Theoretical Game Design

[AltarofScience]

I am wondering what you guys with think about a game style that I would like to plan out. Although in theory I would like to incorporate space and technology, higher level/order/magnitude societies and what not, I figure for simplicity's sake we will stick with a standard multi-planar fantasy setting.

I will outline some major game features to give some areas of discussion:
Crafting
Economy
Mining
Farming

Basically all resources in the game are player produced. Players can own land if they want, although they don't have to. So some players will be growing crops, for food and potions, and charms and spell components.
Players will also have to run mines to produce metals, salts, kinds of earths, stones for buildings.
Other business options include blood farms, wood chopping, fishing, livestock.
Since we are working on browser games, obviously there is no running around grinding respawning res.
But anyways, one problem I have is the initial building generation. Obviously to start building players need some resources, money and labor. I suppose some dumb flavor reason can be made to explain it.
I am considering making some resources only available/produceable in specific areas and so a player has to create production space there to get it. And then run trade caravans to move back. However possibly higher level players can create magic manufacturies to produce rare herbs/resources in their main area. Of course higher level players could also make portals, so no risk of caravans being waylaid.
Players would have to assign defenses to their caravans, although in theory another player may not attack them, but it would be risky to go undefended. There may or may not be mechanics involving defending buildings/towns.
Like I sorta want to get dynamically/organically developing social structures. So there is a town, and players do not have to protect themselves as a group, but it might be better if they did. Basically players can form city councils, alliances of free cities, actual states with various governments and so forth. This is all content not explicitly supported by code per say.
A concern I have is the economy. For instance, even large scale economies like those in the real world are exploitable so if a game round is persistent or even just really long, these sorts of financial shenanigans could be a problem.
Aside from resource production, players will be using these resources to build their buildings, craft their weapons and armor, and possibly craft capital, although I am not sure. Players will then sell weapons and items and capital and what not.
I am currently thinking of a way for players to move across social classes. For instance, maybe a player wants to run a town, could I integrate a system with npcs for that? Perhaps players can recruit npcs from a homeland area? Like if in the game story line there is some sort of exodus or colonization from an old world type thing? Perhaps npcs could produce basic functions, like standard gear, positions magic, items, goods production? And then you could recruit players to your town with various incentives? Perhaps the owners of towns can levy taxes, and provide services and players might choose different locations based on local resources, town services, and so forth.
Also, travel and construction take a while. So if a new area with valuable resources is discovered, and a player decides to move near there and start a town, then he can make a lot of money because there will be no nearby towns for players to go to, and dealing with a much closer town saves time and money.
Say that time moves 24x times faster in the game than in real life. So a month constitutes 2 years. Building a high level town may take a number of years, but building an inn may take 2 months. So in 5 days a player has an inn built to take advantage of a newly opened area. And maybe next week he has some other things done. And so the town develops and saves players more time in not having to travel all the way back to farther cities. However, a town has to be slow enough and expensive enough that not everyone in the game can build a town near all new areas and so forth. And, ideally, if a player has invested a lot of money in a town, and a lot of time, it would not be worthwhile for another player to try and horn in, although theoretically a really rich, powerful player could do a sort of walmart town thing and try and out compete indie towns. However a group of lesser players could band together to take down a single powerful player, say hiring armies or mercenary companies and taking down his cities.

One really big concern is mirco. How do you deal with micro actions, for instance, players taking down monsters with their personal stats, as opposed to hiring an npc army, or as opposed to groups of players, and so forth. Mainly how can I balance the large scale with the small scale?

Also, suppose I want to be/roleplaye/w.e an archmage or a powerful sorcerer or priest? How would I go about that, what would the value in that be as opposed to a player who just does econ and hires and army.

Another issue is the ever popular, how to deal with death? If a player has worked really hard to become a powerful sorcerer or find and wield powerful items, what if a lesser group of players comes in and just takes him out with numbers, do they get all his gear he worked so hard for? Does he keep it? Would it be possible for him to teleport away if he was out numbered? In theory a lot of soldiers/archers/lesser mages could overwhelm him with so many attacks he couldn't block it all, but would the mages be able to prevent him from using a teleport spell to get away?
And more, how do I deal with attacks on players who are not online? Raiding a small town or inn or trade caravan of a player who isn't online would be hard to defend against.
For caravans/towns/w.e theoretically you could use a defense strong enough that the resources expended to take down a caravan are not worth it for whats inside, but how would you make a profit on the caravan if all the money went to pay guards?
Given that a player character has to suffer enough by dying that they can't just have a big attack on a caravan, have only 10% of them live, but they get the stuff, and its worth it cause they didn't lose much. People go to games to get away from the real world where actions have consequences. So if the cost of an attack on another player/city/nation/continent/caravan/inn/adventurer group is to high, it won't happen, but if its too low the player who is attacked loses out.
Because the universe is ideally consistent with no win condition, having multiple separate instances is bad because far behind players will just join a new spot and eventually the game will get too top heavy player wise.
Part of this is taken away with RPs and different goals, some players might be fine in support roles, running towns, just question, as opposed to being a ruler or noble or running a corporation or leading armies. Maybe a player just likes being in the top 10% of mages, even if in the grand scheme he isn't as important as other players.

I know this post sort of rambles, I would be happy to elaborate if asked and discuss more specifics of various aspects of the game. Its just that the game is so large, I don't wanna right a book.

[verynotbad]

Hi there,

You have alot of great content and ideas in your post but I'd like to touch on a couple of topics since they are related to what I've been working on lately:

Re: Social structures in your game - I'd say one of the most important aspect would be to ensure all the different avenues your player can take allow for fairness in the game. That is, your player can't feel punished because they took action A over action B. It is very discouraging for a player to be continually at a disadvantage because of an action they took. I think if you don't balance your player categories properly you will lose players.

I think you have a good point about different players wanting to have different roles in the game and being comfortable with support roles. Analyze your game and see how to keep a simple social structure in place. From some games I have seen, players don't always conform to what is expected of them and create their own structures within the game. Personally I'd keep the idea of building a basic framework for your players and allowing the game to grow organically and yourself growing your system with your users. Leave yourself room to grow later on.

[AltarofScience]

Well, there are no rewards or punishments for different actions per say, unless we are talking about the combat system. If you attack someone and they kill you, you deserve to die. I mean, you wanted the other guy to die right? As far as different strategies, to some degree there could be problems. Suppose I went into business, as opposed to being a "hero". It is probable that players attempting to run quest base game styles deal with more risks, like dying, as opposed to business players, who are just growing crops or w/e. And obviously some players will affect the game world more powerfully than others. Since the game is somewhat modeled on a more realistic real life type thing, some people have to do the "menial" jobs. Now, no one is cleaning toilets, or using the potty, or w/e. Because who plays a game to do that. But growing food crops, crops that produce basics like bags and robes, and growing high value potion crops or silk for higher level gear or w/e, are not equally financially rewarding. Now in theory, any player character can become powerful in any aspect of the game, provided of course, that they put in the effort. But in practice there will not be a lot of archmage blacksmith knights running around. And to some degree its more profitable to specialize in one area. I am considering some sort of system, where players who have recruited npcs of some kinds, can train them, with money. So maybe you can train your blacksmith npc to make better items. But it is complicated and ripe for exploits. The thing is, the player character, the avatar representing specifically the person who owns the account, should have things only they can do.

As for organic growth, the growth is pretty organic in my conception. You can make a living and become powerful/influential doing many sorts of things. All towns are created by players, singly or in groups. How a town develops is totally up to its creators. Similarly, larger social and political structures are the same. Towns, alliances of towns, states, nations, empires, guilds, schools of various kinds, and magic disciplines grow organically from player actions.

[AltarofScience]

I am working on getting more serious with maybe designing and coding some parts of the game, here is an excerpt from a conversation about the game, which details to some degree the resource production aspect of the game:
"Anyways, various kinds of land produce resources. Players can either work them alone, sort of like in rune scape, or they can construct a building and hire npcs. I also am thinking about a sort of quest like system, players can contribute value to a building by working for another player. Their skills determine what sort of benefit they bring, and building owners can assign a default wage for player work.

That might create some interesting competition scenarios where a player is more efficient than an npc up to a certain wage. Say the default npc was is 5coins an hour. NPCs harvest 1 res an hour. A player with base one skills harvests 2 res an hour. It would be worthwhile for the employer player to pay at least 10coins an hour for a given hour that a player is willing to work. That way a player has a way to earn money without generic quests. An employer player could also set a scalar wage based on player skill. A player with a level 2 skill produces 3 res an hour, at level 3 4 res an hour. So an employer could assign a default wage of 5coins per res per hour. So a player with a level 10 skill, makes 11 res an hour and gets paid 55coins an hour.

Now, players can invest in various capital goods. Say an owner purchases a sharper, lighter tool. Then a player with that tool over a general tool can produce twice as much resource. So they now make 22 res an hour at level 10. In that case the employer might say, I will pay you 25% more coins per hour. Now in theory another employer could pay 30-50% more coins per hour and lure workers away from the other employer. Now of course the employer cannot pay too much because they need to buy the tools, or possibly pay a crafting player to design a tool, which they must then pay for.

Anyways, this is a small excerpt of some of the game player, and written in general terms. This part of the game integrates with warfare, questing, various magical things, political systems, alliances, and so forth. Players can also build buildings and make towns and so forth. In the magic sphere magic can do some things cheaper/faster/easier, magic can be used for many things. In regards to mining, a mine owner may purchase explosives from an alchemist which increases his total mining production and so forth.

Given that players have to generate all the resources in the game, at least indirectly, ie a player has to build a mine and hire npcs, but npcs on their own cannot produce ore, only as hired workers. Before one can build a mine, one has to generate enough money to build a building, or protective walls, or create tools and so forth. How do you think this kind of game would work in practice? Remember its text/image based."

[Chris]

First, I always check how others did it. No need to reinwent the wheel

Similar games:
* Online Republic
* eRepublic (the wage system is almost identical to what you described)
* Second Life (I never played it but I recall it used the same principle)
* Sunchaser's Medieval Europe - http://community.bbgamezone.net/projects/medieval-europe/
* My Europe1300 - http://community.bbgamezone.net/projects/europe-1300/ (it's probably in too early stage to steal ideas from yet

So, are these games what you had in mind? If yes which elements are especially compatible? Which elements you want to change or do different way?

[AltarofScience]

I always thought eRepublic was like www.nationstates.com, with maybe some other features.

Your game is a historical setting, and as it says, predefined nations, and no fantasy elements. I suspect my economy system is a little more complex as well, and I also have standard monster hunting type rpg play, although eventually there will be pvp wars. I also suspect that you make far greater use of non player economic systems, though of course i haven't played your game. further it appears that players in your game start as nobles, whereas in my game they start as people with basic skills, who can choose to specialize in a variety of fields, and all political systems will evolve organically from player interaction.

Sunchaser's game has similar differences from mine based on what I read.
The game is somewhat similar to Second Life, except I am pretty sure SL has a robust npc system and that it didn'ty start from the ground up economy wise.

[Chris]

NationStates is (almost) a singleplayer country building game. The players interaction is non existant. That's completely different genre.

As for my game, theme difference is irrelevant, also I changed the "start as a noble", everyone will start as a peasant Yes, I want to make the economy non direct (mostly to cut down on cheaters volume ) but eRepublic and Sunchaser's are strictly player driven economies (althrough, in Sunchaser's it turns out that it is government (player) controled, so while it was not designed to be a free trade it is extemely restricted by other players enforcing minimal and maximum prices and various anti speculation player made rules ).

So, in yours you will have RPGish monster hunting. That's a rare one in such game type. I was thinking of making it too, but dicide against because it does not fit with the economy system and overal theme/mood. But I was hesitating quite a lot

These two sentences "Basically all resources in the game are player produced" and "all political systems will evolve organically from player interaction" are dangerous. It feels as if you tried to make a perfect clean system. Everything is player based, nothing is mechanics based. That's a very dangerous approach. Dangerous mostly because it assumes players will behave like in real world (competent, hardworking, determined, making good decisions, trying to survive at all cost). It can't also work because of time commitment (in real world a merchant will observe the prices all the time, in a game players will be lazy. They need some artificial mechanics that will make it easier and less time consuming). I would reconsider these.

"Part of this is taken away with RPs and different goals, some players might be fine in support roles, running towns, just question, as opposed to being a ruler or noble or running a corporation or leading armies. Maybe a player just likes being in the top 10% of mages, even if in the grand scheme he isn't as important as other players. " - yeah, I think we are are both trying to make the same game

[AltarofScience]

Our games might be similar in the way that www.ogame.org and www.war-facts.com and www.universegenesis.com are similar. But not much more than that.

Well the game is basically an RPG, but instead of buying all things from npcs players have to make them. And they have to make all the towns and all the buildings. There are several high score sorts of scales, since there are so many ways to play. There will be a hall of fame at the portal area with various categories:
Top 100 Monsters killed
Top 100 Money owned
Top 100 In every skill
Top 100 Buildings
Top 100 Towns
Who is a noble
Who is a political leader
Top 100 players killed
Top 100 most valuable items
Top 100 Herb Books
etc.

I expect players to play poorly, those players will lose. There are mechanics in the game, but it will be pretty free form sandbox. Players who are assholes will probably get ganged up on if they piss off a lot of people. I really am trying to outsource some mechanics to players because it saves coding and database calls and computer resources. Human brains are like, sub clients of clients of servers. And they do a lot of tasks much better than a computer does, plus they can make their own websites, forums, or write things down and save me a lot of work. Players will need to work together, through vertical or horizontal integration to generate resources efficiently, and get trade networks and set up town defenses and such.

I am thinking of actually coding a small demo to display some of the econ system because some people don't seem to understand.

[Chris]

Our games might be similar in the way that www.ogame.org and www.war-facts.com and www.universegenesis.com are similar. But not much more than that.

Yes, I was thinking of that level of similarity. It's enough for comparing/reusing/sharing quite a lot of mechanics.

Well the game is basically an RPG, but instead of buying all things from npcs players have to make them. And they have to make all the towns and all the buildings.

Well, if they build towns it is not only RPG anymore. You will need to borrow several things from strategies. Still, you clearly want to give the priority to the RPG part. OK, now I get the overall picture

Another issue is the ever popular, how to deal with death?

You don't have to make "death". Players could get reputation from fighting PvP. No gear switch hands, no loot.
The more important thing is the political power in the game. How players will exert their will over other players? How they can punish others if they don't listen? How exactly the king can rule?
It's quite tricky since you don't want to use in-game mechanics...

[AltarofScience]

I guess you could call the game an rpg/sim/4x/tickbased hybrid. So you can, but don't have to, roleplay your character. Characters can own self created businesses, work for other players in economy/science/war capacity, fight in various kinds of wars, hunt monsters do quests, quests could be self defined, or defined by a more powerful player or group of players, but are not designated by the game. So maybe a dragon is guarding a rare res area. A player or group of players wants to exploit that res. Bam quest. They put out a bounty on the dragon. Players who like to roleplay heros, or maybe a warrior guild or a mage guild might take the money to pop the dragon. Also dragon might have nice items.

I really do have a problem with land control. There is no game mechanic per say that says, you own this it can't be taken. Like in ogame you can only raid enemy colonies but not conquer. Well here I want to have a conquest mechanic. Now in theory players could conquer other players assets and be assholes and do it for kicks, but mainly its a check on someone who grabs all the res areas really fast. So you can just grab them, you need to have a way to defend them. Now a player group could organize a kingdom and have a tax which pays for defenses within their sphere of influence. So armies have a sphere of operation. Say you own a mine with no walls or guards. It can go down fast, say one game tick. But say you build a wall and have archers and guards. Then maybe it takes 5-10 game ticks based on defense level, or maybe the base defense can fight the enemy off themselves. But say they can't, a militia funded by a group of players, as well as players themselves in the alliance, might be 5 tiles away. So it takes 5 minutes to arrive. The attack hasn't yet broken the walls, so the defensive army arrives and beats them off.
Since the game is tick based, I am still working on problems with travel. How long will it take to move on square? Do I want the resource gathering to take place every hour, or every 10 minutes? But yeah, working out land control/attack/defense mechanics will be pretty interesting.

[Chris]

I guess you could call the game an rpg/sim/4x/tickbased hybrid.

Is this your first game or have you made some already?

Now in theory players could conquer other players assets and be assholes and do it for kicks, but mainly its a check on someone who grabs all the res areas really fast.

Not in theory, in practice. Griefing others and making them miserable *IS* the purpose of playing online games At least for a big enough portion of your player base.

[AltarofScience]

I have made another game for private use. Its a space browser game. I have also made some lesser games just in js for my personal use and also an interactive map for an imaginary world.

I know lots of people like to grief, i am working on some ways to limit that.

[Chris]

I have made another game for private use. Its a space browser game. I have also made some lesser games just in js for my personal use and also an interactive map for an imaginary world.

I know lots of people like to grief, i am working on some ways to limit that.

It definitely helps to have a game finished, but I would also open it to the public. Interacting with players will answer some of your questions. Many things will look different then.

I really do have a problem with land control.

No wonder Under the conditons you presented I have no clue how it could be done even theoretically.

How long will it take to move on square?

The RPG part and 4x parts require completely different travel pace (RPG - ultra fast, 4x - relatively slow). I don't think you can marry these without crippling one or both.

Personally, I think you try to fit too many games in one game. Just make one (RPG or 4x) but a good one.

[AltarofScience]

I have made another game for private use. Its a space browser game. I have also made some lesser games just in js for my personal use and also an interactive map for an imaginary world.

I know lots of people like to grief, i am working on some ways to limit that.

It definitely helps to have a game finished, but I would also open it to the public. Interacting with players will answer some of your questions. Many things will look different then.

I really do have a problem with land control.

No wonder Under the conditons you presented I have no clue how it could be done even theoretically.

How long will it take to move on square?

The RPG part and 4x parts require completely different travel pace (RPG - ultra fast, 4x - relatively slow). I don't think you can marry these without crippling one or both.

Personally, I think you try to fit too many games in one game. Just make one (RPG or 4x) but a good one.

well obviously it would be better to have a real world, like 3d, textbased limits it some. but im pretty sure i can get it to work anyways. there are lots of rpgs with timers. ill try and write a demo over the holidays and you can try at least part of it out, ill speed up the time so it dont take too long.

[AltarofScience]

I am currently working on a demo for my game. Basically players can explore, collect plants, identify plants, build alchemical equipment, mix potions, sell potions to npcs, and so forth. There is no land conquest or war or anything, you are just competing with other players to run the best business. Currently I am writing the code to generate the world, for the demo it is just a grid, and to generate the resources, and such. Currently the resources can be generated, the map can be generated. The database is nearly done. However if you play the game all you can do is navigate the map and see a list of what resources exist in what area. Since resources are generated procedurally, their names are derived from their stats. Players who first discover a resource will get to pick a name. Save me many hours writing out names manually. Although I guess I could do it if I have to. There are only plant resources in the game currently, 1275 of them in 14 subtypes. Anyways, the demo will probably be done late november early december. For the demo I just wanna see on a smaller scale how the economy will play out. Will anyone run a business as an herb gatherer? Or will players have to integrate vertically because they all want the glamorous career of potion making. To some degree the real game will be different because people who are herb gatherers will spend the money made at their job on the more exciting game aspects, so if you are smart herb gathering can be real moneymaker if no one else wants to do it.

[AltarofScience]

i have a slight problem. how do i code the storage system? like, resources will be able to be stored in the players inventory, but they also need to be stored in many other places. so players can build storages of various kinds basically anywhere, and then caravans.

i guess i could just have a table labeled storage and have all storages there, they will have player id and coords and then just storage. or maybe i should do it relationally? like every time a player gets an amount of resource i add a new row with the coords player id and rid. i am trying to find the most efficient and easy to code method.

i guess table would be like:
storage id | player id | resource id| x | y

then to show which are usable:

select count(storage id) from storage where player id = player and resource id equals resource and x = current x and y = current y

so if i was bob at -7, 8 trying to use resource 9 it would select a count of all storage ids where those conditions were met.

and then to add res it would be, count(storage id) blah blah blah, storage max, if count>max dont add.

would this kinda thing work?

[Chris]

i have a slight problem. how do i code the storage system? like, resources will be able to be stored in the players inventory, but they also need to be stored in many other places. so players can build storages of various kinds basically anywhere, and then caravans.

I think you should create a new topic about this on the Coding board. It would be more convenient to everyone (easier to find than in the middle of game design topic . Anyway, that's an interesting problem, I was wondering about it too.

[AltarofScience]

another issue i have is with my magic system:
i want to have it set so that while exploring players can find ancient books which hold spells and words. players can use this to make spells. players can write grimoires. players can then sell grimoires to other players and those players can then use those spells if their level is okay. also spell writing skill is separate from magic skill, so even if you have words you cannot necessarily write your own spells.

should i make it so that players have to find a particular word in game? like if i sell one player a grimoire with some spells with words and he doesnt have spell writing, could he then out of game mechanics tell another player the words, like in chat, and that player can now use the words? or does a player only have access to words that were sold to or found by them? if spell words are a resource for spell writing, how can i let players sell spells to people, and not have those players give away the words?

perhaps a grimoire doesnt actually contain the spell words, but just like a picture, and players cast spells from grimoires? then even if you bought the book, its not the same as selling the word itself. so that way you could use a spell, but couldnt use words in that spell to write your own spells without buying the actual words. i know i am not articulating super well.

[Chris]

how can i let players sell spells to people, and not have those players give away the words?

You can't That's why I avoid such mechanics. BTW, your overall design is very prone to multiaccount cheat, you would need very strong cheaters tracking system to not let the game fall apart in the first week.

Do not let people give or trade spells. Or make a fixed exchange system (you have to give tier I spell to get tier I spell), of course they will still cheat (by creating multiaccounts to exhcnage spells they miss), but less Or make sharing system (each guild has a library with members sharing a limited number of spells - there was a topic about it "social aspect of being a wizard" IIRC).

[pirategaspard]

another issue i have is with my magic system:
i want to have it set so that while exploring players can find ancient books which hold spells and words. players can use this to make spells. players can write grimoires. players can then sell grimoires to other players and those players can then use those spells if their level is okay. also spell writing skill is separate from magic skill, so even if you have words you cannot necessarily write your own spells.

should i make it so that players have to find a particular word in game? like if i sell one player a grimoire with some spells with words and he doesnt have spell writing, could he then out of game mechanics tell another player the words, like in chat, and that player can now use the words? or does a player only have access to words that were sold to or found by them? if spell words are a resource for spell writing, how can i let players sell spells to people, and not have those players give away the words?

perhaps a grimoire doesnt actually contain the spell words, but just like a picture, and players cast spells from grimoires? then even if you bought the book, its not the same as selling the word itself. so that way you could use a spell, but couldnt use words in that spell to write your own spells without buying the actual words. i know i am not articulating super well.

I am very curious to hear more about the mechanics of spell writing in your game.  I've been brainstorming about user-created "actions" like this lately and wondering how to manage it procedurally. 

[AltarofScience]

how can i let players sell spells to people, and not have those players give away the words?

You can't That's why I avoid such mechanics. BTW, your overall design is very prone to multiaccount cheat, you would need very strong cheaters tracking system to not let the game fall apart in the first week.

Do not let people give or trade spells. Or make a fixed exchange system (you have to give tier I spell to get tier I spell), of course they will still cheat (by creating multiaccounts to exhcnage spells they miss), but less Or make sharing system (each guild has a library with members sharing a limited number of spells - there was a topic about it "social aspect of being a wizard" IIRC).

how would they be able to multiaccount? that doesnt make sense. once you explore an area that could have magic words you don't get to go back on another account. grimoires are sold for money, its not really trading spells. technically you could sell a spell for 0 i guess.

And actually in my post I listed a way I could do it, but I was wondering about others.

[AltarofScience]

another issue i have is with my magic system:
i want to have it set so that while exploring players can find ancient books which hold spells and words. players can use this to make spells. players can write grimoires. players can then sell grimoires to other players and those players can then use those spells if their level is okay. also spell writing skill is separate from magic skill, so even if you have words you cannot necessarily write your own spells.

should i make it so that players have to find a particular word in game? like if i sell one player a grimoire with some spells with words and he doesnt have spell writing, could he then out of game mechanics tell another player the words, like in chat, and that player can now use the words? or does a player only have access to words that were sold to or found by them? if spell words are a resource for spell writing, how can i let players sell spells to people, and not have those players give away the words?

perhaps a grimoire doesnt actually contain the spell words, but just like a picture, and players cast spells from grimoires? then even if you bought the book, its not the same as selling the word itself. so that way you could use a spell, but couldnt use words in that spell to write your own spells without buying the actual words. i know i am not articulating super well.

I am very curious to hear more about the mechanics of spell writing in your game.  I've been brainstorming about user-created "actions" like this lately and wondering how to manage it procedurally.

I'm not sure what you mean by procedurally? Basically spell words are a kind of language, its really simple of course. Some words denote elements, and some other things, like paramental. Some words denote strength, some words may reduce mana cost, some words relate to range, or aoe. Since combat is turn based cause text game, no cooldown or words for cooldown. although in theory i could take a page from dominions and use action points, and then some words could modify action points. So if you have some words you write like this:

spell type(element, buff, debuff, shield) as many power mods as you like, range mods, mana mods, time mods, type(projectile, touch, etc.), aoe or multi target mods.

for fighting monsters its turnbased, im not sure how to run pvp. probably some sort of ai for both players.

enchantments will be somewhat similar. i mean, in the demo there is no magic or combat, its just alchemy econ stuff, so i still have to work things out.

[pirategaspard]

I'm not sure what you mean by procedurally? Basically spell words are a kind of language, its really simple of course. Some words denote elements, and some other things, like paramental. Some words denote strength, some words may reduce mana cost, some words relate to range, or aoe. Since combat is turn based cause text game, no cooldown or words for cooldown. although in theory i could take a page from dominions and use action points, and then some words could modify action points. So if you have some words you write like this:

spell type(element, buff, debuff, shield) as many power mods as you like, range mods, mana mods, time mods, type(projectile, touch, etc.), aoe or multi target mods.

for fighting monsters its turnbased, im not sure how to run pvp. probably some sort of ai for both players.

enchantments will be somewhat similar. i mean, in the demo there is no magic or combat, its just alchemy econ stuff, so i still have to work things out.

Sorry AltarofScience I think I have misunderstood you. I though that spell creation and alchemy were connected, but it sounds like they are not. I guess then I am really asking about how alchemy works.  You had said these bits of information earlier:

Since resources are generated procedurally, their names are derived from their stats. ...There are only plant resources in the game currently, 1275 of them in 14 subtypes.

Basically players can explore, collect plants, identify plants, build alchemical equipment, mix potions, sell potions to npcs, and so forth.

If the resources are generated procedurally, how does alchemy and potion making work?   With spells the outcome sounds straightforward where a base element's stats are modified using keywords that add/subtract from those stats.


I'm wondering how limited the range of potions a user would be able to make from the resources, and if the outcome would be easily understood by the user. For example:
-if the game explicitly defined potions as only for healing then users could only create healing potions and maybe the outcomes would only vary on how much they heal
-if instead a potion's properties are based on some rule-set so that when resources are combined they will relate in some novel way to other game objects and this outcome is that sometimes that the potions will be called healing potions by the players. (simple example of a "rule": if a potion's id is odd then it will heal for all player's with odd numbered ids, but be poison for all even numbered ids) .

Might be a stupid idea, but like I said, I was brainstorming recently how to allow for a wide range of results with the possibility of not having to predefine the outcomes of all combinations.

(Apologies if I still don't understand how your game works )

[AltarofScience]

I'm not sure what you mean by procedurally? Basically spell words are a kind of language, its really simple of course. Some words denote elements, and some other things, like paramental. Some words denote strength, some words may reduce mana cost, some words relate to range, or aoe. Since combat is turn based cause text game, no cooldown or words for cooldown. although in theory i could take a page from dominions and use action points, and then some words could modify action points. So if you have some words you write like this:

spell type(element, buff, debuff, shield) as many power mods as you like, range mods, mana mods, time mods, type(projectile, touch, etc.), aoe or multi target mods.

for fighting monsters its turnbased, im not sure how to run pvp. probably some sort of ai for both players.

enchantments will be somewhat similar. i mean, in the demo there is no magic or combat, its just alchemy econ stuff, so i still have to work things out.

Sorry AltarofScience I think I have misunderstood you. I though that spell creation and alchemy were connected, but it sounds like they are not. I guess then I am really asking about how alchemy works.  You had said these bits of information earlier:

Since resources are generated procedurally, their names are derived from their stats. ...There are only plant resources in the game currently, 1275 of them in 14 subtypes.

Basically players can explore, collect plants, identify plants, build alchemical equipment, mix potions, sell potions to npcs, and so forth.

If the resources are generated procedurally, how does alchemy and potion making work?   With spells the outcome sounds straightforward where a base element's stats are modified using keywords that add/subtract from those stats.


I'm wondering how limited the range of potions a user would be able to make from the resources, and if the outcome would be easily understood by the user. For example:
-if the game explicitly defined potions as only for healing then users could only create healing potions and maybe the outcomes would only vary on how much they heal
-if instead a potion's properties are based on some rule-set so that when resources are combined they will relate in some novel way to other game objects and this outcome is that sometimes that the potions will be called healing potions by the players. (simple example of a "rule": if a potion's id is odd then it will heal for all player's with odd numbered ids, but be poison for all even numbered ids) .

Might be a stupid idea, but like I said, I was brainstorming recently how to allow for a wide range of results with the possibility of not having to predefine the outcomes of all combinations.

(Apologies if I still don't understand how your game works )

in fact potions can interact with both spells and items during crafting, but that doesn't have so much to do with alchemy itself.

all resources in the game are generated procedurally, and some resources besides plants can work in potions. in the case of the demo of course we only have plants. potion recipes are generated procedurally. I can set or randomize the total number of combinations which will result in a potion. however, if you use a correct formula you will always get a potion. potions have over 100 possible effects, although in the case of the demo they don't actually do anything, you are just selling potions or raising alchemy or w/e, and the game creates a store that buys all potions. in the final game players will buy the potions based on their effects.

what happens is that i generate all the resources in the game, again in this case just plants. then i run the recipe script to generate the recipes. although i have not written this part of the code, as recipes are generated they will be given effects. alternatively i could create the recipes and then run a separate code that calls out all the ids and inputs the potions effects in a separate table linked by the reid(the name of the id for recipes). potions can give bonuses to spellmaking, all kinds of crafting, heal, be poisons applied to weapons, cause explosions, deal acid damage, possibly be used for scrying, and many other things. potions will have an effect type, strength stats and maybe some other stats. these are generated by a procedural code, mainly using the rand function i guess, and possibly some other math to make certain kinds rarer than others.

remember that games are really just scripts that manipulate a database, mainly using math, and since math is a universal language, i can solve any problem with properly applied math.

i can have as many effects for potions as i desire, as many strengths as i want, basically do anything i want to do. now i did have a problem because procedurally generate resources need unique names, but i solved this by making the names based on the stats of the resource. and then to get a recognizable name instead of 5-46-8, or 5, -4, 6, -8, the first player to discover a resource gets to assign it a name which will replace the name in the database forever more.

see, there aren't 2 parts of a game code, server side and client side, there are three: server, client, player. Outsourcing aspects of the game to the player saves me loads of time, lots of processing power and server resources, allows me to do things that i could not do with just a scripting language and a database, or which would otherwise require me to spend lots of time and provides many other benefits.

so in fact i can design as many affects of potions and enchanting and magic and crafting as i want, and they can have as many modifiers as i care to define.

[pirategaspard]

in fact potions can interact with both spells and items during crafting, but that doesn't have so much to do with alchemy itself.

all resources in the game are generated procedurally, and some resources besides plants can work in potions. in the case of the demo of course we only have plants. potion recipes are generated procedurally. I can set or randomize the total number of combinations which will result in a potion. however, if you use a correct formula you will always get a potion. potions have over 100 possible effects, although in the case of the demo they don't actually do anything, you are just selling potions or raising alchemy or w/e, and the game creates a store that buys all potions. in the final game players will buy the potions based on their effects.

what happens is that i generate all the resources in the game, again in this case just plants. then i run the recipe script to generate the recipes. although i have not written this part of the code, as recipes are generated they will be given effects. alternatively i could create the recipes and then run a separate code that calls out all the ids and inputs the potions effects in a separate table linked by the reid(the name of the id for recipes). potions can give bonuses to spellmaking, all kinds of crafting, heal, be poisons applied to weapons, cause explosions, deal acid damage, possibly be used for scrying, and many other things. potions will have an effect type, strength stats and maybe some other stats. these are generated by a procedural code, mainly using the rand function i guess, and possibly some other math to make certain kinds rarer than others.

remember that games are really just scripts that manipulate a database, mainly using math, and since math is a universal language, i can solve any problem with properly applied math.

i can have as many effects for potions as i desire, as many strengths as i want, basically do anything i want to do. now i did have a problem because procedurally generate resources need unique names, but i solved this by making the names based on the stats of the resource. and then to get a recognizable name instead of 5-46-8, or 5, -4, 6, -8, the first player to discover a resource gets to assign it a name which will replace the name in the database forever more.

see, there aren't 2 parts of a game code, server side and client side, there are three: server, client, player. Outsourcing aspects of the game to the player saves me loads of time, lots of processing power and server resources, allows me to do things that i could not do with just a scripting language and a database, or which would otherwise require me to spend lots of time and provides many other benefits.

so in fact i can design as many affects of potions and enchanting and magic and crafting as i want, and they can have as many modifiers as i care to define.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Fascinating!