Thread: Wishlist High level design thoughts
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Old July 22nd, 2010, 07:23 PM

dumbluck dumbluck is offline
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Default Re: High level design thoughts

I would like to see a flexible, mod-able game engine. Most of the discussions I've seen in the SL forums have been about things that mods could cover. I'd rather have the game developers focus on developing the game engine instead of a mod to play on it, so I'll focus on basic engine points.

I want a sensible learning curve. If it's too shallow, the game isn't much fun, and will have little replay value. The other extreme would be Dwarven Fortress, where you literally have no idea what you're doing unless you can get someone who knows the game to guide you through the first 1000 hours of gameplay. The learning curve will be heavily affected by...

1. A sensible UI. SE4 is a decent, but not exemplar, example of a good UI. It has it's weak points (getting your ships to do what you wanted them to, in particular), but it got the job done with a minimum of hassles. I really hope the developers learned a lesson from SE5's UI in what NOT to do. Click-fests are not welcome, and 10 layer deep menus are not fun. (note that some exaggeration was used here. :P ) Commands and game information needs to be easily accessible, no more than 3 clicks away for all but the most obscure reports. If it takes me more than 2 seconds to get to any but the most trivial report or command, then the UI is a failure in my eyes.

Oh, and by the way, Hot Keys are no substitute for a mouse. For reference, turn your mother loose on Dwarven Fortress. She won't get anywhere, most likely. Point and click is a must. Without it, most people who try the game will find it to difficult, and SL will never target a core audience larger than the Spreadsheets-In-Space crowd. Now, I'm not saying that Hot Keys are bad; in fact they should definitely be included. They are far faster than the 2 seconds per command a mouse can make. I'm just saying that WITHOUT a good implentation of the I/O method 99.9999999% of your market is comfortable with, this game will never be the true successor to SE4 it can be.

2. Subtly deep, WELL DOCUMENTED game mechanics capable of supporting user defined variables. The beginning player stumbling through their first game should be able to discern, for example, the basics of how combat functions. As the player becomes more skilled, subtleties in strategy will develop, and the mechanics need to be deep enough to let the player stretch down into them. They will, however, need to know how the game mechanics work for them to do this effectively. To make an exceptional mod, the modder will need to understand EXACTLY how the game goes through it's mechanics, step by step. All the knowledge that had to be experimentally derived from SE4, like the steps in a combat turn, how movement was executed, etc. should be provided to the player.

The mechanics should be very deep, though. Take Dwarven Fortress or Dominions 3, for example. There are all sorts of things going on under the surface, things that the player has no direct control over, but can sometimes indirectly affect. For example, in Dominions each unit had, what, 15 or 20 individual stats, affecting everything from movement speed to stamina to damage dealt. Lots of variables interacting with each other under the surface creates a realistic world feel. Mods would be responsible for shaping how that world feels, likely using variables that the Modder creates, but the engine needs to be capable of supporting all those different variables.

3. A powerful, sane scripting language. See SE5 for the powerful aspect but look elsewhere for the sanity (or so I've heard). A videogame is just another way to tell a story, and if you want that story to be an interesting one, you'll need plot points. These could be anything from "your ship entered a forbidden area, unleashing a horde of space monsters into your core systems", to "every system has been seen by at least one race, so now the Warp Points shall start opening and closing at random intervals". If the modder isn't able to change the environment in interesting ways mid-game, then gameplay will become somewhat linear, which isn't nearly as fun.

Ok, I think that's enough to chew on for now.
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Last edited by dumbluck; July 22nd, 2010 at 07:41 PM..
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