I've gone withe a 9 slot approach, with items being categorized in 3 sizes, Compact, Small, and Large. The 9 slots are organized in a 3x3 grid.

Compact Items take one slot, but stack, small items do not stack, and take up one slot, and large items take 2 slots, vertically. I've also considered allowing a user to add up to 1x3 spaces on teh right side of the grid, allowing for 3 stacks, or 1 more large item, by equipping backpacks, etc.

I'm not sure, I'd imagine there would be no automatic way to share sight, forcing them to communicate.. but then again maybe that's asking too much sometimes.

I'm pretty against the hide in plain sight, however since most of the game is in buildings/streets, there's lots of LOS cover. Basically if it were timed right, you could run say.. from table to table, without breaking stealth.
 
I guess I'll just have to playtest it and go from there.  =O

I generally play MMOs for social reasons.. however there are a few games when I jsut wanted to be left alone.

Alot of people ask "why bother playing an MMO then, go get a Single Player RPG!" However most MMOs, when played alone, are more 'alive' and less static than single player games, they're more sandbox, and freeform. An MMO played alone plays alot like F3/Elder Scrolls, for example.

It sounds interesting, I was a fan of Jedi Knight, Outcast, Acaedemy, etc.

However.. Another MMOFPS? It's like every game coming out these next 2 years is an FPS. I'm glad more are being made and all, but we don't really need 7 of them.

Were you referring to the one a few minutes ago?

I think the issue was that he believed his offense had something to do with wow, when in reality it was the way he treated people.. then proceeded to treat people like crap for 2 more pages.

It's like using racial slurs in a post about pancakes, then assuming your warning was due to the forum being run by people with stock in iHop. It's jsut silly thinking.

Didn't the sequel just get cancelled?

This si something I've been thinking about all week. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to check the guild house, auctions, etc. while at school//work whatever.
Lately, more game have been rolling out 'WoW Armory' type setups, allowing you to view are parse character data.

It's a step in the right direction, but personally I'd like to see more meaningful and seamless integration, such as extending chat servers to the game's site, allowing you to chat with your friends or guild from a web client.

I've started taking steps in merging the forum more, allowing your avatar to display in-game (like EVE, sort of), as well as having your in-game title shown in the forums, etc.

So I guess what I'm asking is.. what do you think? Where can games go from here? I'd like to focus on these types of things ahead of time, as they can be semi difficult to implement once character data is finalized.

I've been thinking alot on how I was planning to implement stealth lately. Personally, I hate the whole "push button -> invisible" way that stealth is done.

However, due to the technical limitations, "true" stealth is pretty difficult to achieve, either because of model edits client side, camera angles, boosting contrast on teh monitor, etc.

I liked the way it was being implemented in Stargate, with you having a stealth 'HP bar' that diminished over time based on the people around you, etc. I was also thinking about eh stealth cover system in WANTED, and came up with a basic design, however it still has some issues.

I thought at first, if you were considered in stealth, you would be completely invisible to everyone. Things like noise, skills, etc. would increase your chance of stealth breaking early, but the basic idea is that you could pass behind someone unnoticed.

If you were in the 180 degree forward arc, you would remain in stealth as if youwere behind them, so long as you remained out of their los (walls, furniture, doors, etc.) however if you were in the 30 degree arc (directly in front more or less), your stealth would diminish rapidly.

However, someone brought up that a user that thinks a stealthed player is nearby can simply rotate slowly, and more or less AoE break stealth. The basic purpose of stealth in game is literally to sneak around, not for combat reasons (aka, no backstab abilities).

Do you think the current system would work alright in that context? or do you have any ideas to tag on in dealing with the system? I'm currently at a loss, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

(Sorry for my writing being sloppy and generally blah, it's 2 am and I have to get up in 3 hours, brain not working so great.)

It's made with Xtremeworlds.

The project I'm currently working on was inspired by CP2020/GitS actually.