Purpose of travelling inside a city

[Chris]

RPG city (modern/futuristic), size 25x25 grid (or 15x15, generally reasonably small so players can memorize it and you get crowding feeling). Each grid contains exactly 1 building which can be entered (city owned, no private property).

Players have movement points (to travel across the city) and action points (to execute explore action inside/outside buildings).

What kind of purposes to move across the city can there be?
- Each location/building has certain probability of encounters/items found upon explore action. If you need different things you need to go to the place that have it (problem, even 10x10 grid means there are 100 locations, no way of making them all unique)
- One location gives resource and another location require it (selling resources or crafting things) (again, too many locations to make it very important)
- Random local events that change each day, travelling there first time grant some bonus.
- Quests to travel to certain random locations (messenger).
- Movable NPC characters that travel across the city, you need to "catch" them to get certain service.

It still feels to me as if the travelling miss something...

[Topazan]

You're looking for reasons for players to travel around the city?  What you have there sounds like plenty.  All I can think to add is certain services are only provided at certain locations, and certain activities can only be done at certain places.

I compiled this list a few months ago, maybe it will give you some more ideas.

[Sagefire135]

Amazing list!!! i just bookmarked that page because im bound to look at it again and again in the future.

[Chris]

Yes, there are plenty of reasons at the first glance but... these are coding heavy and content heavy. It would be a nightmare to implement even half of them, and even then the city would feel monotonous and non unique. These ideas won't also make the reader go "WOW! I have to play this!"

I wish I had a simple, nice, groundbeating concept that is easy to code and require not much content. I know, I'm picky

I was thinking something about the lines of:
Players are detectives solving the murderer's case, they travel inside a city collecting leads, visiting crime scenes, finding evidence, interogating suspects and finally chasing the murderer.


BTW, nice list Topazan.

[133794m3r]

Yes, there are plenty of reasons at the first glance but... these are coding heavy and content heavy. It would be a nightmare to implement even half of them, and even then the city would feel monotonous and non unique. These ideas won't also make the reader go "WOW! I have to play this!"

I wish I had a simple, nice, groundbeating concept that is easy to code and require not much content. I know, I'm picky

I was thinking something about the lines of:
Players are detectives solving the murderer's case, they travel inside a city collecting leads, visiting crime scenes, finding evidence, interogating suspects and finally chasing the murderer.


BTW, nice list Topazan.

well then that sounds like a full game chris. If the entire game is them being a detective, then i can see players being glad at how well you made them traverse the city. And the content thing could be solved semi-simply. You could have them do random investigations set on the day, and then by person a) getting this one done. They find out that it's this guy, but then it turns out that that guy escapes from prison. And the next person in the town has to find them again. Etc. This way you could reuse certain aspects so to speak, since most murders have a mo so thus you could reuse that except change a few names. And voila 2 investigations for the price of almost one. Of course this is figuring you're not making the same people do the same quest over and over again. Which most people do, in which case, i'd suggest that you make it some time down the road they go back to town x and they have to retrack down the guy who escaped from prison. They go ask teh same npcs(except maybe one b/c they'd dead), they tell them some things. Then you could make them go run around the wild trying to find them in the forest or something. And by doing something similar, you can get all of the major ones to do the same. And it'd not take too much extra coding on your part. Since this is quite alot of extra content but with out that many resources being used.

edit:i added some things to my original statement.

[raestlyn]

random quest generator can solve the replayability problem. Its easy to make. Just get random mission type, random npcs to meet and random solutions and save them to the database.

[Chris]

I recall a game where there were humans (NPCs) and vampires (players). You moved across city grid and suck out blood off humans and other vampires. When sucked out human respawn somewhere else at random, if this was a vampire it became hidden. In addition there were special buildings (shops, banks, services). This caused a natural reason to travel around the city.

Maybe something that would encourage you to follow another player? Like a random player has a "clue". You need to land on the same grid to get it.
Another idea would be a "thing" that appear randomly and disappear when a certain number of players reach it.

Something connected to other players would be best...

random quest generator can solve the replayability problem. Its easy to make.

Random quest generators do not work, just check roguelike dev usenet group archives, people were talking about it for decades but the progress is still basicly zero. GearHead is the only game I ever heard about that made it right.

[Hawkins]

You could have daily or weekly events say " At the south side there is increased x item drop percentage"

[shoespeak]

One game that I played for a while was much like the vampire game you describe Chris. However, the main difference was that players could interact with the environments; bascially build up defenses (if human) or tear them down (if vampire.) Because of this, players would always be moving around the map, either searching for a well defended building (if human) or one that you could sneak in and grab a bite to eat (if vampire.)

The main difference between this and what you describe is that players do not respawn at 'random' locations; they are just penalized (in this case, they became a vampire.) Because they didn't respawn players were forced to travel around and explore the city on their own.

So bascially the only thing I have to add to the list is:
-Players are forced to move because the environment changes

[Chris]

So bascially the only thing I have to add to the list is:
-Players are forced to move because the environment changes

Weather. Players are forced to move because there is heavy rain and they will get wet
Hmmm, maybe not fit for a small city to have different buildings be under different weather. Fire spreading through a city? Radiation in each grid changed daily (in post nuclear city). A dimensional hole opened in a building spawning invincible monsters so everyone has to escape screaming in fear.

[Chris]

Area weather effects - one grid effects are too small to be noticeable, how about a big sandstorm (10 grids radius) that is moving in circle around [0,0] point on the map (with sandstorm centre staying 30-40 grids away from the 0,0). If you enter it (depending how near you are the eye of the storm) you get penalties/damage/electronic equipment start malfunctioning. There would be daily broadcast for player with the location of the storm. Even better 3 such storms effect (plague, static storm, sandstorm) moving more or less in circle around the map.

Directional resources - 4 resources (north, south, west, east), the nearer you are to the direction the higher the chance to get that resource. The problem is that staying in the center youd yeld equal chance for all the resources to be gathered, so assuming all are equally needed then players would just stay there... Maybe add 5-th resource radiating from the center? Or maybe make it so the center has no resource at all (but acts as a social centre with NPCs and such)? Any thoughts?

[dsheroh]

Directional resources - 4 resources (north, south, west, east), the nearer you are to the direction the higher the chance to get that resource. The problem is that staying in the center youd yeld equal chance for all the resources to be gathered, so assuming all are equally needed then players would just stay there... Maybe add 5-th resource radiating from the center?

Wouldn't that just make it worse, since players would then be able to get equal chances for the first four resources, plus a maxxed-out chance for the fifth?

My two immediate thoughts:

1) Have resource needs change cyclically as the player progresses.  You start out needing lots of wood to build your first buildings, so you go there, but, before long, they're up and your population grows, so you need to focus on collecting food.  Once that's taken care of, you need stone for better buildings which allow you to start collecting metal.  Once you've got the metal, though, you need wood again to make charcoal to work the metal.  Etc.  All resources can be needed equally across the course of the game while also having a greater need for one resource than the others at any given time.

2) Increase the rate of decay in resource gathering chances as you move away from their originating edges so that sitting in the center makes it more likely that you won't get anything at all.  e.g., If you have a 15x15 grid and the chance of getting a resource is 100% at the edge and drops by 12.5% for each square from the edge, then you're guaranteed to get something if you sit at the edge, but only a 12.5% chance for each resource if you're in the center square - an average of only 0.5 resource/turn, plus no control over which resource that will be if you do get one.

[Chris]

Wouldn't that just make it worse, since players would then be able to get equal chances for the first four resources, plus a maxxed-out chance for the fifth?

There is 5% of "found resource" event. If you got the event you always get exactly 1 unit of resource, only the type is determined by XY.
Hmmm, maybe make the 5% chance "decay" if you are near centre as you described...

Have resource needs change cyclically as the player progresses

This would be good for strategy game, but this is RPG. I need far faster pace. The cycle should be repeated weekly (or every 14 day at most).

[dsheroh]

Wouldn't that just make it worse, since players would then be able to get equal chances for the first four resources, plus a maxxed-out chance for the fifth?

There is 5% of "found resource" event. If you got the event you always get exactly 1 unit of resource, only the type is determined by XY.

OK, in that case... I don't think the issue would arise in the first place.

The only way that players can have equal need for all four resources at all times is if everything which consumes them uses equal numbers of each.  With resources being received as only a single type at a time, players would only have equal numbers of each 25% of the time, at most.  (Even if resources received are non-random and you get 1 A, then 1 B, 1 C, 1 D, and then it repeats, you'll have one more A than D at each of the first three steps.)  The other 75+% of the time, players will feel a greater immediate need for whichever resource(s) they have the least of, since that will be what's preventing them from making "sets" of equal numbers of each resource, and will gravitate towards the areas where they are more likely to receive that resource.

If, on the other hand, it's just the average need for each resource over time that is equal, you still don't have a problem because, if my immediate goal requires 10 A, 7 B, 5 C, and 9 D, then I have a greater need for A than for C at this moment and will attempt to optimize my resource gathering odds accordingly.

The problem I see arising, then, is just the opposite of what you originally posited: Players will, at any given time, have one or more resources that they feel a greater need for, so they'll want to sit exactly where those specific resources are most likely.  As you described the distribution chances, that's going to mean that most of the (resource-oriented) players will tend to gravitate to the map edges and leave the middle - or even the rows one space in from the edge - deserted.  (Or, alternately, with only a 5% chance of getting any resource at all, deciding that it's pointless to pursue them and completely ignore resource distribution unless they find themselves in dire need of something specific which they can't acquire from other players.)

One easy way to turn this into a motivation to move around the map would be to change the chance of a "found resource" event from a flat 5% to instead be based on how far you are from your position at the end of the previous turn.  If you're in the same space, it's 1%, one space away is 2%, and so on up to some upper limit.  The limit is necessary so players don't just bounce back and forth between two opposite corners each turn; I'd probably start off with having the limit reached when players are half the map away from their previous position (e.g., 7 squares away on a 15x15 map), so that they'll always have 50-75% of the map available (depending on where they ended the previous turn) to them as options to end the current turn with maximum resource gain probability.

[Chris]

Why are we doing this
The reason of making the purpose for travelling is because travelling is fun and staying at the same spot is not. This is the main and almost only reason. So, I don't want to go overboard with it. Sure, I want to make some incentive to move around, but, ideally, those who do not want to move around too often would be not forced to do it. Not sure if such combination is even possible, but it is worth noting

Things like "based on how far you are from your position at the end of the previous turn" are too artificial I think (except if you are hunted by a hired assassin, which could be a nice metagame, but probably too much for the whole game ).

Regional resources
The regional resource would not be the only resource (and not even the main one), more like "collect the set of 4 different things then go to the guild to get a reward, then collect the next set to get another reward". I also think only 3 of 4 resources would be needed (like set = A + B + (C+D), where C + D has to be no higher than A or B). This way player would have more control over travelling (like he could ignore one direction if wanted).
OR
Make it that 1 of 4 resources could be traded with other players (only 1 resource can be acquired from trade in order to form a set, technicly the traded resource would be a different category than the same resource found on your own).

[Shrapnel]

I have a couple ideas that revolve around an ancient city concept:

1.  The player is in an ancient, abandoned city searching for treasure.  The player moves around to find new treasure or perhaps he moves around to get past obstacles (such as traps) to get to the treasure.

2.  The player is in a maze type city or building that is constantly changine in which the same paths are not always present like in AvP or The Cube.  The player has to keep moving if he wants to get to the exit before the paths change again.

[dsheroh]

2.  The player is in a maze type city or building that is constantly changine in which the same paths are not always present like in AvP or The Cube.  The player has to keep moving if he wants to get to the exit before the paths change again.

Unless this is combined with a time limit, inactivity penalty for not moving, or some other stick, I don't think this would provide much of an incentive to move around.  Fumbling through a maze blindly today doesn't have any real benefit over fumbling through a maze blindly tomorrow.  Plus there's also the possibility that the next time the maze changes, you could wind up closer to (or even at) the exit.

It could add a bit of additional flavor to have paths reshuffling every now and then (although I'm not prepared to say whether it would, overall, be good or bad flavor - some players would love it, others would quit over it), but I doubt that it would be an effective way to get players moving around more.  The one exception are the "explorer"-type players, who might initially see it as a never-ending supply of new places and paths to explore, but even they would likely give up after a time if they see that there's no point in learning what's where after tearing up their maps a few times too many.