Yeah. Been busy, haven't done one of these in a long time.
Shush! I have 3 jobs, dammit!
Anyway!
Essentially, as you know by now, the Quests are random.
Every single target location, quest topic, reward, any number in the quest, difficulty, and every other aspect...is random.
So, for example, you might get a completely randomly generated Quest such as; "Kill 4 Goblins near <CENSORED>. I'll give you 26 coins for it."
I did the "<CENSORED>". I'm not giving away places yet, because Pandas.
But yes...that's pretty much it!
In every town, there will be a Quest Board. Each board will have 3 Quests on it, all of them random, and there will be a different 3 in each town (Although they may be similar). Once you have taken and completed a Quest in ANY town from ANY board...they ALL reset.
You can also receive Quests from certain people who might like you more than others. Random people may come up to you in the streets and ask you for help. Doing these kinds of quests will make the Family of the NPC like you better.
Pre-scripted events may also happen to roll out the Main Quest Line (MQL)...and you obviously get to choose whether or not you do them.
BUT NOTE...that the entire MQL is pre-scripted. That means that if, say (And this is a COMPLETE example...and NOT what's going to happen. Totally. Seriously. I mean it.), a random messenger came up to you to give you a letter, or something...you can obviously take it, or not take it. If you take it, wonderful. If you don't...you will likely delay the MQL...but you're really still IN it. The entire outcome of the MQL will be, well...random. Not to mention completely decided upon by your choices. I wrote up a quick diagram earlier...and I found out that the MQL that I'm planning has roughly 96 different endings, dependent on your choices. Woo.
So yeah. That's pretty much this entire FAQ, I guess.
That was easy.
If you have any other questions, or concerns...you know the drill.
Next FAQ; Character Creation
CavGunner, out.
5/16/2012
FAQ: How will Cities and NPC's work?
Right, it's about time I addressed this.
I'm finally back on actively working on this, among my other projects, so I'll be posting these FAQ's more often.
This won't be a very long FAQ, since the system is pretty straight forward, but I'll cover it all the best I can.
First off, the Cities are going to be completely pre-scripted.
There will be no random location system, with random city names, with random city themes. The entire map, in fact, is completely pre-scripted and laid out as-is.
BUT...
Every NPC you find in every city, their occupation, and their General Disposition (GD) will be completely random.
This means that you may walk into a small, bustling town, and a random NPC might walk up to you and offer you a free apple (Yay! Fruit!), whereas another drunk fellow might try and start a fist fight (Yay! Violence!).
I was testing a small simulated town with an exaggerated count of NPC's just to start balancing figures and Personalities...and it was quite interesting. Out of 500 generated NPC's, here were the stats;
-365 were of Neutral Disposition (They didn't like or dislike me. They pretty much didn't care.)
-63 were rather mean, and generally insulted and berated me.
-72 were quite nice and said hello, struck up a conversation, asked me for help with something, and I even got 2 free loaves of bread!
-Of the 63 mean NPC's, 4 of them actually went through with starting a fist fight, and all 4 were drunks.
-Of the remaining 59, 12 of them were labelled as "Bullies", and attempted to goad me into a first hit.
-Of the 72 nice people, only 12 asked for my help (Another randomized Quest feature).
-Of the 500 generated NPC's, excluding the 4 drunks, and the 12 Bullies (484 left), there were 8 Blacksmiths, 12 Cooks, 65 Guards, 4 Tailors, 1 Baron (The leader of the town), 2 Advisers, 13 Court Members, and 1 Court Wizard (Lucky!). This left 378 randomized NPC's.
As for names, I only added in 20 last names, and 20 first names to the test to see what would happen.
Unfortunately...I botched the numbers slightly, and roughly 362 NPC's were related...with the last name "Jones" (...just a test name, don't worry. I'm making them much more lore-friendly.)
And for the town itself, here is a quick list of the general information generated in the test:
-Name: Testville
-Population: 500
-Idea of Magic: Neutral (They have a Court Mage)
-Crime Rate: Low (A good amount of Guards, and a low amount of Bullies/Drunks/etc)
So yeah, I like how that turned out. Just need to fix the names, which is easy enough.
I also plan on adding in about 200 last names and 500 first names...so if you have any, send them my way (This will result in a possibility of 6.2230152778611417071440640537801x10^539 different name combinations!). And yes...if they have the same name, they will likely live in the same house, and the nice ones may randomly come up to you if you're more famous and ask you if you've met "So-and-so, they're brother).
There WILL be a family system among the NPC's (If I can manage to script that in), and if you help a certain member of the family for a more dangerous situation (They need money or the mob will kill them, and you help them out in whatever way you choose), the rest of the family will be much nicer to you.
Interacting with NPC's will be extremely flexible.
If, for example, they have an apple.
A VERY shiny, juicy apple.
And you REALLY want that damn apple.
But...they won't give it to you!
Well, here are your choices on how to get that apple, each with multiple possible results;
-Kill them for it. You would kill for a fruit? The Guards will most definitely not like this one. Unless it's in a dark alley. At night. Silently.
-Ask them nicely. If they like you enough, they might just give it to you. The safest one, and the worst they can do is say no.
-Threaten them. Pulling a blade, lighting your hand on fire, or showing a dagger can make them give you that apple. The Guards won't like this...and the NPC might not, either.
-Scare them. They might drop it and run. Or maybe punch you in the face.
-Grab it from them. Rip it out of their hands. May result in death.
-Grab it from them and run. Take it and run for your dear life. May result in death, tripping, or actually getting the guards after you.
As for what you can do in towns...
Well, I promised choice, so I gave it to you.
Walk around doing nothing, go shopping, talk to people, work your way up the Court scale (And even own a town!), buy property (I hinted at this earlier.), do Quests, and more!
Or, you can go to the darker side...and kill people, loot and burn the village, perform assassinations, become the resident serial killer, or the masked murderer, or the axe-wielding maniac who wears nothing but a horned helmet and a loincloth.
Sorry...I've been playing a lot of Skyrim recently.
If you have any further questions or concerns, you're always free to email or PM me wherever I am, or comment here.
Next FAQ; Quests.
CavGunner, out.
I'm finally back on actively working on this, among my other projects, so I'll be posting these FAQ's more often.
This won't be a very long FAQ, since the system is pretty straight forward, but I'll cover it all the best I can.
First off, the Cities are going to be completely pre-scripted.
There will be no random location system, with random city names, with random city themes. The entire map, in fact, is completely pre-scripted and laid out as-is.
BUT...
Every NPC you find in every city, their occupation, and their General Disposition (GD) will be completely random.
This means that you may walk into a small, bustling town, and a random NPC might walk up to you and offer you a free apple (Yay! Fruit!), whereas another drunk fellow might try and start a fist fight (Yay! Violence!).
I was testing a small simulated town with an exaggerated count of NPC's just to start balancing figures and Personalities...and it was quite interesting. Out of 500 generated NPC's, here were the stats;
-365 were of Neutral Disposition (They didn't like or dislike me. They pretty much didn't care.)
-63 were rather mean, and generally insulted and berated me.
-72 were quite nice and said hello, struck up a conversation, asked me for help with something, and I even got 2 free loaves of bread!
-Of the 63 mean NPC's, 4 of them actually went through with starting a fist fight, and all 4 were drunks.
-Of the remaining 59, 12 of them were labelled as "Bullies", and attempted to goad me into a first hit.
-Of the 72 nice people, only 12 asked for my help (Another randomized Quest feature).
-Of the 500 generated NPC's, excluding the 4 drunks, and the 12 Bullies (484 left), there were 8 Blacksmiths, 12 Cooks, 65 Guards, 4 Tailors, 1 Baron (The leader of the town), 2 Advisers, 13 Court Members, and 1 Court Wizard (Lucky!). This left 378 randomized NPC's.
As for names, I only added in 20 last names, and 20 first names to the test to see what would happen.
Unfortunately...I botched the numbers slightly, and roughly 362 NPC's were related...with the last name "Jones" (...just a test name, don't worry. I'm making them much more lore-friendly.)
And for the town itself, here is a quick list of the general information generated in the test:
-Name: Testville
-Population: 500
-Idea of Magic: Neutral (They have a Court Mage)
-Crime Rate: Low (A good amount of Guards, and a low amount of Bullies/Drunks/etc)
So yeah, I like how that turned out. Just need to fix the names, which is easy enough.
I also plan on adding in about 200 last names and 500 first names...so if you have any, send them my way (This will result in a possibility of 6.2230152778611417071440640537801x10^539 different name combinations!). And yes...if they have the same name, they will likely live in the same house, and the nice ones may randomly come up to you if you're more famous and ask you if you've met "So-and-so, they're brother).
There WILL be a family system among the NPC's (If I can manage to script that in), and if you help a certain member of the family for a more dangerous situation (They need money or the mob will kill them, and you help them out in whatever way you choose), the rest of the family will be much nicer to you.
Interacting with NPC's will be extremely flexible.
If, for example, they have an apple.
A VERY shiny, juicy apple.
And you REALLY want that damn apple.
But...they won't give it to you!
Well, here are your choices on how to get that apple, each with multiple possible results;
-Kill them for it. You would kill for a fruit? The Guards will most definitely not like this one. Unless it's in a dark alley. At night. Silently.
-Ask them nicely. If they like you enough, they might just give it to you. The safest one, and the worst they can do is say no.
-Threaten them. Pulling a blade, lighting your hand on fire, or showing a dagger can make them give you that apple. The Guards won't like this...and the NPC might not, either.
-Scare them. They might drop it and run. Or maybe punch you in the face.
-Grab it from them. Rip it out of their hands. May result in death.
-Grab it from them and run. Take it and run for your dear life. May result in death, tripping, or actually getting the guards after you.
As for what you can do in towns...
Well, I promised choice, so I gave it to you.
Walk around doing nothing, go shopping, talk to people, work your way up the Court scale (And even own a town!), buy property (I hinted at this earlier.), do Quests, and more!
Or, you can go to the darker side...and kill people, loot and burn the village, perform assassinations, become the resident serial killer, or the masked murderer, or the axe-wielding maniac who wears nothing but a horned helmet and a loincloth.
Sorry...I've been playing a lot of Skyrim recently.
If you have any further questions or concerns, you're always free to email or PM me wherever I am, or comment here.
Next FAQ; Quests.
CavGunner, out.
5/09/2012
FAQ: How will Magic work?
I've actually gotten a surprising amount of questions solely about how Magic will work...
So I've come to realize that if more people ask about the Magic than anything else, I'd better make it pretty damn good. So...I did.
Essentially, I'm not taking the Elder Scrolls route of the Magic system and breaking it down into, say, Destruction, Conjuration, etc.
Instead, I'm having only one branch; Magic.
It will be called "Magic", not "Wizardry", "Sorcery", "Essence", or anything else that has been suggested. Although I did like a few of the other, lore-friendly suggestions such as "Mjolna". I don't know why, but there ya go.
Magic will be powered off of Mana. Go figure.
But, you may ask, "What if I'm a Magic-user and I run out of Mana in a fight? Will there be potions?"
Simple answer; No.
Longer answer; No there won't be.
Please tell me you laughed at that.
Moving swiftly on, I won't be having your standard "Mana Potion" that you have in all RPG games nowadays, instead focusing on mid-battle Mana regeneration, and an array of skills that don't use Mana.
In fact, the actual title of "Mana" is actually becoming obsolete in my script pattern, and slowly moving toward "Concentration", where it will generally take longer to use more powerful spells, but you can quick-cast smaller ones, with a few at the cost of Health or Stamina.
Magic, unlike standard Melee or Missile combat, is extremely complex. It uses (As stated above), all 3 of the Pools, whereas Melee and Missile only use Stamina.
Not only that, but as far as Swords, Shields, Bows and Daggers are concerned...there can only be so many of them. Not Magic, though. There is the potential of an unlimited amount of spells, each of a different strength, type, and power.
Every spell is randomly generated throughout the game and scale on a number of different properties.
First off, your Magic skill. The higher it is, the stronger spells you can use, and the more you can use them.
Second off, where you find the spells. That's right, you can't just learn them out of thin air. You actually need to RESEARCH spells by finding various tomes on language and Mana and combine and work with them until you can figure out spells. You can even use Power Words, which are lore words found in various tomes and texts, and combine them during combat to come up with on-the-spot spell-work. Note that this is more dangerous, however.
Finally, NOT your level. Spells will NOT become stronger just because you, and every other enemy, has become stronger. If you leveled up through bashing people with a war-hammer...then you're screwed for spells until you start working your way up.
You will NOT be forced to level your Magic through combat, however. You will be able to cast spells almost anywhere, but all consequences will be programmed in.
If you use a fire spell indoors, or in a forest...then you'd better be damn ready to run out of the burning wreckage, and possibly fight off the angry tenants.
The general populace is NOT Magic-friendly. They don't like it. Most towns outright ban it, so don't use spells in a town unless you know they do not mind Mage-folk.
There will be other Magic-users throughout the world, and many will be able to teach you various spells.
Finally...the spells will come in a number of different "categories". Most will be damage-based spells in the many Elements of "Fire", "Ice", "Lightning", "Stone", "Air", "Nature", and "Water".
Then there will be the Attunements of "Light", "Dark", "Life", and "Death".
THEN, there will be the Bases of "Stream", "Ball", "Strike", "Call", "Concentration", "Brand", and "Thought".
And FINALLY, you can break down all the Elements into their Great Calls. Each has around 3 or 4, and I'm going to keep them surprise. Great Calls are essentially Bases that are specific to each Element.
For example, the Great Calls of "Death" are "Summon", "Banish", "Ruin", and "Tomb".
Whereas the Great Calls for it's Opposite Attunement, "Light", are "Heal", "Restore", "Resurrect", and "Soul".
You can probably think of a few for each other Element.
All of the Elements, Attunements, Bases, and Great Calls combine to create over a million randomly generated spells throughout the game, with more being created and removed as you go.
Note that the game is NOT focused on Magic at ALL. Nor is it EVER being completely focused on Combat, as you can possibly play the game for hours at a time without ever having to fight a single thing, if you so wish. If you want something from someone, you can always steal it, intimidate them and make them give it to you, woo it from them, convince them you should have it, or just pull a blade and ask nicely.
Of course some of them MAY result in a fight, after all.
If you have any other questions about how things will work, or need a better explanation on anything, feel free to comment here, or email me.
Next FAQ; Cities and NPCs.
CavGunner, out.
So I've come to realize that if more people ask about the Magic than anything else, I'd better make it pretty damn good. So...I did.
Essentially, I'm not taking the Elder Scrolls route of the Magic system and breaking it down into, say, Destruction, Conjuration, etc.
Instead, I'm having only one branch; Magic.
It will be called "Magic", not "Wizardry", "Sorcery", "Essence", or anything else that has been suggested. Although I did like a few of the other, lore-friendly suggestions such as "Mjolna". I don't know why, but there ya go.
Magic will be powered off of Mana. Go figure.
But, you may ask, "What if I'm a Magic-user and I run out of Mana in a fight? Will there be potions?"
Simple answer; No.
Longer answer; No there won't be.
Please tell me you laughed at that.
Moving swiftly on, I won't be having your standard "Mana Potion" that you have in all RPG games nowadays, instead focusing on mid-battle Mana regeneration, and an array of skills that don't use Mana.
In fact, the actual title of "Mana" is actually becoming obsolete in my script pattern, and slowly moving toward "Concentration", where it will generally take longer to use more powerful spells, but you can quick-cast smaller ones, with a few at the cost of Health or Stamina.
Magic, unlike standard Melee or Missile combat, is extremely complex. It uses (As stated above), all 3 of the Pools, whereas Melee and Missile only use Stamina.
Not only that, but as far as Swords, Shields, Bows and Daggers are concerned...there can only be so many of them. Not Magic, though. There is the potential of an unlimited amount of spells, each of a different strength, type, and power.
Every spell is randomly generated throughout the game and scale on a number of different properties.
First off, your Magic skill. The higher it is, the stronger spells you can use, and the more you can use them.
Second off, where you find the spells. That's right, you can't just learn them out of thin air. You actually need to RESEARCH spells by finding various tomes on language and Mana and combine and work with them until you can figure out spells. You can even use Power Words, which are lore words found in various tomes and texts, and combine them during combat to come up with on-the-spot spell-work. Note that this is more dangerous, however.
Finally, NOT your level. Spells will NOT become stronger just because you, and every other enemy, has become stronger. If you leveled up through bashing people with a war-hammer...then you're screwed for spells until you start working your way up.
You will NOT be forced to level your Magic through combat, however. You will be able to cast spells almost anywhere, but all consequences will be programmed in.
If you use a fire spell indoors, or in a forest...then you'd better be damn ready to run out of the burning wreckage, and possibly fight off the angry tenants.
The general populace is NOT Magic-friendly. They don't like it. Most towns outright ban it, so don't use spells in a town unless you know they do not mind Mage-folk.
There will be other Magic-users throughout the world, and many will be able to teach you various spells.
Finally...the spells will come in a number of different "categories". Most will be damage-based spells in the many Elements of "Fire", "Ice", "Lightning", "Stone", "Air", "Nature", and "Water".
Then there will be the Attunements of "Light", "Dark", "Life", and "Death".
THEN, there will be the Bases of "Stream", "Ball", "Strike", "Call", "Concentration", "Brand", and "Thought".
And FINALLY, you can break down all the Elements into their Great Calls. Each has around 3 or 4, and I'm going to keep them surprise. Great Calls are essentially Bases that are specific to each Element.
For example, the Great Calls of "Death" are "Summon", "Banish", "Ruin", and "Tomb".
Whereas the Great Calls for it's Opposite Attunement, "Light", are "Heal", "Restore", "Resurrect", and "Soul".
You can probably think of a few for each other Element.
All of the Elements, Attunements, Bases, and Great Calls combine to create over a million randomly generated spells throughout the game, with more being created and removed as you go.
Note that the game is NOT focused on Magic at ALL. Nor is it EVER being completely focused on Combat, as you can possibly play the game for hours at a time without ever having to fight a single thing, if you so wish. If you want something from someone, you can always steal it, intimidate them and make them give it to you, woo it from them, convince them you should have it, or just pull a blade and ask nicely.
Of course some of them MAY result in a fight, after all.
If you have any other questions about how things will work, or need a better explanation on anything, feel free to comment here, or email me.
Next FAQ; Cities and NPCs.
CavGunner, out.
5/07/2012
FAQ: How will looting/inventory work?
I get this question a lot, and I feel it's about time I get around to answering it properly, since I never give a full response.
Basically...it uses mechanics found in most RPG games...but I'm putting my own small turns into it. It's also heavily threaded into the combat itself.
Looting;
-Whatever items the mobs have on them at the time that you kill them...you can pick up.
-I'll create an example scenario:
---You are ambushed by a lone bandit rogue. He's wearing standard leather armour (Nothing impressive), has 2 standard iron daggers with no enchantments, and has a couple Health potions and a Horn of Hail (An item I recently created that causes a Hailstorm spell effect. Don't worry about that until I release a more in-depth answer to the Magic System).
---You attack first (Out of reaction) and out of scenario-only, you get him really good in the leg. He's almost dead, so he drinks one of his 2 Health potions. He then pulls out the horn and summons the Hailstorm. The fight goes on, resulting in you fully destroying his leg, damaging his head, and finally killing him by running him through. He didn't hit you too much, and you didn't give him another chance to heal or fix his leg.
---The resulting loot would be both of his daggers, his Leather Armour set (Whatever pieces he had), one Health potion, and his Horn of Hail.
---He used one potion, so you get the remaining one. The Horn is reusable, so you can also grab it. The daggers were not damaged or dropped/lost/destroyed during the fight, so you grab the. The only catch is that the Leather Armour would be degraded from whatever state it was previously.
And that's how Looting would work. You can replace any item with anything else you can think of, and it would follow the same pattern.
Inventory;
-Limited bagspace.
Yup. That's pretty much it. You're limited to bagspace, no matter what you're carrying (I'm not having it so you're limited to "10 potions", "2 weapons", etc.), you can only have what's in your bag and what's on your body (So you can carry 2 swords, and still have 2 more in your pack if they'll fit).
Note, however, that not all items can fit inside your backpack, and must either be strapped on your back with Harnesses (In the case of Greatswords, Bows, and Staves), or carried in the hand (Whether used in combat or not).
This means you need to think about what you want to carry out of the town with you, and what you want to leave behind (Hint at another unmentioned feature?)
If you have any further questions, you're free to ask them as always, whether through whatever forums I've put this on, this page, or through my email.
CavGunner, out.
Basically...it uses mechanics found in most RPG games...but I'm putting my own small turns into it. It's also heavily threaded into the combat itself.
Looting;
-Whatever items the mobs have on them at the time that you kill them...you can pick up.
-I'll create an example scenario:
---You are ambushed by a lone bandit rogue. He's wearing standard leather armour (Nothing impressive), has 2 standard iron daggers with no enchantments, and has a couple Health potions and a Horn of Hail (An item I recently created that causes a Hailstorm spell effect. Don't worry about that until I release a more in-depth answer to the Magic System).
---You attack first (Out of reaction) and out of scenario-only, you get him really good in the leg. He's almost dead, so he drinks one of his 2 Health potions. He then pulls out the horn and summons the Hailstorm. The fight goes on, resulting in you fully destroying his leg, damaging his head, and finally killing him by running him through. He didn't hit you too much, and you didn't give him another chance to heal or fix his leg.
---The resulting loot would be both of his daggers, his Leather Armour set (Whatever pieces he had), one Health potion, and his Horn of Hail.
---He used one potion, so you get the remaining one. The Horn is reusable, so you can also grab it. The daggers were not damaged or dropped/lost/destroyed during the fight, so you grab the. The only catch is that the Leather Armour would be degraded from whatever state it was previously.
And that's how Looting would work. You can replace any item with anything else you can think of, and it would follow the same pattern.
Inventory;
-Limited bagspace.
Yup. That's pretty much it. You're limited to bagspace, no matter what you're carrying (I'm not having it so you're limited to "10 potions", "2 weapons", etc.), you can only have what's in your bag and what's on your body (So you can carry 2 swords, and still have 2 more in your pack if they'll fit).
Note, however, that not all items can fit inside your backpack, and must either be strapped on your back with Harnesses (In the case of Greatswords, Bows, and Staves), or carried in the hand (Whether used in combat or not).
This means you need to think about what you want to carry out of the town with you, and what you want to leave behind (Hint at another unmentioned feature?)
If you have any further questions, you're free to ask them as always, whether through whatever forums I've put this on, this page, or through my email.
CavGunner, out.
5/03/2012
Saving and Loading
I've currently rigged it up so that there's only one save file (I can change that in the future quite easily), and it is automatically loaded once you launch the game.
Everything (Stats, item generations, locations, etc) is saved...so don't worry about finding yourself in an unfamiliar location.
If you don't have a save file (First time playing), or decided to delete it (Either manually or ingame), then you will go through the Character Creation file.
Anyway...back to coding gameplay tomorrow.
Just figured I'd keep you guys updated on what I'm actually doing.
(Did I mention how much of a pain it was to code and debug this damn Save System? Yeah. Pity me.)
CavGunner, out.
Everything (Stats, item generations, locations, etc) is saved...so don't worry about finding yourself in an unfamiliar location.
If you don't have a save file (First time playing), or decided to delete it (Either manually or ingame), then you will go through the Character Creation file.
Anyway...back to coding gameplay tomorrow.
Just figured I'd keep you guys updated on what I'm actually doing.
(Did I mention how much of a pain it was to code and debug this damn Save System? Yeah. Pity me.)
CavGunner, out.
5/01/2012
Oops.
Aye. Completely forgot about the game.
I'm working on it, still!
I just forgot to post my progress, then got really busy and completely forgot about the game in general. Yeah. Go me.
But yeah, so far I've finished;
-Initial Weapon generation (For traders and drop tables).
-Character Creation (With music!).
-Base for Map Screen and start of the Armour Base Generation Script.
What I'm working on now;
-Rest of the Armour Generation.
-Locations.
-Mobs/Bosses.
I'll start updating this more. It's been a pain so far...but I'm still going!
CavGunner, out.
I'm working on it, still!
I just forgot to post my progress, then got really busy and completely forgot about the game in general. Yeah. Go me.
But yeah, so far I've finished;
-Initial Weapon generation (For traders and drop tables).
-Character Creation (With music!).
-Base for Map Screen and start of the Armour Base Generation Script.
What I'm working on now;
-Rest of the Armour Generation.
-Locations.
-Mobs/Bosses.
I'll start updating this more. It's been a pain so far...but I'm still going!
CavGunner, out.
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