Thoughts on Virtual Combat

Alta Rydder is ready for action in GoreBagg’s Dragon 3D 1.08 beta version — this is totally updated and upgraded; it’s mistified and Goddlike. Let me throw a few thoughts out here about virtual combat.

First of all, every character that you as a level-designer plunks thoughtfully down into the level map is real in its own world. You’ve got to get used to that idea or you can’t really write levels. There’s more, much more. Read on…

In the BardoMania games, the ones that are specifically designed for Bardo Training, the bad guys come out of nowhere. They’re in fact invisible until you enter their rather small Sphere of Domination, otherwise known as an Agro-Circle, a Circle of Aggression and Area Defense.

I’ve been using that “sudden appearance” bit for decades now, and it’s always been a wonder and a surprise to me that people seemed to prefer to actually see the monsters long before they got within the Agro Circle. I’d think folks would like the surprises, but here’s the deal:

When you see the monsters ahead of time, and/or know where they’re likely to be and how many of them will be clustering around the warm campfire or the wonderful treasure or languishing prisoners they’re guarding, you have the opportunity to make a plan, strategize your attack.

That means that if you’re in a Dungeon Party and not alone, you can work out who takes out what creatures, as in “You take the zombie on the right, I’ll get the small dragon and the big bouncy thing on the left.”

So visibility will certainly change the way some of my games operate — certainly my medieval settings and Woodland Adventures (yes, it’s named after the summer camp in the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River Valley) — and I’m sure there will be some complaints from those who played it in version 1.01 Beta, but I am convinced that it makes a better group game to strategize and communicate and work out a plan.

Having the zombies and dragons and such visible on first sighting will be an easy task, it’s just one “button” away from done; I can set the monsters to “visible” or “invisible” prior to attack or agro right there in my .ini file, that rides with the orb.

I’d really like to be able to set the visibility prior to attack or agro on each monster individually, somewhere in the aux area, perhaps a 1 “yes visible” flag, or zero “not visibile” in the 5 slot on the aux nums open slots?

There should be an automatic PLAYER knock-back on BUMP contact betewen player and player, player and monster and player and projectile. The projectile, if it doesn’t explode, could also trigger a knock-back if wanted. That should be settable in the .ini file somewhere in each weapon, each monster and in the player stack at the top of the file. It should default to 512. It needs that much space to register in virtual environments.

I’ve been asking for years for programmed guards & grunts. The programming is there, but I can’t implement it easily from what’s there. Here’s what I want:

Three grunts/guards/zombies/dragons — smart, smarter, smartest, which equal “a”, “b” and “c” varieties of smartness, added at the end of the object ID.

They will vary in smartness or dumbness of their attack, and in their willingness to follow you to the ends of whatever world you’re in at the moment, or go back about their grim, grisly and gruesome business they were involved in before you arrived to make trouble.

There should be three main categories of monster:

1.     Monster — This thing attacks savagely and relentlessly, thinking only of a world of hurt. The MONSTER stays inside a single domain or area, sometimes patrolling, sometimes standing in IDLE.

2.     Guard — Could be any creature or object of any kind from a biped grunt to a dragon to a sentry-gun or a bomb that goes off when a tomb, crypt or sarcophagus is opened. This creature might be standing in IDLE or patrolling in WALK mode.

3.     Grunt — Adventurer, patrolling force or anyone behaving in general like a black ops or ninja, also in three degrees of smartness. The grunt can be kept in an area or set to patrol.

All three have one thing in common: how they’re set to patrol or guard an area or a treasure, tomb or personnage.

SETTINGS FOR GUARDS

zombie1     Stands still, in IDLE at one position, comes to action only when agro circle is entered.

zombie2     Patrols a settable distance (defaulted at 1024) West to East and back to West, until interrupted by an agro circle break-in, in which case, it would attack the invader of its territorial imperative.

zombie3     Patrols a settable distance from North to South, again defaulted to 1024, because any combat area needs to be nice and large and somewhat clear of obstacles except to provide cover from enemy fire, if specifically needed to balance gameplay.

zombie4     Patrols a 1024 x 1024 square area CLOCKWISE.

zombie5     Patrols a 1024 x 1024 square area COUNTER-CLOCKWISE.

zombie5c would be a zombie or something that behaved like a zombie; it would patrol a square counter-clockwise and be very smart.

grunt1a would stand still and be very dumb.

ghost2b would patrol west to east and back again and be somewhat smarter than the dumb guy.

This would eliminate having set paths and points for each monster, and programming a new .ini file for every monster type wanted in the game.

Tarot Reading in Bardo Training Level “Gemini” — Readings will vary for each player.

I’m going to apply these principles right now, to a game called “Maya” — I’ve been working on it for 17 years now, and it’s finally ALMOST ready for Prime-Time. I’ll be allowing folks to download it for ALPHA testing, which means it’s not even BETA yet. You’ll have to pay the .99 cents download fee — I can’t afford to subsidize your downloads, and the service insists that someone pay for the bandwidth, so be ready for that .99 cent handout.

Treasures are handled easily:

You can find them just sitting around, or in a chest or some sort of coffin, or they can drop from freshly dead monsters. I can make a list of drops I want to have on my random drops list, and they can include anything from weapons to hats to runes, charms and even a change of luck.

Another game that will be undergoing the transformation described above, probably this morning also, will be a game that’s already out there in Beta 1.01, Dragon 3D which is one of my very favorite games.

I’ll be adding increased hits-to-kill for bosses, plus rolling fog, swirling mist and additional deep and murky shadows, plus the new lantern effect that has everyone reeling in wonderment, meaning they’re wondering where in the hell they are at the moment. The answer is easy;

“Somewhere in some dark and dismal dungeon. And that’s where you belong, until you learn your shamanic skills, you good for nothing!!!”

Good for nothing. Hmmm… In virtual terms, that could be a Good Thing. See you online!