Quote from sthreet
Some parts could make it boring for normal players (which is why I said they should be optional).
All of the accommodations should be optional. I've even gotten annoyed with World of Warcraft telling me constantly where the stuff is I'm supposed to be looking for - it takes away any sense of actually hunting for something. Turns the game into a rote exercise in following arrows, and that for me is boring.
But if you need such accommodations, you should be able to turn them on.
I don't know any visual way of telling you what direction the enemy is coming from if you can't hear.
They're already doing a visual version of this on some games: The side of the screen flashes or has a little triangle indicating "you're being hit!" It shouldn't be too difficult to make this variant for players with hearing problems, but apply it to more than just damage.
If a game is going to target the general audience but still be playable for disabled people some things are just laziness but some things (deaf people) could be a huge challenge to even out.
I've argued before that players ought to be able to define their own experience in games... to customize it, to a large degree. Obviously this isn't total, or you wouldn't have a game to begin with, and there's a limit to what the designers can do. Furthermore, multiplayer games need to avoid a situation where an able player turns on the easier mode and beats players who are playing fair (as pointed out on the site, it should be easy to disqualify you from leaderboards if you turn on the easier mode aspects - allowing players who really need the help to get it, but not allowing players to abuse it).
But, for example, with Minecraft, I want to see a lot of things moved to the options menu, without needing to go to extreme measures (or mods) to change them. And I've never understood the arguments against these... it's a sandbox, who cares how other players are enjoying it? But some basics that could make it much easier for certain players:
- Tune the spawn rates individually. Some players might enjoy fighting nothing but zombies, others might have trouble playing a game with giant spiders, others might want everything but creepers, or a Nether without ghasts.
- Set Hunger and Regeneration independent of difficulty. Although I don't tend to play Peaceful, when I do I want to play it with full hunger mechanic and no regen. What's the point of a peaceful farming mode if you can't eat anything? And on the other side, some players don't like the hunger mechanic, and players with multitasking problems might want to reduce the number of things they have to pay attention to to stay alive.
- Toggle such aspects as drowning, fire/lava damage, and fall damage, separately. I remember a time when my young niece was getting decent at killing zombies but still couldn't swim her way out of a two-square pool.
And the crouch/sneak button should be a toggle. Seriously.
I'm not sure what you mean by "just laziness." Certainly some players who don't strictly need these accommodations will use them because they want to avoid certain aspects of the game. I don't see how this is anybody's business but their own.
And with programming in accommodations for Deaf players, well, the site does explain how this can be done by echoing sound cues in the text, among other things. It may not put them on par with players who don't have hearing problems, but it would go a long way toward making these games available to a wider audience, excluding fewer potential players.
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I've argued for letting the players set mod spawn rates and even AIs in an Advanced Options menu, and I could see setting how deep the things spawn and whether they ever leave cover (venture into a roofless area, even at night). Or, for that matter, which biome(s) they spawn in:
I do think it'd be a good idea to have terrain-specific mobs. Frozen areas, for example, ought to spawn some sort of beast that makes sense there (e.g., a yeti). Deserts could have desert-specific mobs as well. There should be an Ocean water mob that doesn't spawn in the water of other biomes (but might swim there)...heck, it ought to be that the Squid spawns only in ocean biomes, because everywhere else I've seen it doesn't make any sense. This would make biomes more distinct and enhance the challenges that come from adventuring across a changing landscape.
I can't wait to see vanilla Minecraft flesh out the biomes a bit. We've been doing the best we can with mods and it's cheering to know that mods will be more supported in the future, but that's really not enough. The biomes need to look more distinct from each other, and to contain native materials. You want a certain type of mineral or plant? You have to run around until you find a desert, or a pine forest, or a tundra, or a volcano.
I mean, right now, everything is all the same. You start from wherever you spawn and the only question, the only question, is whether you've got (1) trees and (2) a food source nearby. If you've spawned right next to trees and can lay your hands on bones and grass, you've got it made. You can tunnel right down from the spawn point and find every single mineral in the game within a few squares of where you start. I have a bit of a problem with this mindset.
But anyway, that's a topic for another thread. Let's just consider how best to balance these mob tiers.
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Have a most wonderful Christmas!
The same to anyone else who drops by this thread :smile.gif:
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Have a most wonderful Christmas!
The same to anyone else who drops by this thread :smile.gif:
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Have a most wonderful Christmas!
The same to anyone else who drops by this thread :smile.gif:
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Thanks for jumping to the plate, TWell :smile.gif:
Let me know if you need me to go look stuff up or ask for help.
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I'd like to request some progress reports. Here's some things I said had to be done for the Alpha Release:
1. Are the Flint Tools done? (Hatchet, Spade, Pick, and Knife/Dagger)
2. Can the Flint Pick find Copper Nuggets while digging Stone?
3. Are the Copper Tools done? (Axe, Shovel, Hoe, Hammer, and Sickle)
4. Can the Copper Shovel get random Potatoes or Potato Seeds* from digging Grass Blocks?
5. Does the planting multiple seeds work properly if you've a stack of fewer than 9 seeds?
6. Does the Potato plant grow through its stages over the course of 4 days, changing stages at sunrise if the soil it's on isn't dry?
7. Can you harvest the full-grown Potato plant to get a Potato and one or more Potato Seeds?
8. Can you cook a Potato into French Fries via the Furnace?
9. Do French Fries work as regular food, refilling 3 Hunger?
*It strikes me that for Potatoes, you basically just plant the potato itself, and there's no separate type of seed. So perhaps you ought to be able to do just that, and harvesting the potato plant drops 2 or more potatoes, which you can choose to cook or plant.
For those of you on other assignments, I'd like to see a percentage (e.g. "50% complete") of how much you think you've accomplished on your assignment.
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Guys, we've been over this! Learning about other Harvest Moon mods and finding out where they've gone with the material is beneficial, and not a threat to our survival!
MatrexsVigil, if you're talking about a mod that's not RuneCraftory, we'd love to have a link to it so we can check it out. There are things we're doing that will surely mesh with yours, and others that go in a different direction, but it's good to know who our "friendly rivals" are, and we thank you for giving us info here :smile.gif:
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I've suggested before - and got shot down - that you could increase the amount of "safe" time at the start of Easy mode with an item that lasts 3 days and makes enemies not spawn on the surface within a certain radius from the item, even at night. So you'd have 3 days to investigate the world before the enemies started coming up to get you.
That could definitely work with Hard spawning you at noon, and Hardcore perhaps spawning you at night.
As far as monsters breaking through blocks to get you: An enderman grabbing one block at a time and moving them to a different place, that's one thing, but the ogre just breaking apart giant chunks of wall is way too difficult for me... not so much on a skills level as on a heart-attack level. I have tried to deal with them on Mo' Creatures and the very possibility of them being around raises my adrenaline level to the point where I'm not enjoying the game anymore.
But then again, custom spawn rates makes everything all right :smile.gif:
I think that custom AI choices would make it easier for players to decide whether they like enemies being dumb or crafty or somewhere in between. Because making an enemy just harder to kill, or making them do more damage, that's not the best way to change the difficulty level (IMO). But making enemies skirt around dangerous terrain, or path better around obstacles, or giving them skills like short-term invisibility, that would be pretty neat.
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We definitely got to get some ground cover that'll make them look different by more than just the texture of the grass and dirt. Different types of trees.
How easy is it to change how much tall grass / shrubs spawn in a certain biome?
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Actually, once we have the full calendar up, we're going to have to look at holidays in some fashion. I'd like to have something analogous to Easter. Maybe a bunny chase?
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The thing is... well, I play on Hard, because to play on anything less than Hard sounds like admitting that the game is tougher than I am. It's a psychological thing. I have never had "game skillz" and to find a game that I'm actually reasonably good at on the hardest difficulty is pleasing to me. So I don't play Hardcore, but I do play on nothing less than Hard.
Now, if you tie an increase in mining time to Hard, then you've pitted my pride against my pragmatism. Do I want to continue thinking I'm badass enough to play a game at the hardest mode? Then I give up the ability to do things at normal speed. Do I want to do things at normal speed? Then I give up the feel of being badass, as well as many other bits and bobs of difficulty that maybe I don't want to give up.
On the other hand, suppose that it was offered in a radio-button format, and clicking one of the difficulties changed all the radio buttons around, but you could customize it. (There's some potential problems with scoreboards, but since I never try for that, I'm going to ignore it.) So say I click "Hard" and it bumps all the radio buttons up to the Hard settings: monsters are tough to kill, do a lot of damage, move faster, spawn more frequently; armor's less effective; resources are less abundant; days go by faster so there's less time to harvest; whatever.
But then I have the freedom to put the tool-speed modifier to the custom setting of "no change" or maybe even "25% faster". And then I've got everything I need, and I play my game quite happily.
So that's where my vote lies.
Additional Difficulty Settings
I'm in favor of letting the player alter a few other settings through the Options Menu. Some of them (such as ore spawn rates, biome size, etc.) you mess with when creating a new world; others you can change whenever you like. I am for greater choice, greater customization, allowing for a wider range of player experiences.
Mob AI Settings
Consider having, say, four settings for non-monster mobs and four for monster mobs. Here's some possibilities:
- Passive: Never attacks you, but runs when hit.
- Skittish: Shies away from nearby hostile mobs and/or the player.
- Friendly: Sticks close to the player, like those friendly little slimes.
- Defensive: Will fight back if struck.
- Territorial: If you get close to its "territory" it attacks, but it only chases you so far.
- Dumb: Walks into lava, fire, etc. while trying to get to you.
- Cautious: Doesn't walk into dangers, and hides behind corners a bit to avoid damage.
- Sneaky: Much better pathing around obstacles, and some hiding/ambush skills.
- Terminator: Once it catches your scent, it will follow you to the ends of the earth. Won't stop until dead, or if you switch worlds (to the Nether etc.).
- Haunting: After you die, it respawns close to your spawn point, so even death can't save you from it.
Now imagine being able to set that the Zombies are Dumb, the Skellies Cautious, the Creepers Sneaky. Or imagine total freedom: Passive Spiders, Defensive Creepers, Cautious Pigs, Terminator Chickens. A world of Sneaky Space Cows.It could certainly liven up custom maps.
Oh, and, like with Mo' Creatures, you should be able to set individual animal spawn rates. Arachnophobes should not have to play on Peaceful just to enjoy the game; neither should young kids be forced to tackle Creepers just to be able to kill a few Zombies. And you should be able to turn off passive mobs so their noises don't interfere with your filming a Let's Play.
Additional Meters to Keep Track Of
While I don't want this game to become The Sims, I would like to see more than just Hunger - so long as the meters are completely optional. For one, I'd like to see Thirst, and to see water split into Freshwater and Saltwater.
For two, Temperature, where exposure to extremes can give you status ailments. Hypothermia makes everything slow down (movement, mining speed), and drains your Hunger meter faster. Heatstroke makes it difficult to move in a straight line, maybe difficult to see straight, and it drains your Thirst meter faster.
I could also see a Sleep meter, such that you'd have to take your chances even if you didn't have a bed - maybe you could stay up for three days straight. Perhaps reinforced with a status ailment of Sleep Deprivation, though I'm not sure on effects.
So consider the benefit to role-players: You set the Options Menu to give you all the meters, and in the new world you spawn on a frozen tundra biome. Now the clock is ticking - stay out here too long without a heat source and you'll get a status ailment that'll really make it tough to make headway, and also means you have to find food a lot faster than normal.
Other Stuff
Others have requested greater control over world spawns and biome/chunk spawns. I agree. Heck, I should be free to make a version of Waterworld if I like (99% Ocean, 1% Islands, and don't mind dropping me off in the sea first thing). Or a world that's largely swamps, or deserts, or forests.
One that fluctuates in temperature, or one that's pretty level (all temperate, or all tropical, all frozen, whatever). Maybe one that has temperature "bands" going in one direction, so that e.g. as you go north, you end up hitting a lot of hots, then a lot of colds, then a lot of hots again, so a small section of an infinite world acts a lot like a section of a finite world with an equator and polar sections.
I should be able to mess with these custom settings easily when spawning a new world, and maybe even, later, alter how the game generates new chunks for an old world.
But... yeah. Give the player greater choice. Let them decide what "difficulty" means for themselves. If it means 200% more monsters than normal, fine - hope your computer can handle it. Maybe fewer monsters, but they hit harder, and armor doesn't help as much. Maybe all the mobs, including normally passive ones, are trying to kill you. Or maybe the monster spawns are entirely Creepers, and they all blow up like the Charged Creeper and also set things on fire.
Or maybe "difficulty" for you means a greater focus on noncombat concerns, such as water, food, and shelter. Maybe there's fewer resources, maybe even no coal (a world with no plants and animals?). Maybe you can't punch trees down, but have to start with improvised flint tools, meaning your first day is spent hunting around for a gravel patch. That's my preferred difficulty. If you want to add a longer mining time on top of that, then great, add it to the options.
And everybody's happy - except the stop-having-fun guys, who are saying we're all playing the game wrong to begin with.
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Let's see, models. Do you prefer large or small? I think we could use some atmospheric sorts - birds, maybe, or rodents... some lizards for the desert. Not so much zoo animals (which we've got well in hand), but smaller things to make the world less lonely.
Other than that, you could try for some new furniture and/or statues.
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I'd love to see a Hunter... leaping all over the place. Also Witches.
Would any of the special zombies dislike water, so that hiding in water would keep you safe from them? Or not?
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Perhaps it could work something like teleporting out of The Nether. I mean, the game lets you get a fair ways away from any land you had created, and come back into the real world and it generates a chunk right then. If I recall, some chunks can be horribly misaligned that way, once you get back toward your originally explored land, but them's the breaks.
I do like the idea of being able to step through a gate and be at a certain place a long ways away.
In Ultima, the moongate shifted three different times in a single night. I'm not sure if that's a good way to do it or not. There's three basic choices here:
- Shifts three times fast once the gate comes up. Then disappears.
- The gate is open for the entire night, and the shifts happen slowly over that time, so the night divides into three parts.
- The gate appears in the same place for three nights (each night a different destination) before moving to another place for three nights, etc.
Also there ought to be some sort of way of keeping track of moons in a GUI somehow. Not sure how that'd work.