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[pspeed]

OK, cool, so tameable animals. Well, since the thread's gone in another direction, I don't feel so bad asking: you mentioned randomised or player created weapons; but will there be armor? And if so, will it be dynamic like the weapons? And will it be race specific? (dwarves can wear uber-heavy armor, but avians can barely wear any?)

If I have my way you'll make your own clothes and armor.  They will be sized for the character type, though... so dwarf armor won't fit a reptilian, for example.

And an avian can wear whatever they want but if it's too heavy then they can't fly.  If they carry too much then they can't fly, either... it's just part of being an avian to have to travel light or make other arrangements.

[ahmadsal]

haha, this game would be epic only with current mode + smart AI. We are so selfish, wanted Paul to make it perfect.  Your doing a great job though, and hopefully things ideas and the end of the tunnel, at least AI, isn't too far. (Unfortunately in Mythruna, one cannot see the end of the tunnel farther than the clip  )

[pspeed]

...there may be a fix for clip someday, too.  Got ideas up my sleeve that I never have time to try.

Anyway, on the plus side, starting tomorrow evening, I have 5 days off in a row.  On the downside, three days of that are because I'm watching my kids while the wife is out of town.  Back on the plus side, they are usually pretty good about fending for themselves.  The dog is the only one I worry about.

[Tsuku]

But won't avians have hollow bones to be able to fly in the first place? So wouldn't they have to have a lower carry capacity, and an inability to wear heavy metal armour? Wood, ceramic, leather... But metal would be far too heavy... of course, making them unable to wear heavier armor might unbalance them...

[pspeed]

But won't avians have hollow bones to be able to fly in the first place? So wouldn't they have to have a lower carry capacity, and an inability to wear heavy metal armour? Wood, ceramic, leather... But metal would be far too heavy... of course, making them unable to wear heavier armor might unbalance them...

They are lighter and they are magically assisted, sort of.  Either way, it doesn't really matter.  They can physically carry or wear a lot more than they could fly with.  But an avian who has lost the ability to fly for some reason can feel free to load himself up to his normal encumbrance for his strength and stature.  They sort of have to since they are shunned by their tribe once they lose the ability to fly.

[Tsuku]

True, true... Personally, I think that wingless avian exile thing would be cool to roleplay... Would that be a playable subrace? Just one more question: do you intend to make merchants or mercenaries travel between towns? Like, I dunno, randomly wandering from town to town, spending time there, and then moving on? Because that's something i wish was possible, I've never seen a game implement dynamic caravans. It's probably really hard to do though.

P.S Sorry about all the questions, but I'm fascinated to see where this game is headed. The engine looks amazing, and seems to be very versatile, and your plans are ambitious as hell... even if you only managed to accomplish a fraction of what you hope to, the game will still be great; and if you do manage to make it the way you want, it'll be godlike! Keep up the good work! 

[ahmadsal]

They sort of have to since they are shunned by their tribe once they lose the ability to fly.

Wow thats deep. Just curious, is creating this character personality system very intensive on the cpu, especially in a larger, more populated town? Also, are you planning on giving the ai their personality when they are first created, or will it change over time, if say their house is destroyed? It will be awkward seeing ai walking in what was once his home, dumbfounded that he cannot complete his role as housekeeper (though he may storm some other poor guys house next door)

[pspeed]

True, true... Personally, I think that wingless avian exile thing would be cool to roleplay... Would that be a playable subrace? Just one more question: do you intend to make merchants or mercenaries travel between towns? Like, I dunno, randomly wandering from town to town, spending time there, and then moving on? Because that's something i wish was possible, I've never seen a game implement dynamic caravans. It's probably really hard to do though.

P.S Sorry about all the questions, but I'm fascinated to see where this game is headed. The engine looks amazing, and seems to be very versatile, and your plans are ambitious as hell... even if you only managed to accomplish a fraction of what you hope to, the game will still be great; and if you do manage to make it the way you want, it'll be godlike! Keep up the good work! 

As an avian, you may have to role-play the exile because it will be hard to have some random avian tribe accept you as their own... though maybe that becomes a personal goal or something.

I do want to support wandering caravans.  I already know how I will implement town to town pathfinding because I think it will be important to a) have NPCs that can travel from town to town for whatever reason, and b) to have NPCs that can tell a player how to get somewhere if they know the way.  The hardest part is actually limiting their perception.  It's easy to make them all-knowing... but harder to make them only know certain things.

[pspeed]

They sort of have to since they are shunned by their tribe once they lose the ability to fly.

Wow thats deep. Just curious, is creating this character personality system very intensive on the cpu, especially in a larger, more populated town? Also, are you planning on giving the ai their personality when they are first created, or will it change over time, if say their house is destroyed? It will be awkward seeing ai walking in what was once his home, dumbfounded that he cannot complete his role as housekeeper (though he may storm some other poor guys house next door)

The personality may change over time but remember that the personality is just used to help make choices between a variety of plans.  When the AI gets a new goal and/or finishes a plan or is interrupted then they just choose a new plan.  It is during plan selection that the "costs" matter and that's where these personality scores come into play.  So that part shouldn't be that CPU intensive... and AI will only figure out real plans when the player is nearby.

If an AI's house is destroyed then that affects what actions he can do.  It's hard to go to the cupboard to get some food if the cupboard doesn't exist, for example.  That level of thing is sort of automatically taken care of.

I don't yet know how or if I would model emotional state... so I don't know if the NPC would be sad his house is destroyed or just immediately adopt the goals of rebuilding it.  That could get interesting later maybe.  And maybe there is some deep goal embedded in most NPCs that once all of their other goals cannot be accomplished then the just go to a bar and drink or something.   The NPC knows what goals he has that he can't accomplish... in my wildest dreams maybe there is a way to get him to articulate that to the player.  Then you potentially get both the drunken NPC telling you his life's sob stories as well as some nice quests for helping him out.  ("Helping NPCs achieve their goals" is already something that I will do but I don't know how seamless that will be as far as communication.)

[Tsuku]

So you are intending to have travellers? Sweet! Itll make the game more immersive than the usual empty roads in games... on that note, will there be a way that roads could be built between two towns? By the townsfolk?

[Moonkey]

So basically you're trying to make your AI as realistic as possible, but not make it a task that is Impossible. Also: Make a subconscious mind for the entities. When A's relation for B is like this: "A is saved by B from a group of bandits." and A hasn't seen B in... 20-40 years and A forgets B but A's subconscious still has B in A's mind then when B meets A, They either: 1. Remember eachothers faces. Or 2. B remembers A and reminds A of that day. Then A's relation with B will go from 3 to 1 again.

     But if something like C killed D's Child, but D never saw C's face or knew C's name, then if C met D, and C knew D's name/face then C might be either Hostile or cautious about D if D knew, then D would have 4: Knew someone killed someone. (Family member, etc.) And if C told D, "I killed your child" Then D might be puzzled/confused and Hostile. And C might move into category 2 or 1. It would be cool to see this happen.

    This could also work for if E's king killed... let's say, the king of another kingdom they are at war with, then E will remember this and, again this would work with known criminals! Wanted posters/nicknames could cone true. Just think: You walk around town, and notice a poster you haven't seen before. It could be new like a war is over, or someone important in the town died by some cause. And if you're a investigator and are given knews of a murder in town: Let the investigation begin! I'm so excited thinking about it.

[ahmadsal]

I am a bit curious, are there going to be some kind of generated nations, and if so would that mean politics and huge castles must also be applied? Or is this going to be a single kingdom (due to relatively small size of land) in which towns of various sizes populate the area with no real superior authority (towns have separate authority and are loosely connected through nationalism).

It would really be interesting if ai are influenced by their town. For example, a small town ai would be more local work oriented, while ai in large walled town may be looking more at a big picture. (ai in castles or capitals would be looking more nationally and their patriotism/ego will be stronger, while ai in small towns will have more dedication to his family/town than to care for the nation). I use nation loosely as either a country or the world, whichever way you take the game.

Aside, if there are going to be different towns everywhere, I'm guessing the spawn point will be removed and map will be saved but limited in what it shows (like a shadow effect).

[pspeed]

So you are intending to have travellers? Sweet! Itll make the game more immersive than the usual empty roads in games... on that note, will there be a way that roads could be built between two towns? By the townsfolk?

Yes, there will be roads between the towns... I'm not exactly sure how flexibly they get created yet.  Ideally if a player creates a road between two towns then it will be discovered.  In my ideal plans, roads get built because NPCs walk those paths... so the easier a path is to walk then the more likely a path will form... then a road, etc..

[pspeed]

So basically you're trying to make your AI as realistic as possible, but not make it a task that is Impossible. Also: Make a subconscious mind for the entities. When A's relation for B is like this: "A is saved by B from a group of bandits." and A hasn't seen B in... 20-40 years and A forgets B but A's subconscious still has B in A's mind then when B meets A, They either: 1. Remember eachothers faces. Or 2. B remembers A and reminds A of that day. Then A's relation with B will go from 3 to 1 again.

     But if something like C killed D's Child, but D never saw C's face or knew C's name, then if C met D, and C knew D's name/face then C might be either Hostile or cautious about D if D knew, then D would have 4: Knew someone killed someone. (Family member, etc.) And if C told D, "I killed your child" Then D might be puzzled/confused and Hostile. And C might move into category 2 or 1. It would be cool to see this happen.

    This could also work for if E's king killed... let's say, the king of another kingdom they are at war with, then E will remember this and, again this would work with known criminals! Wanted posters/nicknames could cone true. Just think: You walk around town, and notice a poster you haven't seen before. It could be new like a war is over, or someone important in the town died by some cause. And if you're a investigator and are given knews of a murder in town: Let the investigation begin! I'm so excited thinking about it.

Heheh... Let's not get ahead of ourselves.   I'd be happy to have fully autonomous-feeling NPCs that live their daily lives and appear to have done something while you were on the other side of the world.  Then I can worry about complicating it with the more grand plans I have.

[pspeed]

I am a bit curious, are there going to be some kind of generated nations, and if so would that mean politics and huge castles must also be applied? Or is this going to be a single kingdom (due to relatively small size of land) in which towns of various sizes populate the area with no real superior authority (towns have separate authority and are loosely connected through nationalism).

It would really be interesting if ai are influenced by their town. For example, a small town ai would be more local work oriented, while ai in large walled town may be looking more at a big picture. (ai in castles or capitals would be looking more nationally and their patriotism/ego will be stronger, while ai in small towns will have more dedication to his family/town than to care for the nation). I use nation loosely as either a country or the world, whichever way you take the game.

There will be towns and cities... generated ones with castles, etc..  I don't know how political they will be but getting to make your own town will certainly require some sort of governmental structures.

There are definitely different nations... some of the races rarely (if ever) interact with other races so there are bound to be nations and enclaves, etc..  I don't know if it will rise any higher than "setting" or if there will be politics, wars, etc... I only vaguely have designs for how city-level AI works and most of that is concentrating on the design that allows a city to evolve when the player isn't around.  I haven't heavily contemplated if there is a collective strategy layer.

Rest assured, I am designing such a thing on a smaller scale for the ant colonies and wolf packs, etc... it may be that this translates well to the city to city level... and it may not.

In general, though, for the Mythruna "story" (ie: the setting) towns operate nearly independently except that they are usually tied to some city "parent".  Cities are more independent but may belong to an association on a larger scale.  I don't know if this evolves into full-blown nations with kinds or not.

An aside: a long time ago when I ran pencil and paper role-playing games in a world I created called Mythra (yes, the name is similar for a reason) there was an entire part of the world where the only unifying governmental force was a three-guild group called The Triad.  I think it was shipping, manufacturing, and agriculture but I'd have to dig up my old notes to be sure.  Because the guilds were so dependent on one another it created a natural check-and-balance system.  Towns operated basically independently but those three guilds were the driving force in their politics and nearly always negotiated treaty-related issues.

I like the idea of a meta-structure built on independent local governments with a loose tie to the meta-structure because it is much easier to program and much much much easier to implement in a world where the town over the horizon doesn't even exist until you start to go there.

Aside, if there are going to be different towns everywhere, I'm guessing the spawn point will be removed and map will be saved but limited in what it shows (like a shadow effect).

I go back and forth on this.  There will definitely be a spawn point and it will always be within sight of some town or city.  I'm creating a sample of one on the public server if there is an interest in walking there some time. (I will move the public server spawn at some point to this new location)

The part I go back and forth on is whether different races will get different spawn points.  It's a nice idea on some levels but it doesn't really fit with the back story of why the player is there and the idea of finding your homeland could be a nice quest for certain races... especially the ones where finding a tribe would be difficult.