Football Manager 2011 (30h) - Steam reckon's 70 hours this fortnight, but I know there was times I left FM11 going while I did other things. I'd even had it going in the background as Cam played Civ, so I'm thumbing about 30 hours of actual play time.
Finished Conference South in 2nd and managed to claim the promotion spot. Now with 18 new signings we're settling into a mid-table position. Hopefully there's some extra spark to take the team further, but even a year in conference won't be too bad as div2 looks a big step up indeed.
Dungeon Demo (2h) - Played the demo to see how it compared to notorious. Couple of interesting takeaways:
- They have an avatar in the game constantly
- area is controlled instead of assuming it is yours
- Heroes are encouraged to take treasure to mak them happy, then you bleed them of happiness to power spells. A somewhat convoluted way of converting money into mana.
- Instead of blocking off dungeons ala TD, dungeon structure is more about enticing the heroes further in.
Rift (2h) - New MMO I'm betatesting.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Vintage display ensures Woking victory
Woking 2 - 1 Dover Athletic (Blue Square Bet South Playoff Final)
Woking taught Dover Athletic a lesson at Kingfield Stadium this afternoon.
Striker Leighton McGivern gave Woking the lead with a real poacher's effort in the 21st minute. An error from Dover's Tom Wynter allowed centre-back Adam Doyle to score a good header from just inside the six-yard box. Striker Adam Birchall had a chance to score from the penalty spot for The Whites on the 38 minute mark but missed his spot-kick.
He was able to make amends for his miss however by scoring an accurate finish after 77 minutes.
Talented manager Veeyar Bones has been at Woking for 7 months, having joined them in October 2010.
Attendance: 3,705
Bones praised by Woking faithful
Fans of Woking were justly proud after the team gained promotion from the Blue Square Bet South.
Fans and pundits alike were unanimous that the person responsible for the team's success was Veeyar Bones.
One fan commented that with Bones at the helm he felt that anything was possible.
Starting unemployed, I joined Woking at about October with the promotion candidates languishing down in 15th. Cleaned up the Back-room staff and brought in one or 2 players to turn the season around, with a comfortable 2nd in the league and an easy 5-2, 2-1 finals campaign to get the promotion. Now to clean house with the players to get the finances back on track.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Teaching week 2 & 3
It seems like Friday of week A has enough spares that I can set time aside for reflection, so a bi-weekly summary might be enough until I can get everything else under control. Hopefully this will be a couple of updates a week once I settle on a format I'm comfortable with.
With week 3 done, most classes are now firmly into the topic for the first term. I've had to take a reality check with most of the subjects, as I'm simply unable to implement all the changes I wanted this year. For some classes I might have another opportunity to get stuff ready by 2nd semester, but for now I'm a little disappointed that I have to 'lean' on textbooks to get through.
The reason for the cutback is pretty simple. Time. My initial intent was to stay back after school and prepare everything for the next day before heading home. I seem to work well in a work environment, even if it means working until a problem is complete rather than working up to a certain time. When I used to work from home as a contract programmer I found it hard to get going (too many games?), but once I'm in the zone late at night, I'd work into the wee hours of the morning. With a rigorous timetable, the late nights will need to go...
Time. The first couple of weeks were pretty crazy with a lot of extra time devoted to getting changes to the work program in place, but I was expecting it would settle down by, say, about now. It doesn't look like it's happening though. Most nights I'm still here after 6pm just covering the basics for the next day or responding to issues or emails arising from the day. I need to bail by then so that I still get to have Dinner with the kids, but even that's been missed more often than not. I'm left with an option I wanted to avoid, take work home. Recently it's also been exacerbated by meetings for school council and youth ministry cutting short the preparation time at the school. There's more meetings on the horizon too, so it's only going to get worse.
All the new teachers to the school gathered on Monday to discuss any issues, and although there were a dozen new teachers to the school, only 2 of us were first year teachers. The prognosis about the workload seemed to be confirmed: Yep, that's natural when you're starting off. You will get better at it, but it might take a couple of years. Probably 5. Holidays also came under the firing line and it was revealed from long-time teachers that only the Christmas holidays allowed you to actually relax. The other times you're still in 'teacher mode'.
Getting used to this 'teacher mode'. Always a teacher. Always...
With week 3 done, most classes are now firmly into the topic for the first term. I've had to take a reality check with most of the subjects, as I'm simply unable to implement all the changes I wanted this year. For some classes I might have another opportunity to get stuff ready by 2nd semester, but for now I'm a little disappointed that I have to 'lean' on textbooks to get through.
The reason for the cutback is pretty simple. Time. My initial intent was to stay back after school and prepare everything for the next day before heading home. I seem to work well in a work environment, even if it means working until a problem is complete rather than working up to a certain time. When I used to work from home as a contract programmer I found it hard to get going (too many games?), but once I'm in the zone late at night, I'd work into the wee hours of the morning. With a rigorous timetable, the late nights will need to go...
Time. The first couple of weeks were pretty crazy with a lot of extra time devoted to getting changes to the work program in place, but I was expecting it would settle down by, say, about now. It doesn't look like it's happening though. Most nights I'm still here after 6pm just covering the basics for the next day or responding to issues or emails arising from the day. I need to bail by then so that I still get to have Dinner with the kids, but even that's been missed more often than not. I'm left with an option I wanted to avoid, take work home. Recently it's also been exacerbated by meetings for school council and youth ministry cutting short the preparation time at the school. There's more meetings on the horizon too, so it's only going to get worse.
All the new teachers to the school gathered on Monday to discuss any issues, and although there were a dozen new teachers to the school, only 2 of us were first year teachers. The prognosis about the workload seemed to be confirmed: Yep, that's natural when you're starting off. You will get better at it, but it might take a couple of years. Probably 5. Holidays also came under the firing line and it was revealed from long-time teachers that only the Christmas holidays allowed you to actually relax. The other times you're still in 'teacher mode'.
Getting used to this 'teacher mode'. Always a teacher. Always...
Monday, February 07, 2011
GameLog 183 & 184
Teaching-constrained gaming looks like it's going to be the norm for the forseeable future.
Football Manager 2011 (25h) - Finally got the full version. Started off unemployed and landed a spot at Woking in Conference South. I think they were supposed to be conference or maybe even div2, so it's been a pretty easy road to bring them out of the doldrums and almost into promotion contention. Some VERY nice deals landed a div1-worthy goalkeeper and a couple of loaners to prop up the wings and forwards. A bit over budget, but I'm confident we'll do enough to get the promotion.
Rift (15h) - New MMO I'm betatesting. Plays like WAR, but with dynamic public quests. Would be very interesting to explore more fully if I had the time.
Football Manager 2011 (25h) - Finally got the full version. Started off unemployed and landed a spot at Woking in Conference South. I think they were supposed to be conference or maybe even div2, so it's been a pretty easy road to bring them out of the doldrums and almost into promotion contention. Some VERY nice deals landed a div1-worthy goalkeeper and a couple of loaners to prop up the wings and forwards. A bit over budget, but I'm confident we'll do enough to get the promotion.
Rift (15h) - New MMO I'm betatesting. Plays like WAR, but with dynamic public quests. Would be very interesting to explore more fully if I had the time.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
Sentimentality: an interesting choice?
Recently Ben published his list of attributes and features for the Game That He Would Like To Play. This is a ramble on one facet; Sentimentality as an item statistic. I don't know where it's going to end up, but it feels like a topic worth exploring.
The trigger text:
I, too, enjoyed ego items in angband. They were never the most powerful items you could get, but the agency they gave you in helping shape the weapon you require made them very desirable in the mid game, and certainly helped you connect and appreciate the item more. Sentimentality is certainly a neat way of attaching an in-game mechanic to an external feeling. They also happened to be a great money sink as each new ability cost more and more.
One of the problems with ego items from a gameplay standpoint is that if they are too powerful, there is no need to keep looking for other items as you have the best in the game. Each new weapon found from then on in would simply be an inconvenience, or a resource to convert to money at best. If it's inconvenient, then why have it in the game at all?
A while ago I read another article by the developer of 100 rogues on the decision to cut out the store because it didn't actually add any interesting choices. This is kind of the same topic, but from the other side. Keith saw that a game should be stripped down to a series of interesting choices, and attempted to remove any such items or game devices that seemed to get in the way. My comment on 100 rogues was that the removel of the shop didn't increase the set of interesting choices, but simply moved the same choice to the point of pickup, rather than at the point of sale once you know there is no shop.
Once you know. That's another part of analysing gameplay. It may take a number of playthroughs of a game to realise that there are elements that are simply not required. I played many, MANY games of 100 rogues with a full inventory out of sheer habit. True, I didn't come across a shop, nor did I ever actually use anything that I was carrying, but in my mind they were somehow intrinsically useful. I had to make an interesting choice as to whether the item on the ground is better than any item in my backpack (and shuffle around accordingly), with a glimmer of hope that upon completing the whole dungeon there would be a shop or possibly just a highscore modified by the loot picked up. Realising that this wasn't to be the case meant that there was no point carrying items that you had no intention of using, and therefore the item found on the floor lost their interestingness unless it competed successfullly with the items I was currently wearing.
Once you know. I've been playing ToME4 recently and have been noticing that the game is intentionally set up to be replayed. Not only does the game slowly expose other races and classes to play, but knowledge gained in previous plays can change the way you play it on subsequent visits. Once I'd cleared the starter dungeons, Bree is inundated with lightning elementals, which in turn leads the story through to a large boss battle with predominantly lightning damage. My mage had been cruising up until that point, but with no resistance to lightning damage the game got incredibly hard. My next play through as a fighter, I kept an eye out for lightning resistance items to help get past this stage. Items that may have been deemed useless in the first play through are now worthwhile, but do they warrant space in the backpack (and the weight limit) to carry through until they are needed? An interesting choice. I know most roguelikes have this type of player knowledge vs character knowledge mechanic (and some could say that it's the hallmark of a roguelike embodied in permadeath), but ToME4 seems to make it more front and centre with a more scripted experience.
On the point of ToME4, I have also stopped playing recently as a new patch removed the ability to sell items at the store. My lament was exactly the same as with 100 rogues; all it does is remove another avenue for making an item interesting (to gain money for that once-in-a-lifetime deal in a shop), and leaves the decision squarely at the point of pickup. I used to prize a girdle of carrying to give my characters more lugging power, but now you may as well just go for a resistance girdle as the only things worth retaining are gams with 0 weight and artifacts.
So back to sentimentality. As long as we're prepared to give up a reduction of choice from items, maybe there are other benifits to be gained from having sentimental items? Maybe (in a Daikatana-like fashion) the item leveling is a mechanic itself that allows for lots of variability, and that the player more or less stays with 1 item for the duration of the game? Is making an item more personal and meaningful worth it?
Recently I picked up Football Manager 11. I'd played the demo when it came out and didn't seem to be too much different from FM10, so I thought it'd be Ok to skip this year's incarnation (or at least wait for a steam sale). A number of personality oriented games had me pining for FM again, so I fired up the demo and saw how far the game had come in making the people in the game more alive. In the demo I'd received some recommendations from my back-room staff that a player wasn't performing and needed a rest. With the new interaction system I invited the player into my office for a conversation. I started off by stating what my back-room staff picked up, that he needed to have a rest due to poor performance. He responded negatively and said that he thought his performance was Ok. My options in the conversation tree were somewhat limited in how to respond, one giving an ultimatum, one conceding, and one somewhat concilliatory. Still relying on the advice of my staff, I thought that the lad just needed some discipline so I gave the ultimatum. His tone turned sour. "I don't like the way I've been treated, I'm not sure I made the right choice coming here". Hmm, wait a minute. This was someone I just put on? Upon looking at his record for the month he'd been with us his performance had been Ok. I can see why he's upset and now here I am, stuck in a room with a person that has legitimately claimed to be mistreated. The options in the dropbox weren't pretty either, so I'd effectively scuttled my relationship, and thus the performance of this player for the team by not paying attention and investing time to know the players.
On the other side of the coin were a number of players that, through multiple seasons of winning against all odds and massaging them through games with half-time and full-time talks, had me down as their favourite person. It's hard letting go of someone that has you as their favourite, even if that's the most economically sound thing to do. Both of these scenarios indicate that there is intrinsic value to develop a relationship or increase sentiment with in-game objects without the need for bonuses. Or is the game giving bonuses by allowing players a little extra oomph if I'm their favourite coach? You can certainly help prolong a winning streak by keeping everyone's morale high. I don't get the feeling that a player, through sheer sentimentality, will stay with the team all the way from Conference South up to the Premiership. The emotional attachment still is evident in the game, and the game encourages and rewards sentimentality, but not at the expense of the core mechanic of continually needing to search for the next big star.
The trigger text:
Rather than having players continually searching for new better items like in Borderlands I’d like them to all be like the Angband ego artifacts that level up as they are used, slowly getting more magical and more powerful. The longer the avatar uses a weapon type the sharper and sturdier it becomes because the avatar looks after it. This maintenance is a part of the weapons skill.
Also the avatar becomes used to the weight and feel of the weapon and so grows sentimentally attached to it, after certain time periods they notice new places that magical gems can be placed to give the weapon special abilities, like firebrand.
I, too, enjoyed ego items in angband. They were never the most powerful items you could get, but the agency they gave you in helping shape the weapon you require made them very desirable in the mid game, and certainly helped you connect and appreciate the item more. Sentimentality is certainly a neat way of attaching an in-game mechanic to an external feeling. They also happened to be a great money sink as each new ability cost more and more.
One of the problems with ego items from a gameplay standpoint is that if they are too powerful, there is no need to keep looking for other items as you have the best in the game. Each new weapon found from then on in would simply be an inconvenience, or a resource to convert to money at best. If it's inconvenient, then why have it in the game at all?
A while ago I read another article by the developer of 100 rogues on the decision to cut out the store because it didn't actually add any interesting choices. This is kind of the same topic, but from the other side. Keith saw that a game should be stripped down to a series of interesting choices, and attempted to remove any such items or game devices that seemed to get in the way. My comment on 100 rogues was that the removel of the shop didn't increase the set of interesting choices, but simply moved the same choice to the point of pickup, rather than at the point of sale once you know there is no shop.
Once you know. That's another part of analysing gameplay. It may take a number of playthroughs of a game to realise that there are elements that are simply not required. I played many, MANY games of 100 rogues with a full inventory out of sheer habit. True, I didn't come across a shop, nor did I ever actually use anything that I was carrying, but in my mind they were somehow intrinsically useful. I had to make an interesting choice as to whether the item on the ground is better than any item in my backpack (and shuffle around accordingly), with a glimmer of hope that upon completing the whole dungeon there would be a shop or possibly just a highscore modified by the loot picked up. Realising that this wasn't to be the case meant that there was no point carrying items that you had no intention of using, and therefore the item found on the floor lost their interestingness unless it competed successfullly with the items I was currently wearing.
Once you know. I've been playing ToME4 recently and have been noticing that the game is intentionally set up to be replayed. Not only does the game slowly expose other races and classes to play, but knowledge gained in previous plays can change the way you play it on subsequent visits. Once I'd cleared the starter dungeons, Bree is inundated with lightning elementals, which in turn leads the story through to a large boss battle with predominantly lightning damage. My mage had been cruising up until that point, but with no resistance to lightning damage the game got incredibly hard. My next play through as a fighter, I kept an eye out for lightning resistance items to help get past this stage. Items that may have been deemed useless in the first play through are now worthwhile, but do they warrant space in the backpack (and the weight limit) to carry through until they are needed? An interesting choice. I know most roguelikes have this type of player knowledge vs character knowledge mechanic (and some could say that it's the hallmark of a roguelike embodied in permadeath), but ToME4 seems to make it more front and centre with a more scripted experience.
On the point of ToME4, I have also stopped playing recently as a new patch removed the ability to sell items at the store. My lament was exactly the same as with 100 rogues; all it does is remove another avenue for making an item interesting (to gain money for that once-in-a-lifetime deal in a shop), and leaves the decision squarely at the point of pickup. I used to prize a girdle of carrying to give my characters more lugging power, but now you may as well just go for a resistance girdle as the only things worth retaining are gams with 0 weight and artifacts.
So back to sentimentality. As long as we're prepared to give up a reduction of choice from items, maybe there are other benifits to be gained from having sentimental items? Maybe (in a Daikatana-like fashion) the item leveling is a mechanic itself that allows for lots of variability, and that the player more or less stays with 1 item for the duration of the game? Is making an item more personal and meaningful worth it?
Recently I picked up Football Manager 11. I'd played the demo when it came out and didn't seem to be too much different from FM10, so I thought it'd be Ok to skip this year's incarnation (or at least wait for a steam sale). A number of personality oriented games had me pining for FM again, so I fired up the demo and saw how far the game had come in making the people in the game more alive. In the demo I'd received some recommendations from my back-room staff that a player wasn't performing and needed a rest. With the new interaction system I invited the player into my office for a conversation. I started off by stating what my back-room staff picked up, that he needed to have a rest due to poor performance. He responded negatively and said that he thought his performance was Ok. My options in the conversation tree were somewhat limited in how to respond, one giving an ultimatum, one conceding, and one somewhat concilliatory. Still relying on the advice of my staff, I thought that the lad just needed some discipline so I gave the ultimatum. His tone turned sour. "I don't like the way I've been treated, I'm not sure I made the right choice coming here". Hmm, wait a minute. This was someone I just put on? Upon looking at his record for the month he'd been with us his performance had been Ok. I can see why he's upset and now here I am, stuck in a room with a person that has legitimately claimed to be mistreated. The options in the dropbox weren't pretty either, so I'd effectively scuttled my relationship, and thus the performance of this player for the team by not paying attention and investing time to know the players.
On the other side of the coin were a number of players that, through multiple seasons of winning against all odds and massaging them through games with half-time and full-time talks, had me down as their favourite person. It's hard letting go of someone that has you as their favourite, even if that's the most economically sound thing to do. Both of these scenarios indicate that there is intrinsic value to develop a relationship or increase sentiment with in-game objects without the need for bonuses. Or is the game giving bonuses by allowing players a little extra oomph if I'm their favourite coach? You can certainly help prolong a winning streak by keeping everyone's morale high. I don't get the feeling that a player, through sheer sentimentality, will stay with the team all the way from Conference South up to the Premiership. The emotional attachment still is evident in the game, and the game encourages and rewards sentimentality, but not at the expense of the core mechanic of continually needing to search for the next big star.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Teaching week 1
At the end of Week 1 into the journey of high school teaching I'm a little stressed, a little excited at the opportunities, and tired, very tired. I knew toward the end of last year that I'd be revamping the 11/12 work program, but arriving at the school for the first time as a teacher it seems that the 7-10 work program is also inline for an upgrade.
I knew last year that I'd be wanting to use Moodle for most of my courses. The content is largely self-paced already, so having the course work in Moodle allows easier submission / marking than before. Homework wasn't a strong point in the old work program, so moving to moodle will also allow students to continue their work from home, or catch up lessons if missed. The main reason though, is the hope that moodle community hubs have a very big opportunity to bring the diverse leaning environments I would want in a VLE of the future, and I want to be there either as a course creator, a community hub manager, or simply as a teacher with many more options.
Maths has been a dream compared to ICT/IPT. So structured, so precise. The content is still a little steep to get through, but at least you know exactly where you're going and that there's no real wiggle room. I like wiggle room, but I have that in spades through the ICT/IPT shakeup, so having a couple of courses that are largely taken care of has been an unexpected blessing.
Of the 4 classes that have participated in the "Introduction to Moodle" course that I put together, most have had difficulties with technology at some point through the process. New accounts and password resetting eats up a more time than it should, emails are finally being set up properly, but there are still teething issues with that process, and the login process onto moodle itself is not straight forward and needs direct instruction at critical points along the way. One class was completely derailed by student not having access to their documents directory. I know it's teething issues, and I know from being over on the other side of the phoneline that there are legitimate reasons for the hiccup, but it still wiped out all the progress the students could have made during that lesson to establish their moodle access. When technology fails, it tends to fail specacularly, and that 1-2 minute window you have for attempting to fix the issue before the kids lose patience is too narrow to do anything substantial about it while standing up the front.
Thinkin' on your feet? Yep, need that.
I knew last year that I'd be wanting to use Moodle for most of my courses. The content is largely self-paced already, so having the course work in Moodle allows easier submission / marking than before. Homework wasn't a strong point in the old work program, so moving to moodle will also allow students to continue their work from home, or catch up lessons if missed. The main reason though, is the hope that moodle community hubs have a very big opportunity to bring the diverse leaning environments I would want in a VLE of the future, and I want to be there either as a course creator, a community hub manager, or simply as a teacher with many more options.
Maths has been a dream compared to ICT/IPT. So structured, so precise. The content is still a little steep to get through, but at least you know exactly where you're going and that there's no real wiggle room. I like wiggle room, but I have that in spades through the ICT/IPT shakeup, so having a couple of courses that are largely taken care of has been an unexpected blessing.
Of the 4 classes that have participated in the "Introduction to Moodle" course that I put together, most have had difficulties with technology at some point through the process. New accounts and password resetting eats up a more time than it should, emails are finally being set up properly, but there are still teething issues with that process, and the login process onto moodle itself is not straight forward and needs direct instruction at critical points along the way. One class was completely derailed by student not having access to their documents directory. I know it's teething issues, and I know from being over on the other side of the phoneline that there are legitimate reasons for the hiccup, but it still wiped out all the progress the students could have made during that lesson to establish their moodle access. When technology fails, it tends to fail specacularly, and that 1-2 minute window you have for attempting to fix the issue before the kids lose patience is too narrow to do anything substantial about it while standing up the front.
Thinkin' on your feet? Yep, need that.
Monday, January 24, 2011
GameLog 181 & 182
Teaching starting to take its toll on games played.
ToME 4 (35h) - Lots of different characters, but more importantly more inspiration for Notorious.
Football Manager 2011 Demo (12h) - Revisited the 2011 demo and it's a more complete game than what I recalled. More dynamic and alive players, with more personal feel to it. Steam still has it at $90 which is completely unacceptable for a 4 month old game in post-steam-sale times. Found it for $30 in a
Dwarf Fortress (4h) - Few more dwarves. Almost time to dig down.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (3h)
ToME 4 (35h) - Lots of different characters, but more importantly more inspiration for Notorious.
Football Manager 2011 Demo (12h) - Revisited the 2011 demo and it's a more complete game than what I recalled. More dynamic and alive players, with more personal feel to it. Steam still has it at $90 which is completely unacceptable for a 4 month old game in post-steam-sale times. Found it for $30 in a
Dwarf Fortress (4h) - Few more dwarves. Almost time to dig down.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (3h)
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Notorious Scenarios
Here's 2 different scenarios of the way people might play Notorious :
A casual gamer starts off and designates a large cavern to be dug initially. 1/2 way through digging it all out they decide to pick up some gobbos to protect the front door and choose a regenerative contract/agreement. They leave the game for a day, and come back to a completely dug out cavern, in which the gobbos are currently wiping out a level 2 warrior. They tinker with 'Gobfast', the elite leader to help gain a win in the battle. They then review the summary reports and find out that they have managed to kill a level 3 mage at some point (named Dorf the Magnificent) so they are now rated at level 3, and they have had 5 'wipes' by seeing 5 other elite gobbo names in the death register. They go about designating another 3 caves to be dug out, and also upgrades the contract to get more out of the open space that's available.
Next day they have gone through another 7 wipes, but the improved contract means they managed to squeeze the life out of a level 4 druid named Fenris. 1 of the 3 caverns have been dug out, so they go about setting up another regenrative contract in the new area. After viewing a couple of their friend's dungeons, they decide to change the layout a little to set up a trap room first up, as well as a space for tresure toward the back. They also manage to pinch some villiagers to get the digging going. Logging back in the next day they see another 2 rooms have been opened up, but it looks like there's just been a wipe. Instead of waiting for the place to repopulate through the contract, they cancel it and set up a few new ones to try out skeletons instead. The trap room needs a bit of investment, so they raid the villiage for money, then spend it on buying traps. They tinker with exploring a couple of other dungeons before logging off.
An active gamer starts the game and designates a large room. After a couple of minutes poking around they realise that they can get in villiagers to help dig. With virtually no cash, they sign up an ogre with 80% salvage rights in the new space dug out. The ogre is sent off to the villiage to grab some farmers. The ogre arrives back with 5 farmers and they are immediately pressganged into digging. While they dig, the player looks into the rumours and sees that the ogre has attracted attention. He successfully plants a rumour that the ogre headed east instead of south. Most other rumours from the east seem to be also talking about an ogre, so he elects to pay 5 gold to share sight with Rofl, a human invoker heading east. Rofl successfully navigates a trap field (through a map from previous heroes that have wiped the dungeon), but gets nailed by a boss ogre that rushes out of a hidden door. With new information about a neighbour and dungeon layouts, the player then looks into picking up some hidden doors and decides to immediately start building a vault room with secret door instead of finishing the main room.
More rumours surface that the ransom for the missing farmers is now 10 gold each, and Flippit the thief managed to find the dungeon and excape before being pasted by the ogre. Fearing a big attack, the player ransoms the farmers to drop his notoriety and gain some cash. He puts in some low level bandits into the 1/2 built vault, and puts them to work digging. The bandits impression of the player drops pretty quickly and before long they are revolting. they go out into the main hall to protest, but fall victim to an ogre club through the brain. Oh well, at least the ogre is a little more experienced. The player sends out the ogre again to pinch some peasants, while installing a skeleton into the 1/2 built vault. The ogre dies in the attempt, so the player sets up another contract for a goblin elite to stay in the 1/2 dug main hall with up to 5 goblin minions, then logs off. They log on in a couple of hours and the report shows that the goblins managed to kill 5 heroes (Highest lvl 3) before they fell, but the skeletons haven't been touched. The player then goes about recruiting more goblins for the space freed and replacing the skeletons with a paid outright ogre (since the vault has survived and is now large enough to house an ogre).
After the first day, the active player has a little more space due to the farmers in use early, and has been able to react to new information more quickly to advance his dungeon layout. He has also had more fun interacting with the world and other players. The causal player sees greater increases in play between sessions because things set in motion (digging out rooms, etc) have come to pass by the time they log in. If played well (eg; a restarting player), the casual player could be very close to the level of an active player as ultimately dungeon design and size is what opens up higher and higher levels.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Notorious ideas
I've been playing ToME a fair bit recently (mainly due to the automatic uploads ) and have been mulling over whether it's a good platform for Notorious. ToME is module oriented already, and has a demo real time mod already available! It doesn't seem to work on my machine, but the idea that a real time mod is at least known and (supposedly) working at some point is a great start. I'd miss out on the whole facebook gaming and socialisation side of things, but would have a much bigger head start and have a number of roguelike qualities for 'free' that I wasn't intending on using. This is some thoughts on how Notorious would change if developed as a ToME module.
Elites
I had an idea initially that the majority of contracts would be with some colony of orc/gobbos/etc to supply minions at a certain rate and up to a certain limit, but also to be able to set up individual contracts with monsters that 'level up' to champion status. In ToME you already have an elite and boss status for certain monster types, and they are usually able to summon in or be in command of other minions themselves. What if all contracts are to elites or bosses, but given the space allocated and their level, they can automatically control a set number of minions?
Example: An orc elite wants an area of size 20, 50% of all money dropped, and first pick of weapons. For that he'll command up to 5 orcs, and take limited instructions. If any orcs die, he'll call for replacements that appear at the front door and walk to him.
This should make the interface a lot cleaner in that you will only have a small number of elites / bosses that you have limited control over, and your ever-faithful servant. These could be represented as icons with the elite/boss image along the top to quickly jump to them or communicate with them. it shouls also give more scope for personality within the game as you will be dealing with individuals on a regular basis.
Infinite monsters / items
One great thing about going the ToME route is that there would be many MANY monsters and items pre-existing within the game's structure that are at the game's disposal. I'd imagined having random loot drops, but having a whole swathe of monsters to potentially deal with changes the game quite considerably from the somewhat boardgamey feel I was initially thinking of. Now it's getting firmly into the simulator territory ala Dwarf Fortresss mixed with Majesty
Established hero classes
ToME already has a multitude of hero classes / abilities for the hero raiders to draw upon. The background when logging on is an AI playing the game as the hero, so the code for that section is also in place (or at least possible). This was certainly on the drawing board, and I probably don't need heroes built using a skill system such as ToME, but if they are already there and available, it will add an extra layer of realism to the game.
Communication
One of the areas I've been mulling over is how do you (the player) communicate directly to your elites / bosses? Once the agreements are in place you could assume that you have some method of communicating directly to them, but it may be more meaningful / realistic if there was some sort of focus like an amulet/ring of control that you use. This would mean that you can talk directly to them through this device, as well as have the device exert a certain amount of control
over their actions. The more powerful the amulet, the more options you have available without ruining your relationship with them. It also gives a tangible thing for the elites to take off / break if they are rebelling.
If communication happens through a device, then it would make it easier to give the device to a hero for the visibility / communication of exploring other people's dungeons, and also leave a trail of your spying if they were to be captured/killed. It would also give evidence that the dungeon you own is actually yours if you lose an elite and the hero makes it back to town.
A problem with the communication device method is that it lends itself to be a purchasable item, and thus not a sustainable resource that survives a dungeon wipe. I was hoping to use the dungeon size and decor to be the main determining factor of how big an elite you can get as that will not change (much) if the dungeon has been completely raided. If you return to the game and you have nothing left, I want it to be easy to re-establish a couple of elites into the regions that are empty (with the possibility of a totally different cohort of monsters) and get up an going again. Since your notoriety would be largely reset, the first couple of heroes entering your dungeon should be a cakewalk, and there's going to be many, many ways of raising notoriety quickly if you wanted to (town raiding/pillaging, etc). How do amulets of control survive a wipe?
Maybe the amulets are actually quite cheap for the base model (purely communication), but more expensive if you want to add additional control? But if they were cheap, why wouldn't you give one to every single minion? Maybe the amulets are generated only by your loyal servant and have a limit? this seems artificial.
Another way to look at communication is that even if you could speak to anyone, it's your reputation with them that allows you to exert any sort of control over their actions. Establishing an agreement with an elite/boss gives you a certain amount of goodwill that you can then expend through demanding actions. This would fit with my ideas of coaxing an action, not outright control. Additional goodwill can be 'bought' through the additional items / gold on top of your agreement with them, as well as increasing naturally with their general happiness inside the place.
Another way of approaching it is that a certain level of control is built into the agreements with the elites/bosses upon setup. This would give more certainty to the actions you can do, but may involve more staccato agreement re-negotiations rather than a more fluid coaxing.
Wild creatures
I was thinking this morning how you can communicate with base creatures like jellies and worms. Maybe you don't have to? Maybe you have a WildThing-in-a-box vendor that will sell you outright a critter that you can release into an area. This may also be a way for indirect leveling up if you place one inside an elite's are of control?
More ideas bubbling ...
Elites
I had an idea initially that the majority of contracts would be with some colony of orc/gobbos/etc to supply minions at a certain rate and up to a certain limit, but also to be able to set up individual contracts with monsters that 'level up' to champion status. In ToME you already have an elite and boss status for certain monster types, and they are usually able to summon in or be in command of other minions themselves. What if all contracts are to elites or bosses, but given the space allocated and their level, they can automatically control a set number of minions?
Example: An orc elite wants an area of size 20, 50% of all money dropped, and first pick of weapons. For that he'll command up to 5 orcs, and take limited instructions. If any orcs die, he'll call for replacements that appear at the front door and walk to him.
This should make the interface a lot cleaner in that you will only have a small number of elites / bosses that you have limited control over, and your ever-faithful servant. These could be represented as icons with the elite/boss image along the top to quickly jump to them or communicate with them. it shouls also give more scope for personality within the game as you will be dealing with individuals on a regular basis.
Infinite monsters / items
One great thing about going the ToME route is that there would be many MANY monsters and items pre-existing within the game's structure that are at the game's disposal. I'd imagined having random loot drops, but having a whole swathe of monsters to potentially deal with changes the game quite considerably from the somewhat boardgamey feel I was initially thinking of. Now it's getting firmly into the simulator territory ala Dwarf Fortresss mixed with Majesty
Established hero classes
ToME already has a multitude of hero classes / abilities for the hero raiders to draw upon. The background when logging on is an AI playing the game as the hero, so the code for that section is also in place (or at least possible). This was certainly on the drawing board, and I probably don't need heroes built using a skill system such as ToME, but if they are already there and available, it will add an extra layer of realism to the game.
Communication
One of the areas I've been mulling over is how do you (the player) communicate directly to your elites / bosses? Once the agreements are in place you could assume that you have some method of communicating directly to them, but it may be more meaningful / realistic if there was some sort of focus like an amulet/ring of control that you use. This would mean that you can talk directly to them through this device, as well as have the device exert a certain amount of control
over their actions. The more powerful the amulet, the more options you have available without ruining your relationship with them. It also gives a tangible thing for the elites to take off / break if they are rebelling.
If communication happens through a device, then it would make it easier to give the device to a hero for the visibility / communication of exploring other people's dungeons, and also leave a trail of your spying if they were to be captured/killed. It would also give evidence that the dungeon you own is actually yours if you lose an elite and the hero makes it back to town.
A problem with the communication device method is that it lends itself to be a purchasable item, and thus not a sustainable resource that survives a dungeon wipe. I was hoping to use the dungeon size and decor to be the main determining factor of how big an elite you can get as that will not change (much) if the dungeon has been completely raided. If you return to the game and you have nothing left, I want it to be easy to re-establish a couple of elites into the regions that are empty (with the possibility of a totally different cohort of monsters) and get up an going again. Since your notoriety would be largely reset, the first couple of heroes entering your dungeon should be a cakewalk, and there's going to be many, many ways of raising notoriety quickly if you wanted to (town raiding/pillaging, etc). How do amulets of control survive a wipe?
Maybe the amulets are actually quite cheap for the base model (purely communication), but more expensive if you want to add additional control? But if they were cheap, why wouldn't you give one to every single minion? Maybe the amulets are generated only by your loyal servant and have a limit? this seems artificial.
Another way to look at communication is that even if you could speak to anyone, it's your reputation with them that allows you to exert any sort of control over their actions. Establishing an agreement with an elite/boss gives you a certain amount of goodwill that you can then expend through demanding actions. This would fit with my ideas of coaxing an action, not outright control. Additional goodwill can be 'bought' through the additional items / gold on top of your agreement with them, as well as increasing naturally with their general happiness inside the place.
Another way of approaching it is that a certain level of control is built into the agreements with the elites/bosses upon setup. This would give more certainty to the actions you can do, but may involve more staccato agreement re-negotiations rather than a more fluid coaxing.
Wild creatures
I was thinking this morning how you can communicate with base creatures like jellies and worms. Maybe you don't have to? Maybe you have a WildThing-in-a-box vendor that will sell you outright a critter that you can release into an area. This may also be a way for indirect leveling up if you place one inside an elite's are of control?
More ideas bubbling ...
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