Brick by Brick: RL Programming Dynasty

[Cap Ologist]

I started playing online RPGs in January of 2005. My first RPG was Omerta, a grueling and addicting mafia game that seemed at times more like a job than a diversion. Players raced against each to gain higher ranks by committing crimes and smuggling booze and drugs.

The Omerta world was controlled by powerful families that were essential to survival in the game. Alignment with the right family could mean the difference between becoming a godfather or a never-was. Loyalty to the family was essential.

The double-edged sword of Omerta was how death was handled. When you died, you would have to restart completely. All ranks you had gained were wiped out. This led to the feverish desire to rank harder to make yourself harder to kill, because there were no safe zones to play in. However, it also meant that the desire to cheat would rear its ugly head frequently.

The second game I played was Syrnia. Syrnia was a walk in the park compared to Omerta. Instead of having to constantly monitor the game, you had to enter a code every 15-20 minutes. Death in Syrnia was handled quite differently than Omerta. When you died, you only lost the possessions that you were carrying at the time. There was no restarting from scratch, and there were two ways of dying. One, by attacking a NPC monster, the other by PvP. However, the PvP area was typically deserted and never emphasized enough in the game. Syrnians could band together to form clans, but for the most part, the typical Syrnian is content to play in a chatroom with a timer, and exhibits little ability to collectively plan and work together.

My third game I've played extensively is Movoda. Movoda is very similar to Syrnia, but with a few differences. Movoda has guilds which are designed similarly to the clans in Syrnia. However, the designer has tried to design a game where players are 'forced' to work together. Guilds can raid and war against each other, steal goods and damage buildings. However, a large majority of Movodans came from Syrnia, and so what could be a brilliant and strategic game is in danger of being ensnared in mediocrity.

So, to say I'm still in search of the perfect game would be a bit of an understatement. I think that each of the three games did things well, and that by hitting those strengths, a pretty challenging game could be designed. So that is my quest, to design a game that is centered around teamwork and competition.

And that takes us to...

[Cap Ologist]

The boat arrives at the busy dock early in the morning. Yawning, you stretch and stand. As the blood returns to your cramped muscles, you look around at the sleepy town that lies before you.

To the right, you see a general store. To the left, are stables. Straight ahead is the Town Hall. All visitors are required to report and register immediately. Slowly, you make your way up the hill to Town Hall, to stand in the long line of fellow immigrants.

Hours later, you emerge with the new world before you. Your destiny will be decided by you, by your resolve and by your cunning. Choose your friends and your foes wisely, and maybe one day you'll be able to say you have what it takes to establish an empire that rules the far corners of this new world.

[JetsIn06]

I'm interested.

I'll be following.

[Cap Ologist]

Doing some backtracking to help keep ideas flowing logically.

This is a rough outline of how I want to introduce each part of the game. I'm moving combat towards the end, since it's built on every other skill in the game. Combat will always be the main focus of the game, but will be better understood within the confines of the rest of the game.

1. The character
2. The setting
3. Primary skills
4. Secondary skills
5. Kingdoms
6. Combat
7. Invading
8. Defending

[JAG]

Woohoo! Looking forward to seeing this.

[Cap Ologist]

Each character will have three basic attributes: education, leadership and energy.

Education can be gained at any of the schools located throughout the world. It will also be randomly gained from time to time through the actual training of a skill. Education will be skill specific, not a generic bonus. Higher levels of education will result in kingdom bonuses, allowing others you've chosen to work with to benefit.

Leadership can be gained in two ways. One, by successfully completing random events such as leading a successful attack against NPC fighters, and two, through training other skills. The first way will result in larger gains, but will be more infrequent. The second way will be consistent but much slower. To establish a kingdom, a player will have to first reach a minimum leadership level. This will hopefully create a more enjoyable gaming experience as it will prevent new players to joining a kingdom led by unknowledgeable people.

Energy is used to train all skills. Combat will be a bigger drain on energy than other skills. This will make all skills somewhat challenging to train, but an efficient kingdom shouldn't have difficulty managing the supply chain. Energy can be gained through the training of other skills, with the more 'physically challenging' skills providing a faster way to level.

Each player will be limited in what they can carry on their person. But they can buy various pack animals like donkeys, mules, and oxen to pull different sized carts and wagons to increase their carrying capacity.

Player's wealth will be measured in silver. Silver can be gained various ways in the game: selling items to NPC shops, fighting NPC fighters, etc.

[JHandley]

Originally Posted by Cap Ologist

Each faction will have a set time limit from the time they begin raising an army to use it. Idle armies lose interest and soldiers desert, wasting the time and resources used to train them. Probably looking at a 2-3 week window to start off with initially.

Wow. That's a great concept. It should force a great deal of conflict as people use armies simply to not have to waste them.

How is it going to work, do the armies gradually wither away or do they just up and disappear? If it's gradual, then there needs to be a time when the army is locked in and the player can't simply replace the members of that army. If it's a mass exodus type desertion, then does the clock on their use start the moment the first soldier "opens" the army?

[JAG]

Alright, some comments on your last post:

As the player gains experience and rises in stature among the warriors of the land, they are able to serve as a 'recruiter' by impart their wisdom to new soldiers. These recruits will form invading armies that are sent to pillage and plunder opposing rivals. As a player's experience increases, he is able to train recruits into more capable adversaries while also shortening the required time to train them.

Will this have any relation to the scribe or leadership skill, or just purely based on total combat experience?

Each faction will have a set time limit from the time they begin raising an army to use it. Idle armies lose interest and soldiers desert, wasting the time and resources used to train them. Probably looking at a 2-3 week window to start off with initially.

Excellent way to ensure attacks happen frequently.

As far as the actual army is concerned, I'm still kicking some ideas around. One idea is to have armies comprised of different types of soldiers such as archers, footsoldiers, and knights. Each of the different types will also have different levels, so a level one archer would be weaker than a level two, and so forth. The level of the recruit would be determined by the combat level of the 'recruiter.'

I like the idea of having different types of soldiers as that will lead to more variety in attacks and more strategy.

High combat levels will be needed not only to train invading armies, but to fend them off as well. There will also be a high risk/high reward PvP area in the game. I'm still waffling back and forth on whether this area should carry an Omerta-style death or not.

I wouldn't recommend an Omerta-style death (permanent character death) as I think the area would be too high risk for people to consider using it, no matter what the reward would be. I'm not high on Syrnia's OL system either as you know because the reward was pathetic (increased special drop rates, no crowding) compared with the risk (losing your entire inventory). You could go a number of ways with it, but I could see a combination of loss of items, experience, inability to train army recruits for a time, and probably other ideas based on the rest of the game layout.


Also one series of questions around your first info post:

Energy - every skill will drain energy points, not just combat

Do you intend energy to be something where once you use your energy points, you have to wait a certain amount of time to replenish them, or will there be other ways to do so (eating food, sleeping, whatever)? Will there be any 'no energy' activities or do you basically have nothing to do once your energy is gone?

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by JHandley

Wow. That's a great concept. It should force a great deal of conflict as people use armies simply to not have to waste them.

How is it going to work, do the armies gradually wither away or do they just up and disappear? If it's gradual, then there needs to be a time when the army is locked in and the player can't simply replace the members of that army. If it's a mass exodus type desertion, then does the clock on their use start the moment the first soldier "opens" the army?

My thought is the timer will start once the actual training/recruiting starts. So essentially, you stockpile resources until you have enough to train 1,000 soldiers. From the moment, the first soldier is trained, the clock starts ticking. That should prevent a group from hoarding resources for 6 months then spend 6 months training an unstoppable force. I'm guessing most invading armies would be anywhere from 250 to 1500 units.

That will open several choices: A big army of lesser soldiers vs a smaller but more challenging force, overwhelming force raids vs frequent smaller raids.

[Cap Ologist]

Originally Posted by JAG

Alright, some comments on your last post:



Will this have any relation to the scribe or leadership skill, or just purely based on total combat experience?

Hadn't really thought about having those skills play a role in the process although it could be logically done. Leadership is mainly serving as the local chief requirement to start a family here.

Originally Posted by JAG

Excellent way to ensure attacks happen frequently.

That's my goal.

Originally Posted by JAG

I like the idea of having different types of soldiers as that will lead to more variety in attacks and more strategy.

Not only that, but it will put all the excess equipment one makes to level smithing to use.

Originally Posted by JAG

I wouldn't recommend an Omerta-style death (permanent character death) as I think the area would be too high risk for people to consider using it, no matter what the reward would be. I'm not high on Syrnia's OL system either as you know because the reward was pathetic (increased special drop rates, no crowding) compared with the risk (losing your entire inventory). You could go a number of ways with it, but I could see a combination of loss of items, experience, inability to train army recruits for a time, and probably other ideas based on the rest of the game layout.

Yeah, still working out the kinks here. I don't want it to be another OL that is empty 95% of the time.

Originally Posted by JAG

Also one series of questions around your first info post:



Do you intend energy to be something where once you use your energy points, you have to wait a certain amount of time to replenish them, or will there be other ways to do so (eating food, sleeping, whatever)? Will there be any 'no energy' activities or do you basically have nothing to do once your energy is gone?

Energy will be restored through eating food, I've also toyed with a hydration rating, but I'm afraid the tandem might prove to be too cumbersome.

[Cap Ologist]

Recruiting an invading army is going to be a time consuming process that will require teamwork and efficient use of resources.

An army is going to need:

Armor/weapons: each unit type will have different pieces they require, and the armor/weapons will have to be smithed and ready when the recruiting starts.

Transport: different boats will be required based on the number of invading troops sent.

Provisions: each unit type will require the same amount of food as the number of EPs they have. So if you can get 6 EPs from corn, and you're training a 36 EP soldier, you'll need to send them with 6 ears of corn. (Not sure if that is as clear as what I'm thinking)

Training facilities: Archery range for archers, training field for knights, etc.