Castle Paradox

[Uncommon]

I just realised what the stats triangle reminds me of. OHR Date! Intelligence got you the best job, Charm was the most effective on the girls but hardest to raise, and Strength was somewhere in the middle and never really needed to be dealt with. Okay, so maybe that system wasn't the most balanced, but it gives an example of how that sort of system works.

[Gizmog1]

As a sort of ponderance, I wonder how far we should allow the player to go in customization of the looks of their character. I mean, if I had a dollar for all the weird things in MMORPG's that people spend HOURS getting, that only makes them look cool, I'd be a fairly rich man. Should we allow at even a base level customization of the way the character looks? I can see it probably adding a lot of strain to the artists, so it may not be a good idea.

[LeRoy_Leo]

Are you talking about just choosing the persona of the character before you begin, Giz? That is a feature in most (all) MMORPGs, I noticed. Just creating the character can be a shit load of fun, actually.

Now to the point. Do not worry. Whether you just have a person create their character's persona at the start and be done with that, or if you go further and have them able to change their person by equipping items (sword, shield, cool gear, etc.) all you need to do is to assign a SEPPARATE artist for just THAT. Any other artists would only have to worry about their regions (tiles, Walkabouts, attacks, etc.). It would create a new job opportunity, so to say.

Myself, I might consider applying for the job of "persona modifying".

This is what you want to talk about, yes?
Persona modifying:
For example; if you equip a shield, change character walkabout to the character holding a shield. It would be as easy as copy and pasting the original walkabout and modifying it. Never-the-less that can be a hassle to put that burden and making the original walkabout onto ONE artist. I still stick with my notion of finding someone to do the modifications.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Jack]

i wouldn't mind a bit to do the modifying, and the question still lingers: will it be ongoing customization, or just at the start? i for one go for the ongoing customization, a character should never be stuck in the same clothes for that period of time.

and if leroy wants to take over that little job, then he can go ahead. although i still would like to help out in that area a bit, but he can be the leader in it.
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[Gizmog1]

I would say it would be ongoing, with items you find adding in. There'd probably be modification of the character at the beginning, hairstyle, weight, etc. but clothing and armor and shields and weapons would then be modified in, and would change depending on what you had equipped.

[Ssalamanderr]

I'm all for customization! The more the better! I think it would be a good idea to have seperate people working on this though, because it would take a while. I don't know if you were planning to do this using OHR, but if so you will have to have a walkabout (and possibly battle graphics) for every single combination of items possible. If you're using a different engine, you could probably just have the different item images be put over the basic character image (actually I have no idea what I'm talking about).
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Ukelele no good!

[Mr B]

Ah...customization! The perilous beauty of it all.

Look Customization:

If you're going to customize the way a character looks, I would highly advise you not to overlook those five blank colours in the standard OHR color set. Why not? Let me tell ya.

Set aside these five colours for different aspects of the hero's look. The first two colours can be for the two shades of the character's hair. The second two colours can be for the two shades of the character's skin. The fifth colour can be for the character's eyes.

Then have the hero battle sprite and hero walkabout sprite use palettes that refer to these colours.

They're all blank, so what's the use? Aha! (and this is the delicious part) In the character customization process at the beginning of the game, allow the player to select from a continuous range of colours (you could probably give the player the entire range of possible OHR colours if you cycle the numbers correctly) for each setting. The hair colour would be one selection, and the "shaded" hair would be mathematically derived from it, and so on an so forth with the skin and the eyes. These numbers can be saved in global variables, and then used to modify the five slots in the global palette at the beginning of each game (using the "on game load" script).

I have to admit that I have never actually done this, but I do not see any reason why it should not work.

Of course, you will still need to have lots of palettes for all of the different cloak-shield-sword-hairpin-backpack-shoes-shirt-pants-tattoo-lipstick-bracelet-earring-nosering-toering-bellyring combinations, but it should still cut down on a LOT of clutter.


Character Customization:

I'm not too keen on the whole knight/rogue/mage/cook/jester/barhop/artist class distinctions. Oh, it's very helpful in many ways, and I use it myself, but character customization can be so much more.

Here's what I suggest.

Instead of merely choosing a class at the beginning of the game, why not lead the player through a five-minute "choose your own backstory" set of textboxes? After all, who we are is greatly affected by what has happened to us, so I think that the stat bonuses and skills a character gets should be determined by his backstory.

For example, the backstory generator can start out with the character as a child.

"It has been several days since you left your plague-stricken village. The bread in your pocket has dwindled to the point of nonexistance. A flock of quail crosses the path in front of you. Do you a) throw a rock at them b) sneak up and grab one c) pray for divine intervention?"

or

"The three ruffians cornered you behind the smithy. They grin, insulting your mother. Do you a) attack them with a stick b) sneakily steal a dagger from the one closest to you c) talk them down?"

The choices would branch, meaning that the decisions you make can result in radically different conclusions. All of the conclusions, however, would lead up to where the character begins the actual game. And hey -- maybe some of the choices you make can affect how some of the NPCs act later on in the game?

[Jack]

glad im not the programmer in this group. although it is a lot of artwork to do, but i'm sure it will be fun either way. when it's time to do that, everyone should start putting in there thoughts on what they would want to see.

Not really sure about the whole 'tattoos' idea. tattoos won't usually be seen (unless the character doesn't wear a shirt). and if we're gonna have the bare back, then we should definitly have the ability to customize the type of shirt (long/short sleeve, as well as rich/poor shirt) they wear and the color as well.

this could also help out the conman. depending upon the type of clothes he wears at the time will either help him out more in his quest or completely ruin it. it would be pretty lame to see a conman pretending to be a rich man while in dirty stained and torn clothes (unless he's a really good talker).

so, the game is going to revolve around just one big city and the area's (caves, mountains, lakes) around it, or will there be several towns the player can travel to. if its the several towns then we should include mounts (horses, giant birds and fish) for the player for faster travel.

i can get on IRC tonight , so if anyone wants to talk about the project with me, i'll be there.
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[Gizmog1]

I've got a script worked up for something almost EXACTLY like that, Mr. B. It's kind of a classified project, so I'm going to have to remove alot of things for it before I can post a demonstration, but it works pretty well. If anyone wants to see it, I can probably have a version with all the project sensitive bits snipped out, if anyone wants to see, in like a week, or a few days if I get really excited and make good enough demonstration graphics.

[Gizmog1]

I don't really think we're going to get any more volunteers, so, I'm thinking that if they're still interested, Sephy, Moogle, and Jack would be great additions to the team. I've also gotten an offer of help from Artimus Bena via IRC, and I think the 5 of us should be able to put together something really great. What time is good for us to meet, and lay down the groundwork for this?

EDIT: Oh, and be thinking of places and people you'd like to see and visit, so we can get an idea of how the world and it's populace needs to be set up. Bena has an idea for a gameworld already, but we'll review all the possible proposals at the first meeting. I found a good way to do this is to think back to friends I had in school, characters I had for projects I never used, and as for places, I've been reading a lot of books with pictures of various National Parks, and places of wonder the world over.

[Sephyroth]

Like I've mentioned before, I can't use IRC anymore for some time yet. However, I can be on AIM any time between 4:15 PM and 11:00 PM (me screenname is RMSephy).
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im realy ded

[Moogle1]

I'm busy with a million other things, but I can do whatever scripting you need for your project. Also, I'm up for design discussions whenever you can catch me on AIM.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[rpgspotKahn]

I could contribute in many ways. Graphics is a strong point. Plotscripting I can do quite well, though moogle's offer should probably be the best to accept in that area. With story I can create imaginative writings and scenes that contribute towards the greater glory and plot. Gameplay is a bitch, to get that perfect breed of gameplay takes a lot of skill. I don't somehow think its my strong point.

I love graphics. That would be one of the main factors if you are interested in accepting me for the team.

That is all.
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2nd Edition out now!

[Artimus Bena]

We've finished choosing our team, but the way things look, more people may be needed along the way. If that should happen, I'll keep note of everyone who offered their services. At the very least, thanks for your interest and enthusiasm
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