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[Axehilt_VuP]

So when you loot a sword and equip it, what name are you seeing?  A fun, exciting name like "Katana"? Or an entirely uninteresting description like "Gimli equips long single-edged sword."

Providing a description for items is an excellent idea.  Renaming them all to descriptive names is boring.

In the case of multiple real-world countries having two separate names for the same type of sword, both names could still exist - giving the player an impression of the unique visual appearance associated with the weapon in each real-world countries - but the description of the item and its gameplay functionality would be identical.

Specifically regarding the "What's a Yumi?" comment made earlier in the thread, I just finished up work on a game involving Yumis.  Apparently it's simply the Japanese term for bow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi).

Using the Yumi as an example of my previous suggestion it would coexist alongside standard Bows, being functionally identical and described but perhaps noting the unique trait of Yumis in that the place where the bow is held is slightly different; this would just be flavor text and have no impact on gameplay.

Although if bows are divided into longbows and shortbows, you'd use the Japanese equivalents which according to the wiki page would be daikyu and hankyu.

[adude]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:
<STRONG>So when you loot a sword and equip it, what name are you seeing?  A fun, exciting name like "Katana"? Or an entirely uninteresting description like "Gimli equips long single-edged sword."

[...]

Although if bows are divided into longbows and shortbows, you'd use the Japanese equivalents which according to the wiki page would be daikyu and hankyu.</STRONG>

You seem to have a thing for Japan, or at least for Japanese weapons.  I'll never understand that, but maybe I can help you understand my position: say you saw before you an akakivak, a fraxinus, and a sakti.  Do you know which would be the best one to take?  Or if you met three strangers, each armed with one of these, would you have any idea which are hunting, which are carrying the weapon for ceremonial reasons, and which, if any, are about to kill you?  Given that, in-game, they each look like a forward slash anyway, would you even realise that, size, shape, and specific function aside, these weapons are all just a freakin' spear?

If you have answered "yes" to any of the above questions, well, you must really have a passion for these things.  In that case, try polling a random sample of people--video game players, even--with these questions, and you will get blank stares or guesses.  A named weapon adds character, yes, but only for those who have seen it before; to everyone else it is a hindrance.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:
<STRONG>So when you loot a sword and equip it, what name are you seeing?  A fun, exciting name like "Katana"? Or an entirely uninteresting description like "Gimli equips long single-edged sword."
</STRONG>

"Katana" is a fun, exciting name? About as fun and exciting as "neko" in my book. Something japanophiles spam with pretty much everywhere.

If I had never seen a katana before and were to describe it to someone, I wouldn't describe it as a "katana" (because I wouldn't know the name, obviously) but as an oversized knife or a long, single-edged, front heavy sword. Uninteresting though it may be, it's what a katana is - a single-edge, front heavy sword of medium to long length. They exist in thousands of variations because nearly every culture has them, but they all boil down to being single-edged swords, front heavy and used for slashing. Cousin of sabres all over the world, from scimitars through machetes and cavalry sabres.

Frankly I don't see why the dwarves would mysteriously aquire the japanese name for the weapon the instant they picked one up rather than make up a name of their own if they didn't already have one.

[Axehilt_VuP]

I'm sorry for using the Katana example, as it seemed to have caused you to make inconsequential side comments.  I should've used a non-Japanese example instead.

As I said, I just happened to have recently worked on a game which had Yumis in it, and the wiki page had come up, and therefore I read the page and learned a brief amount of info on japanese bows.

Back on topic...

Mankind likes simplicity. It's fast. It's efficient.

Mankind names things for simplicity.  So instead of saying, "book with definitions of the names of objects, people, and actions" we say, "dictionary".

This only works for things people know the definitions of.  Therefore, the player should be able to "examine" every weapon on the game (whether it's on the ground, on their person, or on an enemy.)

The player will go "Akakivak?  WTF is an akakivak!?", examine the mob carrying it, and know what a akakivak is.  From that moment forward it'll be way more efficient to simply call the weapon "akakivak" than to say "inuit fish spear with a spearhead and two spiked side prongs designed to capture and hold the victim in place"

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:
<STRONG>The player will go "Akakivak?  WTF is an akakivak!?", examine the mob carrying it, and know what a akakivak is.  From that moment forward it'll be way more efficient to simply call the weapon "akakivak" than to say "inuit fish spear with a spearhead and two spiked side prongs designed to capture and hold the victim in place"</STRONG>

To me it'd be a pronged fishing spear, regardless of if I knew it was called an "akakivak" in some other language. It's called "ljuster" in my native tongue, and I doubt any culture with access to water lacks this tool and it's own term for it.

I imagine DF humans would call it a "umil edin asi" for spiked fishing spear, using their own language rather than a word from a culture they've never been in conctact with... The point being that while an obsidian sword may be a maquahutl(sp?) to the aztek, a pronged fishing spear may be an akakivak to the inuit, and a longsword may be a gladius to the romans, none of the cultures in Dwarf Fortress speak aztek, inuit, or latin.

[ August 17, 2007: Message edited by: mickel ]

[Haedrian]

So the best way to do this IMHO, is put 'proper' english names, unless they are weapons designed by a culture and have no english name, in which case you use that name.

For example Nunchaku has no english equivalent.
But zveihander (or whatever they said) appears to be (with my miniscule knowledge of german) a two handed sword.

Obviously, have an examine command, so you know that a Nunchaku is a "set of two cylinders held by bla bla bla bla"

[Axehilt_VuP]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>"Katana" is a fun, exciting name? </STRONG>

Yes, the proper name for any weapon is far more interesting sounding than using some bland description as a name.

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>Frankly I don't see why the dwarves would mysteriously aquire the japanese name for the weapon the instant they picked one up rather than make up a name of their own if they didn't already have one.</STRONG>

As I stated in my first post of the thread, all of the variant names could exist in the game (as many as Toady wants to add.)  The descriptions and gameplay would be the same, but the names would be varied for flavor purposes.

Because you'll fight all of these various opponents and they'll be unique and varied because of the different names - first you'll fight a middle eastern warrior wielding a scimitar, then you'll fight a samurai wielding a katana, then you'll fight some other variant from another culture.

Point being: it's more interesting to fight varied, interesting opponents whose weaponry seems unique, than to fight a bunch of cloned opponents who all wield the exact same poorly-named weaponry.

Sure, the dwarves themselves wouldn't produce scimitars or katanas - they'd produce their own unique blend of one-edged sword that would be called something else.  But that doesn't mean scimitars or katanas can't exist somewhere within the world to give it more variety.

[TakiJap]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:
<STRONG>

Because you'll fight all of these various opponents and they'll be unique and varied because of the different names - first you'll fight a middle eastern warrior wielding a scimitar, then you'll fight a samurai wielding a katana, then you'll fight some other variant from another culture.

Point being: it's more interesting to fight varied, interesting opponents whose weaponry seems unique, than to fight a bunch of cloned opponents who all wield the exact same poorly-named weaponry.

Sure, the dwarves themselves wouldn't produce scimitars or katanas - they'd produce their own unique blend of one-edged sword that would be called something else.  But that doesn't mean scimitars or katanas can't exist somewhere within the world to give it more variety.</STRONG>

There are no middle eastern warriors or samurais in DF. It will be intresting to fight warriors from different cultures with varied weapons, but these cultures and weapons are created by DF. There might be a warriors from desert dunes with padded leather armors, riding horses and wielding katana kind of swords and long lances. Who knows? That's best thing of it, every game will be unique.

Although I do agree that it'd be quite boring to see an enemy and when looking his equipment you'd see him wielding long two-bladed slashing sword. So I's suggest that the cultural name comes first and then a short description to get some sort of idea what it'll look like. Rest can be read from description when aquired. I.e. Shukkaén, long slashing sword.

With weapons that are quite unique and hard to describe like nunchucks (two sticks connected with chain?) could propably use the word nunchucks in their description, of course unless better one is come up.

[I3erent]

Spiked armor like the battle ragers in the icewind dale trilogy.

Armor covered in spikes + Drunken/psychotic dwarves = chaos.

[I3erent]

Oh yeah and spear throwers. simple and makes throwing a spear all the more deadly.

[mickel]

quote:Originally posted by TakiJap:
<STRONG>
So I's suggest that the cultural name comes first and then a short description to get some sort of idea what it'll look like. Rest can be read from description when aquired. I.e. Shukkaén, long slashing sword.</STRONG>

Agreed, that looks like the best solution. One might consider adding the cultural name only after it has been learned, but then again, it might stand to reason that all the cultures have interacted long enough for them to have fought numerous wars, traded, had alliances, broken alliances and whatnot, so that common things like weapon names have spread.

[Tamren]

Thats a great idea. So if you went to human lands, killed some bandit and picked up a "human greatsword" the name would be pretty simple. In your inventory it would appear something like this when you selected it:

"Steel Human Greatsword"
Dropped by a vanquished bandit on "qwerty road"

When you go to sell it to some blacksmith, you say "id like to sell this greatsword" the blacksmith would say something like "oh we call that kind of sword a claymore". Since you now have "learned" the fine distictions of what a claymore is, any other examples you come across would be called "steel human claymore" instead of just greatsword.

From here on, any other claymores you come across are properly named. You would not need to be told that a claymore is "a long 2 handed sword" because you learned that it is just a type of greatsword.

On the same note, if you came across a bunch of goblin hunters carrying say... boar spears. You would see "funny looking spear" in the goblins inventory. Once you kill the goblins and pick up a spear you can examine it in more detail. YOu would see something like "this is a goblin spear, the blade is wide and flat and has a crossbar attached"

If you already knew what a boar spear is, it the name would change to "iron goblin boar spear" instead of simply "iron goblin spear". If you did not, then you would either have to ask a goblin what it was, which would be very hard, or show it to an npc who knows.

[Eagleon]

quote:Originally posted by mickel:
<STRONG>It would be interesting if one could replace the arbitrary values for damage and value (which annoy me to no end in most RPGs) and instead make these a function of other parameters. The damage a sledgehammer does is, after all, a function of the shape of the hammer and the energy with which it strikes. The energy in turn is a function of the mass, etc. etc. and in the end it comes down to it's size, material, and craftsmanship - which are three factors in determining it's price.

But that's all extremely complicated.</STRONG>

With computers, it becomes simple, once the equations exist - if you decide how fast a creature with a height and b strength can swing a weapon with c weight and xy center of mass, you can determine that for every other similar body type automatically, no matter the height or strength. After that, sharpness or lack-thereof would determine damage type, and speed/follow-through (a function of strength and weight, I guess) would determine how much is done.

Weapons that can be held in either one or two hands complicate it somewhat, as does encumbrance, but the point is, adding length and center of mass to weapon definitions wouldn't require a lot of extra work after it's in place. Then, individual weapons could mutate from this ideal, depending on craftsmanship. Personally, I don't see the point in adding a lot of flavor weapons if there aren't any differences between them - if there were one optimal design for a longsword, or a spear, all of them would be the same, because lives literally depended on how well they worked.

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by Eagleon:
<STRONG>I don't see the point in adding a lot of flavor weapons if there aren't any differences between them - if there were one optimal design for a longsword, or a spear, all of them would be the same, because lives literally depended on how well they worked.</STRONG>

Well that would be true if weapons were free. If you want a high quality surgical scalpel, you'd better have some surgical stainless steel on hand, otherwise you make do with flint like everyone else.

Weapons would vary greatly because the weapon you HAVE is infinitly better than the weapon you want. Right now every single human town on the map has the same selection of weapons in either copper, bronze or iron. Under the new system that would no longer work. Say a human town only had acess to copper. Well you would never see any copper rapiers made there because copper is not strong enough to make such a thin blade. (afaik) Because copper is weaker compared to iron, the town would favour weapons that are large and solid even if thier race as a whole prefers stuff like the longsword. Hammers and maces would be less likely to break against weapons of stronger metals compared to bladed weapons.

When you look at the different flavours, there has to be something that sets them apart. Otherwise it would still be a generic weapon. Some greatsword type weapons have a ricasso, or extras like barbs along the length of the sword. A ricasso would allow you to stab with the sword in a more balanced fashion. But it also means your opponent would be able to grab the blade end of the weapon without getting cut. Barbs would catch the blades of opponents. If they hit hard enough the barbs would snap and break away. If you were particularly clever you could use them to disarm enemies and such. These little differences set them apart.

The problem of course, is the effect would have to be programmed for each and every weapon unless toady is able to program a broad selection of commands that we could use to customize each type.

[RP]

What I would like is a standard way to add standard and non-standard weapons effects, not just weapons.

As for weapons, I'm thinking of:

Dwarven magnetized thingies (such as shields, or maybe big honking panels that rise from the ground for the more extravagant) that attract arrows and bolts and save your folk from becoming pincushiony little lumps of flesh. Of course, these won't work on bone, wood, and projectiles made of certain types of metal, so the enemy can still work around the dwarves having this in inventory.

Fortifications firing nets and other payloads, such as poison-filled barrels, gobbo body parts (for morale-lowering purposes--totems would get another use instead of just being something salable, and sewn images could conceivably be used for similar purposes, kinda like leaflet bombs. Ex.: *WE GOT BEER AND WE CAN WAIT WHILE YOU STARVE* or *YOU'RE NEVER GOING HOME, SQUEAKY*), and the like. Also, more accurate siege weapons.

The ability to make machicolations when 3D is implemented and pour boiling oil or lava on those pesky invaders, thieves, and salesmen.

More arrow types, such as bodkins and broadheads. Since this is a fantasy game, I don't suppose things like exploding arrows, sleep arrows, smoke arrows, flash arrows and the like would be out of line. In particular, I'd like gobbos to use flash arrows to blind cave-adapted dwarves, while dwarves can use stinky animal-based concoctions to render elves nauseous and incapable of defending themselves while melee fighters closed with them.

Something that temporarily turns allies against each other would also be interesting, as would artifact weapons and armor gaining specific abilities.