Malygris on 13/5/2005 at 04:20
Any site where we can view this work as it progresses?
ChickenMcOwnage on 5/6/2005 at 23:26
News and updates on the game can be found at (
http://squidgit.blogspot.com/) http://squidgit.blogspot.com/. Feel free to leave any comments, suggestions, and questions either here or at the site!
~Mark
Malygris on 6/6/2005 at 02:14
Since I'm not really interested in signing up for Blogger just to comment on the game...
will it be randomly-generated quests exclusively, or will there be some scripted content as well? One of the things I enjoyed most about UW was the story it told. You just can't get that sort of immersion from random generation.
ChickenMcOwnage on 6/6/2005 at 04:53
If you've ever played diablo 1, you may recall that each time you played (single-player), you'd get a different assortment of quests in different areas, but the quest layouts were always the same each game. Most quests I plan on creating will be like this, although the layouts of the areas and positions of items and NPCs will be randomized. There will certainly be scripting too, so some quests will have puzzles with stuff like pullchains and pressureplates and so on. But yeah, I definitely want to incorporate a storyline and some sense of a real, living world around you (as much as I can with those graphics! :p)
~Mark
p.s. I didn't realize you had to sign in to comment on the blog (I hate that sort of thing!) Sorry!
Digital Nightfall on 6/6/2005 at 07:17
Happy to hear you're moving forward, CMO. :)
Malygris on 6/6/2005 at 12:15
Graphics are low priority. Hell, if Underworld had a modern FPS-style movement system, I'd play it again and love it. (I tried it several months ago, but it's been too many years, and I found the movement controls too distracting to really get into the game again.) If you can build a game that generates the depth and atmosphere of Underworld, people won't just forgive mediocre graphics, they won't even notice them.
As Digi said, great to hear things are proceeding.
Minion21g on 6/6/2005 at 13:59
A few thoughts...
Quote:
I totally agree about your stance on industrial aspects in fantasy games. I think they just don't fit at all. I thought arx was a pretty cool game, but I didn't really like the parts with all the Dwarven machinery. Same goes with a lot of other games, like the early Final Fantasy games and even in BG2, the very first area I really didn't like (it just wasn't... medieval enough). So yeah, in my world, the most technologically advanced thing will probably be a crossbow.
I disagree with you here. Technology in video games in my opinion goes way back to Romantic Literature. When revolution and logical reasoning were in full swing, at this many wanted to escape that world and look towards a magical, ideal nature. See William Wordsworth or John Keats('Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know') Many games take this idea and present it as conflict or as an exist force not to be ignored. Arcanum, for example focused strongly on the conflicts of Magic and Technology.
Also before even video games were dwarves the most technological fantasy race in my opinion almost always in literature like Lord of the Rings? Wikipedia also has a nice amount of information on dwarves. "Stories of dwarves may have a historical background: during the Bronze Age, tin miners from southern and southeastern Europe slowly migrated northwest, since the relatively rare tin, which is needed to make bronze, was more common in the north. Being southerners, they generally were of shorter stature than northern Europeans and had darker skin, hair and beards. Their knowledge of metallurgy might have seemed magical to the northerners, whose lifestyle was still neolithic; the southerners' superior weapons and armour might well have been perceived as enchanted. This would explain why stories of dwarves are especially common in Northern Europe, and also why dwarves are portrayed as workers, while few other mythological creatures seem to be associated with any kind of organized industry."
Getting to the point, I believe that fantasy isn't fantasy without reality. Reality coming from that technology... But even technology can be fantasy. Mechanical walking spiders from Wild Wild West for example. So after that bit of Circular Reasoning. There's alot of reasons TO have technology in your game. First, it is attractive. Technology and aspiring inventors/inventions tend to show promise in games. Thief, in my opinion used technology as a background for fantasy by using it to coverup the almost gothic suspense of the Woodsie Lord (something I never saw coming). Second, It is a great plot builder. You could set up a plot similar to Arcanum and use Tech vs. Magic as a raging conflict in the storyline or again like Thief to hide the surprise. There's all kinds of ways you could use Technology to build a great story. Throw together some machines with steam engines and have them run around taking over the world.. Half-Life 2 does the same thing but with a different sort of technology doesn't it? Striders and the Helicopters being biomechanical? Their story is more like Technology versus Technology though. Third, Im not sure I have a third point but by now I hope you have some idea why technology is important and a viable use in games. Thanks for reading.
Keep up the good work on the game too heheh. I'm enjoying the progress so far.
ChickenMcOwnage on 6/6/2005 at 15:44
You definitely make very good points on behalf of technology. For the world I'm creating, I want to take the early medieval world and amplify it into a world consisting of blood, grit, stone, and iron (plus magic and mysticism, of course). And you're right, mechanical aspects would most certainly not be out of place if I chose to include them. I'll have to think a little more on the idea. To be sure, there will be stuff like pressure plates, pullchains, switches, and all sorts of mechanical traps (and these things imply lever/pully systems). I also plan on having Dwarven mines within the mountain, but just how technologically advanced they are I'll have to see.
I think my biggest opposition is against steam power and guns in medieval games. As far as I know, steam wasn't used to power anything until the late 1700's, so in many games they seem out of place to me. Guns also bother me. Although guns date back to the early 1400's, they weren't actually useful until I believe the mid/late 1500's, which is well into the renaissance period.
But yeah, I'll certainly think about what you've said some more. It also depends on the limitations of both the physics and graphics engines.
~Mark
p.s. that's very interesting about the Dwarves!
p.p.s thanks for all the comments and support from everyone, I very much appreciate it!
SalaciousCrumb on 6/7/2005 at 13:01
Hello,
In my opinion, this is an amazing project so far so i would like to throw in my ideas. Maybe it helps.
1.) I had an idea how the magic system could work. It works like this:
Early in the game you find a "panpipe"(I'm not sure if that is the right word...(
http://www.frisia-toene.de/dat10/panfloete.jpg) Here is an image of the item I'm talking about ). In the progress of the game you find more and more pipes so you are able to play more and more tunes. The magic spells are cast by playing certain melodies on the instrument. Maybe the magic effect will turn into the opposite if the music is played in reverse. I hope you can understand what I want to tell you since I'm not a native speaker.
I think it would be quite a nice way to cast magic and also the player would be able to play some music when bored or in the mood. Maybe the notes should be assigned to keys on the keyboard to make the spellcasting easier.
I thought of the numbers at the keyboard or the numblock.
(It would be nice if NSCs would react to the tunes too...maybe some creatures are paralysed in some way by certain melodies...snakes? Others get aggressive. Neutral persons tell you to stop playing or are happy with even the most disharmonic tunes.)
I must admit that i stole this idea mostly from "Loom" an early LucasArts Adventure.
2.) I think many people here on the forum have ideas for quests...maybe you should let them help you do some. The more quests the more replay value the game will have when quests are different nearly each time you start over again. This would call for another thread.
3.) I would like to see friendly undead towns in a game. So many other games use them as enemies. It would be fun if they made as creepy sounds as in Thief or Arx but then you would find them to be friendly traders and also blacksmiths and so on. Of course it would be hard to communicate with them as only those whose vocal chords aren't rotten yet can still speak. The rest would have to communicate through writing abilities what could be quite funny as in a medieval world i would not believe everyone has had a proper writing education (Imagine a writing Goblins skeleton...maybe it would use pictures?).
So...thats what i wanted to contribute.
ChickenMcOwnage on 13/7/2005 at 17:12
Thank you very much for your ideas! I will certainly consider them. The main magic system will be using runestones, much like in the Ultime Underworld series. That doesn't mean, however, that there can't be ways of casting spells without runestones. I'll definitely consider the addition of some sort of "bardic" magic.
I'm always open to suggestions and ideas regarding new quests and areas. All ideas are welcome, because you're absolutely right: the more content, the more replay value.
Friendly (or at least non-hostile) undead are completely doable. Whether a single ghost or an undead "town," it can certainly (and probably will) be done.
Again, thank you very much for your contributions and time!
~Mark
