Can we make suggestions to the game engine?
Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:34 am
With the current state of Andor's Trail there are 3 main types of suggestions:
1. Additional new content for stuff that the engine supports - items, quests, maps, graphics
2. Changes for content that the engine supports - items, quests, maps, graphics
3. Additional RPG elements that the engine should support - NPC targetting, NPC artificial intellignce, pathfinding, crafting, magic system, dynamic sprites that turn based on sprite sheets, character gender, paper dolling, combat animations, weather layers for maps, music, sound effects, graphical mirroring, sprite layer changing, multiplayer, internet-based anything, etc, etc, etc...
The last noted is the most difficult to do because it isn't just changing a few things here and there, but most of them require complete reworking of the base game engine - something that essentially is an empty shell for building an entire game off of.
A lot of the ideas that I have posted fall in category #3. Others have posted substantially great concepts, but they do not fit within the scope of this game...which brings me to the scope of this game.
Clearly this is not an open source project for a game engine...it is an open source project based around a main storyline, with characters, NPC's, items, maps, quests, etc. That being said, the dynamics of what the engine will support in the finalized version needs to be layed out, in detail, in order to inform the volunteers the limits of what they are allotted to suggest.
Everyone on here has real lives, families, jobs, and other hobbies. The time spent on furthing the game is done so on a very timeline free ranged basis in order to keep development going and peoples commitments in order. And not everyone volunteering time on here is a programmer, meaning they have to not only hope their idea fly's over well with the community, is accepted by the developers, someone takes the time to implement their idea, then whenever the next release comes it may or may not be in there...
Formalizing the idea submissions was an attempt to organize the ideas suggested into proper categories for better clarity to members of the forum here, who seem to have tons of great ideas. Yet a lot of traditional RPG elements are not in the game, which people request to be included (or some variation thereof), and are abruptly turned away because the idea doesn't go along with the game...in turn, the elements that the engine will support should be publicly available in written detail, in order to keep the focus of volunteering efforts on the same line as the engines development.
And yes, I know all about the Design Outline. It is a paper written by Oskar on the generalized areas of the game. However, a Design Document will explicitly list everything in detail for #3 that the engine will support...this is a coding practice that streamlines programming because then people know exactly what the game will support for its final version. This has nothing to do with the main storyline either, although it could be included so additional side quests can be written to appropriately flow with it rather than contridict it or over shadow it making the main storyline seem pointless.
There is a lot I would like to see in this game, but I am not a Java developer which I have stated many times. My experience is in C# and VB.NET, in and which I have written several personal independant games during my time in college studying Multimedia & Game Design. I am a very organized person, which is why I was Secretary of the Game Design Association at my school...however, my time was focused on learning games for career advancement, and other younger group members were focused on playing Halo 2 and Call of Duty instead of actually producing something, so the group fell apart into the now Gamers Association. Now that I have 2 autistic boys to work with all the time, my programming days are essentially gone because it takes too long to be involved with...everything else I do doesn't require the same level of attention that programming does, or I'd still be pounding away on my desktop. That's about all I feel I should share of a background on myself.
At any rate, this my new topic for discussion so that once all areas are addressed I can go back to assisting with wherever I can help out for the game.
1. Additional new content for stuff that the engine supports - items, quests, maps, graphics
2. Changes for content that the engine supports - items, quests, maps, graphics
3. Additional RPG elements that the engine should support - NPC targetting, NPC artificial intellignce, pathfinding, crafting, magic system, dynamic sprites that turn based on sprite sheets, character gender, paper dolling, combat animations, weather layers for maps, music, sound effects, graphical mirroring, sprite layer changing, multiplayer, internet-based anything, etc, etc, etc...
The last noted is the most difficult to do because it isn't just changing a few things here and there, but most of them require complete reworking of the base game engine - something that essentially is an empty shell for building an entire game off of.
A lot of the ideas that I have posted fall in category #3. Others have posted substantially great concepts, but they do not fit within the scope of this game...which brings me to the scope of this game.
Clearly this is not an open source project for a game engine...it is an open source project based around a main storyline, with characters, NPC's, items, maps, quests, etc. That being said, the dynamics of what the engine will support in the finalized version needs to be layed out, in detail, in order to inform the volunteers the limits of what they are allotted to suggest.
Everyone on here has real lives, families, jobs, and other hobbies. The time spent on furthing the game is done so on a very timeline free ranged basis in order to keep development going and peoples commitments in order. And not everyone volunteering time on here is a programmer, meaning they have to not only hope their idea fly's over well with the community, is accepted by the developers, someone takes the time to implement their idea, then whenever the next release comes it may or may not be in there...
Formalizing the idea submissions was an attempt to organize the ideas suggested into proper categories for better clarity to members of the forum here, who seem to have tons of great ideas. Yet a lot of traditional RPG elements are not in the game, which people request to be included (or some variation thereof), and are abruptly turned away because the idea doesn't go along with the game...in turn, the elements that the engine will support should be publicly available in written detail, in order to keep the focus of volunteering efforts on the same line as the engines development.
And yes, I know all about the Design Outline. It is a paper written by Oskar on the generalized areas of the game. However, a Design Document will explicitly list everything in detail for #3 that the engine will support...this is a coding practice that streamlines programming because then people know exactly what the game will support for its final version. This has nothing to do with the main storyline either, although it could be included so additional side quests can be written to appropriately flow with it rather than contridict it or over shadow it making the main storyline seem pointless.
There is a lot I would like to see in this game, but I am not a Java developer which I have stated many times. My experience is in C# and VB.NET, in and which I have written several personal independant games during my time in college studying Multimedia & Game Design. I am a very organized person, which is why I was Secretary of the Game Design Association at my school...however, my time was focused on learning games for career advancement, and other younger group members were focused on playing Halo 2 and Call of Duty instead of actually producing something, so the group fell apart into the now Gamers Association. Now that I have 2 autistic boys to work with all the time, my programming days are essentially gone because it takes too long to be involved with...everything else I do doesn't require the same level of attention that programming does, or I'd still be pounding away on my desktop. That's about all I feel I should share of a background on myself.
At any rate, this my new topic for discussion so that once all areas are addressed I can go back to assisting with wherever I can help out for the game.