Ability to Fly

[dagkurtanderson]

In all my years playing games - Baldur's gate, Icewind, Oblivion, Morrowind, Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, Assasins Creed, KOTR there has only been one that I can remember that at advanced levels allowed you the ability to fly: Might and Magic VII I believe.

 

I understand it's difficult to get it to all work - it's worth it! The ability to fly around to places that you normally couldn't get to on foot is WAY COOL. I'm always hopeful, and alwyas disappointed, whenever I crack open that new game and it isn't there. :|

[Dawn_]

Personally i always feel relieved when i start a game and that you can't fly in it. It simply meant i didn't confuse my RPG game with a superman one.

 

Sarcasm aside, i think this ability fit better a 3D game than an isometric one.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Dawn_

[kenup]

Hmmm..... I'll give you 10/100. Better luck next time.

[UncleBourbon]

Morrowind certainly had it - with a nifty little quest involving a scroll, a philtre and a dead mage. I wouldn't mind flying and such effects, but it would probably be a bit of a difficulty to implement. I think it would add some neat aspects, just like use rope or climb skills might in certain dialog based mini-adventures.

[Freshock]

Personally I hate the idea, but I understand the fun part of it. Still don't think it's gonna fit well with PE, or this kind of fantasy roleplaying genre at all.

[Moirnelithe]

The wishes for this game are getting more outlandish by the day

[bonarbill]

Hmmm..... I'll give you 10/100. Better luck next time.

 

oh screw off. The man has the right make suggestions. Not to mention it is a skill that has been used in many RPGs.

[Amentep]

What's the point of flying in an isometric game? I'd imagine part of the point of an isometric game is not having to worry about a 3rd axis. With pre-rendered backgrounds to accommodate flying you'd at the very least have to create singular maps that were multiple stories high... I don't get it. Am I missing something?

[Tigranes]

I assume it wouldn't have the same satisfaction in an isometric game as it does in something like Morrowind... where it was, indeed, super cool.

[nikolokolus]

So what happens when we fly out of frame? The camera is fixed isometric.

 

If you want to fly pick up Divinity 2 from gog.com.

[jivex5k]

Wouldn't your character fly too high and obscure the entire camera?

Or if he flew too low he would hit buildings?

 

Sounds like you just want a no-clip console command.

[Volourn]

"Personally i always feel relieved when i start a game and that you can't fly in it. It simply meant i didn't confuse my RPG game with a superman one."

 

Yeah, because a flying magic spell or a flying race is Supermanish and doesn't fit it a FANTASY game. L0L That logic don't make sense.

 

The issue with flying is it brings its own issues to development so pros and cons have to be weighed.

 

I love Fly. I also hope the game has spells/abilities akin to dimension door, teleport, passwall, and the like. Coolio beanio.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Volourn

[Keyrock]

Unfortunately flight brings with it a WHOLE BUNCH of extra considerations for developers to spend time and resources on both in and out of combat and including, but not limited to, potential breakage of quests and/or mechanics. The amount of time and effort that would need to be put into considering all these mechanics and consequences would massively take away from other parts of the game. In other words, not worth it within this limited budget.

[Tamerlane]

I demand the ability to shinespark my way past boss fights!

[Uomoz]

2\10 I liked the "OMG" thread more. Move alooong.

[LadyCrimson]

I had fun with flying in Morrowind until I used/mixed too many potions and ended up flying outside of the boundaries of the game in about .5 second or something. Before they had caps on such things. I don't remember. It was funny tho.

 

But agree with the others that I'm not sure if it has a place in a top down, large-party isometric type game. At least not a visual one.

[UncleBourbon]

Unfortunately flight brings with it a WHOLE BUNCH of extra considerations for developers to spend time and resources on both in and out of combat and including, but not limited to, potential breakage of quests and/or mechanics. The amount of time and effort that would need to be put into considering all these mechanics and consequences would massively take away from other parts of the game. In other words, not worth it within this limited budget.

^

This.

I like it as much as the next man - especially in pen and paper. But if you've ever played BG2 with the mod that adds some spells purposefully not included - such as dimension door - you'll notice it can terribly break things. Dimension door is simple: if you can see it, your party can be there (in the mod, anyway). Maybe a script could be added to disallow the use of it if you were in a certain area, or something, but then that subtracts from the power of it. Some things are just too powerful to be balanced without a DM to account for it.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

just become a dragon dragons can fly too

[DocDoomII]

Leave the flying to Morrowind where it was actually cool.

[Volourn]

There is nothing cool in MW. Sorry. Flying was pretty cool in M&M though b/c by the time you got it you often were facing flying creatures or spent a lot of your time inside where it was useless.

[rjshae]

The main benefits of fly and levitate to a mage would be two-fold: to get beyond the reach of melee weapons and to move to places you can't reach as easily through ground movement. It should be possible to simulate either of these capabilities without building an elaborate flying simulator. Flying, for example, could be a point-to-point teleporter with a visual effect. Levitation moves the character slightly higher above their ground marker, accompanied by a visual effect, and adds melee immunity against those on the ground.

Edited October 26, 2012 by rjshae

[UncleBourbon]

The main benefits of fly and levitate to a mage would be two-fold: to get beyond the reach of melee weapons and to move to places you can't reach as easily through ground movement. It should be possible to simulate either of these capabilities without building an elaborate flying simulator. Flying, for example, could be a point-to-point teleporter with a visual effect. Levitation moves the character slightly higher above their ground marker, accompanied by a visual effect, and adds melee immunity against those on the ground.

 

That actually isn't a terrible idea for implementing it. It would probably need some significant tweaking or balancing, but a pre-animated point-to-point short range non-passthrough teleport could be interesting. Then again, it sounds like it would be a lot of work for seemingly little reward. We are talking about some rather innovative developers, however.

[HansKrSG]

In all my years playing games - Baldur's gate, Icewind, Oblivion, Morrowind, Skyrim, Fallout, Mass Effect, Assasins Creed, KOTR there has only been one that I can remember that at advanced levels allowed you the ability to fly: Might and Magic VII I believe.

 

I understand it's difficult to get it to all work - it's worth it! The ability to fly around to places that you normally couldn't get to on foot is WAY COOL. I'm always hopeful, and alwyas disappointed, whenever I crack open that new game and it isn't there. :|

 

I think it would be difficult to this well in a 2d game, but if there is a good way of simulating flight, I say go for it. That said, Daggerfall (The 2nd Elder Scrolls Game, and the best of them in my opinion), have flight, in a 3d-world as big as Great Britain, with no invisible boundaries, it worked very well.

 

EDIT: There was a limit on how high you could go, so I guess there was an invisible boundary.

Edited October 26, 2012 by HansKrSG

[Frisk]

I think there is close to a 0% chance of flying being implemented - there are just too many issues with it. It just does not go well together with a 2.5D game, which presumably will include a walkmesh of some kind - but not a real 3D map of the area, so it is pretty complicated to determine where you can fly and land.

 

It *might* be possible to implement a levitation spell, where you would go straight up and down again, but that could lead to silly situations, like flying through tree crowns or overhanging objects.

 

Those issues are not unsolvable, but fixing them would be complicated - personally I'd prefer that Obsidian spent the effort on something more productive.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Frisk

[Kai]

Had this been a 3d game, then I would've loved to be able to fly, but in a 2d game it's harder to implement and it would probably not feel as awesome as in a 3d game either.

 

One of my favourite things in WoW after all was to shape shift my druid into his flight form and just fly around the world and look down upon the world. Spent the first hours of Cataclysm just flying around instead of questing =)