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Author Topic: A TITANIC list of various things,ideas and questions  (Read 11952 times)

Zonk

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A TITANIC list of various things,ideas and questions
« on: June 29, 2002, 05:02:00 am »

First of all..the Day 24 i had my ORAL EXAMS...i think i went really well....
Im 99,99% sure i have passed the exams...Do you known at what school
im going after the Summer Holidays???
SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL...So i will become some kind of super scientist...actually
a lot of my school-friends used to call me "the mad scientist"......
Think to experiments and mad scientist...The English Written Test
was about.....about...FRANKENSTEIN!Doctor Victor Frankestein...i will
use the Stock creatures editor to become like him...A MAD SCIENTIST!
AHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAH!
Anyway it was easy...at the oral exam i just talked about Eletricity,The Second World War,
a sicilian writer called "Giovanni Verga"and his books,the monuments of my city(“Saint
Agate of the Goths&#8221 :Different eye placement can cause different vision...
   Narrow/front eyes have more depth perception,while wide eyes
   have a larger field of vision....Also possible are eyes on stalks(think
   to beholders?)and all around vision,for races that have more than 2 or
   3 eyes.


   Hearing :Directional(like humans),Parabolic,Subsonic,
   Ultrasonic,Sonar Vision

   Tact:Crude/Fair/Excellent/other sense of tact...interesting
   for manual skills.

   Taste:For SUPER-human taste,the possibility to train
   to determine the chemichal makeup of substances by tasting
   them.

   Smell:The RTF oly talks about None/Poor/Average/Good/Excellent
         sense of smell....not about "special"kind of smell sense.

   Movement sense:Whiskers,Absolute Direction,Sense of Perception

   Balance sense:Think to absence of balance sense or perfection
   of it.Also think to "Catfall".

   Other senses:Radar Sense,Magnetic Sense,Radiation Sense,
   ESP


Sentience/Special mental Abilities:

   The RTF quotes:"Intelligence is the ability to solve problems.
   Sentience is the ability to make them." -Howard Prau Sessor"

   In Slaves to Armok i think we could surely play non-sentient
   being...Also the RTF says it is possibile to generate creatures
   with high ICQ but not sentient.It also talks about
   "presentience,meaning the possibility to become FULLY sentient
   with help.

   It also talks about "Special Mental Abilities"..examples
   of this are:

   Absolute Timing,Intuition,Autotrance,Lightning Calculator,
   Eidetic Memory,Fearlessness,Musical Ability,Mathematical
   Ability(both natural),Absolute direction,3d spatial sense,
   No hangover,Compartmentalized Mind,Cultural Adaptability,
   Language Talent and natural psionic powers...not to forget "Racial Memory".

   Also it talks about "Special Disabilities":

   Split/Multiple Personalities,Chronic Depression,Laziness,Megalomania,Lack of sense of
   humor,Berserk/Bestial/Bloodlust,Weak Will,Sadism

   Also it talks about Concentration(Focus Slaves to Armok)..A high concentrated race
   could have High Pain Treshold,and some Special Mental Abilities,like Language Talent
   and Musical Ability.
   Also a very concentrated race could have natural Mathematical Abilities...

   It also talks about other "mental/moral stats",like Suspicion,Imagination(Creativity)
   Empathy,Curiosity,and other things...In the Imagination section,i read this somewhere:
   "Odious Racial Habit: "Won't shut up about their great ideas!" (-5 points)."
   So me and spelguru(sorry spelguru :-) ) have an Odious Racial Habbit :-)
   


Sciences/Art:For game purposes,the file has a list of Art/Sciences..

Sciences:Biology & Medicine,Weapons,Sublight Space Travel,Power Generation,
Communications & Sensors,Computers or Robotics,Aerospace or Surface Transport,
FTL Travel,Engineering,Materials Science/Chemistry,Exotic      

Arts:Games & Diversions,Social Sciences & History,Mathematics,Literature,Visual Arts,
Performing Arts,Music,Psychology,Architecture,Philosophy & Theology,Exotic.

I can't understand what is FTL(Maybe Fast Terrestral Travel?)and why Mathematics,
Social Sciences/History and Psychology are listed as arts...Well,Toadyone...if
Mathematics is an Art,you are an artist...and since Philosophy & Theology are arts,
im an artist too(i often like to talk with my friend about religion and the meaning of life
and i think to them A LOOOOOOT of time)

Also it talks about random types of society:
Anarchy/No Government,Clan/Tribal,Caste,Fuedal,Theocracy,Dictatorship,
Representative Democracy,Athenian Democracy,Corporate State,Technocracy

And on society conditions:
Subjugated,Slave State,Sanctuary,Military Government,Socialist,Bureaucracy
Colony,Oligarchy,Hazardous,Meritocracy,Embargoed,Patriarchy/Matriarchy,Utopia
Cybercracy

            

Well,that's all the RTF says...I would quote who wrote it,but there is no Author name,
Copright or similar things..probably it's not an official document...The fiele cointains
just the various means to create a random race..So if someone wants it i will be very glad to
send this file by e-mail.

With this new release,we can use the editors...Can we make whole universes file and exchange
file with each other?Surely,i think...And then,Toadyone,what about uploading the best
player-made universes file on the download page?Someone will surely do a Tolkien Universe
...with Human,Elves,Dwarves,Orcs,Hobbits,Ents and materials like Mithril and Adamantite.
And im planning to do some universes by myself(look A LOT below)

Also,since the material editor is in,i think you should re-add weapons made of random
materials...what good is to create a new metal when you can't test it?


Since the next release is about magic...i have thought about Material Requirements..
They could include precious/uncommon metals,
like gold,silver and the like.But also parts of creature corpses...
And varius substances...Blood,bones,brain or muscle tissue,skin,hair.
.maybe for some animals even dung!Maybe unicorn dung has magical properties
for casting spells againist evil! :-)
Also you could have even strange gasses as components..for example you could use the
"breath of a fish"for a spell that Makes one breath water!...
Or you could put a "Mountain Wind"in a glass bottle and use it for
some elemental air spell...


But i did not only think to magic...What about "PSIONICS"?Think to it..
looks like it's more limited than magic...but i don't think this is true...
you could combine various psionics effects in a lot of ways!

Differenty from magic,Psionics usually requires no rituals...
just concentration..and maybe "mental energy"...There would
be something like "psionic schools"or "disciplines",that
include a lot of different effects...for example:

Psycoportation = Basically Teleportation.Cost in mental energy and
concetration would dependy on the size of the item/creature.

Telekinesis = The ability to move Items/Creature using one mind.
Probably allows flight...also GOOD for causing damage...Think
to smashing a golem againist a wall...

Telepathy = The ability to send telepathyc messages.

ESP/Mind Reading = The ability to sense "standard"life forms,meaning
those possesing brain and hearth i think..Higher skill also allows
to READ in the minds of creatures...meaning in their brains,so
in Slaves to Armok one could known their basic feeling.

Hypnotism/Mind control = Hypnotism exists in real life...
It is just the ability to "hypnotize"someone,to make them remember
something for example.In Slaves to Armok,it should not be different.
If one wanted to give orders to a creature using his psionics powers,
for example,he should use "Mind Control",not Hypnotism.
I personally think that one could use these abilities on himself,
especially Hypnotism...
Examples are trying to use your power to make your character
learn/forget something...Maybe you could auto-convince yourself
into being the world-greatest warrior and actually gain
some moderate bonuses?
Maybe even overcoming "mental"fear(for "body fear"one would
need biofeedback)
By the way,someone could also know Hypnotism as Mesmerism...
Mesmerism is very similar to Hypnotism..It was invented
by someone called "Mesmer",if im right...


Biofeedback = This is GREAT!The ability to control one body
processes...Think to wounds,blood flow,heart and brain
activity...not to forget hunger and thirst...of course the fact
that you don't feel hunger or thirst does not mean you cannot
die of thirst or hunger...Maybe it would work for helping in
healing from wounds and illness...
Also biofeedback could give Adrenaline Control...In real life,if
im right,Adrenaline brings blood to muscles,making one stronger..
But Adrelaine is also the hormone that controls rage,for example..
So you could use Adrenaline Control to become a berseker...or to
calm yourself.
Thinking to it,why only Adrenaline control?One could also
control other glands and hormones...If one could control his
Growth Ormone,he could,over time(a few months?)become HUGE...or small...
***REALLY*** POWERFUL psionics could use Biofeedback on others..maybe...


Disintegration = If Psycoportation allows us to move the atoms
of items,disintegration allows us to...um...disintegrate them?

Also two questions...does someone of you read "FOCUS"?
I mean,the famous scientific newspaper...I read it and it
gives me many great ideas,like the ones of biofeedback and hypnotism.

Toadyone,when are you adding claw attacks?We have bite
attacks..but not claws attacks!That'injust!I want we have the "jaws that bite"..
but i also want the "claws that catch!"


Also,since i don't want you to forget it,i will say it now...
Less than two months and it's my birthday!I will make FOURTEEN years!
Since i had moustaches from when i was 12,and i altready need to shave every
morning,this isn't a big change :-)
Do you known what is the date of day i was born?
The 8th day of August...And,since August is the eight month of the year...
I was born on 08/08/1988!A lucky date,right?


Also i have noticed a thing about music in Slaves to Armok...there is
a big difference between listening to MIDI normally using
Media Player and listening to MIDIs "in the game" by putting
them in the sound directory and renaming them armok1,armok2,armok3...
In fact...whean i hear MIDIs in Slaves to Armok..they become BETTER!
They have a better rytm,for example...is this normal?

Well..in the meantime,im using Slaves to Armok not only to play
but to listen to music :-)
By the way,the default musics are...well..HORRIBLE!Im trying
to find the best musics for the game...even if,at this moment,
there are only 3:battle music,"travelling music"and "intro screen
music".For example,i use "Conquest of the New World"As intro screen
music...I've also noticed that,when you enter an area with
hostile monsters,the battle music and travelling music seem to
alternate madly...Instead of making the battle music appear when
you attack a monster,it would be cooler if you could hear it
ALWAYS when enemies are in line of sight...I would also add
a "character death music"and "victory"music when you have slain all
the enemies in an area.


Another idea for an Editor...Wwhen we will be able to create COMPLETELY editable universes and
planet,will we be able to define not only basic things like the general stats of an
entity/empire/planet?I mean...will we be able,for example,to create an empire where there is
a certain emperor...for example Emperor Zonk...and this emperor has a castle made of
red and blue stones with a secret room...Maybe there is an evil priest called "Alanor"hidden in the Emperor Castle trying to assassinate him...(just
an example Alanor)
We should be able to have an editor to CREATE the castle..I.m saying
CREATE and not BUILD because building is done in game…Basically one could
CREATE the castle in this editor room by room and decide it's special properties..
We should be able to also decide the "Emperor Zonk"stats,including moral conduct...is he an evil mastermind
or good and wise(like the real Zonk)?As stats i mean EVERYTHING...Ranging from the emperor
favorite shoes to his hair color!Maybe we could import "Emperor Zonk" or "Evil Priest Alanor"
stats from a player savefile...
I mean...it would be cool if one could also make completely player-created universes...
and not just be able to edit the creatures,items and material?

Will we be able to create,for example,a planet that has SPECIFIC places?
For example,to create a planet where you can find the "Drakalor Chain"of ADOM,with all the particolar characters and villages(just an example,I have no idea of stealing things from ADOM)

Of course,im talking about the STARTING stats of an universe...But it would be
cool if one could edit an universe altready modified by a player!

The cool thing is that this would also allow "re-creating"historical periods..i known
someone altready suggested it..If im right,Tarn brother...
It would also be cool to be able to combine "almost"random things with editors...
For example,one could make an universe where there are some "specific"places and "entities"
and make the game generate cities,entities and other things just by following some
basic istructions.


Also,when creating an universe,we should be able to give the player the possibility,for
example,to start playing has a certain pre-made character...a God,a strange Necromancer or a
King for example...Or one could also give the player to possibility to start with a certain
pre-made background.


It would also be cool to be able to BE Armok himself!That would mean one could
play and edit the world like he wants at the same time...and he could possess other creature
bodies naturally...Since,if im right,Armok is supposed to have no psychical body ...

It would be a must to manage to implement the possibility of making a planet really "spheric",
meaning that you could go forward indefinitely(i altready said it,i known)...

I even thought to editing elemental/astral planes....Are elemental planes infinite?Umh...no...
But what happens if one runs at higher-than-light speed in a certain direction in an
elemental plane?Are elemental planes spheric?And,if we allow space travelling,what happens
when you reach the "limits" of the universe?We known that universe is infinite BUT EXPANDING...
How do we manage this in Slaves to Armok?Maybe we could have a ****HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE****
but limited Universe(meaning “Outer space&#8221 ;),and the game continues to create random parts of it as the player progresses...That would look very memory-taking,but remember,not ALL planets are suitable for life, so the game would not have to store data for entities and species for every planet...


In definitive i think that these examples of default universes that would be very cool for someone to do…
I think i will surely try to do some of them, even if actually we can’t edit
Everything…We could even have a contest for the best Universe-maker?

Tolkien-Lord of the Rings Universe:Of course!I have altready talked about it!

Mytology Universe:An universe where the mytology of all countries and continents meet...Think to many pantheons and, for example, Grendel fighting the Minotaur,
Zeus fighting Odin, Beowulf and Sigfrid teaming up with Hercules and Achiles…
That would be fun :-)

Primitive Universe:The player starts in a primitive earth-like world...or maybe
equal to Earth?...He could see and help civilization grow...but without god-like powers...
Of course,if the player really want to see the world evolve, he should have some "Immortal"
option ON...


Dragonball Universe:It has an interesting pantheon,lot of planets and interesting races...
Think to Androids,Namekians,Saiyans,Kaioshins,Demonsl,BioAndroids(Cell for example),Icer(Freezer,his brother cooler and his father)...

Lovecraftian Universe:What if Armok created the Great Ancient Ones?Or maybe "Cthulhu"is a
relative of Armok?Also it would be hard to create R'lyeh using an editor,since i have
read that "R'lyeh is a great sunken city of non-Euclidian geometry hidden somewhere
beneath the ocean".
Non-Euclidian geometry?That's HARD to think...The only non-Euclidian geometries i known
are Ellitic(Spheric) and Iperbolic...

Amber Universe:I don't known a lot about it..but it look interesting...apparently,powerful
Amberites can create their universes,known as shadows...And our planet,Earth,is only
a big shadow...The only true city is known as Amber...The shadows are only illusions...
Also,there are "Chaosites",demon-like creatures,of power inferior to Amberites,but A LOT superior to humans....Basically,if one was of the Amberite
species,one could create something like a small"pocket universe".

Star Wars Universe:It has many planets and species,and someone altready talked about the “Force”as as a special magic system.

Star Trek Universe:Like star wars,but even cooler(for me!)Think to teleportation and these pointy-eared Vulcanians that resemble elves…Not to forget the strong,magenta-blodded,honorable Klingons,and Humans,and Cardassians…It has many
Cool species…

Horror Universe:Just standard horror...Golems,especialy flesh and bone,necromancers,
vampires,werewolves,ghost,evil warriors...and a lot of other things...


What-if Universes:What about "what-if"universes?For example,what about an universe that
simulates what would happen if on earth there was VERY little water?Or what if
the Earth was ALL covered in water?What if the Earth atmoshpere was not of oxygen
but of some other materials?What if on Earth there was no gravity?It would be cool to test
many possibilities by creating many universes using the editors...


At last,two little ideas...since you talked about "creature variations",how are they handled
by the species editor?And will displaying creature variations include variuous muscles?
A well-muscled human would look different from a weak one..im not only talking about
size,but the of the sheer bulk of muscles.
Also,when you parry,weapon should also get damaged,depending on the strenght of the blow,and
your skill in parrying/guarding should also depend from the skill in the weapon you are
wielding.


Well..with this i have finished...By the way...did you known i have noticed that i have
been in this forum for more than a year?This is FANTASTIC!I mean..It is very nice
know such nice(even if a BIT strange :-) )persons and to help create an incredibile game...
And now,since there are the Summer Holidays,i shall have A LOT more spare time to have
great ideas for this game...and to play it of course!Can't wait to create the "Zonkian"race!

Also,since i will have more time,i think im going to write a MANUAL about Slaves to Armok!

When it will be ready,it would be GREAT if Toadyone agreed to put it on this
site......Yes,i known there is altready a manual..but it talks of the game in general,it does
not say HOW to play it..and it is VERY outdated...also,i have altready translated the
"outdated"manual in Italian a lot of time ago..So i think im going to write a manual that
explains how to play the game and gives useful tips and trick...Maybe i will even
write how to cheat(with savefiles) or be a powerplayer,if someone wants to know...Of course i
will update this manual every time a new version of Slaves to Armok comes out...I think the
manual will be in .htm format,because it allows for things like urls,images and similar...
Also,Toadyone,have you discovered why we can't contact/authorize each other in ICQ?Maybe we
should try again,since ICQ is better to send files and because it would be an HONOR for me
to talk to you "almost"personally...I want to remember to anyone that uses ICQ that my UIN
is 125637883.

Well,this was REALLY the last thing in my TITANIC post!

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Toady One

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Re: A TITANIC list of various things,ideas and questions
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2002, 01:46:00 pm »

Good job on the exams.  Just remember to keep up your writing skills -- one of the primary jobs of a scientist is to get research money from governmental and other sources, and you do that in part by writing grants :)

I have a few Gurps books, or at least one, so I'm vaguely familiar with it.  Nevertheless, I have transcribed the new ideas into the little text file that I have for Future Page additions.

I think for silicon based life-forms, assuming they'd work at all in real-life, then sure crystals would be a possibility -- glass for instance.  Glass is silicon-based right?  Si2O4?  Something like that?  I've totally forgotten the formula...  but it's just sand.  So sandy stuff would also work...  and then there's all of the other silicates...  grey rock mostly?

He he he.  Coprophytes are feces-eaters, like dung beetles and so on.  There was a gorilla at a zoo in Seattle that I observed as part of an animal behavior class, and he was also a coprophyte...  more like an autocoprophyte, because he preferred his own self-made delicacies.

As an extension of ergivores, there should be creatures that can feed off of any energy/aura in the game.  Things that feed off fear, evil, good, night, moonlight...

With the growths, we can do lots of complicated body coverings even now.  For instance, this release will have actual reptiles, which means scales -- those will be small plates, whereas hair is small spikes (in terms of the body part building blocks).  You can use any building block you want for growths (eyes!).

Radially symmetric things could move like star fish/sea stars (using thousands of little feet and their big arms), or like jellyfish (which undulate -- I saw an awesome jellyfish exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium recently -- lots of good Armok ideas...  there were little inch-long jelly fish that cast out feathery net tentacles into the water and caught little white dots for food...  I could watch those for a long time).

I'm not sure if one would call an octopus radially symmetric...  the lower body kind of is, but the head is more bilateral...  except for the jet, which is only on one side?

FTL mean "Faster Than Light" -- referring to convenient space travel.

With these editors, you'll be able to make universe definitions and a number of different stock files.  So you'll be able to define materials, creatures, motifs, forms, and creature groupings (rabbits, etc.) and then tell your universe which files are permissible.

The nice things about the way materials are defined is that once you make a material and tell your universe to include it, it will be used to make all of the items where it makes sense.  For instance, a short sword item has a blade whose material must satisfy at least two properties:

1) it is rigid
2) it can support at least a dull edge

ANY material that meets these requirements will be used to make short swords (randomly right now -- later the distributions will make more sense).  The process is entirely automated.

The next release is actually vegetation I think...  magic is right after that.  Anyway, do unicorns produce dung?  I thought that would be too... impure.  Maybe they kind of puff out sweet smelling pastel-colored fairy dust or something.

Claw attacks need a bit of weird tweaking...  they won't make it into this release.  Maybe the next one if somebody reminds me.

Yeah...  with MIDI files, there are wild changes in how good they are between different computers/players.  This is in part because of the sound bank (instrument data) that different players use.  My Windows Media Player sounds AWFUL.  But FMOD, which I use to do sound in Armok, sounds really good -- although a few instruments don't play at all, so I need to change them around.

Indeed, my music is trashy.  This was a video game tradition, up until recently.  Each of those songs took less than a minute to write, so I should be able to improve on them.  I won't be having other people do music (or graphics probably) because I enjoy doing it, and that's the only reason I'm writing this game.  I don't really care if certain aspects of it suck.  But yeah, if the music bothers anybody, just use your favorite MIDI files in place of the ones provided -- as long as you keep the names the same, they should play fine.

On the other hand, the attack music does jump in kind of oddly right now -- I think it turns the attack music on whenever an enemy target you.  Since the enemy might not be visible, this is a weird thing to do.  I'll have to do something else.

I'm not sure when I'll add in map/entity/individual creature editors.  Certainly that is one of the goals, because as you said, my brother wanted an Earth world to mess around in.  Once we have that, editing currently active games would be a trivial addition, since they will likely be stored in the same/similar format.

If the goal is to eventually be able to make Earth, then the map from ADOM or Tolkien's world would also be constructable.  A map editor really isn't all the hard to make, although some care would have to be taken to keep the file sizes down, since 3D maps are very very large.  Since the underlying structure of the maps is still a cubic grid (like ASCII roguelikes), a person won't have to have any sort of 3D drawing skills to produce maps, and I won't have to make a painfully complicated editor either.

Hmmm...  I really don't know if Armok has a physical body or not, although I imagine he would want to be able to physically kill things occasionally.

We could make infinite maps as long as we don't want to save everything.  Even if we do, it is possible to use random number generators to produce a random infinite map that is always the same throughout a given game.  The maps wouldn't Really be infinite, since the player's XYZ coordinates are stored as 4 byte integers, meaning they have a maximum value of 4 billion.

Spherical maps are very nasty -- and they are technically impossible the way the map is stored, since it is impossible to tile the sphere with squares in such a way that there are four squares to every corner and the tiling is nice and uniform.  Or at least I think it is.  Games like Populous 3 didn't use 3D cubes the way the Armok map has to, so it wasn't a restriction for them.

There is a way to make 3D cubical maps that seem spherical by taking a cylinder and making its top and bottom into "projective space".  I believe this is how old school games like Star Flight did it.  However, there are many many many weird side effects to this type of map.

Actually, a lot of your "What If" universes are coming soon...  before magic is added, I have to make temperature for instance, and vegetation will already be in at that point.  So you'll be able to fiddle with a number of factors...  that should be fun, even if a game on a planet with average temperature 1000 C does run a little short...

Right now, creature variations are only in size, attributes, and coloration.  These things can be fed to the models that are made in the model editor, and the models have transformations that could make muscles and so on.  It's coded, but I'm not sure how much of that I'm going to do right now.  I believe I'm going to do some stuff with faces at least...  that way, every body can have their own unique face, and different humanoids can have very different racial facial features.

If you write a manual, I'll put it up -- I'll still either have to make my own or edit yours, because there are a lot of features and so on that aren't immediately obvious -- especially regarding combat mechanics.

I'm not sure why ICQ doesn't work -- I know that Alanor and I can't send files to each other with it (something to do with my computer), so I doubt it would help there.

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spelguru

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Re: A TITANIC list of various things,ideas and questions
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2002, 11:16:00 am »

Could you two repeat all that? I scrolled down to fast.
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