Gauging interest in a Dominions Roguelike... [Archive]

Endoperez

September 5th, 2004, 07:51 AM

I would be! I might not be able to help you with the actual coding, but I can throw around some ideas if you want to... You might want to check the nwesGroups of rec.games.roguelike.developement and r.g.r.misc, DomII has been mentioned at least once in the latter.

Could you tell us what you have planned? Especially these three questions are rather important for me. I have dreamed about Dominions-based roleplaying game a few times myself, so I have some of my own ideas to post too.

What language are you going to write the game in? If you want help others have to know if they can help...

What kind of system are you going to use?

My answer: Dominions RPG system. With DomRPG I mean system with Att, Def, Str, Prot, etc. that are compared with open-ended 2d6 roll, like in the game.

What kind of magic system are you considering?

My answer: Schools and Paths. One way to cover the Schools and Paths is to give the character knowledge in the first and power in the second and use DomII spells. This would highly unbalance the system towards Evocation and away from Conjuration and Blood as all kind of summons would be very expensive, so we would have to make a workaround.
One possibility is to use Rules of Magic from Ars Magica, pen&paper rpg that IW team plays/played. In it, no magic or magical effect is permanent without use of Vis, magical power found in _gems_ and few other forms... With this even beginning Conjurors without gems/vis would be able to create a Vineman, but it would dissipate after a while.
4th edition of Ars Magica can be legally downloaded from somewhere, I don't remember the exact place but can look it out if you are interested.

Nagot Gick Fel

September 5th, 2004, 08:34 AM

I'd expect religion to play an important role in a Dom roguelike, just like in Crawl or even more. Blessings, etc. Eg, worship a Son of Niefel and get effects like:

ray
You feel yourself speed up.

[Edit: what about worshipping a Green Dragon and getting:

ray
A red film seems to cover your vision as you go berserk! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif]

Karacan

September 5th, 2004, 10:15 AM

I can't code for a living http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif, but I'm pretty good at doing algorithms, rule-systems, balancing of spells and ideas in general, as long as someone else implements them.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Dominions-type rpg, using a base value and two open-ended d6 for most rolls.

However, this means that the character has to be something tougher than human... I can't imagine a light infantrist surviving even the sight of a green dragon in the lower dungeons, no matter how much experience stars he aquired. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Gandalf Parker

September 5th, 2004, 12:44 PM

Will you start with an open-source rogue game?

Thinking of something like Dungeon Odyssey?
(available at Shrapnel)

Any consideration toward doing something marketable?

I wonder if we could arrange to read the same maps and play them in an expanded view.

Esben Mose Hansen

September 5th, 2004, 05:04 PM

Gandalf Parker said:
Any consideration toward doing something marketable?

Thanks for reminding me. I'll probably NOT help if the license is not GPL or similar. Specifically, I do not usually contribute to "BSD"-licensed projects. Which should not deter you at all, of course, as I'll probably be more interested in helping Planetscape in any case http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Ed Kolis

September 5th, 2004, 05:53 PM

Ooh, never even thought of doing this as a DO mod... heck, I never even *bought* DO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Would make it easier than coding from scratch, but then having never bought DO, I wouldn't know how moddable it really is...

What really got me going was the magic paths and how you have the spell level in each element (fire, astral, death, etc.) but then there are the seven or so schools of magic on the other axis, which form sort of a "tech grid" (for those of you familiar with SE4 modding http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)... and then there are of course zero or more spells in each combination of element and school, so the magic would work something like cthAngband's Hermetic magic... oh, and of course there would be magic gems you could use to cast spells or empower yourself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

As for the licensing issue, yes, I did want to release this if not under the GPL at least under some sort of freeware license; if anyone at Shrapnel or Illwinter thinks I'm stealing their ideas, I'll try writing a roguelike based on something else, but you do know that Zangband's magic system is just as heavily based on Master of Magic, don't you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Religion? Hmm, to be honest, I wasn't even worrying about that at the moment, strangely enough for a game based on Dominions! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif That would definitely be something to take into account...

Programming language wise, I personally prefer to work in C#, and I've already started some stuff using C# 2.0 (the new beta from Microsoft), just because it has console color attributes and generic classes and all kinds of handy stuff like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif yah laugh at me for using C# to write a roguelike, well if I had to use C or something it would *never* get done at all that's for sure! :p

As for "kind of system", I hadn't really planned that out yet, but my basic idea was to have 4 combat stats, determined from basic 6 D&D stats & the character's equipment. Combat stats are Attack, Defense, Damage, and Protection. Attack improves your chance to hit the enemy, Defense decreases the chance for the enemy to hit you, Damage is the damage you do, and Protection is the amount that hits are reduced in hitpoints. I kinda borrowed this idea off ADOM, as that's the only roguelike I've seen with an equivalent to SE4's "emissive armor" or Dom2's "protection" stat... but in my system, Attack, Defense, Damage, and Protection will all be rolled up as dice, not just Protection, so if your armor has a Protection rating of 2d4 and your shield is 1d3, and you get hit with a 3d5 broadsword, say, you could take no damage at all or you could take as much as 3*5-2*1-1*1 = 15-2-1 = 13 damage. (This helps prevent uber-armor which is impossible to penetrate, sort of like Dom2's open-ended damage rolls, as well as randomizing combat a bit more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

Oh, and I do *hope* to have monsters wielding items, as both "monster" and "player" are subclasses of "creature", which contains equipment slots http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

But all I have right now is a simple stats display and a grid of green dots representing the ground... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Finally, I plan on having the game's interface quite... inspired... by Angband. But I do not plan on using any Angband code; I wouldn't want to spoil the game for myself by peeking at the code, and besides, it's all C anyway and I don't like C very much! :p

Esben Mose Hansen

September 5th, 2004, 06:13 PM

Ed Kolis said:
Ooh, never even thought of doing this as a DO mod... heck, I never even *bought* DO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[...]

Finally, I plan on having the game's interface quite... inspired... by Angband. But I do not plan on using any Angband code; I wouldn't want to spoil the game for myself by peeking at the code, and besides, it's all C anyway and I don't like C very much! :p

Well then, I'm not going to help. I don't do freeware, and I certainly don't do Java or any of it's clones.

Java or C# --- they're like C++ without the cool features and limited libraries. What's the point? In any case I'm not laughing... If I was going to write something like this from scratch I would have chosen Perl, Ruby or maybe Python.Why mess around with lowlevel stuff for a game that's not even graphics-intensive?

And writing a game from scratch when there's already plenty of suitable engines and similar games is just a waste of time --- IMO.

Good luck --- and I don't let me cynism deter you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

magnate

September 6th, 2004, 03:27 AM

I'm a huge fan of roguelikes and will gladly help. I can't code for toffee, but I can do ideas, docs, tables and balancing. Let me know when you get started.

CC
(P.S. I never finish any projects either, such as rewriting the random artifact code for Angband, so I know exactly how you feel.)

Ed Kolis

September 6th, 2004, 01:57 PM

Cool! Yeah, I'll definitely need idead, docs, tables, and balancing! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I'd post what I have so far but it really doesn't DO anything other than display a grid and some player stats/inventory, and who wants to download a 25MB .NET runtime for THAT? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif (Yes, I did say runtime - the SDK I had to download was 10 times that size! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif Price you pay for ease of programming, I guess...)

Kristoffer O

September 6th, 2004, 04:10 PM

You should take a look at Dungeon Crawl. It is a very good game.
Magic is fun. You have several schools and when you use skills you use up experience points and get increases and eventually learn better magic.
Armor has a random value. Prot 15 protects 1-15. You have an evasion value etc.

rylen

September 7th, 2004, 11:16 AM

Depending on my courseload and the shape of the game, I'd help develop.

ADOM and Nethack I think are good models for the game.

Angband is heavily modded, and looks easy to make monster and item changes, but I don't like its progression rate or inventory system.

What do you mean a Dom II roguelike? Bringing in the objects? The magic paths / research? The indeps and critters? Small unit tactics? Creating SCs?

Rylen

Ed Kolis

September 7th, 2004, 04:23 PM

By a Dom2 roguelike, I primarily mean bringing in the magic paths and spells (possibly even forging), along with the different nations as player "races". But other ideas could be incorporated, such as the artifacts (anyone ever find it silly that you could forge ancient artifacts BTW? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)...

I didn't intend to use any Angband code, only borrow ideas and UI heavily from Angband, for two reasons: 1. I don't want to spoil Angband for myself, and 2. I don't want work in C; I prefer to use C# http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif What don't you like about Angband's character progression and inventory system? The inventory I think I can see; it's the limited slots that are annoying. I plan on having multiple inventory pages like Nethack and ADOM so that shouldn't be a problem. As for the character progression, what's wrong with it, is it too fast? Well how else do you expect a human character to defeat a dragon or other pretender god? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Or is it just too artificial, with everything depending on "character level" which is gained almost exclusively by slaying monsters? That can be changed, and indeed it has in several Angband variants, such as CthAngband, where there are no character levels, and skills are improved by successfully using them at a dangerous enough dungeon level to correspond to the current skill level.

Gandalf Parker

September 7th, 2004, 05:18 PM

Ed Kolis said:
But other ideas could be incorporated, such as the artifacts (anyone ever find it silly that you could forge ancient artifacts BTW? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)...

I never thouight about it but yes thats a good point.

Magic Sites? could come in but on a one-use only. You find the one that lets you enter for training, or the one that lets you summon something if you are of a particular magic class. Even the gem income I guess since you were considering forging.

rylen

September 7th, 2004, 06:14 PM

Hmm .. my problems with Angband.

You got all three of them.
1) Inventory limits. It makes a degree of sense, but I prefer the multi page setup, perhaps w/ an ADOM & Angband style equip page. (That's how Dom2 does it, instead of the Nethack noted item system.)

2) Magic system. I'll probally ***** regardless. I've always like the theory under the Ultima runes system. And told myself if I tackled this I'd allow HERO system style combination of forms (shape of spell), elements (effects of spell), and special effects (what it looks like.) Potentially extremely flexible, but difficult.

The DOM2 mimic would have pre-written spells which become available when you have paths and knowledge.

3) By pacing, I feel Angband is too SLOW, not too fast. You can get fairly deep into Nethack or ADOM in a few hours. To reach the equivalent place in Angband takes weeks.

For personal RPGs I vastly prefer spendable upgrades (HERO or HeroQuest) to D&D style discrete jumps, but I understand how that's easier to code.

---

How are you thinking of structring the game? Ye olde dungeon descent? Wandering the land? One thought I've had, a Roguelike RTS. (Of course, not RT.) Each char represents big monsters, units of troops, or important folks w/ bodyguard. Depending on direction AI you could order your folks to fight other folks.

----

I'm trying to learn C# myself.

Rylen

Karacan

September 7th, 2004, 08:07 PM

rylen said:
How are you thinking of structring the game? Ye olde dungeon descent? Wandering the land? One thought I've had, a Roguelike RTS. (Of course, not RT.) Each char represents big monsters, units of troops, or important folks w/ bodyguard. Depending on direction AI you could order your folks to fight other folks.

Go and play a summoner in Crossfire. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I find it sad that Ed decides against the cool combatsystem of Dominions. I'd certainly like a more complex combat system than "run into this and see if you hit, and then it runs into me". Anyone ever played the roguelike Omega? That was a combatsystem I found pretty entertaining. You had several actions per attack (determined on your skill) and had to chose how many actions of those go into attack, defense, parry, block, riposte, dodge, etc, all dependent on your skills and equipment. Very exciting, and made playing a fighter just as fun as playing a mage.

Ed Kolis

September 7th, 2004, 11:40 PM

"Against the cool combat system of Dominions"? What factors from Dominions' combat could be incorporated into a roguelike? I already said I was planning on including protection value, albeit as dice so weaker creatures have at least a chance to damage heavily armored creatures... what else did you have in mind? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

Oh, yes, I was planning on "ye olde dungeon descent" (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif), just because it seems the easiest to implement and balance - ye olde monster strength and ye olde item power should be directly related to ye olde dungeon depth, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I always hated it in games like ToME where you could suddenly run into level 35 monsters when you were only at level 10, just becasue you happened to wander into the wrong square on the overworld map! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif (Of course, I still like ToME for a lot of other reasons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

quantum_mechani

September 8th, 2004, 01:21 AM

My 2 cents:

-As much as possible of the Dominions battle system should be used.

-Try to only use Dominions units as monsters (not too hard considering all the myth Dominions draws on)

-A random god generator, preferably based on the current god title system. Each game a set of gods would be rolled, and each title would add a diferent blessing/curse they could give (so, one with the title 'god of courage' could bless you to resist fear effects, or bestow a curse that any creature is able to scare you).

One thing that would be a bit difficult to transfer is blood magic.

Ed Kolis

September 8th, 2004, 02:32 AM

Blood magic? Well, assuming I don't manage to get some sort of pets/companions system in (which would be perfect for blood slaves http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif), I can always have blood magic drain the caster's HP or Constitution...

rylen

September 9th, 2004, 06:39 PM

Further thoughts -- everything follows from the story. Let me sketch some increasingly big ideas.

V1: To kill a god. A Dom2 prequel. You, an asperant, climb through a series of challenges to petition the great god. A nice, linear dungeon crawl.

V2: For the greater glory. You are an assassin / army leader. At game start you pick a faction and a chasis. You pick or are assigned an opponent faction. You enter their land, avoid or defeat patrols, find the fortress, move through it, kill their Pretender, and go home.

V3: Dom2 from the ground up. Again you are an assassin / army leader. At setup you spend points on yourself, and paths and scales for your pretender. The compter does the same for other factions. Then you go to neighboring lands, find several flags, and claim the place for your faction. You may poke around heavily and find magic sites which give your pretender gems and bonuses. As you wander around, your pretender does research, recruits units to guard the places you've grabbed, and summons increasingly powerful critters. Eventually, you find a different factions land. Capture or skirt their provinces and find their keep. Enter, kill their pretender, taking the magic item that allows him to seek godhood and bring it home for your guy. Rinse and repeat.

While your doing that, your pretender is securing some lands and buying some troops. The other factions also have their Rogue-Heros and armies trying to grab and regrab lands and kill the other guys.

----

What I really like about this idea:
1 -- it replaces depth based difficulty with time based difficulty. The nearby provinces are a challenge for a starting character. The first faction you fight has some basic troops and commanders. Much later you'll face experienced elite troops, equiped commanders, and strong summons. You'll also have the option of using your own nations troops.
2 -- it recreates the story from a different perspective
3 -- it has a Dom2 choice b/w short and long term power. Having a high path, good scale boss means great assistants and items, plus secure provinces in the long term but a weak chasis and equipment. Or vice versa.

----
Yeah, way too complex for the start. But I think the narrative is the big thing.

Rylen

Vicious Love

September 10th, 2004, 09:55 AM

Ed Kolis said:
But other ideas could be incorporated, such as the artifacts (anyone ever find it silly that you could forge ancient artifacts BTW? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)...

Not in the slightest. The moment I realized this was happening, I immediately assumed that either
A) The artifact was being reforged, Anduril-style
B) The legend/soul of the long-gone artifact was being given a new vessel
C) Some sort of sickeningly postmodern divine power, not unlike the one alluded to in the description of the Wish spell, was, indeed, MAKING an ancient artifact out of scratch

Getting back on topic, I have to admit, I never actually liked playing Roguelike games. With a few exceptions: I always enjoyed character creation, and I always delighted in thinking up stats for things. It was the theory I adored, not the practice.

That said, if you've got a use for me, I'd love to be on the team. I've had some experience with C, a bunch of Languages that don't matter(Prolog, BASIC, have I mentioned Java? Personal bias), and Perl, but that was all a relatively long time ago, by my goldfishesque reckoning.
Besides which... bad things happen when I attempt big projects. Just take my word for it.
Methinks I'd rather be helping out in other departments. Ideally ones that don't require talent.

Demosthenes

September 10th, 2004, 04:44 PM

This thread got me back into ADOM. Curse you Ed Kolis!

Endoperez

September 10th, 2004, 04:49 PM

I don't believe that one should be creating a pretender/god in the RL. That closes of the possibility to become one! Well, you could also be *playing* one, but we have Dominions for that, don't we? The view of commander/soldier/assasin for your god does give a whole new view to the game.

I also like the idea of a story. To blind the opposing Cyclops that was harassing your homeland with his fiery armies, to destroy the spirit that guided Pythiumian forces past defending armies to destroy your home... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Really, that sounds great! And you can have *16* main targets!

About races and character classes, what about the already-suggested Abysian, Caelumian, Pythiumian etc. with Gladiator, Legionaire, Theurg, Hydra Trainer... for Pythium. Each nation would have some classes unique to them. Crawl-like classes that show what the character has learned in the past but that don't affect what he can (or will) learn might not suite Dominions very well, but adding some of it would not hurt...

About magical sites: many roguelikes have Vaults, known by different names in different games. They are huge rooms filled with many/stronger than usual monsters, often guarding great treasures. "You discover a way to get past the fiery wall, and find a way leading to the Tar Pits. There are two experienced Fire Drakes and a huge Fire Elemental guarding it."

Sorry if these ideas distract you, I don't except you to be far enough to implement any of these yet. I just am quite excited about the idea... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Kristoffer O

September 10th, 2004, 05:51 PM

Some thoughts on the game system.

Some have said that you should use the dominins combat system. I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I like the dominins combat system, but I think it wouldn't fit a rougelike very well.

Most roguelikes focus on character development. Your character begins the game as a looser that kills puny monsters. When you have killed enough puny monsters you can go on and fight more powerful monsters. Unless there is a steep development of your character's combat abilities there is not much reward in the killing. If you have the same problems killing a bear for the first time or the 101st time as you have killing a warden for the first time you will not feel as if you have progressed. Resistance will never change and you do not need to (or have the ability to) increase your power to enter the magic keep or horrible dungeon. You will always be good or bad depending on your startup. Some kind of research would of course alleviate this problem if you have a magically adept character.

If you use the dominions system progression will have to focus on the story instead, more like a regular pen and paper RPG (not AD&D). This might be good, but it leaves the rougelike gameplay and demands a lot more of the plot (which would not be replayable infinitely).

Dominions does not focus on development as much as quantity and deployment of troops and equipment. The magic system is an exeption. I believe that characters in a rougelike needs a means to achieve great powers (compared to the beginning character) if the game is to be replayable for any length of time. The combat system of dominions is good, but does not allow much development. Artifacts can boost a character, but very few humans can become SC's in the dominions system.

I would prefer to see wardens very powerful and not something slightly better than a tower guard.

The 2d6 system of dominions might be used, but stats should be increasable to high levels.

Hmm, I'm starting to suspect that I misunderstood what you meant by using the dominions combat system. Good luck anyway. I have started the Great Waiting.

I wonder if I would prefer to play or fight wardens, guardians and other national troops? Dark blue 'G' surrounded by green 'W'.

Ed Kolis

September 10th, 2004, 11:50 PM

Wow, I got a Dominions developer to comment - and start a "Great Waiting"! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Hmm, I'm kinda in a dilemma here now... I'd like to move forward with this, and there are quite a few things I could implement now (dungeon/terrain generation, ability to move character about, inventory, etc.) but I got started on creating an XML database of all the spells in Dominions and geez, there are HUNDREDS of them! How the heck am I going to enter all those in?!? I have a schema pretty much set up (all that's left is a list of ritual spell effects - by effects I mean generic stuff like "do damage" and "heal stuff" without specifying exactly how much or where - and maybe some effects are missing from the combat spell effect list, IIRC)... but anyone want to help with data entry? Not the most rewarding task but it might help me get over this block I've stumbled across... I could move on to something else but I know I'll have to get back to the spell list sometime anyway, so it seems kind of futile to even do anything else... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Another thing that distracted me, too, is that entering in all these spells would create an ideal spell reference, but I'd have to modify them a bit to fit a roguelike, so I was thinking maybe I should try to make my own spell reference first without modifying them - but that would take just as long! So I'm looking right now at other fun pointless things to do with XML and game data files (such as maybe an SE4 ship design analyzer which tells you all kinds of stats like "total hitpoints" and "damage inflicted per turn" about your designs before you actually build them - the designs would be stored as XML data, if you were wondering where that would fit in), just because XML seems fun to work with http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif BUT - that would distract me from the roguelike even more than I already am, and I know you all want me to move forward with that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Kristoffer O

September 11th, 2004, 04:00 AM

When we made dominions we didn't intend to make 1000+ units and hundreds of spells. At first I had perhaps five spells planned for each magic path and there were no schools at all. Our first step was to make a battle field where you could move a single soldier and have him strike an opponent. Then some more soldiers followed. Then soldiers were bereft the freedom of will and squads and commandrs were introduced. Then came orders other than move/attack. Still no spells. Then some strategic level with a map. Then some magic research, but the research system was remade several times until it became what it is today. By that time we had more than a hundred spells, but still not what we have today.

Try to start with some basic things. Huge lists can wait. It's very easy and fun to add new stuff when you have a system that works.

Your first priority should probably be to make something that you can 'play'. First of all just an '@' that moves around. Then a way to fight monsters and a monster to fight. Then some magic perhaps. Then more world to move around in. Etc.

This worked for us anyway. If we would have started with a list of 1000 units and spells we would have given up sometimes during 1997 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Vicious Love

September 11th, 2004, 04:50 AM

Methinks you're going about this the wrong way. Beyond Kristoffer O's "start small" comment, there's also the undisputable fact that the majority of Dom 2's spells have nothing to do with a Roguelike game. Baleful Star, Maelstrom, Lure of the Deep, Fires from Afar, Burden of Time, the list goes on and on.
Furthermore, half the spells which DO make the transition from game to game would look VERY different from Rogue's Eye and God's Eye views.

Maybe instead of trying to recreate Dominions from ground level or recreate Rogue with Dom 2 spells and creatures, you should ask yourself what a Roguelike game can do that do that Dom 2 cannot, and what Dom 2's unique style can do that Rogue cannot.
That is what this is, right? The spirit of Dom 2 in the body of Rogue. Which is why you probably shouldn't focus on Dom 2's stats, but rather on the flavah.
For instance, you know what would make Rogue fun? Battle afflictions.

Oh, and if you do end up using ASCII, instead of sprites, the Vampire Queen should be a navy blue, uppercase N.

Sorry, that was uncalled for.

Heh.

Update: Incidentally, does it have to be dungeons? Above ground raids are so much... more. Villages of ASCII based orcs, trolls, Spaniards* or Asians or whatever to burn down, rows of tall tilde-grass to sneak through, percentile shrubbery to protect against missile fire. There's much more room for simple, but interesting, tactics, and it's easier to weave generic story-like missions into(a la Daggerfall. Which used dungeons, but that's beside the point).
Also, the villain should look like this:
______ v
_____ (S <&

Not wingaling, but such is ASCII.

* Represented by extravagant moustache ASCII, {

Nagot Gick Fel

September 11th, 2004, 10:13 AM

Vicious Love said:
Oh, and if you do end up using ASCII, instead of sprites, the Vampire Queen should be a navy blue, uppercase N.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Talk about undeserved honors. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Ed Kolis

September 11th, 2004, 09:06 PM

OK, thanks for the advice, folks... now my little @-sign can run around the empty dungeon! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Well, not exactly run as I haven't implemented the run commands yet; he can only move one square per keypress. :p

Now is there any trick to moving the cursor about on a console window? I tried to highlight the player with the cursor, but no matter what I did the cursor always stayed one square after the Last character printed! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif Is there a trick to this or is it just another Microsoft bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif? (I'm using .NET SDK 2.0 Beta so I should expect more bugs than is typical for a Microsoft product, if such a thing is possible :p)

Hmm, what to do next? Add monsters? Items? Terrain?

BTW, if anyone wants to see what I have so far, and is willing to download the .NET runtime 2.0 beta (or already has!), I've posted my work on my website: http://home.fuse.net/koliset/Programming/DomBand.rar . You'll need the .NET Framework 2.0 Beta runtime which you can find on Microsoft's website; sorry about the huge runtime which will soon be obsolete when the real 2.0 is released http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Kristoffer O

September 12th, 2004, 08:38 AM

Next?

Probably some simple terrain that blocks the way. Trees or walls.

Then one simple immobile monster to kill. An Oracle perhaps. Or a Thing of Many Eyes.

Then remove the ability to hurt the enemy unless you have a weapon. Then add a spear to pick up and equip so you can wound the beast.

Good Luck!

magnate

September 12th, 2004, 11:46 AM

I was interested in the comment about not using Angband code. You could easily use a lot of the code to do stuff like draw the screen and move the character without spoiling the game for yourself. It's all in which files you look in. Try the z-*.c files for a start. (Actually start with main-ibm.c and go from there!)

For those of you who don't like Angband's somewhat arbitrary character level progression system, try Sangband. It has a skill system which is much more believable and engrossing.

My 2p on which bits of Dom2 to focus on putting into a roguelike: I'm with Vicious Love on this, it's the flavour that's important. So the 17 races are not only the character races but the monsters as well - you can add some code to prevent the player's own race turning up as monsters. The cheap units are the low-level monsters, and the more expensive ones start later on. So you start off killing scouts & LI, and work up to taking on iceclads and principes.

Setting it above ground has its advantages but is much harder to do. I'd start with a dungeon and add a wilderness once it's working.

There is already a spreadsheet which lists all the Dom2 spells, btw.

CC

Tuidjy

September 13th, 2004, 03:26 AM

Do I have to do everything here? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

The time period - immediately before the Ascension wars.
The hero - a disgruntled man who has an axe to grind with the Supreme Deity.
The setting - the hollowed mountain, capped by a tower, in which the One resides.
The enemies - the guards, worshippers, and piligrims from all seventeen races.
The vaults - trophies room from His ascension.
The special levels - single race levels, path themes, well known players.
The end boss - one of the pretenders of the original Dominion
The easter eggs - too many possibilities to mention

Steal, I mean borrow the code from ADOM, and Bob's your uncle.

quantum_mechani

September 13th, 2004, 12:40 PM

I had a bit different take on it. I was thinking the goal would be to become a pretender. Sort of like a dominions prequel. The way those human pretenders say that they have achieved such amazing power that they can now contend for godhood sounds a lot like the lategame in most roguelikes/RPGs.

Another fun way to make it more Dominions themed would be to have magic site dungeons. For instance, you might find the bile marsh dungeon where you fight bog beasts, horned serpents and hydras. Or the cloud pillers packed with air elementals and storm demons. Or an overgrown graveyard with carrion animations.

Lastly, I don't think most national troops would go well as standard monsters to fight. I was thinking low level mosters would be more like sprites, wolves, black hawks, longdead, ect..

rylen

September 13th, 2004, 01:04 PM

Tuidjy said:
Do I have to do everything here? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

The time period - immediately before the Ascension wars.
The hero - a disgruntled man who has an axe to grind with the Supreme Deity.
The setting - the hollowed mountain, capped by a tower, in which the One resides.
The enemies - the guards, worshippers, and piligrims from all seventeen races.
The vaults - trophies room from His ascension.
The special levels - single race levels, path themes, well known players.
The end boss - one of the pretenders of the original Dominion
The easter eggs - too many possibilities to mention

Steal, I mean borrow the code from ADOM, and Bob's your uncle.

Sounds really good. This was my v2 proposal.

Another fun way to make it more Dominions themed would be to have magic site dungeons. For instance, you might find the bile marsh dungeon where you fight bog beasts, horned serpents and hydras. Or the cloud pillers packed with air elementals and storm demons. Or an overgrown graveyard with carrion animations.

Mostly what I meant by sites w/ guards on a world map. Great for down the line. Early on, I suggest just make the single theme levels.

Rylen

Endoperez

September 13th, 2004, 01:19 PM

There are few possibilities that can be viewed as "difficulties" that can be chosen in-game.

First we had the view of you being a servan of one Pretender, trying to help him in the Ascension Wars by killing one, or all!, of his enemies.

Then there is the possibility of you trying to become a pretender yourself. This would not give you the benefit of help in the beginning, and would not give you any powers faith or the pretender you are serving might give you.

You might also be trying to kill/help the Great One, but (s)he would just be a pretender-powered entity that succeeded once a long time ago, and this isn't really that different.

We also have had some ideas for vaults and special Places of Power. Magic sites defended by appopriate beasts and creatures is one, nation-spesific levels another, well known players is interesting (:-o !) but hard to do and might not be worth the effort. Of course, Gandalf's Random Circus would be intersting... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

If Ed would be to implement many of these, the game would most probably need a world map. And a world map would have to have different terrains in it, from plains and fields and forests... to underwater!

Also, as I said earlier, newsgroup:rec.games.roguelike.developement has much of discussion, and people, that would probably be more of help to Ed than we. And many ideas that, if he sees them, might make him want to implement them and rewrite to game only to discover the next one and the find another and... So, let's not tell him about that discussion about 3d-dungeons implemented in ascii by different colors... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Also, I think if and when Ed gets a nice list of spells he should post it in this forum and let us rip it apart before he implements them. What is thematic, what is not, what "colour" should each spell be... Options are many. I am not going to post my half-a-dozen ideas I have had after I read the list of what, 30?, spells before the work is well going... Ed has enough pressure on his shoulders as is!

Kristoffer O

September 15th, 2004, 05:30 PM

Hmm, I better bump this thread. Perhaps it should be made sticky http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Ed Kolis

September 15th, 2004, 09:26 PM

Sticky? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
Trying to prod me into working on the game again, eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Kristoffer O

September 16th, 2004, 03:55 AM

Yup! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Jondifool

September 16th, 2004, 10:53 AM

Well (long time no seeing all here)
If anyone is interested in seeing a multiplayer Grapical Rogue like game then maybe look at daimonin.net wich is an open source Mmorpg.

Well if really dedicated this might could be the frame to make the dominions2 MMorpg Rogue like game!

Ed Kolis

October 7th, 2004, 03:11 PM

Sorry for the lack of updates; I've just been sucked into other things, including a new job and a universal XML schema based Malfador data manipulation library, whatever the use of that would be http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

I was thinking maybe it WOULD be better after all to start with an Angband base instead of trying to recreate Angband from scratch, so I was taking a look at ToME, which is one of my favorite roguelikes, and which also happens to have a most excellent Lua-based modding system! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Unfortunately, this modding system is not all that well documented, and I know nothing of Lua, so I'm just having to play it by ear. So, my question is, is there anyone around here who's created a ToME module, or even just worked with Lua or Angband at all who would be interested in helping out, assuming I do end up getting this project back up on its feet? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Ironhawk

October 7th, 2004, 04:52 PM

I dont know anything about Lua, but I messed around with the angband source a long while back. If it hasn't undergone some kind of massive code reorganization, you honestly might be better off starting from scratch on that front. It was a morass of confusing code IIRC.

Ed Kolis

October 8th, 2004, 08:39 AM

Well I wouldn't be messing with the source anyway, only the script and data files - ToME has a pretty powerful scripting system http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Murph

October 9th, 2004, 02:37 PM

I'd be interested in helping, but I can only assist w/art, game balance and concept/development, as I can't code to save my life. I'd be happy to weigh in at a later stage, though.

Ed Kolis

December 6th, 2004, 10:34 PM

DUHHHHH!!!!!

I should just buy a copy of Shrapnel's very own homebrewn DUNGEON ODYSSEY game, and start from there! It's pretty close to being a roguelike... if you discount the realtime factor, but then maybe it's moddable to make it turn-based or at least pauseable realtime like SE5 is supposed to be, I really haven't looked into it much yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

(is "homebrewn" even a WORD? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif)

Zooko

December 7th, 2004, 10:42 PM

I've hacked Dungeon Crawl a little, not because I liked the code (written in C, of medium quality), but because I like crawl's superior balance and more consistent flavor vs. alternatives such as nethack.

http://zooko.com/repos/

If you really want to write in C, then I recommend the crawl code base. For one thing, it is actively developed. However, I don't think you should write in C, but instead the Lua modding system of ToME (just from what you said about it -- I don't know anything else), or else just write your own in a nice language like Python or E.

Ed Kolis

June 25th, 2005, 08:41 PM

Reviving dead topic...
No, I haven't revived DomBand (my name for this roguelike) - but instead I have started on a new roguelike: Dungeons of Relentless Killing, or DORK for short! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif
I started a thread about it over in the SE4/SE5 forum, seeing as that's a good place for off-topic discussions, and also posted on rec.games.roguelike.development...
DORK's magic system, though, will be based on Dominions' school/realm system; I'm not sure exactly how but it will. (In other words, I might have skill levels for the schools as well as for the realms, even though Dom2 doesn't, or I might do something different to simulate the research levels in the schools - perhaps the player will have to pay and wait for research to be conducted? - but there will definitely be some sort of "tech-grid" type of thing as it's known in SE4, just because it's more interesting than simple linear progressions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

Azhur

June 26th, 2005, 04:46 AM

Here are my 2 cents then:

Create a character:

This could work pretty much similarly to Dom as there would be a sum of points to locate upon stats, magic types/power and faith (defines how much your god loves you and enables holy spells). That starting sum would be defined by the race you choose (human = cheap, draconian = expensive). The way you distribute stats, spells and dominion points, you'd automatically get a character class definition.

E.g You put all points on Strength and Dominion = Paladin.
E.g2: You put all points on magic types and Intelligence = Mage, Sorceror or Wizard.

There would also be some Perks/Traits to choose from, which show the same way as heroic abilities:

- Quickness (1,5 x speed)
- Iron Hand (Melee skill doubled)
- Lucky (Always lucky)

The last thing is to choose your favourite god

E.g: Caelum = pray for chillness and flight, while Jotunheim = kill for extra exp points and extra strenght.

Just name your character and to dungeon we shall enter! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

The other way to create a new character is by generating it.

Endoperez

June 26th, 2005, 07:08 AM

If you wanted the character-generation to really go the Dominions way, then you would choose your race, then the god you worship (one for each nation/theme, possibly with some variation like Caelum pretender always liking magic but sometimes preferring Air, sometimes Water). Then you would choose your training (were you trained by a Hermit living in an abandoned Watch Tower, a Weapon Master of the Count whose Castle towered above your home village, was it that mysterious Crystal Mage living in that Wizard's Tower... OF course, Wizard's Tower shouldn't be as expensive as it is in dominions as it only shows preference of Magic over Might.

Ask Illwinter if you can use their items in it, and if they have any ideas. They link to Adom, Dungeon Crawl and Slash'Em on their home page, after all...

On the RGR.developemet newsgroup, there was just a discussion about combat tactics and styles. Two different styles were proposed:

Adom-style Tactics:
Choose your style and whack away, with differing abilities. Fencing gives you bonus to-hit, small bonus to damage, possibly extra speed if you are good at it, but you get severe maluses if you get surrounded and you can't use shield.
Agressive fighting gives extra str and att, but you lose in def.
Dodging would only work if you had some space around you. With it in effect, you get extra def and actually move to neighboring tile if attack would have hit you without extra def from dodging. The tiles would be those next to the attacker if there are suitable tiles next to him/it.

The second system would cause special movement/attack patterns to have special effects. Examples:
Move three times to the same direction. On fourth, if you hit someone, you perform a Charge attack.
If you have Halberd or similar long-reach weapon, striking to different directions give you bonus att and def. Think Hollywood or Bollywood action films. I would limit the change in direction to two "steps", so if you had attacked up, you could attack up-right, up-left, right or left and get the bonus. The bonus would come in after three attacks.
Wall-pinning. If your enemy is between you and wall, your attacks cause extra damage. If the enemy is in corner, the damage is increased and you get bonus att.

Argitoth

June 28th, 2005, 12:49 AM

Can roguelike be online? I would only play if you could interact with other players.

Vicious Love

June 28th, 2005, 05:43 AM

Argitoth said:
Can roguelike be online? I would only play if you could interact with other players.

Not unless you're proposing a real-time Roguelike. Which would be weird.

I suppose a hybrid game that's essentially a bona fide offline Roguelike with a simplified, multiplayer-oriented online component would be nice, but it'd also be a hell of a lot of work. Better to just make a multiplayer dungeon crawl that isn't a Roguelike at all. Something like Egoboo, only... well... complete.

Ed Kolis

June 28th, 2005, 02:26 PM

Actually, there are multiplayer realtime online roguelikes... google around for MAngband, TomeNet, and Crossfire. But I don't think I'll get that complicated... a regular roguelike is hard enough to write as it is! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Speaking of which, I'm looking for a good way to store game data. I was considering XML, but it's pretty unwieldy unless you have a decent editor, which I'm having trouble finding. I was also considering some sort of relational database, but most of those require some sort of fancy installation procedures; the only one I can think of which doesn't is Access, and that's commercial and only runs on Windows. So unless I can come up with a good XML editor or a free portable DBMS which can be used by a program without the user having to jump through hoops to set it up, I think I'm left with one option (well, two, if you count hardcoding everything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif): text files. But text files mean I'd have to do all the parsing and consistency checking myself - not that that's TOO daunting, but I like to make things easy. So any suggestions? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Cainehill

June 29th, 2005, 12:29 AM

If you just format the text files properly, they're actually _very_ easy to parse. Either of two ways will suffice - delimitted fields, where each piece of information is separated by a rare/unused character ( for instance, the pipe symbol '|') or where each field is always a fixed width. Having done a lot of work with both, I suggest the delimitter, and an iostream extraction class that does conversion and error checking on the contents (this is vital in either case).

Either way, place the responsibility for data on the people editting it : if the formatting is wrong, bail out, preferably with an appropriate and useful error message showing the line of data, and the specific field / data that caused the error.

Otherwise, you write thousands of lines of code to compensate for user error, which is an incredible waste of programming time / effort if you aren't going to have tens of thousands of users.

lebarjack

June 29th, 2005, 01:58 AM

Maybe SQLite (http://www.sqlite.org/) is the solution. It's a small C database library.
I have even found some bindings (http://www.phpguru.org/static/SQLite.NET.html) for C#

Argitoth

June 29th, 2005, 06:45 AM

Vicious Love said:

Argitoth said:
Can roguelike be online? I would only play if you could interact with other players.

Not unless you're proposing a real-time Roguelike. Which would be weird.

I suppose a hybrid game that's essentially a bona fide offline Roguelike with a simplified, multiplayer-oriented online component would be nice, but it'd also be a hell of a lot of work. Better to just make a multiplayer dungeon crawl that isn't a Roguelike at all. Something like Egoboo, only... well... complete.

Alright I take that back. I've enjoyed many single-player text-based games. The most fun is when you and a friend are just playing single-player at the same time and chatting on teamspeak or something.

So, I'll play if it's realistically detailed.