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[Man of Paper]

core of the game is the manipulation of the world's history

So will we be changing the history of the world through interactions with some long-forgotten (though possibly not gone) civilization (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens) or the artifacts they left behind in order to avert impending doom somehow connected to the aligning of planets (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens)? It's these little bits of info you give that throw my hyperactive brain into overdrive.

If that's not it then I think I have a good idea for a URRlike. That'd be a hell of a thing, to join Rogue and DF in the list of games that have -like tacked on to denote a whole subgenre of games.

I love the progress being made, and morethanlove that you'll have a year dedicated to URR. I was going to try to figure out what was written on the shrines a couple pages back, but it looks like it's just alphabet, which is no help since languages are going to be randomized anyways. I also started reading 2312, which I think you were responsible for suggesting to me (could be wrong, you've suggested quite a few novels in this thread), but have been delayed by an abundance of books from the Black Library. I have started every sentence in this paragraph with "I" and it bothers me.

[Retropunch]

core of the game is the manipulation of the world's history

So will we be changing the history of the world through interactions with some long-forgotten (though possibly not gone) civilization (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens) or the artifacts they left behind in order to avert impending doom somehow connected to the aligning of planets (or possibly History Channel-style ancient aliens)? It's these little bits of info you give that throw my hyperactive brain into overdrive.

If I may step in (not that I know much more about it than anyone really), I think it's aiming to be neither of those from what I understand.

I think it's more that you shape the world through your actions. I suppose a somewhat basic example would be like a much deeper mass effect - you negotiate deals, take part in battles, explore and have an influence over how things progress by your actions. This is all done with as much realism as possible and you don't have god like powers to sway entire battles or change the world at a snap of a finger, but that you can influence things in a more subtle (or occasionally slightly more overt) fashion. So you might be a hero, but not the only hero.

I also remember it being said that there is to be no aliens, magic or supernatural stuff at all.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Man of paper - basically you'll be changing history by changing what agreed history is. I'm taking quite a specific philosophical approach to history in the game: that history is what consensus agrees it is, not the unproblematic interpretation of "the historical record", and so "history" is changed if you can change the consensus about what exactly that history is. The remnants of long-lost civilizations can be used to shed light on this, or be used to manipulate history in this way. It's not magic, and there are no aliens (alas!), but there will be a few unusual/anomalous things in the world, but all of these will be ambiguous - are they truly "magical", or are they just beyond the understanding of the player, or misunderstood, or something else? Retropunch has it largely right - your actions both shape the contemporary world, but also affect what people believe history to have been, which also affects the contemporary. At the core of the game is a conflict between two competing histories (read this short story for a good idea: http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/0066/borges.pdf). This is why the worldbuilding block has, by necessity, been the first thing I've programmed - you can't affect the world until there's a world to play with!

I didn't recommend 2312 (I haven't yet read it myself, though I would like to)! RE: the language, yeah, indeed, you'd need the specific "key" for that world generation to try to translate them, and anyway, I think it was just a placeholder message for "abcedf ghi jklmno" or something in those screenshots!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This week's update is half games crit, half future URR plans, but either way, it's about MAPS:

http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/2014/08/23/the-value-of-maps/

[Zireael]

That's an excellent post!

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

That's an excellent post!

Thank ye .

[Alev]

Yes, interesting post. Would we be able to make maps, for example, to mislead others?

[Retropunch]

Yes, interesting post. Would we be able to make maps, for example, to mislead others?

That's a very interesting point. Deception in games is hardly ever done well, and being able to deceive others well (or 'realistically') would be an incredibly exciting mechanic.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

This idea of creating your own maps has just sent me into crazy mental-idea-spirals. I will get back to you on it.

[dwarf_reform]

I love mental-idea-spirals, especially when devs have them!

I've strangely been following URR development since the first time it showed up on roguebasin but I haven't played any since one of the first couple versions :> Maybe I should change that soon.. Been patiently waiting for more flesh on the bones, mostly.. Just wanted to say you're awesome for not giving up on this (it seems to be a Dwarf-Fortress-amount of work), and for actively communicating with the fans, and finally that I'm looking forward to (eventually) seeing a near-final end-result

Keep on keeping on! :>

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I love mental-idea-spirals, especially when devs have them!

I've strangely been following URR development since the first time it showed up on roguebasin but I haven't played any since one of the first couple versions :> Maybe I should change that soon.. Been patiently waiting for more flesh on the bones, mostly.. Just wanted to say you're awesome for not giving up on this (it seems to be a Dwarf-Fortress-amount of work), and for actively communicating with the fans, and finally that I'm looking forward to (eventually) seeing a near-final end-result

Keep on keeping on! :>

Hey, thanks for the message, and glad to hear you've been following it this long! I've been fleshing the bones as quickly as humanly possible for a one-man development team doing it part-time, though I know it must look like we're still a way from something "playable" - the full-time development year I'm starting in a couple of months should help with that a *lot*. Thanks for the kind words anyway, it's awesome to see this kind of interest .

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Copied from blog, first proper URRpdate in a while:

In the little bits of time I’ve been able to find to code at the moment, I’ve managed to just about finish off all the different fortress archetypes. There are twelve in total – each nomadic civilization decides on one at worldgen that it will use for their desert encampments, and then each is subsequently generated according to the chosen algorithm. They each also handle rivers going through them in different ways – some loop rivers around them, some have rivers go through them, and there’s a fair bit of code handling the placement of bridges and entrances to ensure that no matter your angle of entering the fortress, and the position of the fortress on/off a river, you can always access the entire thing. Some are large, some are small; most have all their components within the walls, but some have spread out beyond the walls; some are well-defended, some less so. The white %s are placeholders for market stalls which I haven’t yet created the terrain type for, and the large “oval” buildings are barracks, the smaller circular buildings in military districts being buildings where you may find particular NPCs of military value.

Here are some examples. Bear in mind that these images don’t show the changes in height, but rather give you an overall plan of how these areas are laid out. The algorithms shown here are the “Concentric Square”, “Circle Lines”, “Star Fort” and “Cross” variations. They’re tremendous to walk around – even without NPCs (two versions away!) one can already tell what they’ll be like once they’re populated.









Now, for a general update. Editing my PhD thesis for submission is going well. The first third of it is bordering on submission-ready and I’m now working on the middle third. I’ll be moving house to “start” the full-time development year around the first week of October, give or take, but I suspect I won’t be submitting my thesis until some time around the middle of October. So, for the next month-and-a-bit we’ll be focusing on non-URR entries with a few short updates like this one, then my current prediction is starting my full-time development year some time in October. Once we do, we’ll switch back to full and detailed weekly blog updates, regular Facebook/Twitter updates and the rest of it. AND 0.6 WILL BE COMING, as the first step to totally finishing the worldbuilding block within a year of going full-time. Once that officially starts, I might even put up some kind of “one year countdown” on the blog to remind me how many days I have left to finish the worldbuilding. It’s going to be awesome, internet friends. Next time: an entry I’ve been working on for the best part of a year with some thoughts about AI…

[Retropunch]

Looking fantastic as always, I cannot wait to wander around them!

Have you thought about adding underground areas? things like escape tunnels and caves out of the forts could be very useful in sieges.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Looking fantastic as always, I cannot wait to wander around them!

Have you thought about adding underground areas? things like escape tunnels and caves out of the forts could be very useful in sieges.

I have indeed, though I'm still pondering what kind of role they may have. A later plan is an entire subterranean map related to several plot areas, but that's a way off yet...

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Tomorrow's blog entry is something a little unusual, but I think you'll all like it. It's a bit of a personal story about games, about losing, and about the bizarre game that is poker. Something I've wanted to write for a long time.