Game Suggestions

[S.R. Krol]

scott_wakeling said:
As an aside, what do people think of the oil/lantern feature with regards to further developments? For example, Moria makes good use of needing fuel to light your way, with the final punishment being just a black-out (which I actually find more annoying than just dying, flailing around in the dark getting picked on is just so annoying!?).

I think any RPG that has consumption elements in it will probably always lead to divided opinions on the subject. I haven't felt Scallywag's oil usage was too draconian, but at the same time I get really annoyed with RPGs that force you to eat. There's nothing worse than being a bad *** barbarian who skins demons with his eyes closed on level twenty, slowly dying because you forgot to pack enough Powerbars.

Of course a lot depends on how it is handled. If you starve and the effect is you lose a couple hit points and that's it, fine. Likewise, yeah, if you're punished by flailing around in the dark that sucks.

Perhaps for future development oil consumption is an option that could be toggled off and on? If on it works as normal, if off the lantern becomes a magic lantern that never burns oil.

[NTJedi]

scott_wakeling said:
If you watch any player of more than a couple hours' experience, they just roll around the dungeon sliding their lantern up and down as they need without really thinking about it much - the emphasis turns to looting, mapping, and playing with objects.

It's a fair point though Saxon, I don't dismiss what you're saying, but as Mr Krol pointed out - the config files are right there, so feel free to have some fun with that.

As an aside, what do people think of the oil/lantern feature with regards to further developments? For example, Moria makes good use of needing fuel to light your way, with the final punishment being just a black-out (which I actually find more annoying than just dying, flailing around in the dark getting picked on is just so annoying!?).

Future game development should allow multiple ways to provide the player light. Other items of light could be torches, magic spells, special food providing darkvision, and perhaps some items which once used permanently light a specific area. This would allow the fantasy to seem more real.

[darkentrees]

Arrrgghhh!!! What a disappointment! I shared the URL for the demo of Scallywag with friends and all have same response - Great game - stupid design that you die on the bleeding edge of failing the oil managment sim!

Our views echo many here - why such a bad design decision? Especially for the demo! Who other than gamer geeks such as myself is going to navigate forums and edit config files to get the game experience people should be getting in the first place: A fun little game where your lantern is something you keep an eye on - not something that becomes the sole focus of the game to sprint from flask to flask while you try to stay alive, and forget about even taking your eye off that goal for a single second to enjoy any other aspect of the program.

You should re-release the demo with a more sane oil consumption rate, and maybe less people will be arguing heatedly over how stupid a dent that hammer puts in an otherwise fantastic little game.

The previous poster had a good idea about allowing multiple ways to provide better light - and another would be just to make the consumption rate adjustable on the options screen.

Scallywag = Great game gimped by stupid lantern

[PvK]

Heh. Well, darkentrees, I'm not ready to say that everyone won't enjoy the lantern oil management.

Case in point, the review which lists as a strong point: "oil is a neat resource to deal with" (http://jaguarusf.blogspot.com/2007/1...sa-review.html)

However, ya, that was my reaction to the demo, too. I like much of the overall design, but don't enjoy the oil aspect, which seemed like the most challenging part, in a way I don't enjoy. I don't really like being rushed through things on fear of running out of oil which must be found in the dark unknown.

Nethack is a common reference point which shows how lighting can be an interesting element without an overshadowing one:
* Many areas are lit by things other than the player. (In the Scallywag demo I didn't encounter any light sources except my own lamp, which didn't seem to make much sense.)
* Being in the dark can be dangerous, inconvenient, frustrating, but it just has certain logical effects, not insta-death.
* There are many ways to acquire light sources, and players can make decisions with tradeoffs to focus on lighting or not.

And personally even in Nethack, I find the lighting and food resource requirements overly steep and sometimes frustrating.

I also wish combat were more tactically interesting and less of a hitpoint exchange contest. Also I was really not looking forward to gathering rocks and using a sling for improved ability to fight flying monsters - seemed like a pain and not logical - it seems like it'd be obviously much easier to hit a bat with a stick than by trying to use a sling in the dark, unless it's stationary.

But, my conclusion was that this looks like it'd probably be a fun game for players who are more casual gamers and aren't FRPG grognards like myself.

PvK

[jab2565]

Maybe one solution for larger maps would be to have other light sources, (torches on walls, magic lamp posts,etc) That when your in their light your lantern stops draining oil for the time being.

[S.R. Krol]

Pfreak, that's a cool idea.

I must admit I've been rather surprised at the negative reaction the lantern has gotten by some. Personally I haven't run into a situation in the game where I felt hosed because of the oil, but that's just me.

One thing that I feel may be being overlooked is what I've mentioned earlier in response to Saxon, and that's changing the oil burn rate takes 10 seconds to do and you don't have to worry about it anymore. Chronic Reality designed the game from the get-go for easy modability, and fooling around with the lantern is a great way to get a feel for how easy it is. Don't look at Scallywag as simply a single adventure, but a toolkit for endless adventures.

The demo allows you to play around with a great many variables. Just look in your directory at the .CFG files.

[jab2565]

I hope the mod community takes off for this game. If I can mod the game (altered the enemy damage rate during beta) then anyone can mod this.

[kilmorr]

I'm sorry to see so many people bugging out about the oil problem, a minor fixable issue.

Here are a couple lines in the core.cfg that should improve the demo(for those who don't like the oil burning rate).
It makes the oil burn much slower, so running out of oil isn't much of an issue. It also makes you faster and able to see further. Just open <gamedir\Media\Config\Core.cfg and replace the entry [Rapuis] with this:

[Rapius]
Type=HumanoidPlayer
Text=Rapius
HasLantern=1
OilBurnRate=0.050000
Speed=400
MaxVisDist=12

There is so much more that can be done, try adding a line
Special=Strength(4),Armour(4)
to give the player better starting stats.[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img]

Hope the community picks up a bit. Seems like its been quite in here for awhile.