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[Zonk]

Abbreviation:

AKA = Also Know As

New Ideas:

What about allowing a "first-person"view if the player wants?

Allow to "regolate"the strenght you put in your blow,like you could use a club
to "subdue" the enemy or knock him out,or you could use "stronger-than-average"
blows,but you would get tired faster.
Similar to this,add the possibility to miss because YOU WANT,you could use a bow/crossbow
to shoot a person that you don't want to kill,and miss,the monster COULD be scared,
and if he is a child,the enemy could faint,or,if very old,have a hearth attack.
Of course,some creatures/entities could be unable to moderate the strenght of
their blows..think to Berseker Warriors.

What about allowing diferent types of parrying?Like you could parry low/high/at center...

Ships:Ships could be moved by winds,waves,man who paddle(use wodden stakes to beat
the water),or the ships could be moved by some sea beast attached to it.
Also some player could get sea-sick and get penalties.

Digging/Bury:Allow the player/entitities to dig/bury..depends on strenght,tools and varius factors...like
some race might be more adept at digging using their hands/claws.Also,if a player digs very deep,
he could find water,treasure,or even fall in hell!Also you could bury creatures(dead or not),
be buried alive and similar things.

Getting drunk:Could protect from cold,cause permanent brain damage,make you vomit and similar
things.Alchool tolerance depends on races and size,but some smaller races are more
tolerant than large ones,for example,Dwarves are famous for their great drinking.

"Unique/Limited Creatures":Think to some mytologycal creatures.They could also be "limited",like there
could only be 2 in the world.Also,it would be rare for the player to be a "Unique"or "Limited"
creature.

Some Ideas for "Stock Entities/Races" for some genres\universes:

Mind Flayer,AKA Illithid(Horror/Sci-Fi):About 180-200 cm(6' foot) tall.Looks like an octopus(could be of the
same motive,since they don't look like mammals or reptiles)has some tentacles(i think six),
needs to eat(or suck with the tentacles?) brains,but i think they CAN eat meat,but it is not
very nutrient for them.A Mind Flayer player COULD be non-evil,but he could only eat the
brains of some creatures?Also,Mind Flayer are VERY and i mean VERY smart.Illithids are
the "space"version,they are so smart they can build spaceships.

Satyr(Fantasy/Faery):Short(like dwarves),has got hooves,small horns,loves to play a sort of flute,
lives in forest.A mammal?

Ogre(Fantasy):About 250-300 cm(8-10 foot)tall.Very strong.Humanoid.Lives in tribes.Not very smart.
Usually evil but more "civilized" than creatures like Trolls.They look like the giant
version of Orcs.There is also a "Mage" version,but is more like a shaman.Probably a mammal?

Klackon(Sci-Fi):Giant ants,walking on two legs.I think they are about 180 cm(6 foot tall).They are
smart enough,and very hard workers.Probably an insect.They have an acid bite.

Dark Elves,AKA Drow(Fantasy,especcialy Dark Fantasy):Tall enough elves,with pale skin.Tend to be evil.
Females are smarter and rule,while males obey.They worship a sort of spider goddes(Forgot her name,i think).

Kraken(Fantasy,especialy in Acquatic sea worlds):Giant Squid/Crab that attacks and kills evil people
at sea.Also,it's an "unique" creature.

Tarrasque(Fantasy):Giant dino-like monster.Sleeps four about 100 years.Is VERY big.Almost invincible.Skin
is used to make VERY tough armor.This is another unique creature.Probably a reptile.

Varius Hybrid Entities,like:Half Orc/Half Human,Half Ogre/Half Orc(Ogrillion),Half Ogre/Half Troll(Trogre),
Half Demon/Half Human,and similar things.

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Some Curses:

"Mida Curse":EVERY thing the player touches(including most creatures)becomes made of
gold...the player can't eat(and so dies),except(maybe)if someone throw food in his mouth.

"Curse of foretelling(or future-seeing"":Player can see what could happen in the future,but people is
unlikely to believe him,also it could be dangerous to have random "future-seeing"..
think to it happening in battle(like for Bardock if you watched the Dragonball Film
with him)

"Curse of EverLasting Day":Player is forced to re-live a certain day,even if he dies.
This continues until he does something important.Every time the day re-starts,he
remembers what happened before,including gained experience/skills,maybe,but not including
items?

Being cursed by a mummy,or by a dying enemy("With my last breath,i curse the" could
say a powerful necromancer who is dying)

Being tormented by ghost(s) of someone.Probably,only the tormened entity can see them.
Also the player could become a ghost because he  forgot to do something in life,
he must do this thing,so he goes to the afterlife.

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

Varius "horror" or "violent" ideas:

What about a "scientist-necromancer" player/entity who creates monster by using parts of
varius monsters/creatures?Like,here is an example of a monsters like this..

Head = Lizardman,but with minotaurs horn
Feet = Goat Hooves(good for kicking)
Left Arm = Troll,if left forearm/fingers/hand is cut,it regenerates
Right Arm = Octopus Tentacle
Third Arm = Giant arm,uses club
Left Leg = Bear
Right Leg = Rhino
Brain = Either no brain,or the brain of a smart creature.

I don't know what motif they will be(mammal,reptilian,insect?)

If some entity get behedead,the head could "live"for about five seconds,the player
might ask question,the head answers by blinking the eyes(one blink = yes,two blinks = no).
This is also for "normal"entities(including humans),not for some undeads/Trolls.

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

The POWER of Brain/faith:If the player is religious,or has a high willpower,that could
help him to recover wound/fight.Even if he believes in a god that does not exist in the game universe.
Also think to the "Placebo" effect.

[Toady One]

All right.  I'm still working.  I'd post more updates, but my new trashy 56K connection through Stanford that doesn't recognize my site is a constant annoyance.

Random commentary time -->

First-person view:  This depends on the extent to which a real time component is added.  Turn-based first person just seems strange.  First person in and of itself is a trivial addition (just change the camera coords), but there might not be a place for it.  We'll discuss this more when I get that next version out (Alanor continues to be plagued with problems -- certain companies are having trouble sending the proper motherboards).

Variable strength strikes:  This made it on the future page -- I hadn't been thinking so much about subduing, but about even further extremes, like touch-based attacks (some poisons, undead-type stuff).  These attacks would be more stealthy certainly and perhaps a little faster.

Intentional missing:  This might be good for scaring animals -- my parents have a sling shot for the deer when they come to nibble at the roses.  Most of the time the deer just don't give a crap though.

Parrying types/locations:  We've been moving away from this kind of thing a bit, but I'm still thinking about it.  Specific guarded zones tend to become very artificial after a while, and it also becomes tedious to switch them to match opponents, etc.  Actual parrying up until now had been automatic, just swinging your weapon at theirs...

Ships:  Yeah, this is on the future, but it's there because I know it's necessary, but haven't gotten around to planning it, well, at all.  It'll probably be a while.  Swimming is an exception.  That will come sooner.

Digging:  I wonder about burying corpses...  would guards etc. look for the telltale signs of a buried body?  Wild creatures might dig them back up and drag them away.  I might have mentioned this in the future page, but I probably didn't say too much.

Drinking:  Same for this one.  Not just alcohol, but in the Armok spirit of randomness, there will be many natural substances (AKA drugs) that cause psychological side effects when ingested, imbibed, inhaled, placed into contact with the skin, etc.  As in life, the player will have to make decisions, and addiction could really bite.  One example we had considered was, considering the annoyance of carrying a light source into a cave (no inventory "light slot" here), commonly having in most worlds a substance of some kind that allows a form of (non)magical night vision.  This would alleviate the light source problem (allowing you to wear a shield for example), but any side effects would also be random.  Perhaps you would turn into a goblin over time...

Unique creatures:  Yeah, I don't think we could do without these.  Adventures feed off this kind of thing.

Stock creatures:  Sure -- I have all the DND/RPG books and stuff (probably way too many).  I'll probably dip out of them to make the stock universe.  The whole point of the stock universe is to give people a familiar starting point -- so there's no need to cry foul over swiping from Tolkien etc.   :p  The spider goddess is name Lolth (sp is wrong I'm sure).  I used to have that DND module Queen of the Demonweb Pits.  I don't think I ever played it.

Curses:  He he he.  Keep 'em coming.  The more we have, the more the poor players will be saddled with.  Then I can make the game mix and match curse components to force the player to react to novel situations.  Evil evil evil...

Necromantic Frankencritters:  There are a few difficulties, like matching the internal tracts (respiratory, circulatory, etc.) of the different pieces, but I always wanted to put this in.  It's too fun to pass up.  You actually don't have to worry about the motif here -- the motif is used to generate creatures, but isn't really important after a species is created.  The information then resides in the specific creature or abomination.

Beheading:  Does anyone know the real scoop on beheaded heads?  I mean, I imagine the poor thing would be too traumatized to be of much use before it dies (and blood loss would knock the head out very quickly -- not sure of the exact time, although a good blood choke usual gets me in a few seconds... a beheading would be even faster probably).  It might be cool to take that last turn though, if your character's willpower is incredibly high...  especially if you can cast spells by blinking.

Faith/brain power:  I do have (or at least had in an older version) pain tolerance shooting up due to adrenalin, etc., during a fight.  I guess faith, etc., could operate by the same mechanism.  I've gotta figure out how to glue the interface/information together on things like this so the player doesn't just get flat out confused when a creature keeps attacking (that goes for a ton of other things I'm not even thinking of I'm sure).

[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Harlander]

More curses, eh?

How about a curse where the victim is forced to kill in order to keep alive? This could be coupled with an upside, i.e as long as the killing continues, the victim is blessed with great strength, but on the downside, eventually the whole world and its dog(tm) will come after him.. This could be extended into vampirism, if you add the actual need to drink blood, light aversion, weakness to deitic power, etc. Other tasks might also become a cursed obligation.

Hmm.. other curses.. perhaps a severe allergy to a substance, say, steel... whenever the victim touches the substance, it gets severe burns, or similar...

A Sword of Damocles-esque curse, with a blade or other weapon ready to plunge and impale the person.. it'd be more game-esque if there was some condition which'd trigger this, rather than it being random as in the legend.

Items could become cursed in many ways.. like in Nethack, they could meld with the wearer/wielder, or bring bad luck, or attempt to harm the (wield/wear)er... they could resist attempts to be lost.

Would it be possible to create cursed items that bring grave misfortune upon the bearer, and somehow track the bloody swathe they carve through the world?

An idea for a different style of play - it involves somehow creating progeny (probably by the usual method  :p), and at your death you could take the role of your heir.. that could be cool. I don't know how getting a mate would be accomplished in-game, though.

Um.. that's it for now.

[Toady One]

Yeah -- actually, many forms of undead will take the form of a curse.  As you point out, vampirism is a great example, and it fits into the regular curse model.  I think in the end it will be set up almost like a magical art, with powers, side effects, and so on.  It's just that most or all of these things won't be voluntary  

I do hope for your sake that you aren't claiming that trademark, or eventually the real whole world and its dog (tm) will hunt you down.

Is the sword just kind of hovering around in the heavens waiting to waste you when you trigger it, or are you strapped to a table?  The first one is a sort of curse, the second is just a crappy situation to be in  

Yeah -- cursed items can be nasty.  In addition to the more item specific things (melding, not being lost), you could really have an item do just about anything untoward...  slowly transform the wielder into a kobold -- the item might not even be cursed in any other way, and the user could drop it if he or she is willing to part with it (the item might otherwise be very snazzy).  Most users would probably wait until they've become six inches shorter and are slightly hairy.

Tracing bad luck items...  like the Monkey's Claw I suppose.  As with many things in a computer program, tracking data wouldn't be difficult here -- I'd set it up something like this:

The game must decide at some point to bring about a terrible happening, either when the user makes a wish, or just at random, whatever.  When an unfortunate event is generated, its nature and the recipient can be recorded in a list attached to the item.  This will work even for slow insidious curses, since the luck biases they create will result in certain bad events/rolls which can be recorded on the list.  This list can grow, and the game can use the list to generate a legend -- the game would also need to keep track of the general movements of the item and each time it changed hands or was lost, just to make the story more interesting.  As long as this kind of data isn't kept on every leaf and stone in the game, it is very plausible to do it.  In fact, these kind of stories were planned to be the backbone of the "high score list" (the game will generate legends about important players which will permeate future games).  These legends will also be written by the program from lists of important events.  The most challenging task is making the prose of the stories without having them sound completely stilted and piecemeal.

You don't know how getting a mate would be accomplished in the game?  Try flowers!!!  This is going to be fun to write -- I'll have to get enough women around me to make sure I don't introduce a bunch of masculine gender biases, but your player (male or female) will have to get a mate in the regular way.  It should be an adventure in and of itself -- and might require a real one if the person you're going after is sufficiently picky!  There was a thread on the other board discussing "the usual method" so we don't need to go there again    Anyway, yeah -- I think it would be cool to become your heirs if you want to.  The game is going to need some kind of time abstraction code, so if you die before your heir is of age to play, the game can advance the universe if you like.  On the other hand, if you play the mother/father until death from old age, the heir would already be established -- since you deserve a lot of credit for getting them there, I don't see a problem with allowing the user to jump in and play a powerful heir if they want to.

[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: Toady One ]

[Zonk]

A small idea...
"M
ultyplayer"Armok:What about allowing multy player playing for two
player in this mode:One player host the games,the other plays.Every player takes a turn,
then the world file i sent (automatically,by the Slaves of Armok program) to the other
player,who takes his turn,then the save/word file is sent to the other player,ecc.ec...
This could work well if save/world files were small...Would work good for making two characters fight

[Harlander]

One small question: will the body-parts system (I'm sure you've got a more impressive name for it) be able to handle body parts on extended stalks? For example, for a creature that somehow evolved from a snail.. would certain parts have differing vunerabilities.. like, say, if a creature floated about like an airborne jellyfish under a bag of warm gases, would it be possible to cripple it by bursting the bag?

[Toady One]

Multiplayer:  I'm not sure how a turn-based multiplayer RPG would work, if you have to take steps through areas so slowly -- if this feature were limited to a specific arena option it would be fine.  The combat system will be nice enough that a bunch of people would probably want to try it out one-on-one.  Alanor is the multiplayer guy though, and he might write a game with an Armok-style combat system that is more suitable for this kind of thing.  If Armok has a real-time option (that might come out of the 3D shift), a multiplayer mode might be more feasible.  In any case, it isn't a high priority

H:  I don't think my body part system name is impressive...  lemmee see...  I don't think I have one.  I've been calling them creature bodies!  That might need to be rectified.  The class nesting is:

Species - Caste - Physical - Body - Body Part - Tissue - Material

So, just body  How boring.

Stalks we can do.  Right now, every body part is made out of a "Body Building Block" that describes its basic features.  Things like arm = "Appendage Building Block", upper body and head = "Sac Building Block", eyes are "Eye Building Block", and so on.

Consider an Eye Building Block.  It has all kinds of features for a given species (color possibilities, pupil shape, etc.).  One of the planned features for eyes was "stalked" (and the building block would describe the stalk in detail if necessary in terms of length/thickness/tissue/retractability etc.), and a stalked eye would be easier to chop off, but might offer bonuses from 360 vision, etc.

I haven't considered flight much yet, but if the species definition has something floating around with a hot air bag, the floating ability will be tied to the bag (if I go nuts, the game will do simple calculations based on what gases are in the bag as well, so that players could use it after killing the thing, etc.).  If the bag is damaged, the locomotion ability would decrease.

Was there another sense in which you meant "extended" stalks?  I have a feeling I didn't quite answer the whole question.

[Zonk]

A little more ideas:

"Social"Effects for walking around naked in "civilizzed" towns..you could get
arrested.

What about allowing SOME parts of the game to be in real time?Like some "games"

Dirty fighting,like low blows and similar things...

What about allowing thing like "global heating" in a game were there is industry?

What about allowing the player to hold his breath if he wants but it's not necessary?

If we will have things like "going to the bath" some...emh.."biological products"of some
creatures could be used for something....like magic..

[Demon]

What about the game taking over control of your character in certain circumstances?  Like when drunk or charmed?  Along that line, I know in real life if I want something done Im not always motivated enough to do it.  For low willpower characters especially it would be neat to have to overcome the "lazyness factor."

[Harlander]

Eek! That could make play very difficult, especially if a character is as lazy as me.

[Toady One]

ZONK!

Appearance modifiers:  I was planning to have a lot of these.  Each entity keeps track of the general appearance of its members, and further and further deviations can lead to more extreme results.  Nakedness is a definite candidate, as are drawn weapons and missing/extra body parts.

Real-Time:  I'm pretty sure that there will be both turn-based and real-time options.  The code from the beginning has had the structure for it, although I hadn't foreseen it  Every step between squares takes your player roughly 100 "clicks", and attacks take fewer clicks and so on.  It turns out that these clicks are almost perfect as real-time frame refreshes.  Basically, in the turn-based mode, when your character is not doing something, the game will freeze and you can select an action, just exactly as it has always been.  In the real-time version, the game won't freeze, and your actions will occur on key presses/mouse clicks.  It's really a trivial modification.  In the end, everyone should be happy with it.  I'm more of a turn-based top-down guy myself, but if it's easy to do and strictly optional, I'm all for the adrenalin rush of no hitpoints/permanent death/nasty injuries/quick thinking in real-time.  Just don't expect to make it very far!

Dirty Fighting:  Well, you can fight how you want in this game (specifying hit locations by aiming, etc.).  The notion of dirty fighting would presuppose an entity having some kind of honorable fighting system.  I haven't thought about that much.  Entities will have rules set up to curtail certain behaviors, and this could include certain attack types/locations, and things like ambushes and backstabbing.  What constitutes an ambush is difficult to say in game terms.  Being a dirty fighter would then mean that you have and use knowledge of weak points and ways to attack them that would be frowned upon under the rule structure.

Industrial Global Warming:  I'm not sure that the technology/population density would get this serious, but magic messes all of that up, so such a situation is certainly possible.  Keeping track of temperature/rainfall/biomes etc. isn't all that difficult (generating them realistic would be nasty, but I'm not too preoccupied with that).  In terms of the game, many small sources of heat would be harder to add up into global effects than a few large sources.  If I add global warming there would be a noticeable bias in that direction.

Holding breath:  We definitely need this.  Although it would be annoying to force the player to hold his or her breath every time he or she dives under water (the program will probably hand this automatically -- perhaps through an optional flag), there are other occasions where the player would want to do some breath-holding where the game is in no position to do it for them.  Say the player walks into a room filled with invisible poisonous gas.  If the player knows about it, some breath-holding might be in order.  If they don't specify it, they get nailed.

Casting spells with the...  night soil:  Yeah, if we go ahead and add those substances, they will be fair game for spells, eating, etc.  Every material the program has access to in the beginning of the game during universe creation will be used to make the magical art mechanisms.  These kinds of materials will be stored in the species definitions (in the mammal motif, blood is there now, along with skin/enamel-dentine/bone/muscle/various organ tissues).

Game taking over your character:  Hey Demon!  If the character is drunk (really really drunk) or charmed, I don't have much of a problem with this -- especially if as you say, their willpower attribute is low.  I've toyed around a little with the idea of a lack of patience penalty, which would be like the laziness penalty (but instead of forcing inaction, it would force action).  In the end, I'm not sure how these personality quirks should effect gameplay.  Altering commands is pretty drastic/frustrating, but hey, so is getting your arm chopped off, and we do that all the time.  We'll have to see when we get closer if such a thing would add or take away from the overall experience.

UPDATE:
I just changed the type of dynamic arrays I'm using (these should be a lot faster), but the conversion generated exactly 1519 compiler errors (and 1 warning).  Uck.  It'll probably take 1 1/2 hours of megadull labor to sort that out.  On the upside, I have the beginnings of a 3D view in Armok now, with simple rotation and so on.  I just need to add the slopes.

[Zonk]

NEW IDEAS,NEW IDEAS:

Add the possibility to start as a god...
Add the possibility to "create"your character,even selecting the race/sex
if the player really wants...(but he would have a lesser score?)

Like in "real life",time in Armok could pass faster if the character is happy/excited
and slower if he is doing some boring thing(like reading a book he does not like)...

Some "minor ideas":

   Mirrors:Allow the character to see himself(not for vampires/similar creatures)
           could be useful for reflecting beams of light,or for killing some
      creatures with a stoning gaze?
   Shadows:A bit like mirrors...could be useful for telling a creature is
      a vampire..(NOTE:I think legends say Vampires have no reflection
      and shadow because they are soulless...but then..most undeads are
      soulless...)
   Here is a list of some "minor" bad things:
      Stomachache
      Dyarrea(i don't know how to write it corretly)
      Spasm(i don't know how to write it corretly):Basically,an involontiary
      movement of muscles.Immagine having a spasm and slapping a King/Noble..
      Baldness(for males)

[Toady One]

As long as the scoring system, etc., is maintained fairly, I don't have any problem with someone starting as a god -- once the Armok world is running and self-sustaining, I think it would be a great deal of fun to be able to play a sort of Populous/etc. within it...  once again, because a player character could ostensibly attain this role without any kind of starting option, it wouldn't be an extra time-consuming addition to the game -- when I add in player-attainable godhood, this would just be one way to test it

Actually, I think people should be able to create their characters down to the finest detail if they want.  After all, it's their game.  The strength of a character can be judged exactly as the strength of a monster will be judged within the game, and scores can either be reduced (we've discussed the problems with this before), or perhaps characters can be placed in different score lists based on their starting strength (like weight divisions in wrestling).  In the end, characters will more likely be judged on whether their legend reads well rather than some arbitrary number that I assign to them.

Altering the flow of time based on what the player is doing wouldn't really be fair to the creatures around the player.  On the other hand, it might be possible for the player to get lost in a good book, and not notice the hours passing.

Women can be bald too.  I've seen those hair product commercials with the testimonials

I guess there could be all kinds of paranormal things attached to shadows.  Again, it would end up being a universe variable.  Shadows could reflect the presence of a soul, act like regular shadows, or be alive/animateable, etc.