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[Bdthemag]

Why create an editor, and not just create a game? I mean, cool idea and all, but it's super weird to have someone go "Hey, I need IDEA GUYS." which is basically the opposite of every internet project ever. Game Designers are SUPPOSED to know a little bit of every kind of department when it comes to video games, but you have to understand now it pretty much means "Idea guy who went through a video game course at a community college."

[Endorya]

Why create an editor, and not just create a game?

For you to create a game you need first to design it. I mean, there must be some thought into it before you begin to code it. Now, if the project is quite massive, the thoughts and the designing phase will take much longer due to its greater complexity. I wouldn't dare starting to code something immediately without having first everything settle down. In fact I've done in past and I ended up loosing too much time by restructuring functions and classes over and over due to features that wouldn't work with other features as they begun to reveal themselves in detail.

I would not create an editor for a Tetris or an Asteroids like game but for something like this... Do you have any idea of what is hard-coding hundreds of classes with dozens of variables inside and keeping track of everything by reading and re-reading your dozens of thousands of lines of code? Well, I do! And thanks to the editor I'm building, I'm finally pulling this thing off as it lets me foreseen and revise everything in a structured and easy way. No to mention that anyone who wishes to help me, will be able to do so without having coding skills. You know, I didn't just happen to jump into game developing yesterday.

With the editor I don't need to re-code I simply change settings with the mouse. I'm not saying that everyone should go this way but that is the best way I found to develop a complex game all by myself. Feel free to use traditional project developing methods, I really don't care how you do it.

PS: It seems I spend more time here justifying myself and my project than actually gathering ideas or discussing the game itself. Like, I'm this guy who just spawned blasphemies against holy ground.

[Anvilfolk]

From your posts here and on Rogue Temple you are the one that's misunderstanding the problem

We totally understand you're creating an editor. We understand this editor can be used to define all the things you said: quests, materials, nutrients for food, and myriad other technicalities that make up the data for a complicated and complex world model. We understand there is no game. Just an editor to get a potentially super complicated world model.

The obvious assumption that we make is that all of this data will be used in the game itself. Otherwise there is no point in programming an editor to edit all of it. So, again. Everything you can specify in the editor is going to play a part in gameplay. If that is the case, then the point I and others have been trying to make regarding the game stands: it's more of an everything simulation, and less of a game. Sometimes less is more, and having a game that does everything just bogs down the player, who just wants to go in an adventure, and has to spend hours getting ready to have a supply of calcium, from cuttlefish bones, that he can only get by learning fishing for a few years and then going to a particular bay far to the north-east or whatever. Otherwise his bones will break. Or something.

Does those concerns make sense? If I want to go on an adventure, I just want to make sure I have enough FOOD. Not calcium, iodine, protein, and whatever other stuff for my specific race. Just food

[Endorya]

From your posts here and on Rogue Temple you are the one that's misunderstanding the problem

We totally understand you're creating an editor. We understand this editor can be used to define all the things you said: quests, materials, nutrients for food, and myriad other technicalities that make up the data for a complicated and complex world model. We understand there is no game. Just an editor to get a potentially super complicated world model.

The obvious assumption that we make is that all of this data will be used in the game itself. Otherwise there is no point in programming an editor to edit all of it. So, again. Everything you can specify in the editor is going to play a part in gameplay. If that is the case, then the point I and others have been trying to make regarding the game stands: it's more of an everything simulation, and less of a game. Sometimes less is more, and having a game that does everything just bogs down the player, who just wants to go in an adventure, and has to spend hours getting ready to have a supply of calcium, from cuttlefish bones, that he can only get by learning fishing for a few years and then going to a particular bay far to the north-east or whatever. Otherwise his bones will break. Or something.

What people still don't understand is that the editor will brew the game. It is NOT a simulation or a speculation, you are setting not part of it but EVERYTHING there is about parameters for the game to use. The only difference is that instead being hard-coding those settings directly into the game's main EXE or as secondary files (as traditional developemtn), I'm using an editor. If I do it directly over the EXE will it no longer being called a simulation? I honestly don't know how to explain it any better.

If I want to go on an adventure, I just want to make sure I have enough FOOD. Not calcium, iodine, protein, and whatever other stuff for my specific race. Just food

I fully understand that. And someone once said to me:, I just want to go on an adventure to hack& slash, I don't want to care about food supplies or having a limited inventory. It all comes down to our own needs and gaming style. Some love permanent death, others hate it. Regarding the nutritional value, it is not like you will have to carefully examine each piece of food every time you run out of supplies, because side effects will take time to trigger. You will actually have an option to buy automatically all supplies required for you party having into consideration all their restriction and needs. I just don't want a character to survive in the wilderness by just eating bananas for a month. Everything will be weighted so that no action burdens the player with boring tasks. These 7 years of development must count for something.

More over, you can set your character ready to embark on an adventure in just a few minutes. Why would anyone think it would take hours to prepare you character for an adventure? Unless you were considered giving commands to your character like breath in, breath out, move left leg, move right leg, take hand from the pocket, grab door knob, rotate the knob, pull the door in, and so on...

While the world will be extremely detailed it doesn't mean it will feel more cumbersome to play if done properly. The last thing I want is to let the player die of boredom.

[Anvilfolk]

What people still don't understand is that the editor will brew the game. It is NOT a simulation or a speculation, you are setting not part of it but EVERYTHING there is about parameters for the game to use. The only difference is that instead being hard-coding those settings directly into the game's main EXE or as secondary files (as traditional developemtn), I'm using an editor. If I do it directly over the EXE will it no longer being called a simulation? I honestly don't know how to explain it any better.

Whether it's in the editor, in .xml files, .json files or directly in the .exe has no bearing on whether it's a simulation vs a game - I don't understand the connection

I fully understand that. And someone once said to me:, I just want to go on an adventure to hack& slash, I don't want to care about food supplies or having a limited inventory. It all comes down to our own needs and gaming style. Some love permanent death, others hate it. Regarding the nutritional value, it is not like you will have to carefully examine each piece of food every time you run out of supplies, because side effects will take time to trigger. You will actually have an option to buy automatically all supplies required for you party having into consideration all their restriction and needs. I just don't want a character to survive in the wilderness by just eating bananas for a month. Everything will be weighted so that no action burdens the player with boring tasks. These 7 years of development must count for something.

More over, you can set your character ready to embark on an adventure in just a few minutes. Why would anyone think it would take hours to prepare you character for an adventure? Unless you were considered giving commands to your character like breath in, breath out, move left leg, move right leg, take hand from the pocket, grab door knob, rotate the knob, pull the door in, and so on...

While the world will be extremely detailed it doesn't mean it will feel more cumbersome to play if done properly. The last thing I want is to let the player die of boredom.

This sets my heart quite a bit more at ease about this But then, it beggars the question: if you can't eat just bananas and you're essentially in banana country, what can or should you do so that you can survive there? You're no longer in town, so you can't just click the figurative "replenish supplies" button. Is it the case that the food you take with you originally is going to be almost the only factor in how long you can adventure?

[Endorya]

Whether it's in the editor, in .xml files, .json files or directly in the .exe has no bearing on whether it's a simulation vs a game - I don't understand the connection

You don't see a connection because there is none. It is a game, not a simulation. From my understanding, a simulation is something that pretends to act as something else. My editor acts as a database with some previews of whether and other things to help me input more accurate values.

This sets my heart quite a bit more at ease about this But then, it beggars the question: if you can't eat just bananas and you're essentially in banana country, what can or should you do so that you can survive there? You're no longer in town, so you can't just click the figurative "replenish supplies" button. Is it the case that the food you take with you originally is going to be almost the only factor in how long you can adventure?

Investing or having someone in your party with a high hunting, pathfinding and alchemy skills will definitely be something serious to consider. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure the banana country will have animals, no piece of land rich with such amounts of fruit would remain unnoticed by wild life. So, I guess it will depend on your party's ability to hunt and to identify edible plants. I just hope that the weather favors your party during that particular scenario. But if the same scenario falls upon you while you are in a desert or in polar regions, the odds of your survival will be thin as the edge of a knife. I wouldn't advise anyone to rely on luck during a long adventure.

So basically there is fair chance for you to survive if you plan your escape carefully, depending on the distance seperating you are from the closest city of course. And then you have those nasty lands full of bandits and other dangers lurking around. Omg! So much that can happen! This is really what excites me about this project! Even I will be surprised with it!