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[mendonca]

Does that mean dungeons will be bigger and tougher to beat in general?

Yeah, I think they will have to be. First things will probably be allowing the dungeon a bit more recovery time between visits (due to reduced delving), and adding in a few higher level monsters in to the pot. Long term, I'll try and rebuild dungeons wholesale so it's a bit of an open question. Definitely in principle, though, yes.

[lemmily]

Setting aside half an hour to an hour a day to plug away at new code.

Hooray!

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Setting aside half an hour to an hour a day to plug away at new code.

Hooray!

x2

Still watching this intently.

[lecavian]

I'm very excited as well.

[Cheesecake]

PTW. By the way, good job.

[lecavian]

For those who are enthusiastic, check out Mendoca's blog post about the Mayoress... which sounds really interesting.

[professorlamp]

Irritating suggestion:

Support the numpad, I just spent a minute mumbling and grumbling to myself before trying the top row of numbers

[mendonca]

Thanks for the overall enthusiasm, guys and gals

professorlamp: Yes indeed. Not so much an irritating suggestion, as a sensible suggestion that perhaps highlights my own ignorance? I'll get right on it, sir!

lecavian: Ha! I wasn't sure whether anybody actually checked the blog Works as somewhere to put down my thoughts, at the very least, even if it doesn't immediately satisfy my insatiable desire for overwhelming attention ...

Just done a quick check, as I seem to be typing an awful lot of code and not getting anywhere. Hopefully the new brains will be in place shortly*, all at a cost of about a 10 - 15% increase in the total amount of code (allowing for the deprecation of many unwieldy functions) ... I just hope it works as intended!

*in geological terms, at least

[Neonivek]

Honestly for dungeons I always suspected they would have depth (as in multiple floors) so to stop the recovery problem you could make deeper floors entirely unaffected and not only that but the less a dungeon is explored the quicker it recovers.

That way heros cannot chip a dungeon to death.

[mendonca]

Honestly for dungeons I always suspected they would have depth (as in multiple floors) so to stop the recovery problem you could make deeper floors entirely unaffected and not only that but the less a dungeon is explored the quicker it recovers.

That way heros cannot chip a dungeon to death.

I agree entirely.

My problem at the minute is both designing a system I am happy (and comfortable) to implement, and finding the time to do it. Also want to implement a lot more variety in the dungeons, the new hero behaviour should make it a lot easier for me to slot this sort of thing in, as well as clever things like variable hero literacy - which would be reflected by the way the heroes report what they are discovering in the dungeons. It could probably be quite simple to implement a simple 'depth' to the dungeons with more defined populations of monsters, but it will undoubtedly open a can of worms in my brain - which I would like to handle more properly.

Personally, I think the current arbitrary system works reasonably well (or well enough) within the context of the game such that I think I would prioritise a few other things: a full mouse interface, more interesting contracts, more detailed monitoring of world evil/chaos measures and town / shop industry - thinking more towards accessibility and making the progress of the game a few months in a little more interesting.

[mendonca]

I decided to just try running the thing ... and by and large, it works.

I've recorded a short video of some gameplay at present - doesn't look much different from now, but I'm hoping the new system of hero decision making will be far more extensible and robust than the hack-job we had before.

http://youtu.be/tfVS3rmNsxM

I've also added a few words to my blog about the way the heroes work - should be fun trying to think of things that the heroes can get up to.

[lecavian]

Wow, pleasantly suprised at the amount of work that's been done -- and the video is great for demonstrating the state of things..

I think you were just trying to show the features in your video - so I don't expect your play in the video to be the way the game should be played (didn't ID, not bidding on auctions), but I want to ask a design question that has been tickling my mind...

When I was playing, I did everything I could to make sure I identified something every month -- with the # of items in the game, I knew most everything by the beginning of the second year.  I guess there are three ways to manage this: increase # of items, decrease the frequency of ID, or make ID more difficult.  Which do you think you'll pursue or is there another game design element that may work better to resolve the issue of the keeper knowing too much too fast.

[mendonca]

When I was playing, I did everything I could to make sure I identified something every month -- with the # of items in the game, I knew most everything by the beginning of the second year.  I guess there are three ways to manage this: increase # of items, decrease the frequency of ID, or make ID more difficult.  Which do you think you'll pursue or is there another game design element that may work better to resolve the issue of the keeper knowing too much too fast.

That's a really good question.

I'm pretty sure that increasing the number of items will be part of that - but I have been toying conceptually with resolving this largely by changing the identification mechanics (without really deciding how I want to do it). I'm not convinced the micro-manage click-click-click every day mechanic is thoroughly entertaining, and will be even less so when there are a significantly increased number of items and therefore each successful identification action is less rewarding.

I might have identification dealt with automatically by 'backroom staff', letting them examine anything you have in stock. Possibly boosted if you choose to take the 'library' as one of your 'extra rooms' to build within your shop.

That would supersede the current leveling mechanic - so I don't really know what would replace it - maybe more generalist shopkeeping (or industry) skills.

So ... I don't really know  . And I'm resisting touching it too much at the minute prior to figuring out a whole other bunch of mechanics.

[Neonivek]

Don't forget the Bards swinging by to offer to identify your stuff for a fee.

[lecavian]

Cool.  I'm sure I'll ask other questions as they pop into mind.