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[Huzey-Wuzey]

I get you. You're spot on with the shield/sword separation bit, thinking about it as well. It would get quite boring if you could just walk about with your shield up stabbing mobs.

I'm trying to imagine the bow... For quite a while now lol, as I wasn't sure at first. But yeah I think that would be quite satisfying pulling the mouse back to fire.

I don't know if it would but can't help but think it might feel a bit awkward having to let go of rmb to go precision. At first I thought just hold ctrl for precision but then you would still have to pull the mouse back and then aim. Interested to see how it goes.

What stats do you have in mind for the bow? Accuracy, as in how true to the crosshair the arrow goes, or, more like the crosshair will be unstable and harder control. Power? Will speed be one or will that be how quick you pull the mouse?

Also, are you concrete about the magic for carrying lots of blocks etc. I'm certain I think you could still make it fun without

[pspeed]

I get you. You're spot on with the shield/sword separation bit, thinking about it as well. It would get quite boring if you could just walk about with your shield up stabbing mobs.

I'm trying to imagine the bow... For quite a while now lol, as I wasn't sure at first. But yeah I think that would be quite satisfying pulling the mouse back to fire.

I don't know if it would but can't help but think it might feel a bit awkward having to let go of rmb to go precision. At first I thought just hold ctrl for precision but then you would still have to pull the mouse back and then aim. Interested to see how it goes.

What stats do you have in mind for the bow? Accuracy, as in how true to the crosshair the arrow goes, or, more like the crosshair will be unstable and harder control. Power? Will speed be one or will that be how quick you pull the mouse?

The stats of the bow will be based on the materials and craftsmanship.  I hope to have weight, balance, strength, etc. all factor into drawing and aiming.  Maybe a heavy bow will drop more quickly while drawing/aiming than a light bow.  An unbalanced bow would move a bit from side to side while drawing/aiming.  In this case, a light-well-balanced bow would be critical for rapid shooting.  The strength of the string relative to the strength of the wood will determine how much power you can put into it (ie: how far back you could pull it before the string would break)... up to the maximum strength of that bow.  And the power should probably magnify any of the effects of being overweight or out of balance.  Strong strings will take longer to wear out.  Thicker strings may affect the penetration/damage of the arrow (because they will spend a longer part of flight unstable).

We'll see.  The bow will be the trickiest one because it's the one I will have to do the most "faking" in the sense that I will precalculate the stats of a bow based on its construction.  A sword on the other hand, I hope to just use it's natural physical properties at the time it is swung... so no extra book-keeping needed to get really natural effects.

Also, are you concrete about the magic for carrying lots of blocks etc. I'm certain I think you could still make it fun without

If you look at this page:
http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm

You can see the raw mass of certain materials.  Stone, for example, is about 2500 kg for a single "block".  In pounds, that's about 5500 pounds... or almost 3 tons.  A single Mythrunian block of stone therefore weighs way more than the average U.S. car. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_an_average_car_weigh)

Other than magic, I cannot fathom a satisfying way to make carrying that around in game.  Having to arrange my inventory in Minecraft was one of the single most annoying things.  I understood it but it just bothered me "Oh, I have to drop this bucket so that I can make another 64 block stack of stone." (about 352,000 pounds of stone and I can't still find a place for my bucket)

When I want to have crafted containers with size/weight capacities there is no place for raw materials on the scale needed to build... unless you magic that problem away.

[Huzey-Wuzey]

Sounds pretty in depth.

Yeah, with regard to raw materials etc. I have some ideas and so do you and everyone else. You're making the game.

[pspeed]

Sounds pretty in depth.

Yeah, with regard to raw materials etc. I have some ideas and so do you and everyone else. You're making the game.

I can't tell but I hope I didn't come off sounding harsh or anything.  I put some amount of thought into this problem so it's easy for me to regurgitate notes and reference material.

[Huzey-Wuzey]

Haha, no not at all. More like I felt like I was busting in trying to tell you what you can do better blah blah blah.

No, I think it's just I had this game in my head and that your ideas seem like they're going down the routes that I want to see. And was quite excited when you were discussing, a type of 1:1 movement, as that would be the cherry and I'd love to see it. More than good enough that you're very active around here, answering peoples questions anyway.

[pspeed]

Haha, no not at all. More like I felt like I was busting in trying to tell you what you can do better blah blah blah.

No, I think it's just I had this game in my head and that your ideas seem like they're going down the routes that I want to see. And was quite excited when you were discussing, a type of 1:1 movement, as that would be the cherry and I'd love to see it. More than good enough that you're very active around here, answering peoples questions anyway.

The trick will be making it playable... but I think there is a lot of room to play in that area and I literally have pages and pages of notes on the subject.  The ideas are only waiting to be implemented and see how they go.  In my dream interface, one might even be able to use something like the PS3's Move or Wii controllers.  Coming up with something that works there, on a mouse + keyboard, and for the joystick/key-mashers without too much of a dumbing down will be the real fun.  For example, as it stands, the design is the left-hold is slash where you have control over the slash... but a simple left-click would do a default slash.  The player that just wants to button mash might have access to all of the learned-stances and things to look cool and vary their attacks... but they would miss out on that perfect slice that hits just that right spot.

(An aside since I haven't mentioned it before... "stances" are sort of a learned default position during battle.  When you complete a move, this is where your character will try to get back to once you release the buttons.  This may be one of the few "skill-driven" things in the game as I intend to have them be learned from books or teachers and the more you use a particular stance, the quicker you will be able to return to it, etc..  They are _relatively_ unimportant except that they would control your whole fighting style and different weapons may prefer different default stances.  For example, some big heavy sword will be more effective held high and striking down where as a rapier would be better in front to parry and strike... but now I'm rambling.)

[pspeed]

For example, as it stands, the design is the left-hold is slash where you have control over the slash... but a simple left-click would do a default slash.  The player that just wants to button mash might have access to all of the learned-stances and things to look cool and vary their attacks... but they would miss out on that perfect slice that hits just that right spot.

And anyway, I should point out that much of the 1:1 control scheme is based on taking the physics engine into places it might not easily go.  The button mashing defaults are a nice compromise in the mean time.  Combine that with the stances and I think it would still be interesting combat... just not as cool as I want it to be.

[Huzey-Wuzey]

Ok yh, I think I'm building a picture of what you mean.

When you say left-hold is a slash you have control of, I get that you pull the sword back and you can aim for the legs or the head and releasing will take the swipe.

[pspeed]

Ok yh, I think I'm building a picture of what you mean.

When you say left-hold is a slash you have control of, I get that you pull the sword back and you can aim for the legs or the head and releasing will take the swipe.

Plan is to drag to take the swipe.  The sword will have weight and to some extent follow through on its own if you stop dragging but you can control the whole stroke if you want.  Stabbing will be more like you describe.

[belgariad87]

Almost right... I only read through your description briefly but saw a difference early.

(Caveat: this is all based on current design and may be tweaked for playability once I actually get further along.)

All of the normal mouse buttons are used for the right hand actions.  For example, for a sword, left mouse will be slash and right will be stab, or something.  Middle mouse wheel for a sword might rotate object in your hand (so you can hit with the flat instead of the blade)... an action more useful for other types of objects but I think still useful for a sword maybe.

To control the object in your left hand, you'd hold the ctrl key.  So if you want to position your shield then you'd hold the ctrl key down and move the mouse.  If you want to attack while holding the shield then you have to release the ctrl key and then you can use your sword again.  This seems realistic to me since it requires real separation and I don't have to include any artificial "attacking is reduced while holding shield" since it's natural.

The bow I'm less sure about.  My current notes say that the left button alone will slash with the bow... maybe you want to bash someone's head in with it.  Holding both left and right buttons nocks an arrow and puts you in "draw" mode.  Pulling the mouse back will pull the bowstring.  Moving the mouse left or right will aim left or right.  My current notes say that if you pull the string back far enough then you fire automatically but you can also release the right button to set the drawn bow into "aim" mode where now mouse up, down, left, right will aim the bow.  Holding the right button again will change the draw again... and so on.  Releasing the left button will fire the arrow.  This scheme allows both rapid indiscriminate firing (hold both buttons, move mouse forward and back) as well as carefully aimed and powered firing.  (The bow "icon" in the lower left will indicate how far the bow is drawn.)  For example, a really good archer could get pretty precise I think... maybe there could even be some magic means of helping them aim, set power, account for wind, etc..

At least that's the design so far.

I love these ideas for the combat! You might be able to make it so that if you want to just knock an enemy or animal unconscious, you use something like the flat side of your sword to do so. In any case, brilliant! Its going to take some serious willpower in patience to wait for the magic and combat to be realeased. Is there a separate thread for combat ideas and magic ideas?

[pspeed]

I love these ideas for the combat! You might be able to make it so that if you want to just knock an enemy or animal unconscious, you use something like the flat side of your sword to do so. In any case, brilliant! Its going to take some serious willpower in patience to wait for the magic and combat to be realeased. Is there a separate thread for combat ideas and magic ideas?

re: Flat of the blade to knock someone out, that's precisely the idea.

re: A thread on magic, a user named Sunjammer tried to consolidate various posts into one and there was some discussion here: http://mythruna.com/forum/index.php?topic=548.0

...there may be some scattered info elsewhere.  I've been pretty silent on combat since I'm not sure I can make it fun yet and I hate getting people excited about stuff that is iffy.  This is, I think, the most I've posted on it so far.

[belgariad87]

re: Flat of the blade to knock someone out, that's precisely the idea.

re: A thread on magic, a user named Sunjammer tried to consolidate various posts into one and there was some discussion here: http://mythruna.com/forum/index.php?topic=548.0

...there may be some scattered info elsewhere.  I've been pretty silent on combat since I'm not sure I can make it fun yet and I hate getting people excited about stuff that is iffy.  This is, I think, the most I've posted on it so far.

Glad i got the knocking out thing right. Hope to see updates soon! Looking forward to seeing how all these things come together.

P.S. i fully support trying to make the combat as fun and non-repetitive as possible.

[pspeed]

Also, I might as well add that since the combat (in this form) is physics based and since physics engine allows me to adjust how fast time is flowing... the current plan is to slow time down a little during combat.  This will, I think, mitigate many of the "too hard to control" issues and allow fights to be more strategic.  It also means that a surprised player who is really on the ball might be able to parry the first blow... as soon as the other player goes to hit them a local time-slowing bubble is formed and both players will hear their own heartbeats or something.  So if the attackee is really on the ball he might be able to spin and parry a really slow attack or something.  Perhaps there is even magic that would allow you to detect attacks sooner and slow time sooner.  I think it's fair because both players would know it happened.

The interesting thing is that if the time distortion turns out not to be too big (or maybe even so) for spectators outside the bubble I can play the attacks in real time... just pause between to let time catch up.  And since there was a lot of control for the battlers, I think watching others fight could be really interesting for spectators.

There is potentially more I can do here after I see how it pans out.  For example, if both players have committed to their strike (started the drag of their long sword and just let it follow through) then time can be sped up again briefly until the blows connect.  Might end up being too disorienting... but it also might feel like living in your own matrix-style bullet-time battle.

[belgariad87]

Also, I might as well add that since the combat (in this form) is physics based and since physics engine allows me to adjust how fast time is flowing... the current plan is to slow time down a little during combat.  This will, I think, mitigate many of the "too hard to control" issues and allow fights to be more strategic.  It also means that a surprised player who is really on the ball might be able to parry the first blow... as soon as the other player goes to hit them a local time-slowing bubble is formed and both players will hear their own heartbeats or something.  So if the attackee is really on the ball he might be able to spin and parry a really slow attack or something.  Perhaps there is even magic that would allow you to detect attacks sooner and slow time sooner.  I think it's fair because both players would know it happened.

The interesting thing is that if the time distortion turns out not to be too big (or maybe even so) for spectators outside the bubble I can play the attacks in real time... just pause between to let time catch up.  And since there was a lot of control for the battlers, I think watching others fight could be really interesting for spectators.

There is potentially more I can do here after I see how it pans out.  For example, if both players have committed to their strike (started the drag of their long sword and just let it follow through) then time can be sped up again briefly until the blows connect.  Might end up being too disorienting... but it also might feel like living in your own matrix-style bullet-time battle.

That sounds amazing! though i doubt you'd get to that anytime soon. will you be putting an early, early simple version of combat up soon?

[pspeed]

That sounds amazing! though i doubt you'd get to that anytime soon. will you be putting an early, early simple version of combat up soon?

Probably not "soon" by any reasonable definition.   I may have an excuse to advance the physics engine a little soon... but we'll see.  Nearly complete physics will be required for the above type of combat.