Another sheep joins the fold! Couple of questions guys..
by Luke (Soul) Horobin · in Torque Game Engine · 01/15/2006 (7:01 pm) · 7 replies
Ok chaps, I shall make this as painless as possible, as it is a story you have all heard a thousand times. A bunch of friends and I, have decided after many years playing many games, it is time we created something worth the hours we freely throw at it. Turning to google for moral support and guidance, we found this little bombshell!
Ok, so I have a couple of questions before I part with the several hundred pounds. Yes, I'm English! We want a basic RPG, with an inventory, selection of armour etc etc, you know how it works all the jazz. I've been pouring over demos, some of the things I've seen are just brilliant. Question however!
Player and object interaction. I've not seen any hints towards this in the demos I have seen so far. We would like the ability to have players sit on chairs, lay on beds etc! Has anyone seen this? Done it? Can anyone show me where it happens?
Ok, next question! Save rooms, we need support for rooms to be changed by players. Example, windows broken that stay broken, items dropped, that remain there etc.. Possible? Without moutains of additional code?
Ok, I've bored my self and probably enough of you to earn a flaming, any help/advice/comments welcome.
Thanks in advance,
Soul.
Ok, so I have a couple of questions before I part with the several hundred pounds. Yes, I'm English! We want a basic RPG, with an inventory, selection of armour etc etc, you know how it works all the jazz. I've been pouring over demos, some of the things I've seen are just brilliant. Question however!
Player and object interaction. I've not seen any hints towards this in the demos I have seen so far. We would like the ability to have players sit on chairs, lay on beds etc! Has anyone seen this? Done it? Can anyone show me where it happens?
Ok, next question! Save rooms, we need support for rooms to be changed by players. Example, windows broken that stay broken, items dropped, that remain there etc.. Possible? Without moutains of additional code?
Ok, I've bored my self and probably enough of you to earn a flaming, any help/advice/comments welcome.
Thanks in advance,
Soul.
#2
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Soul
01/15/2006 (7:31 pm)
Ok, how much work are we talking about to do a few of the things I've mentioned? I'm not afraid of work, thats why I'm here. I just need to know what I'm letting my self in for! Has anyone done these things already and would be willing to help out? The more I read of the forums, but more I am put off! Can I actually do this heh.---
Soul
#3
That said, triggers and animation for models will give the "sitting down", etc animations, but it will take animator prowess to make it look "natural". You can chunk up the changable data however you want, but it will require custom code. There isn't an engine that I know of that knows what you want to keep static and what you don't as you chunk in and out areas. Ultima VII's was written from scratch with this in place, but you would have to add the code to any engine that I can think of within you triggers, elements, items, and changable objects (if you are able to change everything about an environment, you will basically be writing out an entirely new layout with everything included with each chunked save. That gets more and more mountainous depending on how much you want to save. But it would be with any engine.
Yes, you will have to make source changes which will require a competant C++ programmer to be intimately entangled with the source code of the engine. Just like if you used the Source, Unreal/2/3, Quake/2/3, Irrlicht, Ogre, BlitzMax/Basic/3D, DarkBASIC, PureBasic, Unity, 3D Game Studio, or whatever engine you want).
01/15/2006 (7:37 pm)
Mountains of code will be needed for nearly any engine unless it is specifically scoped to your own view of a RPG. Most engines (such as RPG Maker, Neverwinter Nights, Spritech, etc) that are RPG-oriented are prescriptive to a point that many new developer's ideas can't come to fruition. If you want to tell a story, they are extremely able. If you want to make your vision of the perfect RPG, they're often restrictive.That said, triggers and animation for models will give the "sitting down", etc animations, but it will take animator prowess to make it look "natural". You can chunk up the changable data however you want, but it will require custom code. There isn't an engine that I know of that knows what you want to keep static and what you don't as you chunk in and out areas. Ultima VII's was written from scratch with this in place, but you would have to add the code to any engine that I can think of within you triggers, elements, items, and changable objects (if you are able to change everything about an environment, you will basically be writing out an entirely new layout with everything included with each chunked save. That gets more and more mountainous depending on how much you want to save. But it would be with any engine.
Yes, you will have to make source changes which will require a competant C++ programmer to be intimately entangled with the source code of the engine. Just like if you used the Source, Unreal/2/3, Quake/2/3, Irrlicht, Ogre, BlitzMax/Basic/3D, DarkBASIC, PureBasic, Unity, 3D Game Studio, or whatever engine you want).
#4
I like what I saw in Minions of Mirth, the only additions from what I have seen I would like, is the ability to break objects, such as tables and have them be broken untill replaced. Is there currently any ability for players to "drop" items onto the map, and have them stick? I have so many questions and am probably structoring them all poorly. I hope you at least gather what I'm trying to ask heh!
The issue with sitting does not sound like a major one, after reading over some more of the forum, I see triggers would be the way forward, with a nice animation job :)
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Soul
01/15/2006 (7:45 pm)
Ok, well I read that four times, realised I really do need to sleep within the hour but finally understood the bulk I believe, or perhaps hope with the project looming infront of me.I like what I saw in Minions of Mirth, the only additions from what I have seen I would like, is the ability to break objects, such as tables and have them be broken untill replaced. Is there currently any ability for players to "drop" items onto the map, and have them stick? I have so many questions and am probably structoring them all poorly. I hope you at least gather what I'm trying to ask heh!
The issue with sitting does not sound like a major one, after reading over some more of the forum, I see triggers would be the way forward, with a nice animation job :)
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Soul
#5
01/15/2006 (8:22 pm)
Broken items is simply a means of persistence. But much like the problems in the geomod technology of Red Faction, if you have a number of people go for an all-out break-fest, you may run into massive slowdown as it tries to update the persistence of the world. But object persistence is really not much different than economic persistence...unless everyone does it at once.
#6
01/15/2006 (8:24 pm)
Ah well, it would be rather frowned upon. It seems I have managed to turn to threads to pretty much the same like of questioning, I am sorry. I'll let this one die it's death if you like? I've still got a question or two if you have time to help me out on the other thread? Sorry to be a pain, just trying to figure out if this is what I need or not! 
#7
Checkout a game called Shelled built by Joshua Dolman (?). That's a prefect example of a simple game that can be made in a relatively short time. Once Shelled is released Joshua will be able to build on his experience and recruit more/better help for his next project. As for an RPG Josh Ritter's team took about a year to build Minion's of Mirth but his team was already seasoned and he knew what he was doing. Josh has done a great job documenting his development of MOM so you should spend some time reading his plans and postmortems to get an idea of what lies ahead for you. If you don't want to invest the amount of time I'm talking about you might consider contributing to MOM, using it as an extant game on which to gain a practical understanding of a Torque-based RPG.
01/15/2006 (9:50 pm)
It sounds to me like you're biting off more than you can chew, Luke. The most common mistake people new to development make is wanting to build a project that's beyond them. Don't want to discourage you but if you have no experience or don't have a team that has the experience necessary to build an RPG then you should scale back and start with something really small and simple. You should set short-term goals that will be easy for you to complete and then chain them together so that over time you build up your knowledge of Torque. Along the way you want to recruit specialists who are expert in their own field, mainly artists and programmers. Recruiting these experts is important because the information required in each field to accomplish what they do is beyond the average person to fully grasp by himself.Checkout a game called Shelled built by Joshua Dolman (?). That's a prefect example of a simple game that can be made in a relatively short time. Once Shelled is released Joshua will be able to build on his experience and recruit more/better help for his next project. As for an RPG Josh Ritter's team took about a year to build Minion's of Mirth but his team was already seasoned and he knew what he was doing. Josh has done a great job documenting his development of MOM so you should spend some time reading his plans and postmortems to get an idea of what lies ahead for you. If you don't want to invest the amount of time I'm talking about you might consider contributing to MOM, using it as an extant game on which to gain a practical understanding of a Torque-based RPG.
Torque 3D Owner Jesse Liles