Plucky, aren't you a wizard of a MUD

Example: <Hero> enters a weapon shop. The shopkeeper shows him his stored weapons. At one side, you have a small window where you see red numbers when the new selected weapon lowers a status, and yellow/blue when raises it. The player presses down until the end of the list and selects the best weapon. <Hero> is equipped with the best weapon of the town, and won't change it until reaching the next city.

My system: <Hero> enters a weapon shop. The shopkeeper asks him for his weapon. <Hero> gives his wielded weapon to her. And is given a response: "Hmm... your weapon is heavy, I have a lighter one" (aka: lower strength requirement), "Yes, my list includes this kind of sword, but made of steel rather than iron" (aka: more damage), "The <name_of_shopkeeper_weapon> I sell is much easier to handle than this one" (increases agility), "Your weapon seems to be out of this world, none of mine can beat it" (not likely, but you might find a trustworthy shopkeeper), etc.

Or letting the player see the list and the prices, but not the modificators. When he choses one, a NPC in the shop tells you "I don't suggest it, an orc broke it with his head the last time I wielded one". This NPC can be a drunk, a priest, a thief, etc. And lets the player to do the actual decision.

If your game is skill based (as MUDs are, like Korval said), at high levels the player can notice which weapon is better between two. Or having a special shop (the smithery) where you can ask the smith to tell you which one is better. Or by just letting the player notice by himself. MUDs usually gives you a "compare" command.

This way you can include TONS of modificators: alignment, races, etc. Some can lie to you, some can give you tips, and some can just say the truth. This way the player has a big interaction with the shopkeeper, as he needs to find those who do not lie to him. This can be applied to almost ANYTHING in the game.

Drawback: you MUST limit a character's power. Celes at level 25 (about 260 mp), with a Gem Box (character can cast two spells per attack) and Economizer (ANY magic costs 1 MP), is almost surely able to kill any of the main eight dragons of FF3 alone. Is that balance? And if she learns Quick (two spells per attack), she can throw FOUR Ultima (each doing 2.5-3k damage, damaging all enemies), or heal her with Cure 3 (each healing 1.5k hit points) before her enemy is able to counterattack. Does she needs to interact with someone not a dragon?

RB

Man, you guys are the best. I've gotten alot of good ideas from this thread. At least, I feel alot better about my design. ReyBrujo has some wicked ideas. I think I have a better plan now for my game, and I plan on getting it well tested. Thanks everyone!!

-Flecko

I am not saying that the "traditional" way of handling shops is wrong. Improvements in the "graphic" section of the games has been incredible. From Pong to the next version of TombRaider. But, as you might have noticed, the AI has also been improved. Enemies are now much smarter. Starting from Galaga, to Ages Of Empire III. Can you nowadays play a game where the NPC just move from left to right? However, the curve starts going down again. AI is now limited to a few functions: A*, builder, explorer and warrior.

I, as a game master, have random tables to decide how good and how much each item costs. But, when I sell a weapon, I don't tell him "This weapon has a +5 strength and +3 to-hit bonus". I just give the weapon to him, and they must find that out by themselves. But of course, we have been playing for... hmm... 10 years together, so they got used to this way of doing things.

This makes the game slow, as the player needs to read more text than usually. Another way? Well, just show him the pricelist. That means, just the name of the weapon and the prices. Magic: The Gathering, in example, when you enter a shop to buy a card, the game checks yours against its own, and try to find out combos, and if so, gives you a tip. That can be also done: the shopkeeper, once you enter the shop, tells you "That shields seems to be very heavy... maybe you would prefer a lighter weapon than yours to improve thy balance?".

Some NPC are able to change their talk according to events. That is nice: they do not repeat the same text since you leave your hometown until you arrive back as a hero. However, that is not enough for making the player interact with all NPC in a town. You usually enter a town, talk to everyone, and then just continue your travel. Breath of Fire II brought a nice fix: night. At night, most NPC go to their houses, doors are locked, and just a few NPC stay wandering around. You now go to a town twice (at daylight and at night), to check for hints.

Quests are usually long, take some time to finish, and give more experience points when finished than killing common enemies. And you need to talk with many NPC to get clues enough to find an answer. I am not saying a RPG must became a graphic adventure. But wouldn't be nice if opening the castle gate forces you to convince a thief in the local pub to go with you and pick it, but to do so you need to find an old traveller who knows how to reach the gate and another who can get you a nail...

From my point of view, networking games are a cheap way to hide a mediocre AI for the NPC in a game.

RB

I agree with the people who seem to favour stat hiding. I think it comes down to what you think is fun. To me, a really fun game (in an RPG sense) is something that is realistic, but unlike actual reality.

I think that most input to the person controlling the player should be in two form, visual and aural. This puts a big strain on graphics and sound, but to me it is essential.

Any sort of "feelings" that would occur if the player was ACTUALLY in the game can be achieved through text. (Can anyone think of a better way?)
Since the only text is "feeling text" then the player doesnt have to read a massive amount of it. That is a good thing.

If there is "combat wise" anything that stands out about a weapon then you might use it. If you are a spell caster and can sense that it is magic you might want to use it. If it is lighter, then you might want to use it.

Also, it might look sweet on your character, so you might want to keep it. There can still be many ways to tell two weapons apart, but none of them will be exact.

You could add a function to the game that tests a weapon by swinging it around a little. This function might tell the player something usefull if he is skillfull enough.

I don't like games that tell me what to feel. For a story-driven RPG, that's fine, because you aren't supposed to really be role playing. It's more like reading a book.

But, to create an immersive RPG, you can't tell the player what to feel. You are simply presenting him a world; he feels what your presentation of the world causes him to.

Hiding reasonable information about a weapon can be very detrimental to the player. What you are doing, essentially, is randomly selecting a particular piece of equipment for a character. If it is of significantly less quality than his current equipment, then he may be killed in the next encounter. If the encounters aren't enough to kill the ill-prepared player, then they are too easy for the one who randomly got the high-quality equipment.

Furthermore, the player feels as though he has no control. Though he is making choices, these choices are, at best, informed by mere hints that have to be puzzled out and considered. People don't like to make uninformed choices, especially if their progress hinges on the choice.

At the same time, however, it would be nice for weapons/armor to have hidden powers that could only be revealed by taking them to certain people who can identify them.

Well, with MUD language, there are two kinds of players: role players, those who really like being the character, talking about history, giving lesson to novices, only killing those according to historical reasons (Neidar dwarves killing only goblins according to Dragonlance, or elves being not friendly with dwarves, according to Tolkien). Some others are called power players. These players just go with enemies they know they have good equipment, kill them, take them and spents hours just killing and killing to grow as much as possible.

Guess, according to Korval ideas, RPG should be called PPG from now... Ain't I wrong?

RB

About feelings. You dont understand me. I am not talking about things like feeling happy, or feeling in love, or being in awe of something.

I am talking about things like the ability to predict the future, or being able to tell that a weapon is very good or bad. Things like sensing other peoples thoughts, etc...

You dont represent people as a whole, so dont speak for them. YOU dont like making uniformed choices... maybe alot of people dont, but surely there are some people that like having to take risks.

To me the best system is to have limited information, apart from that, you are on your own. If you really were in another world, then I am sure that each weapon wouldnt have a bar code on the side to tell how good it is. To me, its all about realism.

This is similar to the skill-points vs. "learning by doing". While using XP points to buy skils might be an abstraction, it's IMHO better than using the learning by doing system.

Say you want to play a mage. Due to balancing issues, these normally start very weak. So, in order to kill a monster / wild animal with your weak spell it might take you a few tries, while you could kill it instantly with a sword (even as an untrained fighter).
But you have to use the spell, so you get better with it.

But this is no fun. Neither realistic. The point with mages is that they spend most of their idle time using/ practicing/ reading about magic.
But idle time is something we want to avoid in games.

Regarding the "information issue"... in "real life" most swords have very similar attributes. They are either sharp or not, they are either flexible or not. They fit well in your hand, or they feel clumsy.

In a game world they can have virtually all sorts of effects. They can make you stronger, increase your reputation, etc.
All these things are nice in a story... but in a story the writer knows these things before hand. In a game, it would be a guess.

And most gamers play because they are in control of the game. They feel confident playing it. And the more confident the player feels, the more fun he'll have... and that's what games are all about: Fun.

No, an immersive game is a game that causes a state of immersion. Your supposition is that the state of immersion can be caused by:

1) Not knowing everything about ones equipment.
2) Not killing anything just because you have the right equipment or are of a high level.

How exactly do these help cause a state of immersion?

My theories on immersion are as follows.

The game's main character should be closely controlled by the player. That is, the player should have direct control over the character. Point-and-click character motion/fighting doesn't work for this.

In an RPG, a character's stats/abilities must figure into combat, but so must the player's. For example, to activate a spell, the wizard must know the spell and be of the appropriate level to cast it. But, also, the player should have to do more than simply select the spell from a list. There should be some interaction that allows the player's skill at playing the game to figure into the character doing things.

Whether or not the story is created by the game (or even if there is much of a story at all) is immaterial. A story is useful as a motivational tool to keep the character moving from place to place. But, if you take Zelda, the story itself is fairly thin, and exists mainly to get you to travel and adventure.

The controls need to be responsive. That is, the character should not take a significant ammount of time to perform an action that the player commands, unless part of the penalty for that action is that it takes time to pull off.

Good graphics/sound/music are also important for immersion.

While playing a common console game, you usually save as often as possible, and when you die, or do something wrong, you just reset the game. Would you play a game where you actually cannot do it? Where it is impossible to inverse-enginner the saved game to restore your status? If you die and reset the game, the next time you start it will "remember" you died?

Let's face it, there are just a few who like the "hard" way: dying in a RPG is just a consequence of a bad decision, or losing a town in a strategic game is not because "destiny" or "fate".

I wish the player "assume" his own responsabilities. Example: when I play with my character in a MUD, if I attack a dragon, I know there are just a very insignificant chance I can beat it. Many times enemies block the exits, and if you start the battle, you must kill or die.

When designing a game, you must check for death penalties, saving posibilities, status increment, storylines, etc. But, unluckily, players got used to the FF system:

• a basic and general idea (you are the hero that needs to beat the empire) with small branches for each secondary starring

• a menu driven system (Attack, Special, Magic and Item)

• access to full information (weapons/armours/items, player statistics, etc)

• fixed experience (you get the same amount of experience no matter the size of your enemy, your own size or the number of times you have killed it)

• unlimited try-error opportunities (wield this sword, try to kill the enemy, reset, wield the halberd...)

I am not saying this is wrong. I bet something "different" from this idea might make RPG lovers mad (imagine you cannot save the game anymore: it does the game automagically each 5 minutes, in example).

As Spellcaster said, "buying" skills is something not very common in RPG, but is actually something basic. That you want to be a mage doesn't mean you cannot train your club skill, in example. If it suits your story (usually mages cannot cast spells while in contact with great amounts of iron, so you can just prevent mages from wielding iron weapons), then it is ok. Just try to make the player select between this and that. If not, you will fall into FF3: 12 characters that can learn all exactly the same spells, the 9999hp/999mp and the maximun strength/vigor/etc statistics. For the game, each has a story and a background. For the player, they are all the same. A good game should prevent that.

RB

For the record, I HATE the Sims. Tedious, and boring. People that are obsessed with themselves seem to love it though. Go figure

-Flecko

If you want to see non-linearity done well, check out an old PC game called Star Control 2. They did an excellent job of throwing you into a living, non-linear world. They did pretty much everything right in that game.

As for the Sims, from what people tell me, the best part of the game is torturing the person in question. Wall off the bathroom, and the guy starts doing the "pee-pee dance". And various other things (like polygamy, driving the guy insane, etc).

In your normal rpg, fights are normally strategical. They are more like boar / cardgames, so you'd expect to get all the board / cardgame information, mainly because you don't have that many clues on what's going on.

If I attack with my spell, and see a "200" points damage, that's something I can interprete. Now without that number, you need to add more explicit violence, you need to make the fight more real.
So, "Attacking for 200 damage" might become "Yor fireball turnw most of his hair to ashes. The smell of burned flesh fills the air... You hear a panicking scream as the Orc realized that his eyes just got vaporized."
Or you need to display it graphically.
Not something I want to have in a game.

Another thing: Instead of displaying the stats as numbers (200str) or text (strong enough) you might consider to use colored gems or something, which change the intensity of the color depending on the stat.
So the prorgam displays the information in a way the player can not handle precicly, but gives still enough informations to base decisions on.