Od Nua and mini-game (Roguelike?)

[Merlkir]

FFS. The point is - the guy explained what he wanted very clearly, there was no reason to bring up Diablo. And no, the graphical style allows for plenty of randomness and yes, I think they could do a very simple roguelike minigame extending the Endless Paths.

 

Nobody asked for a Diablo clone, he clearly states his understanding of the adjustments that would have to be made to the graphics.

[Dream]

FFS. The point is - the guy explained what he wanted very clearly, there was no reason to bring up Diablo. And no, the graphical style allows for plenty of randomness and yes, I think they could do a very simple roguelike minigame extending the Endless Paths.

 

Nobody asked for a Diablo clone, he clearly states his understanding of the adjustments that would have to be made to the graphics.

 

What he asked for was the definition of Diablo.

 

Also tell us how, exactly, they can create "a very simple roguelike minigame" that doesn't look ugly as sin?

Edited December 28, 2012 by Dream

[Merlkir]

Also tell us how, exactly, they can create "a very simple roguelike minigame" that doesn't look ugly as sin?

 

I said nothing about its looks. Roguelikes by their nature have a specific look. Duh, tiles. It CAN be done, they'll already have plenty of graphics assets, rendering them in tileable form is a matter of hours, days at most.

If one decides to play a roguelike minigame, one does not expect it to look like the other locations in the whole game.

 

If you weren't such a troll, you'd not keep making up stuff on top of "I was wondering whether (either in this game or in the expansion) it would be possible to consider leaving a "secret entrance" to levels below 15 that are randomly generated with increasing difficult monsters and sort of act like a "rogue-like" mini-game?".

Because the answer to OP's idea is "Yes, it is entirely possible."

[Dream]

Also tell us how, exactly, they can create "a very simple roguelike minigame" that doesn't look ugly as sin?

 

I said nothing about its looks. Roguelikes by their nature have a specific look. Duh, tiles. It CAN be done, they'll already have plenty of graphics assets, rendering them in tileable form is a matter of hours, days at most.

If one decides to play a roguelike minigame, one does not expect it to look like the other locations in the whole game.

 

If you weren't such a troll, you'd not keep making up stuff on top of "I was wondering whether (either in this game or in the expansion) it would be possible to consider leaving a "secret entrance" to levels below 15 that are randomly generated with increasing difficult monsters and sort of act like a "rogue-like" mini-game?".

Because the answer to OP's idea is "Yes, it is entirely possible."

 

So a condition of roguelike games is to look ugly as **** now as well? Is that more or less important than infinite levels and absolute randomness? If I had to guess it's more important since Nethack didn't have the last two, right?

 

Beside that, are you honestly telling me that what you think the OP was looking for was an atrocious looking easter egg cobbled together in a few hours? Really?

[Merlkir]

Sorry, if you insist on "rephrasing" what I write, I won't be wasting more time with you.

[Dream]

Sorry, if you insist on "rephrasing" what I write, I won't be wasting more time with you.

 

I'll give you points for being decent at ducking out of losing arguments.

[Lephys]

I'll give you points for being decent at ducking out of losing arguments.

 

You can't win this battle, Merlkir. Dream is the only one fighting this battle, and therefore always has the high score.

 

This would be a cool thing, so long as they have the resources to achieve it once all the higher-priority stuff is done, regardless of what game it most closely resembles, or how difficult it is to make it prettier than sin (obviously if it couldn't be done without being ugly as sin, they wouldn't do it.)

 

Of course, how dare anyone discuss something that has the possibility of not being viable. Dangit... I keep accidentally going to the prophecy forum instead of the discussion forum! Cursed memory... u_u

[Osvir]

Some thoughts~brainstorm.

 

Random generated levels? As in, Level 1, then Level 5, level 3, Level 8 etc. etc. on one playthrough but on another it's mix-matched again. Or it could be a part of a puzzle, a sort of "3 Levels Loop" into infinity and you have to solve the trap that you are in, and when you figure out that you are by use of [Trigger] you set off the next set of the trap, which could be causing the floors being sucked into a black hole or something. A sense of urgency.

 

Likewise, encounters could be treated like this as well to spice it up even further. On one playthrough you are facing another set of monsters on the floor than in another playthrough etc. etc. I think that's the most simplified way to give Od Nua a "random" feature.

 

The more complicated and mathematical way to do it is "Tiles".

 

Tiles are really good and cool but how do you make a tile set out of a picture game like the IE games?

 

This is one way, picture is not meant to be pretty, just simplified:

 

It would require lots of different parts of buildings, roads, trees, doors etc. etc. to be cut apart and how do you random generate that together with something else?

 

The Sewers in Baldur's Gate could possible be random generated if you could cut it up into pieces and be some sort of mathematical architecture of programming. This is all related to development fluff, depends on how they do it.

 

Is Hector going to draw everything first and then cut it all to pieces? Putting it that way kind of makes it sound cruel, but I think it could be beneficial to have some sort of tile system in-design, being able to click and draw different textures to create a "map".

 

This is nothing but a texture, technically. A very pretty texture and a piece of art too

 

A tile could possibly be that bridge, and the roadier dirt could also be one. Shore edges, trees. Statues, waterfall etc. etc. maybe be able to draw out the bridge easily, edit in photoshop or other similar program, throw it back in and voila. Perhaps remove the bridge and add more of the dirty road to the front? Perhaps that small hedge covering the water up to the edge of the cliff. Drag the shore up to edge and you get this concept below.

 

 

I admit, I did polish a little bit, so it wasn't "flawless" entirely. That's why it should be easy to extract textures, modify quickly in photoshop, then throw it back in again.

 

I'm in favor of the randomness of level generation that Diablo has, but to some extent maybe a whole world is created rather than everything changing every time I "log on"/boot up.

 

I wonder if Obsidian could randomly generate tons of maps by code that they could base the art on as well, the mathematical aspect, tying piece B to piece G that is a completely different look etc. etc. what is compatible with what? How much polish? Etc. etc. A "Polish" function in some sort of Toolkit?

Edited December 29, 2012 by Osvir

[Merlkir]

I think you're going for a bit too small and oddly shaped needlessly unique tiles. The advantage of dungeons is that they're often quite geometric in shape, there's some kind of symmetry. The basic units are corridors and rooms. The way games like Skyrim handle tiles (because they do use tile sets, believe it or not) is exactly that - bits of corridors, doors, turns etc etc. And you can do multilevel tiling - tile bits of basic architecture together and then tile smaller items inside those tiles as another layer, to create unique looking content inside the large architectural pieces.

And of course, tiles don't necessarily have to be square shaped, there's a whole field of geometry/math dealing with tile/pattern generation.

 

By traditional design, a location has to be fitted into a square or a rectangle, which makes things easier, as we can divide those into a variety of shapes.

 

Of couse, another way to do it would be procedural textures painted and blended inside of procedurally generated shapes, at least for the very basic architecture. That would work well for what you English speaking people call "organic" areas like woods, clay tunnels, swamps and so on.

 

edit: so in your example, the basic land and water are generated, the bridge and statues are another lever of tiles over them, as are all the grass patches, bushes and so on. Of course blending them properly so that there aren't seams would be a bit of a challenge, but it can be done.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Merlkir

[Osvir]

Could tiles and models deploy some sort of "iceberg technology"?

 

 

Y = Model/Tile

W = Image

Z = Player perspective

[Merlkir]

I have no idea what kind of lighting model Obsidian use, but I think they could work like that indeed. You need to account for clipping and render order, but most engines do that pretty well nowadays.

[Hormalakh]

Hey guys, just checking in on this thread. Some very cool ideas and I'm hoping some future modders can work this out. I'm really having high hopes for this game, and if all else is good, a RL mod would be awesome.

 

As for Diablo, I've played Diablo before and I never thought of Diablo as a rogue-like. So there's that. I still don't think Diablo is a roguelike, but to be honest, I've only started getting into the RL scene, so I'm not sure what defines a true "rogue-like." Anyway, most people have understood what I meant here, so that's cool.

 

A true endless path would be endless It's meant to be a fun mini-game - one where you can never win... (or can you?) No, no you can't.

Edited December 30, 2012 by Hormalakh

[PrimeJunta]

What defines a true "rogue-like." Hur. Blood has been spilled over matters less weighty than this.

 

Speaking as an aficionado of roguelikes rather than someone with an authoritative dictionary, roguelike-ness includes features like

 

- dungeon crawler

- procedurally generated dungeon that's different on every playthrough (some fixed areas and fixed loot allowed)

- single character

- single player

- fully turn-based

- permadeath

- swords & sorcery

- keyboard controlled

- ASCII graphics based (optional tilesets replacing characters are allowed)

- open-source

 

Purists will require all of the above. Others may feel that a game qualifies as roguelike even if it compromises on a couple of them. IMO Diablo has enough roguelike features that it can be meaningfully classified as one, although I can certainly understand why somebody might object. I think it depends partly on where you're coming from. If you're approaching it from the roguelike direction, as it were, its roguelike features are pretty obvious; OTOH if you're approaching it from the "isometric graphical cRPG" direction, maybe less so.

 

Have you tried the Falcon's Eye mod for NetHack? You might be surprised at how "Diablo-like" it feels, although all it does is switch to tiled isometric POV and add a mouse-driven interface, with all other gameplay features intact.

[Karkarov]

Speaking as an aficionado of roguelikes rather than someone with an authoritative dictionary, roguelike-ness includes features like

 

- dungeon crawler

- procedurally generated dungeon that's different on every playthrough (some fixed areas and fixed loot allowed)

- single character

- single player

- fully turn-based

- permadeath

- swords & sorcery

- keyboard controlled

- ASCII graphics based (optional tilesets replacing characters are allowed)

- open-source

 

Purists will require all of the above. Others may feel that a game qualifies as roguelike even if it compromises on a couple of them. IMO Diablo has enough roguelike features that it can be meaningfully classified as one, although I can certainly understand why somebody might object. I think it depends partly on where you're coming from. If you're approaching it from the roguelike direction, as it were, its roguelike features are pretty obvious; OTOH if you're approaching it from the "isometric graphical cRPG" direction, maybe less so.

Well Junta....

 

- Dungeon Crawler = Yes Diablo is a dungeon crawler.

- Procedurally Generated = Diablo has a lot more than "some" areas that violate this but let's let it slide

- Single Character = Uh... sort of, you can have more than one save at a time. That is not Roguelike.

- Single Player = Not Diablo, in fact Multi Player is a definitive component. Definitely not very Roguelike.

- Fully Turn Based = Diablo doesn't meet this criteria, not Roguelike.

- Permadeath = Only if you turn it on in Diablo but not by default, not Roguelike.

- Swords and Sorcery = This isn't even required in my opinion but yes Diablo is swords and sorc.

- Keyboard Controlled = Not Roguelike, you could play Diablo with a controller even if it wasn't the "optimum" way.

- ASCII Graphics = Blatantly not Roguelike but this is also a silly rule so we will let it slide.

- Open Source = Yeah Diablo, it isn't open source. Not Roguelike.

 

And the one you forgot...

- No Dedicated Towns, Merchants, or Rest Areas = Definitely not a Roguelike.

 

Going down that list it is pretty obvious Diablo might be inspired by Roguelikes but it definitely is not a Roguelike itself.

[Dream]

Well Junta....

 

- Dungeon Crawler = Yes Diablo is a dungeon crawler.

- Procedurally Generated = Diablo has a lot more than "some" areas that violate this but let's let it slide

- Single Character = Uh... sort of, you can have more than one save at a time. That is not Roguelike.

- Single Player = Not Diablo, in fact Multi Player is a definitive component. Definitely not very Roguelike.

- Fully Turn Based = Diablo doesn't meet this criteria, not Roguelike.

- Permadeath = Only if you turn it on in Diablo but not by default, not Roguelike.

- Swords and Sorcery = This isn't even required in my opinion but yes Diablo is swords and sorc.

- Keyboard Controlled = Not Roguelike, you could play Diablo with a controller even if it wasn't the "optimum" way.

- ASCII Graphics = Blatantly not Roguelike but this is also a silly rule so we will let it slide.

- Open Source = Yeah Diablo, it isn't open source. Not Roguelike.

 

And the one you forgot...

- No Dedicated Towns, Merchants, or Rest Areas = Definitely not a Roguelike.

 

Going down that list it is pretty obvious Diablo might be inspired by Roguelikes but it definitely is not a Roguelike itself.

 

Pretty much all the ways it's not are due to the fact that Diablo is a modern interpretation of the genre. "True" Roguelikes are free (or, at most, the cost of a cheeseburger) because "ultra-niche" wouldn't even begin to describe the genre. Call of Duty and Far Cry 3 are about as far from Doom and Wolf3d as you can get, but they're still shooters.

 

Also which of that list would apply to an infinite dungeon in P:E but not Diablo.

[PrimeJunta]

Er, Karkarov. NetHack has dedicated towns, merchants, and [safe] rest areas. Minetown has a guaranteed set of shops, a co-aligned temple with a priest is a guaranteed safe rest area, as is your quest's starting level. So by your excluding criterion, NetHack is not a roguelike.

[Karkarov]

Er, Karkarov. NetHack has dedicated towns, merchants, and [safe] rest areas. Minetown has a guaranteed set of shops, a co-aligned temple with a priest is a guaranteed safe rest area, as is your quest's starting level. So by your excluding criterion, NetHack is not a roguelike.

What a fine deduction you made there Junta. NetHack isn't a roguelike either is it? Or more accurately, if it is, it is Roguelike-Light. Like the recent Dungeon's of Dredmor unless you crank up the difficulty. Like really high.

 

Too many people think Roguelike's are RPG's. They aren't. They are arcade games with RPG elements and more complicated rules. Like Galaga, just no shooting. You aren't playing to win, you are playing to get a high score. There is no need for stores or dedicated rest area's, you are supposed to die sooner or later.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Karkarov

[PrimeJunta]

Uh. NetHack isn't a roguelike. Right.

• rec.games.roguelike.nethack on Usenet
  
• Chronology of roguelikes on Wikipedia
  
• Description of NetHack from Wikihack: "NetHack is a roguelike computer game, and the most famous and popular of its kind."
  
• Description of NetHack from Wikipedia: "NetHack is a single-player roguelike video game originally released in 1987."
  

Seriously, NetHack is one of the first roguelikes -- it, Larn, and Moria are pretty much the games that made the term necessary. Sheesh!

 

Edit: I most definitely am playing to win. In rogue, you win by finding the Amulet of Yendor somewhere around level 26, and then returning back to the surface with it. In NetHack, you're still looking for the Amulet of Yendor, only it's way deeper and you have scads of other stuff to do before getting it, and you have a different endgame. There may be roguelikes with no victory conditions, but they're certainly less typical of the genre.

 

Edit edit: Okay, strictly speaking, Hack is the original roguelike; NetHack is a direct descendant of Hack that came out five years later. Yeah I've ascended (=won) both.

 

Edit edit edit: Whee, Wikipedia is fun:

 

..., according to 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish, action role-playing games such as Blizzard's hugely successful Diablo can be considered types of roguelikes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way (in real time) through increasingly difficult monsters and obtain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generateddungeons to complete quests.[1] Salon.com's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizzard's designers readily acknowledged their debt to Nethack and other Roguelikes".[6] Moreover, the permanent death feature of the roguelike is retained in Diablo 2's hardcore mode...

Edited January 1, 2013 by PrimeJunta

[Karkarov]

Edit edit edit: Whee, Wikipedia is fun:

 

..., according to 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish, action role-playing games such as Blizzard's hugely successful Diablo can be considered types of roguelikes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way (in real time) through increasingly difficult monsters and obtain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generateddungeons to complete quests.[1] Salon.com's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizzard's designers readily acknowledged their debt to Nethack and other Roguelikes".[6] Moreover, the permanent death feature of the roguelike is retained in Diablo 2's hardcore mode...

Ah but Junta I must now use my most powerful tool! (I said that in a Schwarzenegger accent outloud just now) Any college professor will tell you that once you have had to fall back on Wikipedia you have already lost!

 

That said it is a semantics debate and you might as well call any game with a "hardcore" mode a Roguelike if you are going to say Diablo is one. I can understand an argument for Diablo 1, even though it would be wrong, but Diablo 2, Diablo 3? No. You would be beyond reaching to say Diablo 3 is a Roguelike. Being inspired by Rogue is one thing, actually being Rogue, totally different. I can see the inspiration part, but they clearly are not the same genre when they are totally different purely based on mechanics alone.

[PrimeJunta]

Are you saying I edited that article all for nothing? Curses, foiled again.

[Dream]

That said it is a semantics debate and you might as well call any game with a "hardcore" mode a Roguelike if you are going to say Diablo is one. I can understand an argument for Diablo 1, even though it would be wrong, but Diablo 2, Diablo 3? No. You would be beyond reaching to say Diablo 3 is a Roguelike. Being inspired by Rogue is one thing, actually being Rogue, totally different. I can see the inspiration part, but they clearly are not the same genre when they are totally different purely based on mechanics alone.

 

How can you even argue what is and isn't roguelike when you don't even know what Rogue is?

 

 

You aren't playing to win, you are playing to get a high score. There is no need for stores or dedicated rest area's, you are supposed to die sooner or later.

 

Except the game has a distinct goal and a way to beat it; it's not q*bert.

[Karkarov]

 

How can you even argue what is and isn't roguelike when you don't even know what Rogue is?

You know Dream it is funny but every time I see you posting lately it is to try to instigate another flamewar. In this case how about we just say we did and let the actual posting part slide?

[Dream]

You know Dream it is funny but every time I see you posting lately it is to try to instigate another flamewar. In this case how about we just say we did and let the actual posting part slide?

 

You're the one telling people they're wrong about things without actually knowing anything about them. It's generally a good idea to do some research before spouting off misinformation as if it were fact. Saying **** like "Nethack is roguelike-light" is just asinine when it's one of the games that defined the genre (it's probably the most famous roguelike of all, perhaps even more so than Rogue itself). It's the equivalent of saying "Heretic is not really a Doomclone."

 

But you know what, it's my bad for not being nice like PrimeJunta who's actually trying to entertain your ridiculous statements and educate you.

[Karkarov]

You know Dream it is funny but every time I see you posting lately it is to try to instigate another flamewar. In this case how about we just say we did and let the actual posting part slide?

 

You're the one telling people they're wrong about things without actually knowing anything about them. It's generally a good idea to do some research before spouting off misinformation as if it were fact. Saying **** like "Nethack is roguelike-light" is just asinine when it's one of the games that defined the genre (it's probably the most famous roguelike of all, perhaps even more so than Rogue itself). It's the equivalent of saying "Heretic is not really a Doomclone."

 

But you know what, it's my bad for not being nice like PrimeJunta who's actually trying to entertain your ridiculous statements and educate you.

Let me spell it out for you. Much of what I say in my above posts is just me kidding around. I am now going to stop doing that. So let me speak plainly.

 

Since you want to be a douche about it if you think a game that 1: Is not turn based, 2: has Permadeath as an option not a rule, 3: has multiple save files, 4: allows and in fact encourages multiplayer, 5: has no food management or any other meaningful resource management, 6: recently went so far as to introduce a real money auction house, 7: is completely action / twitched based combat, 8: has straight up PvP, 9: the actual goal is to farm loot, 10: etc etc etc is a roguelike then I hope you are ready to start arguing that XCom Enemy Unknown is one too. God knows it has more in common with Rogue than Diablo does.

 

Anyone with half a slice of logic can see some inspiration was taken from those games for Diablo but I say again, being inspired by a game does not mean you are the same game. Or is KotOR 2 actually a racing sim, it does have racing mini games after all. Clearly it was inspired by racing games so must be a racing game too?

 

Also let me respond to this laughable statement:

1UP.com's Jeremy Parish, action role-playing games such as Blizzard's hugely successful Diablo can be considered types of roguelikes, due to their similar premise: players slash their way (in real time) through increasingly difficult monsters and obtain treasure while traversing deeper into randomly-generateddungeons to complete quests.[1]

 

Hmmm sounds a bit like a Brian Fargo game I heard of.... Yeah... Called Hunted: The Demon Forge. Odd thing is that game is played in third person, designed for co op, has no permadeath, and is purely action based even having cover shooter mechanics. But it must me a roguelike considering it has players slashing their way (in real time no less) through increasingly difficult monsters and obtaining treasure while traversing deeper into randomly generated dungeons to complete quests.

 

You see what I did there? Nostradamus has made predictions that were less generic than Jeremy Parish's justification for why Diablo is a Roguelike.

 

Or is Dot Hack a roguelike now too? I mean it doesn't have perma death but it does have random levels, slashing your way through increasingly difficult enemies in real time, while traversing randomly generated dungeons to find treasure and complete quests. I can do this at least 20-30 more times no problem.

 

Lets not forget this either:

Salon.com's Wagner James Au attested that, when he visited their offices, "Blizzard's designers readily acknowledged their debt to Nethack and other Roguelikes".[6] Moreover, the permanent death feature of the roguelike is retained in Diablo 2's hardcore mode...

 

First off "debt" implying inspiration or help, not implying being the same genre. Permadeath is retained! Sure it is only in an optional mode most people don't use but that doesn't matter, does it? It isn't like it does all those other things I already listed that are completely different from Roguelikes. Nope definitely has no co op, no player versus player, it isn't real time either, surely you cant trade items with other players, you must be locked into one save at a time too right, oh wait none of that is true. Diablo 2 is even less of a roguelike than Diablo 1 was in case you somehow missed it.

 

Or we can go to a real gaming website not crapipedia and look at something actually relevant.

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/roguelike/92-1065/

 

Well looky there. Looks like there actually IS a codified list of what makes a roguelike made by professionals not random guys from 1up.com and forum users. Looks like Diablo fails at least half of it, shocking. There is a pretty long list of games that are supposed to be roguelikes and diablo is listed, but then again so are games like Lufia 2: Rise of Sinistrals. Maybe it is just me but putting one optional random dungeon in a traditional JRPG doesn't turn the JRPG into a roguelike, and if Diablo is a roguelike why isn't Torchlight? Hmmm... logic again....

[PrimeJunta]

The correct definition of 'roguelike' is serious business.