Darghul suggestions

[Ladonna]

Thanks for that Wolf, I appreciate you answering my question in so much detail. Im not going crazy about it but I am certainly looking forward to it. I just got a bit worried when I spied the old Codex link to the interview and thought 'wtf!' when I read your 'old' release date plans.

It sounds to me like the way you have done things is indeed much better for everyone. Thanks for putting in all the extra work, and keep polishing away.

 

[Igor]

So when exactly can we expect the game? You said early 2007. Does that mean January?

 

[Monolith]

I'm really looking forward to this as I thoroughly enjoyed Teudogar. Haven't played Darghul yet so for me it will be a totally new game. But if it's nearly as good as Teudogar you can sure as hell count on my money.

 

[Igor]

Oh yeah, i just thought of something i thought i'd ask. In Teudogar, you basically had no use for money once you had bought everything you needed. You had no running expenses like paying for food or shelter, since food was free and you could sleep anywhere. You should make it so that in Darghul you have constant expenses, like food and rent and other things like that, so that you constantly have to get more money. Because in Teudogar, once you had bought the best armour, learned all the skills and bought everything else you could ever need your money just piled up without ever getting spent. Will you be implementing certain expenses in Darghul so that you can't just buy everything you need and then never have to worry about money again?

 

[k_bits]

Yeah, 'cause a game without bills is a like a day without sunshine

 

[Vistaer]

Food and rent... well, you can easily get your food off animals you hunt (as I did in teudogar), and food isnt very expensive even if you bought it... paying for a room at the inn (Im sure is in) is a given. Another thought is maybe paying a tax to enter major cities or such, then theres the magical transportation of which Im sure the mages need to be compensated for their work. There is of course paying for repairs, etc. But this is all stuff that I believe is already in (except the tax entering the city thing)

Fact is that in every single player RPG there is technically "infinite" gold, since creatures that carry gold can respawn... so unless you want to create an inflation code which increases the cost of goods as you progress, this wouldnt work out well and that model would probably annoy a lot of players more than "damn now that I've got my suit of dragonskin armor and sword of frozen souls and all the stuff I can buy what am I gonna spend my money on now?"

Typically I find money to be a situation you worry about early on in games since you're lacking in equipment and you feel like a lowly person in a big world while later in the game you will have powerful arms and equipment and your character will be a hero to some and making a good living... but what you're more concerned about if that super armor & sword is going to be enough to defeat that creature up ahead taht you heard scorched a whole city.

 

[Vistaer]

So when exactly can we expect the game? You said early 2007. Does that mean January?

My guess is he was more talking about around March, but I gotta hand it to Wolf, he was originally shooting for early 2006, but instead of pushing out a partially done & bugridden build of the game (such as what happened with the Gothic 3 team), he's holding off to make sure its done right. The fact its been delayed so long doesnt even bother me since I know its a free-time project and I really am looking forward to playing it.

If I had to make any suggestions to wolf, I think the best christmas gift he could give us is maybe a few new screenshots, and maybe see if RPGCodex can give Darghul its own board as we come closer to release and no doubt groups like rpgdot.com, rpgwatch, and numerous rpg fansites and such will be flooding his realm as more and more get informed about this indie RPG and hopefully I can spread Darghul's existence like a bit of a virus in the hope he can turn a pretty penny for all his hard work and maybe make it interested to him to do darghul expansion

 

[Igor]

Actually, that's wrong. He was originally planning a late 2004/early 2005 release. And the reason for its delays isn't because of bugs, but because he was originally planning on just porting the original darghul code from the DOS version and make an upgraded windows version using the Teudogar engine. But then he decided to make an entirely new game instead and add tons of features and improvements, both his own and those suggested by forum members.

 

[Ladonna]

A list of whats in the game and some screenies would be awesome.

I wonder if he realises just how many people are waiting for his game....

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi everybody, sorry for my (vacation-)delayed reply.

> implementing certain expenses in Darghul
Yes, definitely. (You're right about Teudogar: Due to its historical/cultural focus, there wasn't much to buy, and concepts like 'rent' or 'interest' were unheard of.)
Food: There is no longer any free food available in most places (civilized societies just aren't as hospitable as barbarian ones). But this is no big deal; one silver coin will buy enough food for several days.
Shelter: Right. This reminds me of implementing the following: If you go to sleep in somebody else's house, and this homeowner isn't your friend, he could wake you up and kick you out. So you'd have the choice of sleeping in abandoned houses, or outside (not so good for your health), or in paid-for accomodation.
Tax on entry: Actually, even that's already included. The city of Unghol demands numerous fees and expensive permits and licenses from you. But maybe I should include government as a major cost factor in several cities, especially when you set up a business anywhere.
Inflation: In real life, this exists where the rulers print lots of paper money or reduce their coins' gold/silver content. This wouldn't affect your existing .916 purity gold coins. Sure, a gold rush might decrease gold's purchasing power somewhat, but not to a really significant extent. So I think a better option will be to keep your purchasing power constant but offer many (often extremely expensive) things to spend or invest your money on.
Your main running expenses will likely be magic (magical potions, magical sacrifices necessary to uphold your black magic capabilities, etc) and, most importantly, the businesses and trade structures you set up (caravan drivers/guards, clerks, shop rent, producers, perhaps also interest owed, and so on (though much of this still isn't implemented yet)).
And finally, there's much more to buy, not just special arms/armor, but also information, spells, means of production, services etc.

> release date:
Indeed, it's the worst of both worlds: First of all I decided to make an entirely new game with lots of features, and second, I have usually only a few hours per day for working on it. On top of this, I added many of the features discussed in this thread, and I also did some fundamental renovations on the Teudogar legacy code. And I definitively want to release a well-rounded, clean, and bug-free game; so I'll rather take some extra time instead of rushing it.
Unfortunately, all of this takes a lot of time. I'm really grateful for your patience.

> screenshots:
Well, here are two (not compressed; about 350k each; may take a while to load):
http://www.darghul.com/darg1001.gif
http://www.darghul.com/darg1002.gif
Since I increased the screen resolution to 1024x768, you have a very large field of vision; this is very convenient and feels much more natural than Teudogar, where your field of vision was restricted to comparatively few tiles. (The price for this is that all tiles look much smaller now than they did in Teudogar. This partly reduces your feeling of 'I'm actually in there'; but in my opinion, the wider field of view makes up for this.)
I'm still experimenting with different fonts for dialog text output (necessary since the old font is to small when displayed in this screen resolution). To me, Century Schoolbook seem easiest to read, even when projected over the game world (see screenshots). Other, more aesthetic fonts like Garamond or Times are too narrow; and Serif-less fonts like Arial or Gothic take a bit more effort to read. (Anyway I added a menu where you can select any font for text output; so this will be just the default setting.)
As you can see, the NPC sprite for female players still doesn't reflect the armor you wear; the inventory windows still need to be resized; the 'it's raining' inventory window background needs a better scan; and the small font needs to be a bit bigger. I'll upload more screenshots when these and other graphics issues are finished.

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions, comments and encouragement!

 

[Gwendo]

Is the graphics scale tied to the game's resolution?

It's fine as it is, but I confess to prefer a closer look: it makes the world look bigger and filled.

 

[Wolf Mittag]

Hi Gwendo, yes, the tile size remains constant at 48x48 pixels; consequently, when displayed in 1024x768 (the current resolution) a tile will look about 38% smaller than when displayed at 640x480 (like in Teudogar).

Of course I could fairly easily resample all tiles to, say, 64x64, which would make them appear about the same size on-screen as they were in Teudogar. But I wanted smaller tiles in order to be able to display many more of them at the same time, thus significantly widening the field of view.

I agree with you in principle: Large tiles (like in Teudogar) look and feel much closer to the action, like 'I'm-really-in-here'.

However when actually playing the game, the much wider field of view allowed by using smaller tiles is a decisive advantage, in my opinion: You can see much more, you feel much more in control, and it feels more realistic.

I've observed most people get hooked on this wider field of view quite quickly, and feel very uncomfortable when they have to return to the restricted field of view that comes with a larger tile size (like in Teudogar). So I think that while larger tiles feel more 'immediate' (and look better on screenshots), using smaller tiles really pays off when playing the game.

 

[Vistaer]

I've observed most people get hooked on this wider field of view quite quickly, and feel very uncomfortable when they have to return to the restricted field of view that comes with a larger tile size (like in Teudogar). So I think that while larger tiles feel more 'immediate' (and look better on screenshots), using smaller tiles really pays off when playing the game.

I can confirm this myself and really agree with this move after seeing the screenshots. The Exult system for playing Ultima 7 allows you to up the resolution. A larger field of view was far more preferable and really opened up the world. However in Ultima 7 I set it at 800x600 (default was 640x480) largely because if you went up to 1024x768 and higher you could begin to see things you wern't ment to (see mountains with no top, etc.) and it made the world feel smaller. I grabbed one of those screenshots, set it as my background and tried to picture playing Darghul at 1024x768.

It really really can work well I think. Especially if you try and pull off "epic" buildings like the interior of a castle, the gate to a city, etc. with this larger field of view. Can't wait till you get the graphics stuff down and we see more screenshots

 

[Igor]

So when is it going to get released? I can't wait any longer.

 

[Erik]

Then I suggest you make your own game, I expect it will take several more months (at least) before Darghul is released.

Keep up the good work Wolf! The end-result will be another unique game, well worth the wait. Then on to Teudogar II!

 

[LaFey]

Still I believe it is possible to make a fun game whitin the plot constraints of making it a historical one. A TV series like HBO's "Rome" proves that. There are plots and subplots one can freely alter or imagine without affecting the course of the main historical events. Of course that Teudogar, given its scope always lead into a cul-de-sac: Rome would have always won.

Still I find Teudogar a superb historical RPG that I don't regret for a second having bought. I'm looking forward to Wolf's new title, though I wish he would plan another historical RPG next - and this time why not set it in the time of the fall of Rome? :wink: