Features for a new RPG

Burnsaber · Post by **Burnsaber** » February 3rd, 2005, 4:42 pm

Jetryl wrote: a bunch of stuff

I wasn`t saying that the damge system was unique, i was just referring them as written in the book. With uniquenes i meant the cricitals and realism that comes with it. For example in D&D with 10-level warrior with AC-5 you can just go fight 30 goblins head-on, they will only hit with like rolls 19 & 20, and even then it would just deal 1-3 points of damage. In rolemaster someone would get a lucky cricital and kill you (or cripple etc..). Also the cheer amount of chooseable professions is amazing, in rolemaster you have everything astrologer,alchemist, seer, mystic, animist,paladin, evil paladin etc..

Also the profession system is cool. You have ten stats, the first five are most used when defining bonuses for your skills (strength, agility, magical) and the rest are "development" stats that don`t give you so many skill bonuses but award you with development points(dexterity, self discipline, memory, intelligence etc..). You can use development points on every level increase. For example; fighters melee skill increase would cost 1/5 (you can increase it two times, first costs 1 and second 5) while mages melee increase would eat 9 deveploment points. So you have to balance with "skill-stats" and "development-stats and if you want to have your mage have some skill with weapon go for it! (allthought it will cost lots development points)

Roots · Post by **Roots** » February 3rd, 2005, 6:45 pm

That UnReal World RPG looks way too complicated for me. Maybe some people like having all that complexity, but taking a look at just one screenshot I saw about 15 different statistics. Management just becomes a pain with all that added realism, and if it's a pain then it's not fun. I might go ahead and try it out though if I ever find some free time (doubtful

)

I'm pretty sure I mentioned the "healing" system for Allacrost earlier in this thread, but I'll state it again anyway. Characters have hit points and can use potions, etc just like 99% of the RPGs out there. But what makes our system unique is our management of skill points. A character can have between 0 a 100 skill points at any one time. In battle every action consumes skill points, except for the weakest of skills which are innate. Now here are some of the features with skill points:

- The can NOT be regenerated by potions or other items
- Skill points recover slowly in battle (as long as innate skills are used)
- Skill points *may* recover slowly from walking around on the dungeon map
- There will likely be a defend or charge action that can be taken in battle to forego the player's turn and rebuild some skill points
- Skill points are NOT automatically refunded back to 100 at the beginning of a battle!

What are the advantages of such a system?

- Increasing need for player strategy. When fighting one battle you have to think about the next. Foolishly selecting your toughest attacks will end the battle quickly but eat up your skill points. Going into a battle with few skill points could prove to be deadly...

- Less cheap tricks by the player (ie cast Ultima 3, use a potion to restore MP, cast Ultima 3 again, etc). You can't keep dishing out your toughest attacks just because you have enough healing items to compensate.

Err, maybe there are other advanatges that I'm forgetting, but that's all I can think of right now. I really think it's a good idea personally. Ok, so I know it's not really the "healing" system that was the subject, but it's along those lines.

Burnsaber · Post by **Burnsaber** » February 3rd, 2005, 8:00 pm

Roots wrote: a bunch of stuff

I have played the Unreal world, it`s cool, but it`s realism goes over the point. (aka the game ain`t fun -- in my opinion).

But your system seems quite nice. It wouldn`t work for my pen&paper group (cause battles usually occur one-per two days and such), but for dungeon crawling(meaning that battles concertrate on dungeons) game it maybe perfect. What a shame that i can`t try it

, being a corporate slave of microsoft enterprices. My family also uses this computer, so i cant switch to more complicated Linux.

One thing that i also dislike in some RPG;s is the possibility "dungeon sleeping" to gain HP and spells back - it just doesn`t make any sense! But sometimes mages just need their spells back in the middle of the dungeon.. I myself give my players ability to meditate with meditation to gain some spells (or MP) back, but they cannot be waked from the meditation- so other party members must protect them. It makes lot more sense.

Roots · Post by **Roots** » February 3rd, 2005, 10:21 pm

Burnsaber wrote:What a shame that i can`t try it , being a corporate slave of microsoft enterprices. My family also uses this computer, so i cant switch to more complicated Linux.

We are making Windows and MacOS (and maybe other) ports, so don't worry. And my condolenses for being enslaved by the evil empire

Burnsaber wrote:One thing that i also dislike in some RPG;s is the possibility "dungeon sleeping" to gain HP and spells back - it just doesn`t make any sense!

Yup, and we probably won't have that "dungeon sleeping" in our game for that very reason. Plus it makes the game way too easy IMO. Also save points will be far and few inbetween, and unlike the majority of the Final Fantasy games we're not going to conveniently plop a save point right before a boss. It gives away the fact that there's a boss coming up, and if you are defeated by the boss there isn't enough of a penalty in being defeated (you can just reload the game and boom, right back in the battle). I want the players of my game to fear death at least a little. That's what the old NES RPGs made me feel.

Burnsaber wrote:But sometimes mages just need their spells back in the middle of the dungeon.. I myself give my players ability to meditate with meditation to gain some spells (or MP) back, but they cannot be waked from the meditation- so other party members must protect them. It makes lot more sense.

We actually have that very same ability planned as well. When you rest a turn to regain your skill points, you become very vulnerable and a more likely target for an enemy attack, so you need to be protected by another character.

Roots · Post by **Roots** » February 5th, 2005, 3:39 am

Today we released another beautiful full-screen art scene, as well as 3 samples from our sound track. Go check them out, I don't think you guys will be disappointed.

http://www.allacrost.org

Post by **Dave** » February 5th, 2005, 3:51 am

Roots wrote:Today we released another beautiful full-screen art scene, as well as 3 samples from our sound track. Go check them out, I don't think you guys will be disappointed.

Looks cool.....

When do we get a tarball release?

David

Burnsaber · Post by **Burnsaber** » February 5th, 2005, 6:33 am

Roots wrote:We are making Windows and MacOS (and maybe other) ports, so don't worry. And my condolenses for being enslaved by the evil empire

Awesome! When the first windows version comes up, i`ll be sure to check it out!

Roots · Post by **Roots** » February 6th, 2005, 1:18 am

Dave wrote: Looks cool.....

When do we get a tarball release?

David

There's still a ways to go before we'll be ready to release anything. I'd rather take our time and make the game as good as it can be than try to rush through things to release it as soon as possible. I don't even want to try and predict a date because it's likely I will grossly overshoot or undershoot it and I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea.

It's getting harder to find time to work on it now though because almost everyone has classes now and I myself just started a full-time job 2 weeks ago. But whenever I have spare time I'm usually working on the game.

Roots · Post by **Roots** » February 10th, 2005, 12:45 pm

- New version of prologue text is now online

- Enhanced the site visually quite a bit

- A bunch of new concept art

Roots · Post by **Roots** » May 1st, 2005, 3:46 am

Haven't bumped the thread in a while.

Well it's almost summer (finally) meaning that everyone's schedules are freeing up and we are going to be able to get a lot of work done, more than ever before.

Anyway we released a couple new samples from our soundtrack yesterday and I've been trying to get feedback from various people on them. See our main site for the details, and if you're really lazy I provided direct links below.

Hero of Allacrost - Main Site

Allacrost Battle Theme
Allacrost Fight Theme
In Search of Truth
A New Day
Falling Petals

Post by **Jetrel** » May 1st, 2005, 7:44 am

Those are really good.

It makes me wish our music department wasn't on life-support.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » May 1st, 2005, 12:44 pm

Unfortunately, I can't access then. Whenever I try to contact http://www.allacrost.org, Safari ceases operating altogether.

Attila · Post by **Attila** » May 1st, 2005, 2:14 pm

Elvish Pillager wrote:Unfortunately, I can't access then. Whenever I try to contact http://www.allacrost.org, Safari ceases operating altogether.

When ever I turn my computer on Safari ceases to operate altogether. I got fed up with it and now use Firefox

Roots · Post by **Roots** » May 1st, 2005, 2:44 pm

Really? That's odd. I use Safari on my Mac Mini at work and I've never had any problems accessing our website with it. It's the only browser that passed that acid-whatever test too (a web-standards compliant test).

And from what I've heard it's built from the Konquerer browser I think.

Anyway, glad you liked them Jetryl.

Last night I was listening to all of the tracks we have in the works (about 10 more than those 5 we shared) and I started to feel really excited about the game (more-so than usual anyway).

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » May 1st, 2005, 2:58 pm

Woohoo. It worked this time.

A New Day and Allacrost Fight Theme are pretty good, but I don't like the others so much... they're really not my kind of music, I guess.