Avatar Vitals and Crawling

[Stucuk]

Limiting choice is always a bad idea. You want to limit peoples ability to play the game the way they want by making them take jumps slowly.... Limited Choices = Limited Gameplay = Worse Game.

[J'Kla]

You seem determined to miss-understand me I'm suggesting we increase choice. Offer easy AND hard solutions

[nathan2055]

...J'Kla thinks that would put "Shorah" into the "Have a nice Day" category i.e. I would soon come to feel insincere....

...This should be easy to fix in Python. However I feel a bit as J'Kla about this......

We could have a system to allow a player to receive automated (i.e. Nathan2055 has logged in to <insert shard name here>.) login or logout (Nathan2055 has logged out of <insert shard name here>.) messages.

On the question of stamina (I'm not quoting six messages, I've had too many page long posts because of that in the Community Nexus thread):
I think Cyan has added stamina in a good way. I don't think people would want to have J'kla's idea implemented. My dad run and jumps gaps like that in URU (and almost all other video games), and having such an odd implementation would make no since. I think just perhaps letting the avatar taking a few deep breaths when stopping after a long run (like having one heart left in a The Legend of Zelda) would work great. I don't think stamina should get in the way or be a feature, it should just be there, but not annoy the player.

[Stucuk]

You seem determined to miss-understand me I'm suggesting we increase choice. Offer easy AND hard solutions

Im not miss-understanding you now because you clarified your idea in your previous post. What would happen is people would be forced to take jumps at a slow pace because they couldn't rely on the character jumping the same distance every time. People wouldn't be able to take jumps how they want, instead they would be limited.

The game wouldn't become harder because people would just adapt to the situation(And be annoyed that they had to change there playstyle) by taking jumps slower. So all it would do is kill off choice by forcing people to change how they play the game. Games which allow players the freedom to have as much choice as possible generally do better than games which limit that choice to one playstyle by penalising others.

Deus Ex 1 did so well simply because it offered the ability for everyone to play the game however they wanted without being penalised because of how you play the game.

The bottom line is you can not increase choice by penalising people who pick a choice. Because there is then no choice at all.

I think just perhaps letting the avatar taking a few deep breaths when stopping after a long run (like having one heart left in a The Legend of Zelda) would work great. I don't think stamina should get in the way or be a feature, it should just be there, but not annoy the player.

+1. I think that idea would be better if you just had a heavy breathing sound which kicked in after you were running for a while, rather than when you stopped running(Once stopped the breathing sound would get lower until its no longer being played).

[J'Kla]

Withdrawn

[tachzusamm]

Cyan examples

Show Spoiler

Ghareseen power room with the giant gear can be solved by running around quickly
or
by returning to the power lift between actions
or
by taking a buddy to stand on the power lifter while you walk through the actions

J'Kla, this is a really well chosen example.
Personally I must mention that I enjoyed this part of the Gahreesen puzzle very much - because it just behaves this way, and you have these three choices.
Even thinking about having them was fun (and when playing the game again I tried all of them), and it proved me again how brilliant Cyan was in designing puzzles. They already managed to introduce this said dependency of "explorer fitness" even without the need to directly implement it - just by making the puzzle time-dependent with the option to re-charge the power lift again.

Until now I was just reading in this thread, and thought "bad idea, we never needed some health dependency in URU, why now?", but reading this example, I changed my mind; having an additional option of gaining additional fitness by resting would definitely improve the experience.

(Although I think it will mainly give an option for future fan ages, because Cyan's Ages are complete as they are and should not be influenced)

[Sirius]

Personally I must mention that I enjoyed this part of the Gahreesen puzzle very much - because it just behaves this way, and you have these three choices.
Even thinking about having them was fun (and when playing the game again I tried all of them), and it proved me again how brilliant Cyan was in designing puzzles.

And it seems they event thought about allowing players to stand on the gear while it was raised. Unfortunately never done.
Yeah, Cyan's puzzles are very well done.

[J'Kla]

(Although I think it will mainly give an option for future fan ages, because Cyan's Ages are complete as they are and should not be influenced)

Yes I'm only considering it for ages I am building and I totally agree If we have this functionality built in and Cyan choose to make use of it that's their choice. There is a list of things I would like to change in Cyans ages but thats another thread

[Stucuk]

No you still havn't got it.

With your posts being contradictory its hard to work out your idea. You have never stated that the player would Jump further by default, you have only talked about making it harder to do jumps when your character is out of breath. Yet you state the system would make it easier for people to play URU.

People give up on good games becuse they come to an empasse i.e. some jump or move in the game they cannot do for whatever reason. There are a few places where Uru requires a co-ordinated jump I'm trying to suggest using some method of assistance without resorting to fly mode or the like. I gave up on Portal because there was one room I just could not get past even with a walkthrough.

Adding fitness that reduces your players abilities is pointless because people would just act like they would in the real world. They would pause when they are tird, so they would be forced to not play the game for X seconds. It wouldn't add a 2nd level of difficulty as the vast majority would not want to waste there time "Dying" and having to do the jump(s) all over again.

No matter what your idea is, fitness would not help in any way shape or form as people would adapt to it so that it wouldn't kill them off when they did a jump.

Yes I'm only considering it for ages I am building

Just make the jumps so normal people can do them. Then there is no problem to begin with.

[phoenix]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the the thorough feedback since I posted the ideas. After reading all your viewpoints I want to expound the features a little.

The criteria I think is valuable here is adapting the existing engine as little as possible to maintain compatibility with Cyan. Remember the key focus here is how a writer wants to direct his or her story. As a writer I want to involve the player, not to the point of ultra realism, but to an engaging gameplay.

Point in case:

1) If we had a compass in 1st person view, we would see the avi's hand holding it. Leave the KI as the KI. If I was an explorer I would take a backpack with lots of useful tools that I would need along the way. It would be cool to use a compass in 1st person while the avi holds it.

2) The health bar issue is quite useful in the following manner. If the avi gets to the point of total exhaustion, either he/she takes some food or drink out his backpack,(if it is that kind of level) and consumes it to replenish those energies or the avi gets so exhausted from exercise, but instead of dying, he/she could automatically portal back to Relto without the dying part (the dyying is already part of the engine if you fall off a cliff). (So No death!! - Yes, this is why I am still with URU, since it is non-violent) Also, if the avi walked too near to a fire, and burnt himself, he would lose some health. But on returning to his relto, he would be restored. (As a writer, I would prefer if he opened his closet on returning to relto, and used a medical aid kit).

3) Crawling would be very useful, because it would add the ability to create some really interesting puzzles with tunnel networks.

4) A flash light that he holds in his hand in 1st person view, would also be really useful like the fireflies in Eder Gira that you need in order to find the switches for the lights in the caves.

5) And the ability to create a camp fire or a fire-torch that the avi can carry would add a new level of ambience to the play. Imagine meeting some friends in uru around a camp fire for a chat, listening to the crackle and pop of a bonfire!

6) And this brings me to the one feature that our little avi really could use. THE USE OF HIS HANDS! Wow! He has used them already so much, but imagine picking up a basket in Eder Gira and placing it in the stream instead of kicking it around. The avi makes such good use of his hands when climbing and pulling levers, that it seems such a shame not to extend on this. Sure he can still kick things, but the player could choose if he wanted to kick or carry.

His hands could hold things, pick up, carry and drop things. Now imagine how intriguing your puzzles could become!

If you notice I am proposing to extend the player experience with little features that just add a little more depth without trying to make it super-real. These features are mostly avi based, since the engine is mostly perfect as it is, except for fire.

The player when he first starts in uru has to learn to be an explorer. Along his path he would collect various tools and equipment that will help him to become a master explorer. He would eventually learn how to make fire, he would find a torch that he can keep, he might find a head-lamp as well somewhere along the way, he would also eventually find a compass to help him solve puzzles, he may even one day find a box of matches that he can use, and he would learn to use his hands.

Looking forward to the conversation.

Phoenix