[ian-reeds-games] Re: Responses and an update
- From: Zak Claassen <zak.claassen@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 13:28:43 +0200
Although I enjoy it, I would have to say toc is the game I like the
least of the three, for a few reasons. Except for the ability to
create maps, its not customisable at all. The other problem is that
it gets hard to keep up with what goes on, when you're on a 50 by 50
map with a hundred units I tend to lose track. But I do like the
concept of conquering the enemy cities and using them to build units,
I just prefer to play on smaller maps or with smaller armies, which is
why I rather created and played my own maps than play the maps that
came with the game. Toc does have some nice features though.
SoundRts was my favorite game for a long time, mostly because of the
multiplayer but also because of the fact that it's pretty customisable
too. The thing is just that it's harder to customise sound rts,
because, unlike tb, the game has a universal rules, bindings, styles
and AI file, each map can't have its own rules. Realtime is probably
better for multiplayer, and soundRts I think is designed mostly for
multiplayer, it doesn't have much of a singleplayer and its AI isn't
particularly good either. But I like what you can do with its maps,
with triggers, random choices etc. It has really improved, you might
want to take a look at it again, maybe you can find some inspiration,
although the gameplay is so different it would be hard to take certain
concepts from the one game and put it into the other. But multiplayer
is by far still my favorite feature of rts.
Tb's gameplay adds some interesting elements to it, the turn-based
thing where you can see exactly what's going on before making your
move does make it easier to keep track of what's happening. The one
advantage that SoundRTS's AI has, and usually the only time its a real
threat, is when it quickly launches an early surprise attack on you
before you are able to build up enough. This isn't really possible in
turn-based gameplay. But in some ways tb's setup allows for more
strategy, for example instead of just sending your army into a square
you actually have to position them strategically, limited by the max
number of units per tile. It also makes it easier to use your units'
skills to their maximum effect, for example in SoundRts your priests,
who heal your other units, often get killed early in a battle, and
there isn't really a way to protect it while still letting it heal
your units during a fight. That's why I would love to see tb
multiplayer, it would be a whole new experience.
On 1/18/13, Allan Thompson <allan1.thompson@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Thanks Ian and Zak for your help!
>
> When it comes to rpg games, I much prefer a turn based mode. It is how table
> top games are played, and I enjoy that way of doing such games. Real time
> too many times feels like an arcade game to me, and even when I could see, I
> didn't really like it for rpg like games.
> However, carlos is right. Multiplayer is probably better when it is real
> time. The thing is, that would be like two whole diffrent games, wouldn't
> it?
>
> I havne't played toc nor sound rts, but have played entombed. Consdiering
> it's huge success despite some flaws, a single player rpg that is turn based
> is not a bad thing.
>
> Entombed uses menus for everything. In some cases this makes life easy, such
> as going thru town, shopping at stores, going thru inventory, or equipping
> equipment. It also does this for fighting, which is perfectly acceptable,
> but I wouldn't want that to be the only way to fight combat since a menu
> driven system might be faster, but it is also less tactical.
>
> I guess in entombed wandering around would be considered real time. Your
> group is the cursor, so to speak, and you move thru the dungeon as a group.
> There is random wandering monsters, random treasures and the like.
>
> Entombed doesw a lot of things well, but also could use some serious
> improvement.
>
> al
> "The truth will set you free"
> Jesus Christ of Nazareth 33A.D.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ian Reed
> To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2013 3:13 PM
> Subject: [ian-reeds-games] Responses and an update
>
>
> Hey all,
>
> Just thought I'd catch up on a few responses and give a small update.
>
> Austen, I got some errors while loading the bonus map in Kingdom at
> war. Let me know when all the maps can be started without errors so I
> can mark it as stable and include it in the next full release.
> Also, the Santa's gone mad maps have the getting started user guide
> rather than their own.
>
> Zak, I've added your 5 items to my list, but let me respond to them
> individually here:
> 1 Already planned and a good idea. I've been caught up with a lot of
> other things lately, this is on my list for near term though.
> 2 Yep, this is a good one and it's been on my list for a bit. Austen
> originally suggested it. I still want to play Time of Conflict so I can
> get a good feel for how they handle this as a user experience.
> Carlos sent me a good email about how TOC works and I need to read it
> again.
> The volume versus capacity flags are good. I wasn't sure which words to
> use for those flags, but hadn't put a lot of thought into it yet.
> Allan's suggestions of weight capacity as carry and weight flags is also
> good as it thinks of it in a different way.
> Though I imagine most games would only need one type and so both could
> be handled with capacity/volume.
> Some day when I do the RPG Maker I could see people using both types.
> I'm open to discussion about how to handle announcing of units within
> units and how to handle hot keys for working with them.
> The archers in boats, snipers in helicopters and units on horseback are
> all interesting as I had not thought about them still being useable
> while in a containing unit.
>
> 3 Good point and an easy one to implement. I'll try to get it in near
> term.
> 4 This is a very interesting one. I'll look into it, at first glance I
> thought it would give a lot of flexibility with not too much effort on
> my part but as I thought more I think it would give a lot of unexpected
> results so I'm not sure for the near term. On my list now though.
> 5 Yep, this is one of Craig's top 3. Specifically it is for not being
> allowed to use a certain skill on certain units.
> To add to this it would be interesting to say a unit is immune to
> specific effects which allows skills to still be used on them but
> certain effects would be blocked.
> Like using a poison skill on a poison cloud would do nothing to it.
>
> Allan, I use a wiki like format called mark down for writing my user
> guides.
> Then I use a tool called pandoc for converting them from mark down to
> HTML.
> I usually delete the mark down files to reduce confusion for people
> looking at the user guide in the files list but if you go into the
> getting started maps you can find a User Guide.md file which is what it
> looks like before pandoc converts it.
> Have a look at that files format to see how easy it is.
> Then have a look at pandoc or perhaps edsharp has an easy way to convert
> mark down to HTML.
> I can help with an explanation of how to do the conversion later if you
> use mark down, but don't have the time right this instant.
>
> Craig, I've noted the bug you mentioned today.
> Also, that's a great list of supported screen readers.
> I actually think I am polling the SAPI synthesizer in the current code.
> So definitely either a callback event when the speech is
> finished/cancelled or the possibility of polling to find out should both
> work.
>
> Zak, just saw your last email about the negative range bonus bug.
> Allan pointed this bug out a while ago and is still waiting for me to
> fix it. Sorry Allan.
> I'll try to fit it in soon along with a number of other bugs I'm going
> to look at.
>
> Everyone, I've been working on random damage and scripting.
> I'm going to leave out the percentage damage for now but we can still do
> it in the future.
> Probably going to do the simple version of chance soon as well.
> I also have a few bugs and other small items I wanted to go through in
> the near term.
>
> Well that's it. Sounds like the maps are getting better and better.
>
> Cheers,
> Ian Reed
>
>
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