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[Lemunde]

I did some more testing with several goblins attacking at once and it seems to be working alright.  I only have a basic pathfinding system implemented so they have trouble getting around each other in certain situations.  I'll go back and add some more complicated pathfinding later but it's working for what I need right now.  I also had to add a system that marks tiles as occupied so they don't all try to move to the same tile.  That took a bit of work but it's also working as it should.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to start work on adding some tree clumps to the map.  I also need to go back and change how the order in which everything is drawn is handled.  Currently I'm using XNA's built-in z ordering but that can get a little quirky and it's going to be hard to work with with what I have planned.  More on this later.

In the mean time here's something to chew on.  I'm debating on how I want to handle the world map.  You see I want the world to be massive, on par with what you see in DF.  The technical limitations don't so much concern me as I've made several different world generators before in other projects so I know what I'm getting myself into.  I'm more concerned on what is best for the gameplay. 

DF(and DF for that matter ) uses a sort of fast travel system but I'm not sure that is best because I want the player to be exploring the world, not just jumping from one location to another.  But if I restrict the player to traveling long distances by foot I'm just setting them up for frustration.  Alternatives could be:

*Making the world smaller, bringing all the interesting locations much closer together
*Saturating the world with interesting locations, but the player still has to travel far to get to the places they want to go
*Use a fast travel system that somehow forces the player to stop and explore every once in a while (not a fan of this one)

It's still a ways off before I start working on this part so there's no rush.  I'm definitely open to suggestions for this one.

[ILikePie]

I'd go with a smaller world. Giving the player the option to fast travel, and then restricting it only a few tiles will, in my opinion, create much more frustration than leaving the fast travel option out in the first place.

[Virex]

You could also provide steeds that enable the player to travel the countryside at high speed.

[Supermikhail]

You know what's going to be frustrating? You not rewarding players for killing monsters but forcing them to go into meaningless encounters while on the way to another quest point. I say do quicktravel. If you want players to explore the world, the world's got to be worth exploring. And if it is, someone's going to explore it. But those who don't want to, can skip it. See Oblivion. Otherwise see Morrowind. Do caravans that are kind of like quicktravel, but probably better for immersion, and cost money, forcing players to consider the alternative of trudging.

[Lemunde]

Ah yes, I forgot about Morrowind's system of fast travel.  For those who have never played Morrowind, you can fast travel but only to and from specific locations and it costs a small sum of money to do it.  Traveling to dungeons and remote locations would still require the player to travel by foot but they wouldn't have to travel so far.  It sounds like the ideal method for this type of game!

And yes, I do plan on making the world worth exploring.  I have a few ideas on this that I'll talk more about once they're fleshed out.

[winner]

I quite admire your patience for criticism, Lemunde.

[Lemunde]

I quite admire your patience for criticism, Lemunde.

Well I knew what I was getting myself into when I started this.  In all honesty I probably shouldn't have mentioned anything about code specific operations and stuck to discussing logic and game features, which was my intention in the first place.  Programmers can be...passionate about the proper way to do things.  And even in other areas everyone has their own idea about how things should be done.  As long as everyone understands that this is my game and I'm making it my way, I don't have a problem with criticism.  As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

[Blacken]

 

I quite admire your patience for criticism, Lemunde.

It is interesting that the OP gets praised for "handling criticism" when his method of "handling" it is to ignore it and to proclaim such incredible statements as "I understand everything about inheritance" (I've been programming for fifteen years and I don't make that claim!).

Mind you: the risk is not that the OP "does something wrong," although it seems unfortunately evident that he does not have a grasp on why you write this kind of code in a certain way (which comes with experience, and apparently "learning to listen to other programmers who have been to this dance before" does too--I can't fault him for being a novice programmer, though it's disappointing that he is refusing to turn on the analytical part of his brain). The risk at large, and the only reason I threw in a post to begin with, is because other people may see this thread and think that his direction is good. It is fundamentally flawed, and for a nontrivial project will expose these flaws.

His claim later that "oh, programmers all have their own idea of what's best" is not without merit, but a mature and seasoned programmer will realize that there are multiple effective ways to do something and evaluate them on their merits. As his method of "handling" criticism is to say "trust me, this works better," it seems unlikely that he is actually interested in a dialogue and more in bragging. (At which point, why not get a blog?) And as far as "oh everyone does it differently" is concerned: when it comes to game development, it should be noted that most people who build nontrivial projects trend toward very similar designs, because they are in fact the path of least resistance. I know that, for their engine, Meltdown and Karantza largely mimicked Unreal because it was the optimal, or near-optimal, way to do it. (And, yes, a roguelike is at its core not very different from Unreal.)

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Well, if they're "welcome," I can note that I am still waiting for your justification on ignoring your type system to create your AI system, instead of leveraging the framework and programming paradigm you are using the way they are intended to be used. I asked specific, pertinent technical questions, and your response was "uhh...this way works best." Why does it work best? Dead silence.

If you want to grandstand in a public forum, you have something of an ethical obligation to follow best practices because you are positioning yourself as an example to other people. I'd like to actually learn something from this thread; if there's something better about the method you are employing I'd like to hear it.

[Lemunde]

I quite admire your patience for criticism, Lemunde.

It is interesting that the OP gets praised for "handling criticism" when his method of "handling" it is to ignore it and to proclaim such incredible statements as "I understand everything about inheritance" (I've been programming for fifteen years and I don't make that claim!).

Mind you: the risk is not that the OP "does something wrong," although it seems unfortunately evident that he does not have a grasp on why you write this kind of code in a certain way (which comes with experience, and apparently "learning to listen to other programmers who have been to this dance before" does too--I can't fault him for being a novice programmer, though it's disappointing that he is refusing to turn on the analytical part of his brain). The risk at large, and the only reason I threw in a post to begin with, is because other people may see this thread and think that his direction is good. It is fundamentally flawed, and for a nontrivial project will expose these flaws.

His claim later that "oh, programmers all have their own idea of what's best" is not without merit, but a mature and seasoned programmer will realize that there are multiple effective ways to do something and evaluate them on their merits. As his method of "handling" criticism is to say "trust me, this works better," it seems unlikely that he is actually interested in a dialogue and more in bragging. (At which point, why not get a blog?) And as far as "oh everyone does it differently" is concerned: when it comes to game development, it should be noted that most people who build nontrivial projects trend toward very similar designs, because they are in fact the path of least resistance. I know that, for their engine, Meltdown and Karantza largely mimicked Unreal because it was the optimal, or near-optimal, way to do it. (And, yes, a roguelike is at its core not very different from Unreal.)

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

Well, if they're "welcome," I can note that I am still waiting for your justification on ignoring your type system to create your AI system, instead of leveraging the framework and programming paradigm you are using the way they are intended to be used. I asked specific, pertinent technical questions, and your response was "uhh...this way works best." Why does it work best? Dead silence.

If you want to grandstand in a public forum, you have something of an ethical obligation to follow best practices because you are positioning yourself as an example to other people. I'd like to actually learn something from this thread; if there's something better about the method you are employing I'd like to hear it.

I don't know why you've decided to take such a hostile stance but it's getting old.  I am not going to change the way I program to appease you and I don't feel obligated to explain why.  End of story.  I will not discuss this further.

[Normandy]

Argumentum ad Internet, haha. He's taking such a hostile stance because if you were his coworker, he would rightly boot you out the window. Disrespect is no proper response to hostility; show your deference at the very least.

I'm kind of curious, what's the backstory to your world? What's the setting? High fantasy? Tolkienesque? Low fantasy? You don't really point out too much about it. What is your overarching goal with the game? Toady has a clear goal with DF which is why he has gotten so far; he wishes to make a fantasy world simulator. However, reading the OP, I don't think your scoping is clear. There are tons of roguelikes out there, how are you going to model your game off of such a large and diverse group? I mean, is it going to be more hack-and-slash like Diablo or a Nethack clone or something else? I've fallen multiple times into the trap of depth before breadth, and I think you maybe concentrating a little too much on the details. It's hard to do a Let's Make on such shaky grounds. We can only suggest design issues (hint hint).

[Lemunde]

Argumentum ad Internet, haha. He's taking such a hostile stance because if you were his coworker, he would rightly boot you out the window. Disrespect is no proper response to hostility; show your deference at the very least.

I'm kind of curious, what's the backstory to your world? What's the setting? High fantasy? Tolkienesque? Low fantasy? You don't really point out too much about it. What is your overarching goal with the game? Toady has a clear goal with DF which is why he has gotten so far; he wishes to make a fantasy world simulator. However, reading the OP, I don't think your scoping is clear. There are tons of roguelikes out there, how are you going to model your game off of such a large and diverse group? I mean, is it going to be more hack-and-slash like Diablo or a Nethack clone or something else? I've fallen multiple times into the trap of depth before breadth, and I think you maybe concentrating a little too much on the details. It's hard to do a Let's Make on such shaky grounds. We can only suggest design issues (hint hint).

If you're looking for a backstory you won't find much of one.  There's no main quest or objective for the player other than what they choose.  I do plan on adding a rich lore to the game and I have a few elements in mind such as the necromancers discussed earlier.  With many elements being generated in different ways, you're not going to find the same kind of world with the same kinds of conflicts every time a world is generated.  I haven't decided how far I want to take this but that is the general idea.

I probably do need to flesh out the description in the first post a little so I'll get to that when I have the time.  Don't expect me to have a fully developed design plan like Toady has any time soon.  That probably isn't what you want to hear but I think it's important that I get a good base engine up and running before I decide what will work and what won't.

[Urist McOverlord]

Problem with that:

Figuring out exactly what you want from this game is going to make things so much easier. And the sooner you do it, the better. And you'll need to do less fiddling to figure out what works and what doesn't. Even just some big, overarching statements, such as "the player should be able to practice necromancy" would help.

I'm not intending to be overly critical, (your program, your problem)  just give it a thought.

[Lemunde]

Problem with that:

Figuring out exactly what you want from this game is going to make things so much easier. And the sooner you do it, the better. And you'll need to do less fiddling to figure out what works and what doesn't. Even just some big, overarching statements, such as "the player should be able to practice necromancy" would help.

I'm not intending to be overly critical, (your program, your problem)  just give it a thought.

I don't know if you've gone back and read the first post but I'm doing just that(almost word for word).  I have everything I want to do all planned out in my head but I need to get it down in writing so I'm gradually updating the first post with a detailed description of my goals.  Which reminds me, I need to add forestry to the skills list now that I got trees up and running.  Forestry will enhance the player's ability to see and move in forests.  You can see it in action in this screenshot!:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Urist McOverlord]

Indeed. Blast you lemunde, and your cunning updating of the OP that I may look as a fool. Blast you I say.

Seriously, though. Disregard above post.

[Lemunde]

Yeah, keep an eye on the first post as I'll be updating it every now and then.

I spent most of the day fine tuning the line of sight functions in regards to forests and squashing minor bugs before they become a problem.  This also gave me the opportunity to add the forestry skill to Creatures as I needed some numbers to work with the forest line of sight.  Basically the forestry skill level roughly represents the number of tiles you can see before a tree starts blocking your vision.  I'll probably have to max this skill out somewhere between 6 and 8 as any further and you're seeing off screen, which gives an unfair advantage to enemies with a high forestry skill.  They don't have to worry about whether the player is on the screen or not.

I scattered 100 goblins all over the map and took a stroll.  It's interesting how even though they're randomly placed, to the player it seems like some of them are hiding in a forest waiting for you.  Currently the player has a higher forestry skill and a higher speed (for testing purposes) so when you first see a goblin hiding in a forest, they don't necessarily see you.  It depends on how close they are to the edge of the forest.  It's actually pretty fun getting some of them to chase me and trying to lose them by dodging around corners and into forests. 

Currently the pathfinding works by following the player (or some other Creature) and remembering the spot the player was at just before they lose line of sight and moving to the last known position.  Once they reach the last known position they check for line of sight again and the process repeats.  It's a cheap but somewhat effective form of pathfinding.  It's good enough to make a creature chase another around corners.  If I want to add something like schedules where a creature goes to and from a specific location I'll have to change it to a more complex pathfinding system such as A*.  Some other features may require complex pathfinding so we'll see.  Either way it's not a priority at this time.

I've also been gradually enhancing the graphics.  I changed the rocky ground tiles to grass and dug up an old function that applies slight variations to the color of the tiles so you get mostly green with patches of greenish brown here and there.  I did this for both the grass and the trees.  The function was originally meant to be used for particles but I've found a million other uses for it.  It's great for randomly generated objects!