Santcimonia Updates: Player Gear, Server Optimizations, Mipmapping…and Combat!
Sanctimonia developer Kevin Fishburne has been hard at work over the past two months adding functionality to — and improving the performance of — his Ultima-inspired online RPG.
In December of last year, he focused on reducing player gear and information objects stored in the game client to the bare essentials — things like the character’s birth date only needed to be stored on the server side. He also made various optimizations to the server to increase its frame rate, and fixed a few bugs along the way.
As regards player gear, he implemented essential functions like “pick up” and “drop” (always handy!), and also ensured that what gear a player is carrying is represented visually on their in-game avatar. Here as well, he also fixed numerous bugs.
In January of this year, Kevin focused on improving the efficiency and optimization of object and network transactions between client and server. The main program loop on the server side also saw some improvement; the SDL Screen_Draw() event again controls the program’s execution rate. And, of course, he continued working on player gear management.
Real-time gear changes!
Various object-related bugs were corrected, a “player idle” disconnect timer was implemented, and Kevin also laid some foundation (heh) for a future feature: digging and excavation causing permanent terrain changes. He also implemented an OpenGL mipmapping algorithm to render textures at non-original scales and sizes, which greatly improved the look of various in-game creatures, objects, and lighting effects.
Oh, and he also started working on combat:
You can attack anything within a weapon-specific radius.
This is probably the coolest part of the combat system (I think):
I added two new object properties, “Mass” and “Edge Surface Area” which will be used to calculate how much damage a given object can inflict. I had to modify Littoral to add these since it generates all the objects. Because these values are stored per-object, things like knife sharpening (and dulling through use) will be possible with very real results in the field. The differentiation between the edge of an object and its mass will also result in cool things like being able to subdue an enemy by attacking it without the intention of causing real damage (hitting it with your shield, for example), causing real damage with something as simple as a medium-sized rock (large edge but high mass), or lethal strikes with low mass but equally low edge characteristics (rapier or scalpel).
Some games talk about item “quality” and how it gets reduced with wear, damage, and use, but Sanctimonia is going to actually do something about it!
In all seriousness, though, this is some pretty impressive progress, and demonstrates both a wealth of raw talent and a pretty innovative approach to game design. Sanctimonia is going to offer a lot of very interesting features (including, if you read the reports, the ability to permanently kill other players!), and a rather harder-core RPG experience than is the norm these days.
I think it’s looking really good. I like the gear system and the combat system too but I’d be afraid of allowing to permanently kill a player. People like a failback system such as the ghost system in Ultima Online for example
Perma-killing sounds good, but the act of it should be registered as a commitment upon the part of the killer. For example, most people don’t die of a single or a few stab wounds from a knife. It should take several stab wounds to bleed out the victim and should expend energy from the attacker even if the victim is properly subdued so if the victim’s friends or some sort of law enforcement authority sees this happening, the chance of subduing the killer/attacker becomes increased.
One thing I’d love to see in any game is a total rethinking of the health/hitpoint system. As typical of many games, PCs and NPCs have a certain amount of hitpoints based upon their level with modifiers from certain stats. What if the hitpoint/damage system didn’t work like that? What if health was represented as blood quantity (modified by damage that would exsanguinate the character), tissue integrity ( modified by damage caused by environmental factors such as environmental exposure, radiation, disease, etc.), lung capacity (modified by exertion or noxious fumes) and skeletal integrity (modified by damage from falling or blunt objects)?
Where I’m going with this is the average human being has around 4.7 to 5 L of blood. That shouldn’t increase due to improvement in health or ability. It kind of levels the playing field amongst PCs as well. There would be no need for player levels because you wouldn’t need levels or higher hit points to defeat PCs or NPCs. Sure, damage mitigation modifiers should come from things like state of health, level of physical activity/training but more or less characters of a certain species should be relatively the same. I think what that does is makes the commitment of permakilling more difficult, eliminates noob farming, and makes combat more interesting especially when one doesn’t know what state of health the other character may be in or where one can exploit the other’s weakness based upon his/her recent activity level. Also, if a character has a broken limb, is sick, bleeding out, etc. the character would do his/her best to avoid combat and recuperate which in itself should be a process rather than drinking a magic potion to bring one up to full health.
I’m not saying you should try to implement any of this and I wouldn’t know how you could either, but I would love to see a game have a health pool system like I mentioned especially in conjunction with the item mechanics you’re developing.
Perma-killing sounds neat…but you’d need to put in some pretty hefty anti-griefing mechanisms. Perhaps you could implement it as a duelling mechanic, so that both parties explicitly and formally understand that whoever loses the duel loses the character they enter the duel with.
Because yeah…if you allow any roving bandit to permanently snuff out a player’s character, that is going to get hugely unpopular with stunning rapidity.
@Everyone: Thanks for the excellent input. It’s great to have that kind of feedback.
Early on I wanted permanent death, but after reading tomes on it decided that it needed to be mitigated somehow but still exist. My first thought was to make it impossible to kill with a single blow, that instead the victim would become unconscious and require a coup de grâce to end their life. If left alone, the victim would eventually rise from unconsciousness with little health and less belongings. This would prevent all but the most heinous of attackers (griefers) as the attacker would no longer feel threatened, could loot at will or bind and drag the victim to a jail cell if justified. If the attacker was actually the initial victim and had almost died (or one of their friends had been seriously wounded or killed), they could -choose- to deliver a fatal blow, drag the body around town, set it on fire, or what have you. The deceased player could then create a new one or play with their secondary or tertiary player and pick up the pieces.
@Kindbud: either you’ve been reading my old comments and forgot about them or we are long lost brothers (I am adopted, so who knows…) 🙂 A lot of your ideas, or ones with the same philosophy at least, I’m planning on implementing.
I have a cousin who is at the tail end of becoming a pediatric surgeon and plan to have him design a basic set of interdependent variables that describe an animal’s strength, endurance, nutritional requirements, circulatory and respiratory systems, etc. so I can implement a crude simulation in-game. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that before, so it’s pretty amazing that you came to the same conclusion. Your specific ideas (especially skeletal damage and exsanguination due to untreated wounds) are more refined than mine and most definitely will be included.
I have said around here and elsewhere that the limits of the human body would be obeyed, so the strongest a player could ever become would be similar to a professional bodybuilder. In theory a newb who picked up a random rock on the ground could knock an experienced player (without a helmet) unconscious. Leveling the playing field I think is the best way to reduce griefing. Griefers getting publicly knocked unconscious by newbs with ale mugs and bar stools would deflate their ego pretty quickly, especially considering they’d wake up naked in the middle of town square with all their belongings long gone.
@WtF: I agree. Never underestimate just how bad people can be when their actions are detached from real-world consequences. Other than the ideas I already mentioned, the overarching goal is to make death and dismemberment more real. Animals and people will cry out in pain when they are injured, and often try to retreat. Player’s won’t be attacked without reason (most predators won’t attack unless hungry or feel threatened). I want a player’s instincts to recoil in surprise and horror, much as in real life when inflicting injury. I want to invoke empathy, not bloodlust. Violence shouldn’t be fun, but used as a necessary evil. Only if a player is particularly notorious should players really feel pleasure in causing them pain and death.
I know all that’s very far away and it sounds silly to talk about right now. I’m still struggling to implement the foundation for the mechanics, but that’s the sort of thing I’m working toward.
Well, I certainly hope you can pull off the health parameters. I think the one game I’ve played that expressed demonstrably different types of damage would be Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. I vaguely remember that if the PC received massive physical damage the white health bar would display the damage in yellow. I think regular damage could easily be healed through consuming from the blood reserves, but the yellow damage was harder to heal. Jeez it’s been so long since I’ve played it.
I think one thing to consider if you’re going with realistic physical limits, it takes a certain percentage of blood loss before one goes into a state of shock, i.e. you don’t have to have a health bar go to zero before a person goes past the point of no return which as cool as it sounds would probably make the simulation unreasonably difficult. At the same time if factors like sympathetic stimulation could be introduced then THAT would be amazing! A fight or flight dynamic in a game would be outstanding (increased speed/strength/respiratory rate and decreased blood loss due to initial vasoconstriction at initial combat/ damage and diminishing over time — just enough adrenaline burst to initially save your life but not enough to be sustainable)! That makes me think that the beneficiary of such an adrenaline burst should be the one who hasn’t initiated a fight. That would also go in tandem with the violence isn’t fun theme. Again, I have no idea how you could simulate so many interlinked mechanisms (the living being is so extraordinarily complex — understatement for sure) and make it all work so seamlessly in a simulation.
I’ll have to go back and read your old notes if I am repeating anything you’ve already considered before.
Kindbud, “Well, I certainly hope you can pull off the health parameters.”
I should be able to.
What do you think about adding different muscle and skeletal groups to the player gear GUI? Muscle groups could be oblong fuzzy red shapes inside the outline of the GUI, and bone groups could be the same but narrower and white or gray. They’d all be at least 50% transparent with soft edges, so they’d blend in with the GUI, the background and each other.
Since a player wouldn’t know the actual damage to their body (or someone else’s), but only where and how bad it hurt, these same areas could be increasingly/decreasingly highlighted to tell them what had happened. If you got kicked in the kidney, one side of your abdominal would get brighter and you’d know where the guy just attacked you.
If certain combinations of muscle and/or skeletal groups fell above or below certain thresholds, gameplay could be affected with modifications to your movement, turning, ability to use objects in your hands, speech or comprehension of written and spoken numbers. I suppose using that system, if a boulder did fall on your player, you could watch the bones in the GUI go dark and the muscles get bright red. I’d make a Wisps.Create_BloodExplosion(Type as Byte, Radius as Single) procedure if that happened. 🙂
“I think one thing to consider if you’re going with realistic physical limits, it takes a certain percentage of blood loss before one goes into a state of shock, i.e. you don’t have to have a health bar go to zero before a person goes past the point of no return which as cool as it sounds would probably make the simulation unreasonably difficult.”
I was thinking that a player’s health would have as many negative values as positive values. There would be stages of decay and injury, death and disease, as well as stages of youth, strength and healing. So a healthy person might be at 1023 while a dead person would be at -1024. That would be a weighted average of all their health characteristics, of course.
I was thinking about diseases as I said, but it might really piss a player off if they found out they had cancer two or three years into the game. Or maybe it would make for great drama, I don’t know. I am allowing family members, so it’s not like they’d have to buy a new house or “restart the game” or whatever.
The adrenaline stuff is badass. I hadn’t thought of that at all. Hell, they could boost it unnaturally using drugs. That would be a sought-after item in-game.
I like that idea on displaying damage to the musculoskeletal system being displayed as such in the GUI. Tying in the different types of damage (muscular or skeletal) to the degree of function is brilliant. It’s sort of like the PipBoy from Fallout, but slightly more detailed. I wonder if the player would be able to adequately appreciate the differences. Depending upon how much detail you’re adding to loss of function or localization of injury you might want to segment the abdomen in either surgical quadrants or the classic 9 regions [Right Hypochodriac, Epigastrium, Left Hypochondriac, Right Lumbar, Umbilical, Left Lumbar, Right Iliac (Inguinal), Hypogastrium (Pubic), Left Iliac (Inguinal)] in order to highlight regions associated with the vital organs of the abdominal region (Liver, spleen, pancreas, kidneys).
I’m thinking the problem with disease is how to demonstrate it in the game and not bog down players with unnecessary detail especially when all factors determining state of health is attached to the one health bar metric or in the GUI. Sure, loss of function of a limb due to paralysis can be demonstrated in the GUI by a bright red leg, but you’d never be able to determine if it was due to spastic paralysis (upper motor neuron disease) or flaccid paralysis (lower motor neuron disease). You’d also never be able to see if the player was moving with a stiff gait due to spastic paralysis or dragging his/her leg (flaccid paralysis). You’re probably going to have to define very broad categories of injury/ disease as well as loss of function states in order to create the perfect balance.
Also, disease states such as certain types of cancer will require some form of causality (radiation exposure, environmental exposure, smoking, drinking, handling of chemicals, etc.) over time as well as susceptibilities ( family history/ genetic predisposition) so that certain professions have a higher incidence of the disease (depending upon a PC’s state of health/ exposure) or certain characters gain it due to pedigree. That is to say, you don’t want to piss the player off who’s skipping through the woods and hit by a random fatal disease state; you’d want the player to go “Oh… if I weren’t a chronic alcoholic and smoker, I wouldn’t have esophageal cancer…” or “Oh, my dad had prostate cancer and now that I’m over 50, it makes sense that I have it now”.
“I like that idea on displaying damage to the musculoskeletal system being displayed as such in the GUI.”
Cool. I may need to create a separate graphic however, as the gear management GUI disables orientation changes to allow the “management” part. Also eventually it’s going to show all your clothes, armor, etc., and you wouldn’t be able to see any health representations. I might make it a smaller graphic using the same human figure and allow the user to toggle it between “none” “small” and “large” modes. I’m trying to avoid having a ton of shit all over the screen, so I need to be selective.
How detailed I made the health system would probably be tied to how detailed the gameplay mechanics are so there’d be a recognizable relationship between the two. While it would be neat to see a hyper detailed health GUI, it would quickly lose its glamour if it didn’t affect gameplay with the same granularity. A compromise could be having main groups which affect specific gameplay and sub groups which essentially are health meters for their parent main group. So if your abdominal muscles (main/parent group) are divided into nine sub groups you would be able to see the overall integrity of the main group through the visual representation of each of the nine sub groups. A meter that doesn’t look like a meter. The strength of the main group would affect actual gameplay, in this case for example it might 100% affect your ability to pick up objects and 25% affect your ability to use them (it would be hard to swing a sword effectively or bend over to pick something up with your groin/abdomen cut open).
Having a damaged leg might pull you slightly to that side as you moved forward and cause you to lurch rather than move smoothly, simulating a limp. As you can see from the videos, player animation is something I’ve been putting off for a while, but it’s conceivable that when it is implemented I could make variations for drastic changes in health. If both legs were broken (or you were paralyzed below the pelvis) for example, your movement rate could be cut by 75% and your movement animation would show you dragging yourself with your hands rather than walking. That kind of stuff would make for some really gruesome battle scenes and hopefully evoke the kind of emotions I’m aiming for.
“I’m thinking the problem with disease is how to demonstrate it in the game and not bog down players with unnecessary detail especially when all factors determining state of health is attached to the one health bar metric or in the GUI.”
The health bar metric I mentioned was an example. I don’t think there’s ultimately going to be a single health variable calculated from all the others. Players already have a boolean “Alive” property, so based on any number of negative health extremes it could be tripped to False and the player would just die on the spot.
“You’re probably going to have to define very broad categories of injury/ disease as well as loss of function states in order to create the perfect balance.”
Agreed. Everything needs to be tied to gameplay or aural/visual cues (symptoms). Coughing, sneezing, having the words in other players’ dialogue somehow twisted (“conversation” becomes “converse equation”), fainting, spitting blood, vomiting, inability to control urination and defecation, chronically low endurance, bloody urine/stool, etc.
“That is to say, you don’t want to piss the player off who’s skipping through the woods and hit by a random fatal disease state; you’d want the player to go “Oh… if I weren’t a chronic alcoholic and smoker, I wouldn’t have esophageal cancer…” or “Oh, my dad had prostate cancer and now that I’m over 50, it makes sense that I have it now”.”
Right. Initially my thinking was overly genetic. If someone was to get cancer several years into the game it would have been randomly predetermined at character creation. Adding gameplay influences as you mentioned is a much better idea. The genetic stuff could be eliminated completely, as I don’t think it would contribute to enjoyment since it’s wholly outside the control of the player and wouldn’t be known until the onset of symptoms.
In the end I want death to be an accepted part of the game. When it happens naturally I want players to accept it because it’s logical and they may have had kids and a wife/husband who could carry on the estate. Equally I want them to react strongly when one of their characters are taken before their time, which could be a flashpoint for all sorts of player-driven storylines (manhunt/incarceration/trial/punishment, protests, legislation, vendettas, feuds and maybe even tribal warfare).
Death in most games isn’t portrayed very accurately. Just because you have AAA graphics/sound/whatever doesn’t mean treating death like an 80’s arcade game is excusable.
What I need to figure out now are a basic set of systems (circulatory, resporatory, etc.), organs comprising each those systems, organ and system dependencies (hierarchy of failure?) and physical symptoms of system failure. Once I know all that I have my basic variables, rough understanding of how one variable should affect another and how failure should be represented in gameplay. Wish there was a Wikipedia article for that, but I seriously doubt it.
Listen, without getting into too much about myself, if you need any information involving at least the basic medical sciences (anatomy, physiology, immunology, microbiology, biochemistry, pathology, genetics, and behavioral science) let me know. I’m currently in the midst of studying for my USMLE Step One boards (after a very long hiatus) and much of this information is at my disposal (although there are some subjects I am not entirely confident about such as epidemiology and biostatics, for example). I’ll shoot you an email giving my email address so if you have any questions concerning these subjects alone or their inter-relatedness, then I’ll be able to do so to the best of my ability.
This is one of those projects that would be just awesome to play. Awesome in the way of inspiring awe. Obviously the amount of thought and features that are going in this is mammoth to say the least. And I love the art style and the spinning sprite trees. I dunno, it’s something special I think.
I went to the website, because I hadn’t hit it up in a while. And I noticed it says Real time arcade-style melee and missile combat. So does that mean there’s no specific targeting? I was thinking about how you say the sharpness vs the weight and maybe velocity were determining factors to combat. And with all these factors together, when you got into a fight with someone would it be possible to aim for the head, or the legs as a strategic weak point? Or is it basically random chance where you hit.
To me the intricacy of the whole system you’re creating would be a bit of a shame if you couldn’t target specific locations. I’m still a little hazy on some specifics. Such as, this is a modern world? Or more of a medieval world?
The more I read into it, it almost has a feel of downplaying combat. Insofar as it’s socially not a viable option to pvp. The way I see it, it’s kinda like The Sims on steroids(I don’t like the analogy, but I think you get what I mean.) It’s a super realistic type of mmorpg. And when I see real-time arcade style melee missile combat. It kinda confuses me. With a well done combat system, how much is it going to be utilized. And you say that a noob could take down the strongest guy in the game. I dunno, it just seems like if the human body is that intricate, and you can have that many outcomes to a fight. I’d love the game to encourage you to engage in the combat. And are there levels? Or like classes? Maybe it could be like oblivion to an extent where you could jump a lot, get fatigued, rest, jump again, etc etc to be a master of jumping, or running. But if you don’t maintain your physical health you lose speed or stamina or muscle mass. Are there going to be guns? You should definitely be able to target with a gun! And please, oh please, add the ability to groinshot. Groinshot was the best in Fallout(“OOOOWWWW! MY GROIN!”), and honestly with the complexity of the systems you speak of. I think it would be hilarious to be able to do that. It’s like one part tragedy, one part comedy they go together pretty good.
On a related note, this game, which is kind of in the Fallout vein, seems to offer several hardcore play options (or are they options?) that might be of interest to the likes of yourself, Micro, and also to Kevin. RPS reports that it is a tactical, top-down RPGish game which includes a robust crafting system and the possibility of permanent injuries and/or death for player-characters.
@Kindbud: Got your email and will be taking you up on your offer to help with the health sim, for lack of a better term. Looks like I might not need my cousin after all. 🙂
@MicroMagic: Thanks. It looks like my vision is finally starting to become real enough that it’s rubbing off on others. One thing that gives me confidence is despite all the typical problems of game development the original vision hasn’t really changed, just better fleshed out.
“… And I noticed it says Real time arcade-style melee and missile combat. So does that mean there’s no specific targeting? I was thinking about how you say the sharpness vs the weight and maybe velocity were determining factors to combat. And with all these factors together, when you got into a fight with someone would it be possible to aim for the head, or the legs as a strategic weak point? Or is it basically random chance where you hit.”
There won’t be specific targeting in the sense of an FPS where you aim via the GUI at an area of your opponent and then attack, but rather based on the context of the moment which I’ll explain in a second.
Right now the camera’s orientation is fixed to your player’s orientation, so you’re always facing “up”. Soon I’ll be separating the two orientations to enable two types of play: the traditional FPS controls (you’ll always be facing up although the camera’s orientation will have a slight lag and “chase” your player’s orientation) and Zelda-style controls. The former involves dual-analog sticks (movement on the left and orientation on the right). The latter involves combined movement and orientation using the d-pad, like the NES Zelda/FF/DQ titles.
An object’s use radius is determined by its size and a use width will be determined by the kind of object (thrusting narrow, swinging wide). Those values will create a triangular “attack swath” centered on the direction the player is facing. If something’s inside the triangle it can get hit.
Which area gets hit will depend on AI (even if the player is actually playing and not being directly controlled by AI). If you’ve received no combat training and your character has little skill in combat then your attacks would hit random parts of your opponent. If you had been in several battles or received proper training the weakest parts of your enemy would automatically be targeted.
“To me the intricacy of the whole system you’re creating would be a bit of a shame if you couldn’t target specific locations.”
I agree. I think details need to be backed by gameplay that gives some kind of satisfaction. I hate tedium, pointlessness and unmet expectations. One of my goals is to give as much natural-feeling control to the player as possible (gamepad for almost everything and minimal menus) but still reflect the depth of games like D&D, Ultima, etc.
“I’m still a little hazy on some specifics. Such as, this is a modern world? Or more of a medieval world?”
Madness? THIS…IS…ULTIMA!!! Kidding aside, I’m trying to make the game I wished Ultima had become after VII. IV, V and VI were my favorites. VI really set the bar for me and let me know what kinds of things were possible. VII was cool but the spirit was starting to flee the body and it felt a little lifeless. Don’t want to talk about things after that. Here’s a short list of things I am going to implement in some way directly borrowed from Ultima:
Weapons, armor, the Eight Circles of magic and reagents
Felucca and Trammel (the moons, not the UO shards or whatever)
Moongates (how you start the game and travel quickly)
Abandoned shrines of Virtue
The ruins of the major towns and buildings (if you rebuild them they will come)
The fauna, including a ton of new (but normal) stuff like deer, amphibians, fish, insects, etc.
Shipbuilding, sailing, cannons and piracy
“The more I read into it, it almost has a feel of downplaying combat. Insofar as it’s socially not a viable option to pvp. The way I see it, it’s kinda like The Sims on steroids(I don’t like the analogy, but I think you get what I mean.) It’s a super realistic type of mmorpg.”
Accurate observations (WtF pointed out the original Sims comparison), although the downplaying of combat is through the mechanics of combat, not by actively discouraging or preventing it. It’s intentional from a design perspective because many people in MMOs tend to act like assholes from what I’ve read.
“With a well done combat system, how much is it going to be utilized.”
As often as someone feels like attacking someone or destroying their property. I’m not trying to prevent people from fighting, I just want realistic results so the game won’t end up like someone’s first time playing GTA III. If you wreck someone’s store or hurt their friend or customer, it won’t be forgotten and it won’t go unpunished. Players will be able to create likenesses so WANTED signs can be posted and reproduced. And don’t forget hunting game, as the same rules will apply.
“And you say that a noob could take down the strongest guy in the game.”
Could is the important part. While you could knock someone out with a rock, you might instead want to call for reinforcements if they’re wearing plate mail and carrying a broadsword. Think about it. The guy in armor talking shit after cleaning up a bar fight would move at half the speed of an unencumbered player. If they pick up and throw rocks while strafing away from him, one is bound to hit him in the face or groin (random + combat skill) and give you and your compadres just enough time to issue a bare knuckle beat down into unconsciousness. He’ll wake up in the drunk tank sans gear and have to pay a fine to get out. He’ll be the talk of the town and everyone will remember what he called himself and what his portrait looked like.
“And are there levels? Or like classes? Maybe it could be like oblivion to an extent where you could jump a lot, get fatigued, rest, jump again, etc etc to be a master of jumping, or running. But if you don’t maintain your physical health you lose speed or stamina or muscle mass.”
No levels, no classes. The health system Kindbud and I were discussing will combine with knowledge-based skills (combat, reading, carpentry, alchemy, metallurgy, etc.) to determine what you can do and how well you can do it. Also no guns other than cannons and missile weapons like bows, crossbows, slingshots, slings and hand-thrown stuff like flaming oil and rocks (or skulls, femurs, chairs and candlesticks).
“And please, oh please, add the ability to groinshot.”
Yes, and with greater effect for males. The reason for that is because it’s an effective way of subduing an opponent. I know we all get laughs, but it’s terribly practical if you’re not trying to brutally kill someone but just stop them or teach them a lesson.
@WtF: Krater looks interesting. I don’t like the damage numbers popping up FF style or the health bars. It looks like Starcraft but with a more personal appeal, as in smaller groups of units. That it’s defined as an RPG may be its saving grace if it plays more like one than in the video. The web site has a nice video here:
http://www.kratergame.com/media/videos
which says something very cool, “The third pillar is consequence.” I like the game’s spirit but am not sure it’s representative of what I’m trying to do.
I mostly thought to mention it because of how they’re incorporating concepts like permanent injury/permadeath. Figured you’d be keen to know there’s other projects out there with a big love of teh hardcorez.
Funny, and true. It would be cool to hear a review or a fan’s response to permadeath in Krater as a test of the waters, perhaps. I couldn’t get a ton of info from their site, though the article had some rumors/references.
What you said, “that it is a tactical, top-down RPGish game which includes a robust crafting system and the possibility of permanent injuries and/or death for player-characters.” (which was quoted from the article about Krater) is actually an accurate partial description of my game.
Drawing boxes around groups of anything is always a bad idea (StarCraft exempted), and “tactical” needs to be bastardized like “RPG” has been. Tactical doesn’t have to mean unrealistic, blocky (isometric and variants), turn-based, or drawing rectangles around “units”. I’m not saying you’re contributing adversely to the definition of “tactical” in gaming, but that it’s too narrowly confined in most popular implementations.
Some news: The Ultimate Kombat Syckness is coming (to use WtF’s vernacular). Feeling every blow is about to take on terrifying ramifications! Bow down to the horrors of being alive! j/k
Also I separated player orientation from camera orientation and photographed a temporary character (a wooden toy soldier; all I could find) and two small coconuts from Venezuela. Soon you’ll be able to see your own player (and others) at different angles. And of course sometimes you get tired of circle-strafing and just want to walk around Zelda-style, only adjusting your orientation as necessary and all the while equally able to manipulate objects and attack enemies (other players) as before. By the end of this month it will be so.
Now that will be something sweet to behold! So Ultima caveats plus super realism and random chance for groin shots? Sounds like a winning formula. Thanks for answering my query.
Something like that. I copied every video made for the game, both ogv and webm, here:
http://eightvirtues.com/sanctimonia/videos/
Feel free to rape the bandwidth.
I uploaded a new video to YouTube and it came out green for some crazy reason, so here’s the original:
http://eightvirtues.com/sanctimonia/videos/Player%20Skins%20Phase%202.ogv
If anyone knows where to get lifelike, poseable human figurines preferably about six inches tall please let me know.