The way Moz is currently setting up the terrain, there are no actual cliffs being used :/ But allowing players to jump cliffs/obstacles is not an issue. The issue with instanced pathing was where we couldn't predefine where and when the player could pass (i.e. you could only pass a specific area by using cut/rock smash). We've got ledges already in and making something similar isn't hard, as long as the player is able to jump all things of the same type at once (Instead of only being able to pass certain ones, like with Rock Smash/Cut).
We're also capable of phasing doodads and NPCs to each players quest progress, Zelda is improving the system at the moment as he is making the first big quest (Lots of phased NPCs) atm.
Status update on the videos: My laptop seems to be getting worse and worse, and I can't really record anything atm :(
On the other hand though I should be getting a new PC. Sorry for the delay :(
I know we haven't posted much content recently (Again, I apologize for the lack of videos. I can't record with my setup and maity's computer is dying), so I'll try to make up for it with a screenshot of the second online test ever :D It was just me on two computers, though, so I wouldn't really call it multiplayer- more like multi-computer, but still. You get the point.
Anyways, I was checking out a few things to ensure they worked in multiplayer (most importantly the phasing system that we use heavily to instance quests). I swung by the star center that we had put so much work into to get a quick heal for my starmon. But when I arrived, I see this....
Now that's what I call beautiful terrain. Unfortunately I made an oopsie with our mod files, and Soul Filcher's super awesome teleporter and healing machine models didn't make it to battle net. It's fixed now, but I had to take a screen shot when I had the chance ^.^
Anyways, it was mostly good news from the test. It looks like things are working as expected, in-game cinematics seemed to work properly in multiplier, battles still work, conversations still work, etc.... I also made some progress on our first storyline quest. We won't be posting any spoiler screenshots of that, though ^.^
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My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
My Projects:
Sorted Multiplayer Leader Board
Card Shuffle Dialog Demo
Air Wars Mass
Blizzard Fan since Starcraft. The Single Player story is AMAZING IMO, I can't wait for the Expansions. In Warcraft 3 I only enjoy the Custom Maps scene (& Blizzards...
It would be cool getting rewards for building up our starmon collection and completing it. Maybe this could be a side quest through the professor.
I think more starmon related goals 'like catching them all' would help increase the fun.
Yeah, we like the idea of having a reward for stardex completion. We haven't nailed down the details, but we want to give everybody a "Trainer Level" that's based on a few different factors, one of the major factors being your stardex completion. In other words, the more starmon you discover or catch, the higher your trainer level. It'd take a few more things into account, like how far you've progressed through the story and how high your starmon's levels are. We don't have a purpose for the trainer level yet (other than it being a nice bragging tool on your trainer card), but we'll implement something.
I also like the suggestions you made for achievements . I don't know if we'll actually put achievements in the game (we haven't really talked about it yet), but they could be used for some kind of "Trainer Club" sidequest type thing.
How many starmon are you guys planning on having? I'd like to suggest about 100 as a good number. Maity has 80, it means less models to get to 150+, less starmon to learn, and......I wanna catch em all!
150 + The Special Mew-like ("Event") Starmon is the plan. I think I already have enough models, or am missing at most 10-15 and Im sure I'll find some (If I'm not grossly overestimating our numbers and will indeed be that close, there'll be nothing that can stop me from going for that number)
It would be cool getting rewards for building up our starmon collection and completing it. Maybe this could be a side quest through the professor.
I think more starmon related goals 'like catching them all' would help increase the fun. I think I mentioned some of this before so hopefully I'll have new ideas now :P.
Well, achievements mean more bank space used, but I guess we can try and fit a good amount of them in. Still, I'd stick to achievements that are actual achievements, and not just stuff that happens within 30 mins of playing (Will comment on all your suggestions in the quote below)
Starmon related achievements:
Win 5 battles in a row using the same starmon at least once in each battle - You're going to get this five battles after the start of the game :/
Hatch an egg - Sorry, no breeding planned
Get any starmon to level 50 - Eh... Acceptable I guess. Not that easy.
Defeat a milestone trainer - There'll likely be rewards linked to that already, don't think we need an actual achievement (You'll be getting a badge in your trainer card, actual money and item rewards and so on already)
Catch 20 different starmon types A bit too little, very easy. Evolutions count towards such things so this achievement is practically "catch and train 8 starmon"
Catch 40 different starmon types Better, but if we go with 150 total I think 50 is a nicer number
Heal a total of 1000 HP at starcenters (not in one go but can accumulate) That's actually fairly little health (Assume 40 health per starmon early on, all of them lose about half health, that's 120 per heal, so you have to go heal about 8 times... But I don't mind having such "trivial" achievements for high numbers (So let's start at 10k or 50k)
Defeat a starmon after using a stat modifier move - Very likely going to get this in your first battle or one of the first... Something harder perhaps, "Defeat a Starmon which had its stats reduced by 9 stages in total"?
Trade starmon with at least 1 NPC - This one's fine :)
Teach a starmon an entire moveset (so all 4 moves through TMs) - Not sure how I feel about this. Sort of a "noob trap" - People will ruin a starmon for the sake of the achievement. Rather have something like teach X moves via TMs
Rename at least 2 starmon I never really liked nicknaming my pokemon - Not sure whether we should force players into doing so through achievements...
Carry at least 3 different starmon types in the party Way too easy, hardly an achievement. How about 9-12 types (Make use of dual types, have no overlaps)
Build up a certain amount of money As I said above for healing, I don't mind such "trivial" progressive achievements. 100k->500k->1M, etc. Would like to have something like this.
Play the game for a certain amount of hours If we do achievements, this'll be in
It would be nice if the above goals (and possibly more) came with some reward(s) like exp or money. I like a better adventure game than just 'battle to the death with everything that moves' :P. Can easily be done. Maybe a secondary currency instead? Unlock outfits or some special slightly OP PvE-only items?
So yeah, in essence, I don't want achievements that will be "accidentally" gotten within 10 minutes of starting the map, but I don't mind achievements you'll get sort of naturally at some point in the game (amount of money earned, healed, damage dealt, etc.) as long as it doesn't happen insanely early.
Achievements will probably be pretty far down on our priority list though. There's just so much stuff we want to add simply for this thing to work properly and look polished... Achievements will likely be added in the final phases of development if we decide to go with them.
Yeah, we like the idea of having a reward for stardex completion. We haven't nailed down the details, but we want to give everybody a "Trainer Level" that's based on a few different factors, one of the major factors being your stardex completion. In other words, the more starmon you discover or catch, the higher your trainer level. It'd take a few more things into account, like how far you've progressed through the story and how high your starmon's levels are. We don't have a purpose for the trainer level yet (other than it being a nice bragging tool on your trainer card), but we'll implement something.
Also wanted to mention my plan here (Dunno if I discussed it with him, might have but he probably forgot as we never really discussed it in depth):
The genetics lab will not be fully unlocked immediately. It'll be tied to your stardex progression. Your help in the scientists research (by cataloging starmon with the stardex) will have an actual impact. For example, Reveal 30 species and you unlock "EV viewer", Capture 30 species and you unlock "EV Manipulator" (Not final name, not even the placeholder name, I just made that up right now), reveal 50 for IV viewer, capture 50 for IV rerolls, stuff like that. We could even tie certain stardex functions to it (Like being able to view move sets, EV rewards, base XP reward, XP table, etc.)
Yea, those are great achievements ideas :) Can't do the "Walk X steps" though since we aren't counting steps and movement isn't grid based.
We were thinking about allowing the use of the stardex mid-battle, we just have to see how exactly we're going to implement it.
I'm trying to keep the starmon types related to their looks, but almost all of them are dual type and the second may be harder to guess (It's easy to guess that Krabby is water, guessing the rock part is harder. We've actually got a krabby like starmon). In addition to that, starmon names are colored in the narration box/combat log/whatever its called with the color of their first type (Which again doesn't help with dual types) (Move names are colored as well btw)
We want to add a good amount of random events/repeatable quests, but map size limitations are going to limit the amount of things we can implement. We really want there to be a lot to do, but we're not sure yet just how much we can fit in.
And sorry, no safari zone for exactly that reason :( We can shove quests and stuff into regular terrain, but safari zones just require map space reserved only for them :/
With side quests I don't know if we talked about this but ideally players should have too much than they can handle :P. When we want a break from the story there should always be something useful and maybe more fun to do.
Like TheAlmaity said, space is limited and there's only so much we can add. But my goal is definitely to have enough quests so that you always have at least a few in your quest log throughout the whole game.
If you do want to grind, the Arena fights are all repeatable, so it's available if you'd prefer to level that way. The story missions will likely be spaced at least a couple levels apart, so if you only did story missions, you would likely be under leveled. We'll probably tie the story progression to your Arena rank in some way, so that will help people level themselves up.
Speaking of quests, I made a bunch of improvements to the quest system. One thing that we wanted to ensure was that the player always had something they could be doing, and never felt lost. Given the fact that we also wanted to make this more open-world than real pokemon games, we had a little bit of a problem. So now there's always a "Main Story" section in the quest log, which will point you in the right direction if you want to advance the plot.
If you want to do sidequests, we created what we're calling "The Mentor". We talked about him a little bit before, but I'll repeat it here. Basically, the mentor serves a dual purpose. First, he serves as a walking tutorial if you need it (you can ask him questions about various game systems and he'll give you more information). But second, he's able to recommend quests for you. He picks a side quest appropriate for your level and tells you where it's located.
These systems together should (hopefully) ensure that you never feel lost. If you want to do a story mission, the quest log will say where to go, and if you can't seem to find a side quest, the mentor can point you to one.
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I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but there is a certain Pokemon fan comic that started a new way to play pokemon. Nuzloc mode is like hardcore mode in Deablo. I think an "official" version of this supported by your map would be awesome. Obviously, this would be a low priority before beta. I suppose, this would mean one would need to restart their journey.
Some features could be a Graveyard (list of dead and unusable starmon),
Requirement to only capture the first encounter in each region (possible no Dupes checkbox),
Ability to abandon Hard Mode mid-run, to capture Starmon again, or use dead ones.
Feinting automatically makes a starmon unusable in battle, and unable to be healed.
Optional requirement to nickname all starmon caught. (This helps create ties with you buddy before he dies, making the death hurt a bit.)
Possibly, option to remove healing items from game, or just make them useless except for money. (for the even harder core)
Option to allow buying resurrection for a LARGE fee of starbucks (? starmon money).
Perhaps some limit to IV re rolls and EV manipulation.
Possibly some TM limit.
But, this is not to important because players can just do it themselves. It would be an achievement to win on Hardcore mode though.
I've watched one of my favourite youtubers play a variant of that mode ;) I'm sure we can add something like that at some point, shouldn't be too hard. Maybe even with customiseable options (So that you can pick only "permadeath" if you don't like force nickname and only capture first per zone and so on).
One issue is banks and bank size. Blizzard allegedly increased the max size to 1 MB, in which case it isn't an issue, but I have yet to see someone test that limit and confirm it. How we save stuff might have to be altered, not sure whether that would be a big issue though since I think we're using only one section for everything atm (Which means we can pretty much just make the section a variable and use different ones for different profiles, easy)
If we can't make multi-profile work, we'll have to overwrite the players usual save file with this if they decide to play it.
Have you guys considered the difficulty of the game from battles?
We're aiming for a reasonably gentle difficulty curve in the world's various zones. I never really liked when MMO's would say "This is a level 15 to 25 zone" but if you went in at level 15, you'd be torn apart. So we scale the level of difficulty for battles to suit the player. We take a bunch of things into account, but we try to make sure the enemies are about the same level as you are, as long as you're in the an appropriate zone for your level. In other words if you're using level 10 starmon in a 15-25 zone, the trainers will scale down to 15, but you'll still be killed pretty easily. But if you're within that level range, the trainers will usually be about your level.
That said, most of our quest-related battles are "Pre-Built" by us, meaning the starmon team of the enemy was hand-picked by us (including levels, move sets, AI level, etc..). So quest-related fights don't "scale" to your level in the same way ordinary trainers do (although any random trainers you run across during that quest will scale as usual), but because we don't open up quests until you're reasonably close in level, you shouldn't run into a difficulty wall. I've also worked on trainer AI in the past, although it's far from complete. We can increase the difficulty of fights by just turning up the AI level on trainers. We feel this is a good tool to make "Boss Fights" harder, rather than just jacking up the enemy's level so it's harder to win. Yes, the champions of the arena will have strong starmon, but so do a lot of other trainers. What will (hopefully) make them particularly challenging is their ability to choose the most effective combinations of moves at any given time.
Map size constraints more or less force smaller zones, so they shouldn't take too long to cross. We're trying to make them feel larger/longer by using things like ledges to block direct paths. How much of the map there will be left to "Explore" is something I'm not sure about - We'll most likely have to use every nook and cranny Moz leaves us for (side-)quests. Still, if the forest he made is anything to go by, there'll be plenty of space to explore, the zones will not feel any smaller than in the pokemon games, and they won't take too long to get through (Plus there's the teleporter system)
Another thing: Zelda seems to be making some great progress on the big thing we want to show off in the video. I think we'll just make it a single video (We'll just use Zolden's model during it to show it off ;) )
Not sure whether he mentioned it in the thread, but he's found a way he can record on good settings with stable high FPS. Once he gets all the systems to work, we set up the quests we need for what we want to show off and I make all the remaining 2D art we need, we should be able to finally deliver the video =D
I actually think caves would be a GREAT idea. Let's be honest no one thoroughly goes through the caves the first time through, running into pokemon every 10 seconds, you can't see everything, trainers, not to mention the puzzling atmosphere. Plus caves would be easy to make, just limit the trainers vision and pow your good.
Hidden items that can be found by the item finder
Have special NPCs appear in different zones at different times
Randomised zones (like redistributing trees or obstacles or particular terrain)
While the terrain itself of each zone won't change dramatically (we can't do that properly within sc2) we do a decent amount of randomization. The numer and position of trainers within every zone (and those trainer's classes, levels, and starmon teams) are all randomized every time you play. We also fill each zone with a few hidden goodies. We have a bunch of "potential spawn points" for treasure that we've hidden around, and the game picks a few every time and hides stuff there. The quantity and type of items inside is randomized, with more powerful/expensive items being more rare.
We also have plans to implement random events. These are sort of mini-quests that show up in a zone at random when you load the game. For example, you might come across a wounded starmon you can save to take as part of your team. Or you may stroll into a shop to find that it's the owners birthday and prices are half-off.
We're going to make sure that each zone has at least one pretty rare wild starmon. I don't remember how the original pokedex works, but the stardex provides you with starmon habitats once you've spotted one. Once you've seen a starmon, you'll see it's generalized location- something like "Nocturnal Forest Starmon" or "Enjoys very hot areas". Once you've captured the starmon you can see exactly which zones it spawns in. This should help you track down any particular starmon you have your heart set on. Spawns currently rotate with Day & Night, and we may cause them to rotate with the weather as well (which is randomized on a per-zone basis and cycles every day/night).
Have something seen for the first time but isn't accessible (like requiring a HM)
We're going to try and pack as much content as we can into every zone. I'm not sure exactly how things will turn out, but we'll try and put some stuff into the game like this. We have one side-quest chain where this one guy travels around the whole map, and you'll find him in various precarious situations he's gotten himself into. Quests like that will hopefully allow us to reuse old zones.
I prefer smaller but more areas (doesn't have to be wild starmon zones) to check out.
We do too! The sc2 map size limit is really small for RPG's. Keep in mind that we have to have space for a battle arena for each player, and that's with some serious effort on our part to keep things compact. We actually re-build your personal arena to fit the theme of the zone you're in instead of having a separate one for each zone. We haven't set a hard player cap yet (although all of my systems can support up to 15 people, we'll have to see how lag ends up) but with just 10 people that's a ton of space we have to reserve. So whether we like it or not, we're not going to have any gigantic zones.
We're also providing the player with teleporters to use (and those are available almost immediately after completing a low-level quest), so traveling to any previous zone should be quick, regardless of the actual distance. We plan on opening up the world more than the pokemon games. Once you complete our "introductory stuff", which consists of a few tutorial quests, we're going to open up 3 or so zones immediately. The story will follow a particular path but you're free to go wherever you want and do the sidequests there.
I actually think caves would be a GREAT idea. Let's be honest no one thoroughly goes through the caves the first time through, running into pokemon every 10 seconds, you can't see everything, trainers, not to mention the puzzling atmosphere. Plus caves would be easy to make, just limit the trainers vision and pow your good.
Caves are cool! But again, we're super tight on space. If we have extra space available, we might add a cave. There's lots of things we'd like to add (Safari, caves, gigantic evil lairs, large cities, huge ocean zones) but we just can't fit them.
@JacktheArcher: Go Endless Zubats appearing at every step... Damn I hated that.
We could add repel if it's needed. Technically speaking it'd be easy enough to add, although it would need to be based on time or distance moved rather than steps taken (because our movement isn't on a grid). Although because of the teleporters, you won't need to travel through tons of grass to get places.
Another thing: Zelda seems to be making some great progress on the big thing we want to show off in the video. Once he gets all the systems to work, we set up the quests we need for what we want to show off and I make all the remaining 2D art we need, we should be able to finally deliver the video =D
Yes, it's looking good. I know we've been teasing announcements of bigger announcements for a while, but we've had to keep pushing things back. This system took way longer for me to get in than I had planned, then Maity's computer wasn't working, then I had technical problems giving me terrible FPS, etc.... But barring any more unforeseen obstacles or gigantic bugs we're back on track and just about ready to record.
We have one side-quest chain where this one guy travels around the whole map, and you'll find him in various precarious situations he's gotten himself into. Quests like that will hopefully allow us to reuse old zones.
Squee! Oh god, I love having that guy in a story. "What'd you do this time? Buy snake oil from a mobster, then ask for a refund?"
The arena is unlocked almost instantly (After the very short tutorial quest)
As trainers are completely randomized, we can't really save which ones you defeated in the first place as the next time you'll load up the map there'll be completely different trainers. So to get a "rematch" you'll simply have to start the map over again (Although we can probably reset trainers ever 2-3 ingame days or add some other rematch mechanic for playing a single session)
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The way Moz is currently setting up the terrain, there are no actual cliffs being used :/ But allowing players to jump cliffs/obstacles is not an issue. The issue with instanced pathing was where we couldn't predefine where and when the player could pass (i.e. you could only pass a specific area by using cut/rock smash). We've got ledges already in and making something similar isn't hard, as long as the player is able to jump all things of the same type at once (Instead of only being able to pass certain ones, like with Rock Smash/Cut).
We're also capable of phasing doodads and NPCs to each players quest progress, Zelda is improving the system at the moment as he is making the first big quest (Lots of phased NPCs) atm.
Status update on the videos: My laptop seems to be getting worse and worse, and I can't really record anything atm :(
On the other hand though I should be getting a new PC. Sorry for the delay :(
I know we haven't posted much content recently (Again, I apologize for the lack of videos. I can't record with my setup and maity's computer is dying), so I'll try to make up for it with a screenshot of the second online test ever :D It was just me on two computers, though, so I wouldn't really call it multiplayer- more like multi-computer, but still. You get the point.
Anyways, I was checking out a few things to ensure they worked in multiplayer (most importantly the phasing system that we use heavily to instance quests). I swung by the star center that we had put so much work into to get a quick heal for my starmon. But when I arrived, I see this....
Now that's what I call beautiful terrain. Unfortunately I made an oopsie with our mod files, and Soul Filcher's super awesome teleporter and healing machine models didn't make it to battle net. It's fixed now, but I had to take a screen shot when I had the chance ^.^
Anyways, it was mostly good news from the test. It looks like things are working as expected, in-game cinematics seemed to work properly in multiplier, battles still work, conversations still work, etc.... I also made some progress on our first storyline quest. We won't be posting any spoiler screenshots of that, though ^.^
@zeldarules28: Go
What do you mean bug?
The way it looks on the screenshot is how I terrained the Starcentre? It's supposed to look like that?
Well, I guess you can say that that Starcenter has got a large pair of balls.
@TheAlmaity: Go
I think there Nurse Joy's Melon's hehe.
@Trieva: Go
I really like all those Ideas good job Trieva.
Yeah, we like the idea of having a reward for stardex completion. We haven't nailed down the details, but we want to give everybody a "Trainer Level" that's based on a few different factors, one of the major factors being your stardex completion. In other words, the more starmon you discover or catch, the higher your trainer level. It'd take a few more things into account, like how far you've progressed through the story and how high your starmon's levels are. We don't have a purpose for the trainer level yet (other than it being a nice bragging tool on your trainer card), but we'll implement something.
I also like the suggestions you made for achievements . I don't know if we'll actually put achievements in the game (we haven't really talked about it yet), but they could be used for some kind of "Trainer Club" sidequest type thing.
150 + The Special Mew-like ("Event") Starmon is the plan. I think I already have enough models, or am missing at most 10-15 and Im sure I'll find some (If I'm not grossly overestimating our numbers and will indeed be that close, there'll be nothing that can stop me from going for that number)
Well, achievements mean more bank space used, but I guess we can try and fit a good amount of them in. Still, I'd stick to achievements that are actual achievements, and not just stuff that happens within 30 mins of playing (Will comment on all your suggestions in the quote below)
So yeah, in essence, I don't want achievements that will be "accidentally" gotten within 10 minutes of starting the map, but I don't mind achievements you'll get sort of naturally at some point in the game (amount of money earned, healed, damage dealt, etc.) as long as it doesn't happen insanely early.
Achievements will probably be pretty far down on our priority list though. There's just so much stuff we want to add simply for this thing to work properly and look polished... Achievements will likely be added in the final phases of development if we decide to go with them.
Also wanted to mention my plan here (Dunno if I discussed it with him, might have but he probably forgot as we never really discussed it in depth):
The genetics lab will not be fully unlocked immediately. It'll be tied to your stardex progression. Your help in the scientists research (by cataloging starmon with the stardex) will have an actual impact. For example, Reveal 30 species and you unlock "EV viewer", Capture 30 species and you unlock "EV Manipulator" (Not final name, not even the placeholder name, I just made that up right now), reveal 50 for IV viewer, capture 50 for IV rerolls, stuff like that. We could even tie certain stardex functions to it (Like being able to view move sets, EV rewards, base XP reward, XP table, etc.)
Yea, those are great achievements ideas :) Can't do the "Walk X steps" though since we aren't counting steps and movement isn't grid based.
We were thinking about allowing the use of the stardex mid-battle, we just have to see how exactly we're going to implement it.
I'm trying to keep the starmon types related to their looks, but almost all of them are dual type and the second may be harder to guess (It's easy to guess that Krabby is water, guessing the rock part is harder. We've actually got a krabby like starmon). In addition to that, starmon names are colored in the narration box/combat log/whatever its called with the color of their first type (Which again doesn't help with dual types) (Move names are colored as well btw)
We want to add a good amount of random events/repeatable quests, but map size limitations are going to limit the amount of things we can implement. We really want there to be a lot to do, but we're not sure yet just how much we can fit in.
And sorry, no safari zone for exactly that reason :( We can shove quests and stuff into regular terrain, but safari zones just require map space reserved only for them :/
Like TheAlmaity said, space is limited and there's only so much we can add. But my goal is definitely to have enough quests so that you always have at least a few in your quest log throughout the whole game.
If you do want to grind, the Arena fights are all repeatable, so it's available if you'd prefer to level that way. The story missions will likely be spaced at least a couple levels apart, so if you only did story missions, you would likely be under leveled. We'll probably tie the story progression to your Arena rank in some way, so that will help people level themselves up.
Speaking of quests, I made a bunch of improvements to the quest system. One thing that we wanted to ensure was that the player always had something they could be doing, and never felt lost. Given the fact that we also wanted to make this more open-world than real pokemon games, we had a little bit of a problem. So now there's always a "Main Story" section in the quest log, which will point you in the right direction if you want to advance the plot.
If you want to do sidequests, we created what we're calling "The Mentor". We talked about him a little bit before, but I'll repeat it here. Basically, the mentor serves a dual purpose. First, he serves as a walking tutorial if you need it (you can ask him questions about various game systems and he'll give you more information). But second, he's able to recommend quests for you. He picks a side quest appropriate for your level and tells you where it's located.
These systems together should (hopefully) ensure that you never feel lost. If you want to do a story mission, the quest log will say where to go, and if you can't seem to find a side quest, the mentor can point you to one.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but there is a certain Pokemon fan comic that started a new way to play pokemon. Nuzloc mode is like hardcore mode in Deablo. I think an "official" version of this supported by your map would be awesome. Obviously, this would be a low priority before beta. I suppose, this would mean one would need to restart their journey.
But, this is not to important because players can just do it themselves. It would be an achievement to win on Hardcore mode though.
I've watched one of my favourite youtubers play a variant of that mode ;) I'm sure we can add something like that at some point, shouldn't be too hard. Maybe even with customiseable options (So that you can pick only "permadeath" if you don't like force nickname and only capture first per zone and so on).
One issue is banks and bank size. Blizzard allegedly increased the max size to 1 MB, in which case it isn't an issue, but I have yet to see someone test that limit and confirm it. How we save stuff might have to be altered, not sure whether that would be a big issue though since I think we're using only one section for everything atm (Which means we can pretty much just make the section a variable and use different ones for different profiles, easy)
If we can't make multi-profile work, we'll have to overwrite the players usual save file with this if they decide to play it.
@TheAlmaity: Go
Epic! I hope that you can prove the limit is up to a meg before putting in a lot of work that increases the file size.
We're aiming for a reasonably gentle difficulty curve in the world's various zones. I never really liked when MMO's would say "This is a level 15 to 25 zone" but if you went in at level 15, you'd be torn apart. So we scale the level of difficulty for battles to suit the player. We take a bunch of things into account, but we try to make sure the enemies are about the same level as you are, as long as you're in the an appropriate zone for your level. In other words if you're using level 10 starmon in a 15-25 zone, the trainers will scale down to 15, but you'll still be killed pretty easily. But if you're within that level range, the trainers will usually be about your level.
That said, most of our quest-related battles are "Pre-Built" by us, meaning the starmon team of the enemy was hand-picked by us (including levels, move sets, AI level, etc..). So quest-related fights don't "scale" to your level in the same way ordinary trainers do (although any random trainers you run across during that quest will scale as usual), but because we don't open up quests until you're reasonably close in level, you shouldn't run into a difficulty wall. I've also worked on trainer AI in the past, although it's far from complete. We can increase the difficulty of fights by just turning up the AI level on trainers. We feel this is a good tool to make "Boss Fights" harder, rather than just jacking up the enemy's level so it's harder to win. Yes, the champions of the arena will have strong starmon, but so do a lot of other trainers. What will (hopefully) make them particularly challenging is their ability to choose the most effective combinations of moves at any given time.
@Trieva: Go
Map size constraints more or less force smaller zones, so they shouldn't take too long to cross. We're trying to make them feel larger/longer by using things like ledges to block direct paths. How much of the map there will be left to "Explore" is something I'm not sure about - We'll most likely have to use every nook and cranny Moz leaves us for (side-)quests. Still, if the forest he made is anything to go by, there'll be plenty of space to explore, the zones will not feel any smaller than in the pokemon games, and they won't take too long to get through (Plus there's the teleporter system)
Another thing: Zelda seems to be making some great progress on the big thing we want to show off in the video. I think we'll just make it a single video (We'll just use Zolden's model during it to show it off ;) )
Not sure whether he mentioned it in the thread, but he's found a way he can record on good settings with stable high FPS. Once he gets all the systems to work, we set up the quests we need for what we want to show off and I make all the remaining 2D art we need, we should be able to finally deliver the video =D
@Trieva: Go
I actually think caves would be a GREAT idea. Let's be honest no one thoroughly goes through the caves the first time through, running into pokemon every 10 seconds, you can't see everything, trainers, not to mention the puzzling atmosphere. Plus caves would be easy to make, just limit the trainers vision and pow your good.
@JacktheArcher: Go Endless Zubats appearing at every step... Damn I hated that.
Alert! Wall-o-text incoming! :)
While the terrain itself of each zone won't change dramatically (we can't do that properly within sc2) we do a decent amount of randomization. The numer and position of trainers within every zone (and those trainer's classes, levels, and starmon teams) are all randomized every time you play. We also fill each zone with a few hidden goodies. We have a bunch of "potential spawn points" for treasure that we've hidden around, and the game picks a few every time and hides stuff there. The quantity and type of items inside is randomized, with more powerful/expensive items being more rare.
We also have plans to implement random events. These are sort of mini-quests that show up in a zone at random when you load the game. For example, you might come across a wounded starmon you can save to take as part of your team. Or you may stroll into a shop to find that it's the owners birthday and prices are half-off.
We're going to make sure that each zone has at least one pretty rare wild starmon. I don't remember how the original pokedex works, but the stardex provides you with starmon habitats once you've spotted one. Once you've seen a starmon, you'll see it's generalized location- something like "Nocturnal Forest Starmon" or "Enjoys very hot areas". Once you've captured the starmon you can see exactly which zones it spawns in. This should help you track down any particular starmon you have your heart set on. Spawns currently rotate with Day & Night, and we may cause them to rotate with the weather as well (which is randomized on a per-zone basis and cycles every day/night).
We're going to try and pack as much content as we can into every zone. I'm not sure exactly how things will turn out, but we'll try and put some stuff into the game like this. We have one side-quest chain where this one guy travels around the whole map, and you'll find him in various precarious situations he's gotten himself into. Quests like that will hopefully allow us to reuse old zones.
We do too! The sc2 map size limit is really small for RPG's. Keep in mind that we have to have space for a battle arena for each player, and that's with some serious effort on our part to keep things compact. We actually re-build your personal arena to fit the theme of the zone you're in instead of having a separate one for each zone. We haven't set a hard player cap yet (although all of my systems can support up to 15 people, we'll have to see how lag ends up) but with just 10 people that's a ton of space we have to reserve. So whether we like it or not, we're not going to have any gigantic zones.
We're also providing the player with teleporters to use (and those are available almost immediately after completing a low-level quest), so traveling to any previous zone should be quick, regardless of the actual distance. We plan on opening up the world more than the pokemon games. Once you complete our "introductory stuff", which consists of a few tutorial quests, we're going to open up 3 or so zones immediately. The story will follow a particular path but you're free to go wherever you want and do the sidequests there.
Caves are cool! But again, we're super tight on space. If we have extra space available, we might add a cave. There's lots of things we'd like to add (Safari, caves, gigantic evil lairs, large cities, huge ocean zones) but we just can't fit them.
We could add repel if it's needed. Technically speaking it'd be easy enough to add, although it would need to be based on time or distance moved rather than steps taken (because our movement isn't on a grid). Although because of the teleporters, you won't need to travel through tons of grass to get places.
Yes, it's looking good. I know we've been teasing announcements of bigger announcements for a while, but we've had to keep pushing things back. This system took way longer for me to get in than I had planned, then Maity's computer wasn't working, then I had technical problems giving me terrible FPS, etc.... But barring any more unforeseen obstacles or gigantic bugs we're back on track and just about ready to record.
Squee! Oh god, I love having that guy in a story. "What'd you do this time? Buy snake oil from a mobster, then ask for a refund?"
@Trieva: Go
The arena is unlocked almost instantly (After the very short tutorial quest)
As trainers are completely randomized, we can't really save which ones you defeated in the first place as the next time you'll load up the map there'll be completely different trainers. So to get a "rematch" you'll simply have to start the map over again (Although we can probably reset trainers ever 2-3 ingame days or add some other rematch mechanic for playing a single session)