Darghul suggestions

[Anonymous]

When you are in a village and you have many heavy things to carry or you don't want to sleep and ask food to a villager you could have a small boat that you could stow near the rivage. It is not a new idear because it is quite the same than the cart. I do not know at all if it is hard to make or if it is only a little drowing to had but it was just an idear that I found funny and quite pratical.
Bie
azertyuiopqs12

 

[CWalker]

Greetings (again)

Greetings! It's me... yet again. Thanks Wolf, for being The Man and replying personally on every suggestion we make... it's that small touch that most game developers (even indie game developers) just don't attempt. Again I wish to apologize if any of the ideas I've suggested or will suggest (no doubt) have already been implemented, suggested by others or myself. There is almost a week or more in between my online visits and I don't have much time once I get online to catch up on everything so you'll just have to bear with me either forgiving or yelling at me :D . Anyway, it is time for me weekly (or is it by weekly) suggestions.


Guilds or Factions
---------------------
Depending on how much you have already developed and gotten into the game and if you have already implemented such a feature how hard would it be to add in different guilds or factions... each one would give you a special skill or two depending on what they specialize in? You would also have jobs and missions to do for them which would give you much needed money, items, respect and the like. They could each have their own sub plot (an optional side or sub main quest you could complete) which may even affect the main story a bit? Just a thought.


Naming Items
----------------
From what I gather you can use just about anything interactivable in the game from crafting items to weaving clothes. But have you or could it be possible to add it where you can give each item you make a unique name and personalized description? I know it's not the grandest of abilities and ideas but it would be that small nice detail you don't really ever see in graphical games. Of course if you choose not to add in a unique name or description it would be like (Name of cloak - Cloak ; desc - made from [whatever you used to make it - wolf fur, etc])


Job Boards
-------------
If the guild/faction idea is a bit too much how about adding in job boards in towns which will let you deliver messages, find murders, beat bandits, etc?

Titles and Ranks
-------------------
Can't remember if this idea has been suggested/implemented. How about adding in nobility and hte like? You start the game as a pauper or peasant and can, depending on your reputation or something, go up in the ranks and become a knight, baron, duke, soldier, count, etc? Or maybe even add in a army you can joiin to gain ranks and more powers and the like. Say you join an army and get rank up to Captain or something. You could then boss around soldiers under your rank or something? Ok, I admit... this isnt a well fleshed out idea... but then again... most ideas are spur of the moment... well sometimes.


Random Events
-------------------
Also, not sure if this has been suggested/implemented but how aboud adding in random events like natural disasters that strik towns (causing a big need for certain items = cash crops), bandit attacks, and the like. Maybe even and in a plague or something. You visit this certain town once on your way to town 2. You come back only to find the gates to town 1 closed and quaritined because of disease? You could then try to chance sneaking in, catching the disease, leave, or try to help the town. Just a thought.


Death
-------
I'm not sure how death will work in this game but seeing as it is mostly fantasy I'm guessing you'll have some sort of ressurection spell, potion, scroll and the like?


Ship Travel
--------------
Read in an above post about the idea to use boats and such to store cargo... gave me the idea to travel by sea or river/water if there will be a sea and rivers in the game. This way you can travel by sea, land, and spell. Hire out ships to take you somewhere at ports or save up and get your own ship (and crew). Also could open up new ventures of attack by pirates! Argh! :D


No name
-----------
Ok, not sure how to name this idea... but instead of just being attacked by bandits or being a self claimed bandit yourself... how about the ability to join a bandit group... or be so feared as a bandit or hero that they wont even dare to attack you. If your good and the fear you then they could say something like "Well let you go this time..." or something like that and if your evil or widely feared as a bandit and the like they would say "...you're...[character name]! I'm not risking my life over this!" And they would leave or maybe even offer to join you... given that you would ever implement followers...


Well that's it for now... and heres hoping you continue to make innovative, creative, origianl, and highly entertaining games!


Oh, on a side note you could visit spiderwebsoftware.com They are a indie developer but also publish any games they think are good... They do sharewell but you could look into them for maybe helping publish your game and get it around. Just a thought.


CWalker
Georgia, USA

 

[Adam P]

Guilds/job posting i believe DARGHUL currently has many side quests. Although not displayed on a board, you can get unique items on these quests. I think...

Naming Items would require at least one more byte, depending on how many items you would want to describe, for every item, currently i believe an item uses a word to specify the item and another to detail it. and then would need an array of textual description.

i think there is already titles, maybe i am looney, well i am but...

random events like you mentioned would demand a LOT of time.

death is probably like teudogar. but i dunno, you could be right.

oh ships
http://www.darghul.com/darg09.gif
this looks like much of the world, although i could be mistaken, doesnt look like much water, or is that water surrounding the land?

fleeing enemies, i kinda agree, but i think they should flee when you kill 3 of their buddies in a few fell strikes of the sword.

again i hope that satisfies in partial until wolf has a chance to respond.
if not ignore it.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi everybody
I just think that it could be useful and practical to have in your house many coffer or make possible to build some because in Teudogar I always haven't enough place for my objects. I don't think that's a lot of work and also to have a key for closing your one coffer would be funny. Because in the reality people who have gold or jewelry won't just put them in a place where everybody can take them (even if in the game nobody will still you in your own house).
Just by the way, is it possible to had a cave entrance in your own house like in Teudogar at Tiu's Grove?
Sorry if what I ask is a huge amount of work or a simple click, I have no idea of how long it can take you Wolf. So if what I say is impossible I apologise for asking foolish things...
Regards

 

[Adam P]

im not positive as i havent done it yet, but i could probably make extra chests for your house although i dont think it would be possible to lock and unlock them, i dont know maybe...

maybe make a key for the chests you already have...
i will have to look into this, depends on how Wolf made it.

a personal cave would be cool.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi everybody; sorry for my delayed reply.

> boats, ships
I liked the way you could use boats/ships in Ultima, and would like to implement something similar.
However, at present, I'm using rivers and mountains as boundaries to prevent you from walking off beyond the game world.
So once you're able to cross rivers, and possibly mountains too, I'd have to introduce oceans as new boundaries, which would naturally lead to ships, islands and so on: This would be great, but too much work for the present version.

> guilds (special skills, jobs and missions for money, items, respect)
There's a magicians' guild and a knights' order.

> naming items
Don't see a way to do this at present, because I'm using all 32 bits I've got in order to store tile number plus specific data for each object.
In general, I'd like to change this to just tile number plus a reference to a data table: That way, I could store virtually unlimited amounts of information for each single item, including names given by you, and that would also open the door for customized weapons and much more.
But it will require a major overhaul, since there are a lot of functions accessing the item data in the way it is presently organized - all of these will have to be rewritten (which will likely introduce bugs); and then of course the game world data will have to be converted, and so on: So I'll leave this change for later versions.

> job boards in towns which will let you deliver messages, find murders, beat bandits
Thanks for this! Some sorts of random-generated standard-quests would be a great additional way to keep you occupied and let you earn some money, and probably wouldn't be too difficult to program.
However, I'll probably do this via a dialog, perhaps with the tavernkeeper or someone.

> titles and ranks
I like this, too. At present, you can become a Duke (of the city of Ranaghol), and people will greet you as Duke from that point on. But since you also get to join a knights' order and a magicians' guild, you might formally receive the titles Knight and Wizard, perhaps with some further increases in rank to archieve. This'll be another thing worth working for (whithin the game), beyound booty and bodycount.

> death
Right. In the original DARGHUL, the first time you die, you happen to get picked up and healed by an alien in a UFO (this was mainly a joke and a reference to Life of Brian). Don't know yet if I'll keep this feature or throw it out; it was quite convenient, anyway.
I may perhaps introduce a life insurance company, which will, in the case of your death, send out magicians to pick up and resurrect you in exchange for an exorbitant pre-paid fee.
(Resurrection spells/scrolls don't make too much sense in a single player game - no other party members to use them.)

> join a bandit group
That'd require random-generated travelers. (Otherwise you'd have no one to rob, since people generally stay in their villages.) May do this; but this won't bring much action (most of your time would be spent waiting); and coordinating your fellow robbers with your actions would be tough (unless I leave them stationary).
So I'll put this off too until I've introduced a sort of party system in some later version: Then you could simply form a party with them.

> more boxes/chests to store objects
Agree with that. I'm a bit unsure about your place of residence, though. In the end, when you win the game, you get the ducal palace of Ranaghol. Until then, you can make yourself at home in the castle of the knights' order or the magicians' guild building. It'd be nice if you could rebuild your own house (which had been burnt down at the beginning of the game), but I haven't yet implemented this and don't know if I can. I've set up a nice hiding place for your goods in an old ruin, complete with lots of chests, tools and so on.
However, personally, I tend to never be there, but instead keep sticking around the teleporter room in the magicians' guild, since this is convenient for traveling, and right next door is Arasdorn, from whom I get most information for the main plot.
Maybe I'll turn this into an official solution by making Arasdorn give you some free room right there, and that might have some sort of hidden cellar/dungeon beneath.

> AdamP: create extra chests by patching saved games
You could turn the tile number of an existing object (say, a dagger) into that of a chest, and replace the upper 16 bits with a chest number. This would then refer to an existing chest in some other place; but well...
Anyway, thanks a lot for answering so many posts in my place!

Again, thank you all for your comments and suggestions!

 

[Vistaer]

So how's progress on Darghul coming? Any chance we'll be seeing it soon? =)

Edit:

Oh, and as an Idea... is there a karma system in game? Gain karma by doing good deeds, lose it by doing evil stuff, stealing, murdering, etc? If so I was thinking maybe you could have a reputation "title" that proceeds an official one. This doesnt affect whether you're a criminal or not, though criminal acts may contribute to negative karma, but it simply says what your reputation is. Titles would go like the following:


100 - Noble
81 to 99 - Admired
61 to 80 - Honorable
41 to 60 - Virtuous
21 to 40 - Respectable
11 to 20 - Helpful
-10 to 10 - No Title
-10 to -20 - Mean
-21 to -40 - Cruel
-41 to -60 - Vicious
-61 to -80 - Sinister
-81 to -99 - Dreaded
-100 - Tyrannical

Thus my name in my character sheet would be simply "Bob" if Im absolutely nothing yet, "The Mean Wizard Bob" if Im of the wizard guild and have say -12 karma, "The Knight Bob" if Im nothing yet, but a knight, or finally "The Tyrannical Duke Bob" if I have -100 karma and am a duke

BTW, as another suggestion I had was regarding the other titles (mage, knight, duke) in game.

If you're a knight, you get addressed as knight, a mage, you're called mage obviously, but if you're both, you get addressed as "Warlock" or Warmage or such. However if you're a duke, that overwrites all and you're called by your hereditary title. Or maybe choosing which you're called by of the four (five if you include not being addressed as anything)could be an option as to how you wish to be known once you're a duke. (Tell your court announcer how you wish to be addressed?)

 

[Anonymous]

Do you play on releasing the source code with the game for full version purchases. I would like to play around with it and possibly enhance the graphics capabilites of the engine.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

> progress on Darghul
well, somewhat sluggish. Awful lot of work. It's not the major things; these are all complete; it's the thousands of minor features, small bugs, not-yet-completed aspects, not-yet-taken-care-of situations/constellations that are keeping me busy at present. But there's definitely a light visible at the end of the tunnel, and, I'm quite happy with what I've archieved so far.

> karma
is mainly done via your charisma and belief skills: Depending on your behaviour, these will increase or decrease.
Unethical behaviour will generally cause you to feel bad about yourself, and this will take a toll on some of your skills, especially your charisma, but also your religion- and magic-related belief skill.
(Unless you start the game as a good-for-nothing/rogue; in this case we assume you don't feel bound by ethical values, and consequently don't suffer from ignoring them.)

> reputation
I've already half-implemented local reputations: Depending on your behaviour in a particular location, people there will consider you a murderer, thief, enemy of the king, potential thief, slut (female characters), wealthy merchant, spendthrift, drunkard, and so on.
These local reputations might be overridden by some global ones like superhero, liberator of Ranaghol (plot related), or perhaps, mass murderer (murdered so many that news about it passed town boundaries and you're now notories continent-wide), etc.
You'd get a reputation for every deed people could have observed or heard of. Out of these, your overall reputation for this place would be computed, with more important things cancelling out minor ones, e.g., when you're both a spendthrift and a mass murderer, you'll be referred to just as a mass murderer, or, if on top of all that, superhero, than just superhero (with both spendthrift and mass murderer ignored).
(This refers to dialogues, where some people might say things like, 'Yes, but you're a superhero/murderer/drunkard.' The player info screen may display the 4 most important of your reputations, e.g. 'Reputation (in Sagadur): superhero, murderer, potential thief, notorious drunkard'.)

> title
Thank you for this, Vistaer!

In dialogues, if you're a Duke, most people will address you as such ('Duke Bob'); Knight/Magician/Paladin/Warlock will only occasionally be used ('Greetings, Mage.'), and mostly like an occupational description ('Hey Bob - you're a Knight, so what's your take on...' etc). ('Knight Bob' would sound a bit weird in German; knight/mage just can't be used as a name suffix the way 'Dr.' or 'Duke' can.)
Your full title appears only in the player info screen - something like 'Bob, Duke of Ranaghol, Knight of the Order of Sagadur, Wizard of the Magicians' Guild of Persapor'.

Now, this would be a great place to add your suggestion. So we'll make this 'Bob, TYRANNICAL/NOBLE/etc Duke of Ranaghol, etc', or e.g. 'Bob, cruel Knight of the Order', or 'Bob, virtuous Wizard of the Magicians' Guild' etc.
This information would actually be useful since it'd monitor your behaviour toward other people, not just specific kinds of behaviours, as the reputation names discussed above. So I could compute this by simply counting how many people you have hurt or aided, resulting in either no comment or something between admired and dreaded.

(BTW this would be more what you regard yourself to be (knowing how many people you've killed, you assume everyone will dread you) than what people actually think of you, because your deeds would often be known only locally. But I think it would still work fine as described above; after all, your deeds would have an impact on your self-regard, conscience, body-language, and so on; so it'd be valid to make this overall judgement global.)

> releasing the source code
By now, the entire C++ source code for DARGHUL is about 175,000 lines (without counting files that are obsolete / no longer in use). If one were to print that out, one would get a paper trail of about 700 meters (about 2,300 feet, or almost 1/2 mile).
I inherited about 2/3 of that from Teudogar, and I recycled a lot of the more generic stuff from older/other projects. Nonetheless, writing and putting it all together has been an enormous amount of work, and since I'm an independent developer, no one paid me a salary for this. Consequently I intend to keep the source code proprietary, and try to re-use it as a basis for as many games as possible, in order to earn at least part of my invested work back via full version sales.
I concede your point, though - releasing the code and making it open source might really result in numerous people significantly improving it. However it'd also result in everybody being able to release DARGHUL-like games without having to invest any programming work at all; and that would likely be pretty detrimental to my income.

As to the graphics capabilites of the engine: what would be your most urgent point? (apart from the screen resolution, which I already increased) Any suggestions for specific things you'd like to see improved/changed? (of course I can't easily change the game from 2d to 3d; but let's say, improvements within the present state of things)

Thanks to all of you for your feedback and suggestions!

 

[Adam P]

Although I would love to read through the source code, I think you are wise to keep it to yourself.
I am amazed at not only your graphics engine, but the graphics which fill it. Then to consider you did it indepenently... Furthermore, I can't say that i personally like 3d rpgs better than 2d. I think the 2d tile based system makes for the best rpg.

 

[Anonymous]

> progress on Darghul
well, somewhat sluggish. Awful lot of work. It's not the major things; these are all complete; it's the thousands of minor features, small bugs, not-yet-completed aspects, not-yet-taken-care-of situations/constellations that are keeping me busy at present. But there's definitely a light visible at the end of the tunnel, and, I'm quite happy with what I've archieved so far.

Great to hear

Ive finsihed most of Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and some other CRPG made by a group, and now awaiting Darghul again. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Unethical behaviour will generally cause you to feel bad about yourself, and this will take a toll on some of your skills, especially your charisma, but also your religion- and magic-related belief skill.
(Unless you start the game as a good-for-nothing/rogue; in this case we assume you don't feel bound by ethical values, and consequently don't suffer from ignoring them.)

Does this mean in character creation you can set your character's demeanor/personality/religion at the start of the game?

Also as for religion, I assume there are multiple gods, but can you set your alignment to one such god, and do quests and such? IE Can my character seek out a cathedral of a good god, and pray to him, do quests for him, donate money, etc. and in return he will recieve blessings that do things like improve strength?

Alternatively if he seeks out a cult worships an evil/demonic god, and sacrfices slaves/people to him, he eventually is granted powers like being able to cast a plague or boiling blood spell?

Also glad to hear about the reputation thing.

And as far as the source code, I agree you shouldnt release it. Afterall, Im guessing a 50/50 chance you'll use a lot of it in Teudogar II =)

Keep up the great work!

 

[Wolf Mittag]

> 2d/3d

Personally, I really prefer 2d, it's not just a programming question, I like the much wider range of sight and degree of control I've got in such a setting.

Though, if I could (in terms of affording having all those graphics redrawn), I'd like to get rid of the twisted perspective used in Teudogar (like in Ultima) and replace it with a more natural one, with vertical lines vertikal and not -45°, i.e., people standing straight and not looking like they were about to fall over etc.


> in character creation you can set your character's demeanor/personality/religion at the start of the game?

At present, I'm letting you make 3 choices during character generation:

1) male/female,

2) any particular strength (all average, or one of the following slightly stronger with all others slightly weaker: str,dex,int,vit), and

3) what you have been doing up to this point: adventurer (generic character type, average in everything), or squire (don't know if that term is right in English; German 'Knappe', a knight's apprentice, obviously somewhat better fighting skills plus more warlike equipment), or wizard's apprentice (guess what skills), or craftsman or farmer or good-for-nothing/rogue.

None of this is a big deal, since the game is strictly open-ended, and your final sort of character/skill levels will be determined by your actions over the course of the game. These choices just determine your starting position, and may perhaps inspire you to follow a particular course of action - but that remains up to you.


> religion, multiple gods, - can you set your alignment to one such god, and do quests and such?

There are multiple temples/holy places, each of which is dedicated to a different god. Praying there will boost some of your skills as well as str/dex/int/vit (of course different for each temple), depending on your prior actions.
Basically, this amplifies your natural character development - e.g., gaining lots of experience casting spells, then praying at the temple of a spiritual goddess, or combat experience and then temple of a war god; it won't work without the specific experience.

So this is the sort of alignment currently implemented; nothing like "I pledge to serve god X", but rather, constant commitment via your actions; just like Athena didn't love Odysseus because he prayed a lot but because he was smart and active and employed his wit, or Zeus Hector because he was valiantly fighting. I think a heathen God's favor follows more or less automatically if you're simply being active in his realm of things (favor of course only provided you don't cross paths with someone this god favors even more). (One might argue that the entire polytheistic religion is nothing more than an euphemism for gaining experience, e.g., the more I fight, the more experience I gain; saying the War God favors me because I'm such a dedicated fighter is just a more poetic way of acknowledging the same thing.)

Though, in a fantasy setting, formally committing to particular gods, with consequent restrictions/obligations on your behavior might be a nice subplot. I'll have to think about that.
Quests for a god might be an idea, too. (I'm so Epicurean ("The gods don't care about us.") that I'd never thought of this.)

Evil cult, requiring sacrifices in return for specific magical powers/spells: I like that idea. Maybe I'll expand that and will make some of the stronger offensive spells available only on condition of your regularly sacrificing something/someone.

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on character generation as discussed above, or, for that matter, really anything relating to the game. Thank you.

 

[Vistaer]

Personally, I really prefer 2d, it's not just a programming question, I like the much wider range of sight and degree of control I've got in such a setting.

I agree. With 2d games, you have an easier control of the art-style of the game. Animations may be tedious, but I think with 3d you need to start worrying about a lot more. An example is Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. A great game with style and graphics, however thats only if your system can run it. A simple 2d game doesnt require rendering or skinning (aside from basic art obviously) environments nor is it demanding on resources. What matters really is the style one goes with when making a 2d game. Fallout has to be the best example. I dont think it even used 32-bit color, but that seemed to only help enforce the setting of the gritty world it was set in.

3, or squire (don't know if that term is right in English; German 'Knappe', a knight's apprentice,

Squire is correct. Your english is outstanding. I just wish I knew German (and Latin and Japanese) just as well

I was wondering on character creation. Obviously you set your sex/appearance/name at the begining, but perhaps a small sequence can be used to get you more in touch with your character's history. Not gameplay mind you, but something similar to the virtue questions in Ultima or the "assignments" you took in System Shock (or was that SS2?). Basically you go through a series of choices and ultimately land at what you have done up til the game starts.

Example:
1
"As a child, you and your friends played often. Sometimes they would win, but one thing that you had a talent in was..."

1) arm wrestling (boost to strength)
2) a race through the forest paths (boost to dexterity)
3) contests of trivia (boost to int)
4) who could do the most push-ups. (boost to vitality)
5) doing well, though not great at just about any contest (averages everything)

(Not good examples, but hey, Im not feeling creative at the moment )

And the next question would integrate the first into it...
2
"One day in your early adolecence (sp) after [racing through the forest/arm wrestling/a triva contest/a push-up contest/playing] with your friends you came home and found your father speaking with a man. This man was a childhood friend of your father and was passing through the village on his way home. They stayed up late that evening catching up with eachother and trading stories over mugs of ale."

"The next morning your father asked you a serious question. His friend owed your father a favor from long and wished to know whether you wanted to go off with him to become an apprentice to his friend or remain at home here in the village. It was a tough decision, but ultimately you chose to.."

1) Go with the adventurer and learn a bit about everything that made up this world.
2) Go with the knight and serve as his squire.
3) Go with the wizard and begin to learn the arts of magic.
4) Stay in the village so you may one day own a farmstead close to your friends and family.
5) Stay in the village so you may start an apprenticeship in town as a craftsmen.

And the second question enters the third/final (morality stance).
3
"A year ago as you walked along the road back to your [Home/Master's House] you heard a sound from a noise from the nearby woods. As you peered closer you could see two teenagers beating a merchant and robbing him of his goods. You chose..."

1) To draw your [weapon/magic/pitchfork/hammer] and fight them off. (morality plays big role in charisma/etc. systems involved. start with +20 karma)
2) To shout at them, and they quickly ran away. (morality plays average role in charisma/systems. start with +10 karma to start)
2) Slowly walk away. (morality plays minimal role in your charisma/systems)
4) Join them in robbing the merchant. (morality plays no role. -10 karma to start)
5) To draw your [weapon/magic/pitchfork/hammer] and kill them and the merchant. (morality plays no role. -20 karma)


Final message..

(If 1/5 were chosen) "After [saving/murdering] the merchant, you [discover he was carrying/are given] a decent amount of gold, which you have kept to this day just in case." (Start with say extra 50 gold coins, or however much isnt too much)

"Finally, one day you are called to your father's home... only to discover something..." (Game starts here)

Something like all that



The religion stuff sounds really involved. Can't wait to play the game and play all the factions/groups/quests and really get hooked into the world you've created =)

 

[TheDuke]

It all sounds great. I'm all for 2D, I really do like the art style you've made for the game and I'm fine with the mailling of cd's. You speak english very well and your posts sound better than most native english speakers' posts.

Keep up the good work with the game, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. I'd rather a well polished, fleshed out game than a rushed one.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Why hasn't Guest posting been disabled yet? The least we could do is add one of those image verification thingies for a guest post.

 

[Adam P]

wolf requested it remain enabled.
i agree.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Well, I originally thought the spamming resulting from our activated guest posting was our problem (moderators AdamP and myself) and no one else's.

But I realize it's also a nuisance for users browsing the main forums portal, who see the 'there are new posts' sign next to the Teudogar forum, come here to check, and usually find the 'new post' they came to see is nothing but spam.

Sure, this spam will always be deleted after no more than a day or so (thank you AdamP! for your astounding reliability & persistance), but until then it may already have inconvenienced several dozen RPGCodex forum users - and this every day.

On the other hand, the potential inconvenience of having to register before being able to post would concern only one or two people per month (not-yet-registered guests), so from a utilitarian perspective I agree it makes sense to disable guest posting.

If, on top of this, we consider AdamP's probably enormous workload in deleting all that spam, I'd say, well, it's a pity but let's get rid of guest posting; it isn't worth all that trouble.

(If anyone wants to make any suggestion or voice an opinion without registering, they can still do so via the contact form on my website; I may collect fragments from these comments, anonymize them, and post them as a block of a dozen or so from time to time.)

So that's my latest opinion on this matter...

--------------

As to DARGHUL, thanks to all of you for your feedback, suggestions and encouragement!

Please keep posting if you have any additional suggestions; I'll be happy to implement as much as I can.

 

[Anonymous]

My local radio station had this bit called "Eat Shitake". It wasn't clever and people called in to say eat shitake all the time.

 

[Vistaer]

I was replaying Teudogar yesterday and noticed something that I really liked and wanted to make sure is in Darghul. Alternatively I wanted to perhaps suggest a couple of improvements.

I'm talking about the Map. Are we still able to add our own notes and markers to the map in game? This was a small feature I found really cool. Also perhaps in Darghul, the map instead of being something accessed by hitting "Tab" could be an actual object in game that you carry in your pack.

Finally, one thing writting on the map did was bring back the days of Apple ][ RPGs for me like Might and Magic, Bards Tale, etc. where I used to write up all the info I gathered on a notepad, draw my own maps, etc. While I like the map auto-drawing, since Teudogar seems to lack a system that keeps track of the quests you're doing, in Darghul could you have a "Journal" at the onject which is basically a 20-30 page in-game blank editable book (linked to a .txt file or such?) that you carry around so you can keep notes and such of the quests you're doing, where that treasure is buried, etc?

 

[Vistaer]

Oh, one more thing. I don't know if the code would be compatible, or whether you'd be interested, but I found out that Microsoft is releasing a version of their XBox 360 developer tools for indie developers to make their own games for XBox 360 which could be downloaded onto people's 360s. The interface might not be as friendly on 360 without a mouse, but if it didnt take much to adapt your code for Teudogar and Darghul you could possibly reach a wider audiance, gain more of a profit, get yourself a bit more recognition, and bring a couple of good RPGs to a somewhat RPG-lacking system.


http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i ... tory=10458

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi Vistaer, thank you for these suggestions!

> map: yes, same as Teudogar, you can add comments. Due to the higher screen resolution there's even more room for these now.
BTW, different from Teudogar, the map now offers 2 zooming stages: 1st, the 1:1 display of your immediate surroundings (256x256 fields), and 2nd, an overview over the entire game world (3500x3500 fields, 1:20 or so). (In both cases the automap feature is used, i.e., you only get to see what you've explored before.)

> map, actual object: right, that'd be a nice touch. (I'll keep the TAB key shortcut in addition to this, for easier access.)

> keep track of the quests you're doing: What about the Quests Notebook (upper menu bar, or press N or F7)?
Actually, implementing this (especially the is-quest-finished/obsolete diagnosis within the dialog macro commands and the story.cpp file) was quite a disproportionate amount of work. (I havn't done all this for DARGHUL yet, but I suppose I ought to.)

> journal: nonetheless, an additional journal might be nice to have. Personally, I tend to operate with scraps of paper; but I see some advantage to an electronic version. I'd have to add some text editing functions, but I guess that could be done in an hour or so. Saving this as a .txt file you could also print out and/or edit with a real text editor would obviously make sense.

> Microsoft XBox 360: Thanks for this idea. I'll take a look at this.

Anyone having additional ideas or comments (gameplay, control, game features, whatever), please keep posting. Thank you!

 

[Vistaer]

> keep track of the quests you're doing: What about the Quests Notebook (upper menu bar, or press N or F7)?
Actually, implementing this (especially the is-quest-finished/obsolete diagnosis within the dialog macro commands and the story.cpp file) was quite a disproportionate amount of work. (I havn't done all this for DARGHUL yet, but I suppose I ought to.)


Oh. I forgot about the N/F7 thing. My bad, hehe

 

[Anonymous]

Dammit. Why do partially-literate spammers always speak in the plural?

Anyway, do we have a timeframe yet for Darghul? Next couple months? Next year sometime? The suspence is killer!

PS: Hey Wolf, know why you're so awesome? 'Cause your name is Wolf! That's fucking sweet man!

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi Macadaciouse,

next couple of months (I hope).

Depends though on how much more I'll add, and there are still a couple of things I'd like to improve, and a number of areas aren't yet complete.

First name 'Wolf': Sounds like a bit of a joke in English, but it's actually fairly common in German. I suppose it can't be anglicized (though 'Rudolph' is linguistically related). But it's very convenient; people always remember my name.

Anyway, although DARGHUL is slowly nearing completion, and I've implemented a lot of suggestions from this thread, I can still add many features. So anyone having additional ideas or comments (gameplay, control, game features, whatever), please keep posting. Thank you!

 

[Vistaer]

Heh, doesnt sound like much of a joke in english having the same name of a dangerous carnivorous hunter

Glad to hear a couple months away (hopefully). I cant wait to play it and will be spreading word of its release when it comes.

In the meanwhile, hrmm... only systems/things I could think of...

1) While playing Teudogar I noticed that in Tiu's grove the horses seemed really too small art-wise. Perhaps some somewhat larger resolution versions for Darghul?

2) How are you on music? Do you have new music for Darghul, or are you recycling the Teudogar music?

3) Sleeping - In Teudogar you were forced to "sleep until morning". Perhaps in Darghul you could choose to sleep for 1-10 hours.

4) Horseriding? Probably not too hard code wise, but would demand a bit much art wise. Figured I'd ask, heh.

5) Art in books? I was thinking maybe some of the books in the game, like those who tell stories about history or tomes on magic maybe should have some icons on pages to go with the book's content.

6) Keyring. Simple. While Teudogar's environment obviously wouldnt have many keys in Germania, I assume Darghul's world is different. Perhaps a keyring to store all your keys on?

7) Sleeping bag / set up camp. You unroll it and can sleep on it or choose to roll it back up during your adventures. When you go to sleep, a small campfire starts up automatically and when you awaken its a pile of burnt ashes.

8) Companions? Not asking for this, but simply wondering will we have a couple of companions during the game that follow us around, have a lot of dialogue, etc? I have to say that games like Fallout, Ultima, Baldur's Gate, and KotOR gave me a fond appreciation for memorable companions.

Ah well, there's everything I can think of, heh