Developers Corner

Interestingly me and Khanstruct were talking about something similar to your cartographer idea as a skill. Having players able to make, buy, and sell maps. Now the maps could have notes on them thereby making maps that show different npcs and such could be more valuable. The big difficulty with maps such as these is if people make walkthrough maps. Now there may be ways to prevent the walkthrough map problem, but I haven't figured out one that does it as well as I'd like so far.

Now in our idea its only a minor portion of the game and thus it won't have your exceptional abilities like teleporting and viewing unvisited areas. Now skill level could make for map detail level, and even inaccuracies, but the real expensive parts on maps would likely involve the player added tags for npcs, cities, mobs, etc...

Personally I like skill based systems over level based, so I am going to mention a few methods which could be applied to either.

Have casting of spells have casting method. Any spell could be cast using many different methods such as invocation, drawing runes, ritual chanting, etc... So maybe a fireball cast using a invocation would be [cast time 1, mana cost 10, dmg 10-30, AoE 10ft], whereas one cast using ritual casting would be [cast time 20, mana cost 10, dmg 20-50, AoE 40ft, mana/dmg/aoe*1.5 per person casting the ritual], using runic casting it might be almost the same as the invocation method except you would have to prepare the rune on something at some point before the actual casting. At the time of preparation 3/4 the mana would be used and the prep time would be about maybe cast time 10. The advantage is that since only 1/4 mana is left if you prepared enough you could cast 4 in a row for the cost of 1. The disadvantage being having to prepare well ahead of time. Now ideally you would have 5-10 different casting methods and hundreds of spells.

Skills that give players accurate real time information. For instance when WoW added its casting bar under your targets name/health bar. This was something rather huge lots of players would have been willing to drop a point on their skill tree for it. Having skills such as:

Spell discernment: see when an opponent is casting spells, and possibly what spell.

Monster anatomy: know approximate dmg dealt on monsters, and possibly weaknesses/status effects. (would work best if you normally didn't see enemy health)

Human anatomy: show dmg dealt on humans, and possibly status effects on them. (seeing status effects would be useful for healing diseases, poisons, or casting dispel to remove haste etc...)

Stealth detection: either give chance to see through stealth/invisibility, or show outline or shadow of the stealthed creature based on skill. Also better ability to see hidden doors maybe.

Tracking: Show what monsters, animals and humans are in the surrounding area. At higher skill levels this might also give approximate numbers, and see harder to track ones. (This is assuming you don't want to deal with network and processing loads by actually maintaining where everything has been for the last 10 minutes or so)

Cartography (alternative): shows a minimap. Skill level affects detail.

I am sure many other such informative skills could be thought up too, this was hardly a comprehensive list.

Hmm guess I'm not in a very creative mood right now only rehashing a couple old ideas not coming up with anything new. Oh well hope it provided something of interest.

Now that you mention it, the issue of walkthrough maps is one of the problems that will plague game cartography. For every system designed, someone will inevitably find an easy way around it. Maybe we should just let it happen as they let console RPGs walkthroughs being written; the players may choose whether to explore on their own or not.

Those ideas on variable spellcasting and "real-time sensing" are interesting. They are deconstructed elements which most games already have at start.

I did not really understand how players will do these spellcasting methods though, will players have to input key combinations within time limit, or the one-click MMORPG standard? It's akin to charging spells, in some ways. I guess it should be technically feasible for servers and all, just no one fully fleshed it out yet.

Your casting methods reminded me of one related idea I used to have: combocasting. Since players already have a time limit they have go through, other players can "tag" the already casting player with a linkable spell. The spell will double in power, or morph in something else.

e.g    Fireball + Fire Breath, AoE = Fireblast. AoE

Everything else on the real-time information, it'll definitely offer a different experience. If you played spacecraft shoot-em-ups, you'll see that one is often not able to see how much the enemy or boss has... in theory, adding the excitement of destruction. Showing everything away sure makes it too easy, eh?

Rehashes or not, game ideas persist everywhere!

I had an interesting thought on this, though I'm not sure how directly related to the original post it is. This would be interesting in a medieval game. What if mages could use extremely well crafted maps to cast spells on areas, even if they aren't there? Currently, I can't think of a real practical reason for this other than just annoying crowds at specific locations, but it would add an interesting touch. The wise old wizard, sitting over a map in his castle while a battle rages miles away. Perhaps he could get basic information on various locations as well...kinda reminds me of Lord of the Rings, when Saurumon casts lightning on the snowy cliffs near the caves of moria... but I digress.

This has also stirred up some ideas specific to X-Shift, but I'll share those with my team.

I will just post more ideas up, been up to some brainstorming on creating new player roles.

This is a very controversial class/profession that is not used in many games yet: Bombers.

Bombers conjure up lots of negative imagery of how innocent passerbys get injured in real-life, but they can create an image closer to explosive alchemists or grenadiers. Explosive experts, one might say. Games with settings that are modern, steampunk, renaissance and futuristic will definitely have places for a 'job' like this.

Branching out time:

- Classic ol' grenades. Sticky grenades that won't let go. Heat-seeking grenades that home in but can be deterred if the target fires away a cold bolt or plants a "cold pillar". Smoke grenades that obscure views (best results if the game has FPS long-rangers), ala ninja smoke bombs. Flashbangs that do what flashbangs in CS do. Poison grenades that does AoE status and damage, and their cousins biohazard grenades. Status grenades and so on. A lot more for grenade types.

- Bola grenades that are used elsewhere in movies and books, but they are just another form of sticky grenades.

- This one is from a movie I forgot the name: you lob a grenade-like thing into the area, it shoots up and fires nails/sharpnel in a death blossom pattern. Anti-personnel function, in modern terms.

- The ability to lob these grenades can use the control interface from snooker and golf games: the power-swing bar. This will no doubt introduce a form of skill, so only skilled players can bullseye running and panicking enemies.

- Throwing explosives, this can borrow some baseball and softball techniques. Or a totally unpredictable and fantasy throwing pattern, such as a sharp horizontal S-swerve, corkscrews and sideway bell curves.

- "Decoy Targeting" skill: bomber throws the grenade at the enemy #1, it bounces off to enemy #2 and finally explodes when it hits #3. It can be totally random, that even the bomber does not know who will be hit and could even be the bomber himself.

- Bombs that are planted and fixed in place but with the same list of abilities of their projectile relatives. Some bombs are able to trap and stun opponents before exploding. Mines are the hidden versions of bomb, as we already know. It is not limited to ground placement: walls, ceilings, even a friend of the target that travels with him.

- Disguised bombs. You think this is just a normal bush, next to you? It's an ambush (bad pun). Controversial issue: involve animals as disguise.

- Missiles that also do the same but goes much further. Coupled with cartography abilities, one can land a cruise missile onto a poor guy resting under a tree somewhere miles away. The bomber manually targets by using something similar to a handheld laser guidance system, and this is better than a sure-hit for balancing issues.

- From missiles, airstrikes are also a possibility, and so are burrowing missiles that are like mines that came alive.

- If the game has magic... it's all understood what to do.

- The ability to damage opponent's equipment, in temporarily and permanent ways.

- Flares for visual signals, and is practically a guild or party recall skill.

- Bombers versus bombers can do Metal Gear Solid chaff grenades to confuse and nullify each other's explosive weapons.

- The controversial ability to suicide bomb and deal out ungodly amount of AoE damage, or one-to-one instant boom. Bad press material, but ideas can be discussed, no? Also, tag an opponent into literally a walking bomb, though at the cost of getting the bomber in the blast as well.

Gameplay-wise, Bombers are a class that is in theory hard-to-play, and very hard to balance. A real test in gameplay balancing. However, if the perception issues of suicide bombing and animal cruelty is not perceived as offensive by too many, I believe some games can take up the challenge to make this role a playable one. Better yet, a fun and slightly irritating one too.

Come to think of it, if monster are still biologically animals, where are the animal rights?

Originally posted by Sandcastle
The idea of cartographers come from a PS1 game called Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.