Guaigean

Partly that is due to the unrealistic aspects of many games. Players run away all the time, what stops an NPC? I realize that not a lot of games do it, but what stops them from starting. Innovation is the key to keeping the public interest. That and useless flashy graphics to distract the mob.

Sadly this is true, and has a tendency to create a slaughter fest rather than roleplay. What I was going for in mine was more of the fact that people don't always fight to the death. I think that is a problem that occurred in the game world over time. Many people if faced with death or running away will run away. Some games do this, and as a poor example even Everquest NPC's flee when they are severely hurt. In large battles, it would be very common for people to slip away while the player is too busy fighting off other things. As far as implementing the code. All it would require is adding an array to each faction, and doing a single function call at the end of each combat loop where people got away. Could be added to pre-existing code without too much of an issue as long as its designed modularly.

I mean for RPG's. Although its rare, some NPC's manage to run away and get away with it. Whats to stop them from relaying information back to their unit? It just seems like an added twist, and an encouragement to make sure that if you do pick a fight, you better finish everyone off. I'm not saying it should know in advance, I'm saying it should pick up things as it goes. At the beginning of each game, the enemy would start with a fresh knowledge base, and it would grow as the game progressed. I don't want to pretend to know what the character has, I want the NPC's to actually figure it out based on hit and run style tactics. Even in my P&P days, you didnt always finish off the enemy. Whats to stop them from building up and coming at ya again after knowing your weaknesses. As far as programming this, it'd be fairly simple. Each faction could just have an array or struct or class (whatever you're familiar with) and it would be dynamically changed after every encounter where an NPC survived and got away.

Ok, one thing that's always gotten me, is going through a game the second time or so, and the enemies always have the same abilities and use the same attacks. (Roughly). I would like to see enemies with a high Intelligence that escape the player be able to contribute this knowledge to a basic database of player strengths and weaknesses, evolvable over time. It would have to be too complicated either. Something along the lines of... If the player gets hit with a big cold spell, and takes a lot of damage, then you add a counter to the cold weakness, and it becomes more and more likely the AI in that "Faction" will use this. I've been playing with the idea for a game demo Im working on for employers, but its a free enough idea that using it wouldnt come to any infringement. Then these counters would be polymorphic, and could change throughout the game. Intelligent enemies would have a higher chance than less intelligent enemies to notice these flaws. Just seems like a fun way to add more difficulty and generate an evolving gameplay. P.S. If devs want to hire me for my extreme skills in coding and idea creation, I'm willing After I finish college...

Hmmm, ignoring Mods. Ya may not have to be told when to quit, but then ya wouldn't have any explanation when the account poofs.

Everything is a competition

Was a rare occasional poster on BIS. But with the fall of the true BIS Studio, it seems fairly pointless to make suggestions if they aren't listened to. Now I'm here.

And if it was a college game, you might just manage to keep the P.T.A. off your back. Also, it'd open you up to things like frat wars, keg competitions, and more.

Wow, what a huge argument to occur in a two hour time frame... And I thought I checked the board a lot.

There's a history behind it. Originally you had to license it for everything. Then, KDE began distributing their system, which is built extremely on Qt. They distributed it so widely and freely that the people making Qt (TrollTech) couldn't stop it. So, they figured they'd free it to all Unix/Linux users, as long as any software produced under the free license was released ONLY under the GNU License. Any work started under the free version, must not ever be converted to commercial software, as it is considered to follow all rules of the GNU. So, in otherwords, if you ever plan to use any products which use Qt for commercial use, you have to start it with a pre-purchased license. But, if all you want to do is make free software, then you can use the free *nix version all you want. Just remember the requirement of releasing source code under the GNU. As far as I know, there is no "Free" version for either Windows or Macintosh, as Trolltech stated since they are both proprietary bodies, they have no interest in free knowledge, and therefore Qt used on those machines is considered for proprietary use. Although they may change their views on this eventually.

I'm still wondering how this got morphed so strangely. We go from someone hurting themselves to a discussion on the objectivity of psychological and medical prepubescent masturbation. I don't see the correlation myself, but hey... I'm a CS major, not a doctor.

Postscript and Forth both have their benefits, and their own mentality. Nice stuff though for automated generation of images, and quick to learn. ... Guess I'll toss in my languages since I started this whole thing. C, C++, Python, Perl, PHP, Bash, Java, Javascript, Coldfusion, Postscript and then the HTML/XML/Misc Web Junk (Apache is too much of a stretch so I won't even try claiming that one). Heavy experience in Qt and OpenGL for cross platforming. Um, there's more rattling around in there somewhere. I'll figure em out eventually.

http://www.palladiumbooks.com/ That's if ya wanna hear what the makers have to say. Don't be fooled by the website, it's a fairly good game and the site doesn't do it justice.

Great, don't feel alone now. Although I don't have 18 yrs under my belt.

I'm just curious how many of you are programmers (i.e., C, C++, ASM, etc...). Not the dev's, just the users. Just trying to get a grasp on if people know how realistic some of the requests they make are.

Well, I guess the thread is called "Way Off-Topic". There's more rapid changes of conversation in here than a room full of ADHD kids.

Well if it's Canada it's definitely "a foul hive of scum and villainy". But as far as QA jobs, could be fun for a while, as long as ya could move up quickly.

That would be the hardest part is balance, but thats true for any new world too. Even if it wasn't a specific copy, a similar storyline would be easy to reproduce. Futuristic chaotic world, rebuilding after a nuclear holocaust situation, which caused portals from other worlds to open and integrate earth with infinite numbers of dimensions and planets. And ya could probably go so far as to have the same anti-human style faction which attempts to erradicate all non-human life. Plenty of freedom with the idea.

I think Gorth might be on the right track. A bit of a twist on words allows them to carry the same basic title, with no copyright issues.

No, but now that Pearl Harbor is out Im sure everyone knows about it. If it isnt in a movie, its lost knowledge.

Well, whatever it is, its coming from a good developer. If they happen to be hiring more, well, it could just mean that the project has become bigger than imagined, not necessarily that there's more than one. Either way, hiring usually means the free resources to pay more people, which means they're probably heading in the right direction.

True, an original is always preferable. Something with a large following can be a mixed blessing. The hardcores find you never meet enough of the environment, and the casuals dont know enough to appreciate it. But, it would be nice to see something with such a richly developed world come to life. Its too bad your first experience with it was so bad, but as with any similar game, the crowd and GM make or break it.

I know of all the time I spent playing RPG's, my favorite environment has always been Rifts. I think the people of Obsidian could do an amazing job with this in maybe a 3D style RPG, possibly mixing action and roleplay to attract a wide variety of people. The only tough part is convincing Palladium Books owner Kevin Siembeda to release the rights.