Movement: walking, flying, digging, jumping, climbing, swimming

[Qumi]

So, any chances for additional types of movement besides walking? Flying might be a bit hard in isometric game, I guess, but jumping, climbing or swimming should be ok?

[IEfan]

ahaha i read moonwalking in the title. Please, gimme moonwalking dwarves... i demand them NOW, Obsidian. Do NOT test my temper.

 

Also, this is a isometric rpg so uuuhh dunno where you got that idea from but maybe there'll be crossable water/river/shore/shallow terrain, who knows. Climbing with platemails, huh.

Edited September 21, 2012 by IEfan

[dandelion]

Climbing and swimming could work, but jumping? Climbing the buildings would be a cool feature, in thieving/assassination quests when you have the option to find another entrance to the building/escape route, but making it would require a lot of work.

[Pidesco]

implementation would be problematic.

[MReed]

I'm pretty certain that the modes of transportation in this game will be walking and... Walking some more.

 

Jumping, climbing, or swimming only make sense if you are setting up an open world type game, which isn't this game. In a game with tightly woven quests (where 75% of your movement is dictated by "There is a quest to go here", and remainder is driven by "There is a store / inn here") the only reason to include jumping / climbing / swimming would be "The only way to get to finish a quest is to jump / climb / swim." Why design you quest that way (and therefore have to include additional animations, artwork, programming, and so forth) when you almost certainly could design your quest so that you could either walk to where you need to go, or there is a cutscene / "fade-to-black" transition where the alternate transportation mode would otherwise be required?

 

Now, in an open-world game, it is important to allow the player to go wherever they want and then place interesting things there for them to find -- that's a large point of these games, after all. But it just isn't worth the extra work in this type of game.

[eimatshya]

They could maybe have climable buildings like in Jagged Alliance 2 (and maybe extend this to low cliffs, as well), but overall I think the 2D nature of the game will not be conducive to jumping and swimming. I guess you could do some sort of flight similar to what they had in Freedom Force.

 

All in all, this isn't a huge priority for me. Climbing could be kind of fun if shooting down from higher elevation gave archers some sort of bonus like in Final Fantasy Tactics, but overall I'm not sure if it would be worth the resource investment.

 

I would like for it to be possible to climb through windows like in Arcanum, though. That was great for thieves and would help open up multiple solutions for obstacles.

Edited September 21, 2012 by eimatshya

[Ashram]

If this is possible in an isometric game, I am all for it. The more modes of movement the better. At the very least climbing and swimming.

[Metabot]

I was actually going to post a thread about rock climbing and swimming so yea that would be great. I don't know how that would work in an isometric game though.

[HungryHungryOuroboros]

I cold live with a mage or Shaolin Warrior type who has an out of combat power to hover and move faster. Mechanically the same as walking but with a magical hovering animation.

[Piccolo]

Climbing would be great as a character skill, if it's not too tricky to implement. It could really open up a lot of roleplaying possibilities....

[septembervirgin]

If flying can be considered "floating very swiftly" then this could be done. Agile flight might be beyond present budget and nostalgic interest.

[LadyCrimson]

I think based on what little I can glean, even if you could implement such things, most of it would probably look and feel kinda ... awkward. So I'm going to guess no. There was horse-riding in the 3/4 top down Sacred but it was, imo, horrible.

[qloher]

Climbing and swimming could work, but jumping?

They could maybe have climable buildings like in Jagged Alliance 2 (and maybe extend this to low cliffs, as well), but overall I think the 2D nature of the game will not be conducive to jumping and swimming.

Diablo 2, the Barbarian class.

[licketysplit]

All for climbing and swimming. In a top-down view it would be pretty cool actually.

[LadyCrimson]

Diablo 2, the Barbarian class.

Yeah, depending on what they're going to do with the engine, small stuff like that is possible, but I don't think you'll be climbing up walls or swimming through a lake.

 

"Isometric" has become such a generic term to the public, now, vs. what I think it is technically...depends on what Obsidian wants it to mean.

[teknoman2]

jumping would be fairly easy... you just add an animation to the character, and set the 2D obstacles that are low enough as jumpable so the character can pass over them.

swimming is also easy. you just add the animation and merge the model with the water background

digging is also easy so long as you dont mean minecraft digging. you just have to put an animation and change a sprite in the terrain

now climbing and flying would be trickier, cause they would need a change in perspective to be done in a more complex manner, unless done automaticaly through a skill check. you click on a climbable wall, and if the character can climb it, the screen goes dark for a moment and the next thing you see is the character on top or on the other side of it ready to resume the game. flying would just take a zoom out and you would have to click on where to land. then the camera would zoom in and your character will be walking on that spot

Edited September 21, 2012 by teknoman2