. Turn
based roguelikes have difficulties handling things like casting time for
spells and casting delays. In turns there are a few game mechanics which
are hard to introduce like counterspells, breaking mage concentration etc...

> Of course, I encourage anyone to prove me wrong by making a good
> animated realtime GUI-heavy roguelike. You'll probably still find me
> playing Crawl and working on an ASCII roguelike project, because those
> things make me happy.
>

I would do that, not without someone to do the graphics for me

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

At Fri, 09 Sep 2005 10:44:54 +0200,
Christophe wrote:

> edward@lore.net a écrit :
>> Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:

>> Of course, I encourage anyone to prove me wrong by making a good
>> animated realtime GUI-heavy roguelike. You'll probably still find me
>> playing Crawl and working on an ASCII roguelike project, because those
>> things make me happy.
> I would do that, not without someone to do the graphics for me

You can start with a sprite construction kit from here:
http://sheep.prv.pl/~sheep/projects/graphics/
and some terrain tiles. I can try to make anything you're missing,
but it may take time as I'm pretty busy.

You could also try to just rip graphics from an existing game (just
for the proof of concept) and then maybe slowly substitute it with
custom made. Grapholic is a great tool for doing that (as well as
some emulators that allow you to dump graphics from the roms).


--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(><) 3 Ouch!
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Quoting Christophe Cavalaria <chris.cavalaria@free.fr>:
>Andrew Patrick Schoonmaker wrote:
>>I would venture to say that patches to fix the issue of the amount of
>>junk you find in a dragon's treasure are, bar none, the most common
>>patches for Angband and its variants.
>Funny, I haven't seen a single patch to fix the amount of junk generated by
>Angband, although I've seen various tries to create another tool with a
>corresponding UI : the automatiser/autodestroyer/autoignore etc...

autosquelch. Which certainly does fix the issue of the amount of junk you
find, which is what Andrew actually wrote.
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Gouday, August.

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Christophe <chris.cavalaria@free.fr> wrote:
> It's not only the number of keypresses. I'm sure there are a lot of
> computer users who would rather keep their hands on the arrow keys most
> of the time because they would be more efficient like that. If you give
> them a way to play your roguelike that way, you might have a novice
> friendly user interface which doesn't harms advanced users. All that
> without excessive config options

Arrow keys, blech. I prefer never to touch them. Hence it is necessary
to allow the user to map the keys as they choose, and my personal keymap
will use hjklyubn for directional control. Those keys are much closer to
the other commands on that side of the keyboard.
I know people who cringe at those letter controls, so I'm not going to
force anyone to use them, but for my own enjoyment, it is imperative
that the option be available.
Anything which requires arrow keys will harm my enjoyment. Not cripple,
but harm. (Diablo's UI crippled/killed whatever enjoyment the game may
have otherwise offered me.)

> Why would bringing up the invlist be a problem if you already know the key ?

The newbie-friendly UI settings require "enter" to choose the
cursor-selected item once you're in the invlist. This is an extra
keypress over just the letter.

> I would advise against such behaviour. It's annoying for everybody.
> Don't assume that novices always want confirmation for their actions.
<snip>
> Choice is good, too much options on the other hand can be bad. I'm sure
> novices can handle a system with no confirmation to select an inventory
> item.

I'm not suggesting a confirmation box (horrible things), just a "jump to
letter" function in addition to the directional keys (see below).

> Always propting the user if he's right isn't a good UI practice
> anyway. Instead, you should move the cursor cursor with the arrow keys
> and select the item with enter key.

This is precisely what the newbie-friendly UI settings do. As a further
optimisation over that, pressing the letter of an item will jump the
cursor to that item (so you don't have to scroll through with the
arrow keys). You still have to press enter to choose it; that's all I
meant by confirmation.

An "expert" option will allow you to move the cursor with the arrow
keys or pgup/pgdn, but pressing the inventory letter will _choose_ the
item directly with no "enter" required, rather than just moving the
cursor.

An invlist which required moving around with arrow keys followed by
enter would be a terrible burden on competent non-newbie users,
especially if it was summoned unbidden every time you pressed 'q'uaff
(another potential newbie option).

You're right that too many options can be a bad thing, but if I remove
options, I'll be removing newbie options (like arrow keys + enter in the
invlist) in favour of further optimisations to the expert behaviour.

> Animations give a visual support for the operations that take time. Turn
> based roguelikes have difficulties handling things like casting time for
> spells and casting delays. In turns there are a few game mechanics which
> are hard to introduce like counterspells, breaking mage concentration etc...

.... they're quite easy to introduce if you want them.
Most roguelikes only use such mechanics for tunneling, eating,
sleeping and other very time-consuming activities. It would be quite
trivial (in my action queue at least) to break down the casting of a
spell into three phases instead of the usual two.

Instead of

action request ->
cast spell (+ time delay)

it could go

action request ->
prepare spell (+ time delay) ->
cast spell (+ time delay)

..
Action requests consume no time, but you could insert a prep_spell phase
of any length, allowing the casting to be interrupted in that time.
If I believe there is a gameplay improvement in there, it will be in my
game. I'm undecided as to whether it would improve things, and am
currently inclined to think not.

The same mechanic exists in realtime animated games, and it's linked to,
but not dependent on, the animations. Of course, the animations make it
clearer for the player what's going on, at the cost of playing time.
Better from my point of view to move that clarity into text.

"The goblin interferes with your spell!"

and "The orc wizard begins to cast a spell..."

I suspect I'm more than a little offtopic, but thankyou for indulging me
so far, and let me know if I should relocate further discussion of the
merits of (ASCII + keyboard) vs (gfx + mouse) to a different thread.

I suspect it's not worth a whole new thread, though, since this is all
personal taste an opinion, all of which I'm sure has been discussed
before in my absence.

I must say I was surprised that the topic came up. I had been naively
assuming that most people here love the appearance of codepage 437 as
much as I do.

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Antoine]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Antoine wrote:
> Hi RGRDers,
>
> After finishing the Quickband project I've come back to Guild, and am
> wondering what to do with it.
>
> Guild is looking alarmingly like YABDR (yet another born dead
> roguelike) at this stage. I'm not quite sure why, but it's received
> very little attention since it was first released - no discussion on
> RGRD or RGRM to speak of, only a few emails and not one single YAVP. In
> fact, I'm not sure if anyone but me has ever actually completed the
> whole game (or even the second quest???)
>
> I'd appreciate any feedback on
> -why Guild didn't take off
> -from those who did try it, what they liked and/or disliked about it
> -how the game could be improved to be more successful, or
> -how the game could be marketed to be more successful...
>
> A.

Thanks for the feedback, all,

Here is my plan for getting Guild back on the rails - some small tweaks
and some quite big changes. Any comments appreciated.

1. Publish the source (easy enough, I could put that on guildgame.com
today)

2. Put frequent updates on RGRD describing new / interesting features

3. Fix the fatal 'wield' bugs

4. Reduce resource constraints (cheaper potions, higher healing limit
in one dungeon trip, more fountains)

5. Less junk in drops?

6. Remove the mechanic which 'exhausts' dungeon levels that you visit
often - it makes the dungeon too empty

7. Simplify NPC control - reduce the number of 'orders' (and perhaps
display the current 'order' on the main console). Put one order
instructing the whole party to target a specific monster, another one
telling them to take up positions that you will specify. Consider
disassociating orders from the sound system, which would mean you could
give orders to a character who was far from your party leader.

8. Allow unarmed characters to punch and throw unlimited rocks - would
reduce irritating 'nothing to wield' messages

9. Move to a graphic tile-based map. I was talking to a guy who was
going to help me out with this by producing a tileset - must get back
in touch... failing that I could use one of the standard tilesets.

10. In the process, move to a multi-platform set of libraries, thus
allowing Linux and Mac ports

11. (and I'd want coder help with this) Move to more of a GUI, with
graphic interfaces for inventory management, etc, and mouse control on
the main map.

A.

 

[Antoine]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Antoine wrote:
> Antoine wrote:
> > Hi RGRDers,
> >
> > After finishing the Quickband project I've come back to Guild, and am
> > wondering what to do with it.
> >
> > Guild is looking alarmingly like YABDR (yet another born dead
> > roguelike) at this stage. I'm not quite sure why, but it's received
> > very little attention since it was first released - no discussion on
> > RGRD or RGRM to speak of, only a few emails and not one single YAVP. In
> > fact, I'm not sure if anyone but me has ever actually completed the
> > whole game (or even the second quest???)
> >
> > I'd appreciate any feedback on
> > -why Guild didn't take off
> > -from those who did try it, what they liked and/or disliked about it
> > -how the game could be improved to be more successful, or
> > -how the game could be marketed to be more successful...
> >
> > A.
>
> Thanks for the feedback, all,
>
> Here is my plan for getting Guild back on the rails - some small tweaks
> and some quite big changes. Any comments appreciated.
>
> 1. Publish the source (easy enough, I could put that on guildgame.com
> today)
>
> 2. Put frequent updates on RGRD describing new / interesting features
>
> 3. Fix the fatal 'wield' bugs
>
> 4. Reduce resource constraints (cheaper potions, higher healing limit
> in one dungeon trip, more fountains)
>
> 5. Less junk in drops?
>
> 6. Remove the mechanic which 'exhausts' dungeon levels that you visit
> often - it makes the dungeon too empty
>
> 7. Simplify NPC control - reduce the number of 'orders' (and perhaps
> display the current 'order' on the main console). Put one order
> instructing the whole party to target a specific monster, another one
> telling them to take up positions that you will specify. Consider
> disassociating orders from the sound system, which would mean you could
> give orders to a character who was far from your party leader.
>
> 8. Allow unarmed characters to punch and throw unlimited rocks - would
> reduce irritating 'nothing to wield' messages
>
> 9. Move to a graphic tile-based map. I was talking to a guy who was
> going to help me out with this by producing a tileset - must get back
> in touch... failing that I could use one of the standard tilesets.
>
> 10. In the process, move to a multi-platform set of libraries, thus
> allowing Linux and Mac ports
>
> 11. (and I'd want coder help with this) Move to more of a GUI, with
> graphic interfaces for inventory management, etc, and mouse control on
> the main map.

12. Update the RogueBasin entry for Guild

13. Give the player a stronger 'push' at the start - guide them in the
direction of either the rat quest or the first dungeon. Not quite sure
how yet.

14. Add a guildgame link to my sig here

A.

 

[Antoine]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski wrote:
> At 11 Sep 2005 13:57:12 -0700,
> Antoine wrote:
>
> > 7. Simplify NPC control - reduce the number of 'orders' (and perhaps
> > display the current 'order' on the main console). Put one order
> > instructing the whole party to target a specific monster, another one
> > telling them to take up positions that you will specify. Consider
> > disassociating orders from the sound system, which would mean you could
> > give orders to a character who was far from your party leader.
>
> Ever played Seiken Densetsu 3 (aka Secret of Mana 2)?

No? Tell me about it.

A.