PnP opposition schools?

[Endarire]

@temnix
Water breathing is in potion form in ToB for one dungeon.

[temnix]

On 7/12/2020 at 5:44 AM, Endarire said:

@temnix
Water breathing is in potion form in ToB for one dungeon.

And Stone Shape or another druid spell like that is on a scroll for one quest in Icewind Dale, I hear. What's your point?

I, on the other hand, have made a real spell for traveling under the ground and under walls, usable anywhere. I don't know if I have it anymore, but maybe I should get back to it. That's a real change. But I'm all too aware of limitations of this engine and game concept. Not only doesn't the engine have, say, destructible environments (which some games around the same time already did have, with trees to burn down and so on), which would make immense difference, but the games are structured as pop-up books, with fixed sets and tasks to go from A to B to C. No company has even tried to represent any of the richness of real role-playing experience. Which is not wholly impossible, using text at points, minigames, things like that. But I have gotten over the regret.

[Jarno Mikkola]

3 hours ago, temnix said:

Not only doesn't the engine have, say, destructible environments (which some games around the same time already did have, with trees to burn down and so on), which would make immense difference,

Hmm, if they can't do a proper destructable enviroment even today, then how do you suppose they did in the past 20 years ?

What am I talking about, well yes the Rampage 1986 had a "destructable enviroment" as part of it's appeal, but in there the enviroment aka the buildings were part of the essential gameplay. And yes, I know the XCOM had destructable enviroment too, or say Worms... but, back to the today talk, no they can't do it properly even today, see the Crackdown 3... it was promised to have "fully destructable enviroment", but it didn't. Why, the game engines don't allow seemless architectural liberty, without a need to sacrifice something else. The BG2 for example chose to push for a static enviroment, so it was easier to make them. Try and make a 3d enviroment of all the games spaces and you'll be swarmed... yes, that can be done, but did they run that game on a 1998 PC ? Spoilers, no. So there...

And yeah, tasks from a to b to c ... those are a bit more easy to do than say witcher 3's quest line interactivity, but there again you have to think what all this means in costs.

[temnix]

1 hour ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

And yeah, tasks from a to b to c ... those are a bit more easy to do than say witcher 3's quest line interactivity, but there again you have to think what all this means in costs.

Nobody here can tell what interactivity costs today, let alone 20 years ago. Fully destructible environments are probably not feasible, especially if every kind of feature is going to have a wrecked version: smashed lamp posts and so on. Obviously none of this could even be attempted in a 2D game. But trees as objects that can be turned into stumps with fireballs, stone blocks made to appear and disappear with spells, fillable lakes or making new holes in the ground - this is not beyond the mechanics of a 1998 game. It was just not attempted by Bioware and Black Isle for their engine. They chose a very simple scheme, pulling sprite figures over parts of sprite backdrops flagged as passable. That's all that happens in these games, and all that can be done. Maybe money really was the reason, as simple as that. As I said, I got over my disappointment with these games mechanics - unlike with their players and modders. But it's a sorry situation that there is no other game to make stuff for unloaded by gameworld assumptions and style. I don't care to make mods for Skyrim or Witcher, even if my computer could run them. Neverwinter Nights' Aurora was supposed to be the toolset for fantasy world-making, but NWN and the sequel would have needed many, many more object models, and be better games in their own right.

Ardanis is right, the solution is to get the hell out of the rut and found your own developer company. Or stop complaining, and I managed this recently very nicely. I don't know about the others here, but since this "community" isn't going anywhere, no new ideas are coming in and we can't make a world of our own, I'm tying up loose ends, finishing the last mods and packing up.

[Endarire]

@temnix
What about the Divinity Original Sin series?  What about Minecraft?

(I know we're off-topic here.)

Edited July 29, 2020 by Endarire

[Caedwyr]

5 hours ago, temnix said:

Nobody here can tell what interactivity costs today, let alone 20 years ago. Fully destructible environments are probably not feasible, especially if every kind of feature is going to have a wrecked version: smashed lamp posts and so on. Obviously none of this could even be attempted in a 2D game. But trees as objects that can be turned into stumps with fireballs, stone blocks made to appear and disappear with spells, fillable lakes or making new holes in the ground - this is not beyond the mechanics of a 1998 game. It was just not attempted by Bioware and Black Isle for their engine. They chose a very simple scheme, pulling sprite figures over parts of sprite backdrops flagged as passable. That's all that happens in these games, and all that can be done. Maybe money really was the reason, as simple as that. As I said, I got over my disappointment with these games mechanics - unlike with their players and modders. But it's a sorry situation that there is no other game to make stuff for unloaded by gameworld assumptions and style. I don't care to make mods for Skyrim or Witcher, even if my computer could run them. Neverwinter Nights' Aurora was supposed to be the toolset for fantasy world-making, but NWN and the sequel would have needed many, many more object models, and be better games in their own right.

Ardanis is right, the solution is to get the hell out of the rut and found your own developer company. Or stop complaining, and I managed this recently very nicely. I don't know about the others here, but since this "community" isn't going anywhere, no new ideas are coming in and we can't make a world of our own, I'm tying up loose ends, finishing the last mods and packing up.

Its true that the IE games have always been quite restrictive in what is able to be modded.  Back in the day they had an advantage of much of the file structure being open to modders in a way that many other games were not, and in being moddable without requiring significant artistic or 3D modelling skills.  The big draw was often more on the narrative side of things and very much focused around creating mod content that fit into the existing story.  There's a reason why Total Conversions generally stalled out before completion or tended to be of lower quality.  There are other games that are much easier to mod those types of systemic overhauls or changes in.

In many ways, games like Minecraft (though it has a very specific style), Mount & Blade, XCom, Arma, Skyrim, GTA, Fallout are your other main options here, but they all are generally constrained in many ways in what you can do.  Outside of this, you pretty much have to be getting into games that have made the source code available like Freespace 2 and those types of games are even rarer.

Your best bet might be to look at this list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_video_games_with_available_source_code

And see which game would work as the best framework for what you want to do. 

It sounds like you've got the right approach in hand for figuring out what is the best fit for your interests and I wish you luck.

[temnix]

@Endarire @Caedwyr This really is off-topic. The author is getting garbage notifications, if he is subscribed to this thread. I will just say that it's a complicated situation technically, culturally and personally. Ultimately I may just be unhappy that videogames don't permit the freedom of live games and storytelling and that the strengths of the genre that represented this freedom uniquely have been sapped away over the years. But there is also a dark cloud of oppression hanging over the whole world, it has been getting denser, and no one is going to escape its shadow - writers, inventors, artists, musicians all feel it interfering with their dreams and thwarting their hopes. This could make a pretty good game plot, but we're living in one now.

[dukdukgoos]

So... PnP opposition schools? I'd still like to see it implemented. It would be fun to play Edwin, Dyna, Xzar, and the other specialist mages as they were intended in the original rules (not horribly OP, that is). It would make the tactics richer too as having specialists really focus on their specialty would be essential.

[Jarno Mikkola]

9 hours ago, dukdukgoos said:

So... PnP opposition schools? I'd still like to see it implemented.

Of which edition ? Or you could just make your own list or quote one... the one in my post could be good... but it requires a bit of adjustment, like say like moving a few abjuration spells to non special / prime arcane school, so anyone could dispel spells. As without Spell Strike or Breach, a mage is really useless in a lot of cases with fighting other mages. Say like try a gnome party... as the mages are all illusionists. And thus without breach according to the new rules.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Jarno Mikkola