Help with a game I'm making

[coldheartzero]

Ahh finally someone that's at the very least read it. Over the last 5 years I have posted info on dozens of different boards, including MMORPG.com, and rarely does anyone ever bother to say anything. I did however get bashed like a red headed step-child on mmorpg on stuff that wasn't even related to the game, but I digress.

I'd thought about that, I even remember seeing that episode of Dr. Who and it got me to thinking, but still it's not quite fish-like enough. I had actually thought about a mask like the picture above and little anti-grave floaty things that would allow them to swim through the air. I really want them to be more "alien" than my other races but I just can't see it in my head and still being reasonably playable.

Anyway, thanks again, you've no idea how happy it makes me that someone actually read through even a portion of it.

[Catherine]

I like space and ALIEN aliens. -shrug- Made it interesting enough to read.

Of course, the robot bodies can be non-humanoid shapes, too.

Gravity Manipulation. Of course, if someone manages to turn it off: *splash* *flop flop* *dramatic final words* *death*
EDIT: Yeah, saw your note just now about how true anti-gravity doesn't exist. But this is simply...changed IMPLIED gravity. It's more like magnetism, using the natural polar structure of water molecules to hold it together. Maybe it won't be as dramatic as levitating like in the picture. I can't think of an alternative explanation very well (it's 4:30 AM, and I've been awake for 3 hours).

[coldheartzero]

A note about anti-gravity. In my game worlds current level of technology anti-gravity doesn't exist. Most space craft are equipped with what I call "gravity-gyros" that on there most basic level just redirect inertia and increased gravity levels.

As I mention, most of my aliens are very humanoid looking, taking a page out of anime I wanted players to be able to relate to, and even be attracted to some extent to my aliens. But just for the sake of diversity, I wanted the Bentrine to be truly alien. I have lots of really evil planet eating aliens in my head that are truly alien, that's the nature of the worst of the worst of the bad guys, at least till they try to infiltrate human society and their infiltrator falls in love, or learns that humanity is actually pretty interesting and the infiltrator turns on their overlords. (I watch a lot of anime)

If I went with a "humanoid" Bentrine, I'd probably go with something that looks like Abe Sapien from Hellboy, but most likely I'm just going to leave them as NPCs because making a dolphin/whale/fish thing walk on land would be difficult. I have however been thinking of a pseudo-cybernetic body that a Bentrine can control from another location. Sorta like that movie with Bruce Willis, ah,,,,,, I forget. That way they could stay fish, but still be able to interact with land lubbers.

http://www.roleplaygateway.com/tales...lp-t77089.html

I uploaded a zip with 3 pictures I drew. I made the pictures as small as I could, and compressed them as much as I could but the file is pretty big for just 3 pictures. Well it's not even a meg in size, but it's just 3 pictures.

Again, thanks for even reading the info. It's nice when I know someone is reading something, anything.

I would however like to ask folks that if you're reading it and don't like it, at least state why. A long time ago, in this galaxy but still a long time ago I worked for Origin as a Debugger and QA, we asked for feedback all the time in the beginning and rarely did we ever hear anything negative till we rolled out an idea then people whined and cried like we just committed a sin against nature. It was the same at Westwood Online. Keep this in mind when you feel that a developer isn't listening to it's players, it's because you're not talking, and when you are it's not talking, it's whining and crying and usually when it's to late to do anything.

So, the idea is, if you don't like something, then say what it is you don't like, instead of waiting till it's pretty much to late. Not like that's gong to be a problem with this game since I doubt it's ever going to be published lol.

Anyway, thanks for the time

CRG

[Catherine]

I'm indirectly working with Obsidian and Harebrained, and a few smaller companies, right now, so I get it. ^~^

And I commented on the anti-gravity thing up there, too. Wasn't expecting that idea to go through. By pseudo-cybernetic, are you talking about them having to "jack in" to the suits, like some riggers and almost all hackers in Shadowrun and other cyberpunk-esque worlds?

Was surprised I couldn't find just someone with a headjack. That's the first thing most people think of after cyberlimbs. >.>

The latest update was just 3 hand pictures, right? >.> Because I think I may have also re-downloaded the latest whole update thing, too.

[coldheartzero]

If my skills were up to par I'd love to work for Obsidian. I got out of the "official" gaming biz when EAxis started buying up smaller companies and firing all their staff just so they could get complete control over an IP. I LOVED working for Westwood, Earth and Beyond had so much potential, the game at sunset wasn't even a fraction of the game that was planned till EA got control and started screwing everyone.
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Anyway, the movie with Bruce Willis that I was trying to remember was "Surrogates"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/
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I originally had planned for an "Android" race to be playable after enough players had built sufficiently advanced AIs, but this could be another route. Enough Bentrine use their surrogate bodies they could eventually absorb portions of their pilots thoughts and eventually come alive, or something. I'll have to mull over that for a while.
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My latest update is just 3 pictures, it's the last post on the link I provided. It's pictures of a Mon'Za hand, a Cerian hand, and a Saurian hand. I'm not an artist and don't claim to be, but it's they're good enough to get the point across.
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Thanks again
CRG

edit goes here-- I'll try and make a better description for my races so if anyone gets a wild hair they can attempt to draw them. I do have description in my game files but maybe they're not good enough to get my thoughts across. We'll see.

[Catherine]

So, was reading through the "Family" file. That feature would be difficult to implement in an MMO. Sure, marriage would be possible, and so would having children. That much is easy enough. So is family traits passing onto the children. Creative events happening to the families, especially with variety afforded by rabid chihuahuas, would be a little more difficult. Not saying it isn't possible, but that would require enough possible events that:
a) the same event wouldn't happen too frequently, especially if it was a completely obscure event,
b) events wouldn't become stale, essentially happening to every single one of the character's progeny, and
c) not all children would end up the same.

The family feature COULD be implemented, I'm not denying that, but it would be most effective as a D/GM tool in a tabletop game, or in a single-player game (in the style of a Legacy in The Sims, or more accurately in the style of families in Fable 2 --> Fable 3). And while I understand the low death rate, the limit of "only in PvP" seems unrealistic, especially given that time will pass with the characters, so why not allow death from old age? Maybe the character will be a grandparent, maybe a great-grandparent, before they die. That would make things awkward, taking over as a middle-aged character. Of course, I'm sure you planned for it outside of the text, probably with the idea that you can switch to a child character any point after they reach maturity. Or before. -shrug-

Personally, I see this as more effective as a tabletop RPG, especially with Machi'Na hacking (I just read that, too). They seem to work exactly like a combination of AIs (with anthroform drone bodies and a Piloting Origin) and techomancers in Shadowrun, especially with the lack of storage space.

And I've lost my train of thought now. This is why I hate television, especially the mind-numbing shows the person I live with leaves it on.

[coldheartzero]

I've never played Fable 2 or 3 so I've no clue about that.
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Most MMOs that have quests are all repetitive anyway so I really wasn't worried a great deal about that aspect HOWEVER, it's not hard to make a system that can work as a build your own adventure style of quest where your choices in the game can and will change what happens next. There was a MMO release probably 6 years back that only lasted a month. The ideas were great, but the implementation was horrid. I don't remember the name of it, but you were a colonist and the quests in the game were things that a colonist might do, and if you didn't do them then it would change the nature of the game.
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So, being really generic in descriptions, a program/game could call up different quest modules based on the choices made up to a specific point in a quest where a choice needs to be made. It's procedural programming if my memory serves me right. Yes it could be the same quest over and over if you choose to make the same choices, but it's up to the programmers to make the procedural generation robust enough that even if all 3 of your kids get kidnapped, it's not always the same solution to fix it.
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Plus, as in real life, stuff doesn't always happen to the family. On another side, character generation can cause things to happen as well. All this relies on how robust the quest modules are created. There are aspects of all this in various games now, it just needs to be all put together in one game.
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Ok latest update, back in 2000 I created a website for the game but tripod, the host changed how they did banner adds and crap and I lost interest. After I lost my family I made my site into a memorial and forgot about it.
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Now I've changed it and uploaded all my game files to it, no more downloading. HOWEVER, tripod sucks and it really screws stuff up.
So click here to go to my website. I don't have net connection at home, I just want to remind people of that so going this route it will take me longer to get updates out. Without using their website builder I have to upload each page individually and can take a while. I'll deal with the banner adds later, If I move the "body" tags to the bottom of the page and open and close them there that moves all the banners but the popup to the bottom of the page. I'll also need to compensate for how it screws up formatting. So for now everything looks even less professional than it did before.
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I understand your thoughts on TV, my employer likes to watch reality tv of all flavors and that crap makes me grind my teeth. I feel dumber everytime one of her shows comes on.

--edit goes here--

About perma-death, among American audiences the idea of perma-death is almost universally hated. Asians however don't care. The idea of perma-death in my game was to make people care about their character and not do stupid shit like they do now. A prime example is WoW and how the average player gives no thought to their actions.
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I also originally envisioned allowing a FFA pvp environment, however I was working at Origin and was one of the prime proponents of "Trammel", Lord Brittish gave people to much credit, the population didn't police themselves, and less than 10% of the entire population actually readily enjoyed pvp despite the very vocal pvp communities. We had the numbers, they had lies.
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To combat the idea of being able to actually lose your toon I put in the "Sim", but every other time I've brought forth the idea of perma-death people freak the fuck out like it's a mortal sin. So I guess I really won't know till I get some more reasonable feedback, you should've seen the bashing I got on mmorpg.com for even thinking about that!!!!!!!ZOMGWTFBBQ EVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! Suffice it to say, I'll never post there again, and if some by freak of nature and miracle the game is ever "made" I'll not allow mmorpg to open forums or provide any news about the game. Uhh,, I lost my train of thought.

Thanks as always, any help is appreciated.
Keep in mind that this is not the finish product, the point of what I'm doing now is to move it towards a finished product. So input is welcome.
CRG

[Catherine]

I'm perfectly fine with perma-death. Would ruin PvP, though. It would mostly be the "elite" types, who ONLY play PvP, killing off all the new people. MMOs shouldn't have perma-death (unless they have an automatic character reincarnation-type thing). BUT you've found a way around that, with the children.

But is that what you meant earlier? Like...no PERMA-DEATH except in PvP? Because that's okay; all's fair in love and PvP.

And I'm blaming the TV again for this, because again I lost my train of thought.

[coldheartzero]

Well after working QA/Debugger for both Origin and Westwood Online I've seen the pvp numbers and I think Perma-death in PvP is a good idea.
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I was really wanting FFA type environment throughout the entire game, where anyone could kill anyone and automated contracts could be placed on peoples heads or NPC police could come after you if an NPC witnessed the crime. With a few exceptions, I was wanting it to be as realistic as possible in regards to what you could do in game. Also keep in mind that perma-death had an extremely low chance of happening, in the original version before my backup disc malfunction if you were fully loaded for death (certain weapon types had a higher chance of perma-death than others) there was still only a 5% chance TOTAL. Now in my current mindset I'm leaning towards it only being in pvp and starting at 1% with a max of 6%.
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The "sim" actually came afterwards, it wasn't in the original version and I only added that after seeing how housing worked in SWG and it hit me like a brick. Plus you're right, with the addition of the sim pve-pdeath would work. All aspects of the perma-death side of the game however would need some serious and actual play testing in a working environment, theorizing won't show any results.
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Thanks again.
gack, I hate that this thing won't seperate my thought process the way I want it
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Another edit- My website is temporarily down, I was trying to restore my original website so I could scavenge some code(namely my email widget, I wrote it from scratch and I'm proud of it, plus I wanted some old pictures of the fam I had posted), I backed it up before I uploaded all my new stuff, but tripod and trellix as usual aren't cooperating and when I backed up my old data it zipped it in a password protected archive and I have no clue what the pass is, It didn't ask me to make one, it just did it automatically. So,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah.