Daggerfall: TES III improvements
Roger Books
I would like to see customizable spell affects. It doesn't have to
have any major game affects, just look nifty. IE, a lightning bolt
should look different from a force bolt. You could let players select
the affect when they made the spell.
Hmmm, how about wall spells? You can have a fire based wall, a magic
based wall, a ....
Disguise? Wouldn't it be a shock when that innocuous townsperson actually
turns out to be an assassin in diguise?
Other people on horses?
This one may be in, I don't know yet. A small(!!!!) chance of a random
encounter on the road. Say 3% per day in wild country, 1% in settled
areas.
Friendlies in the dungeon. "Should I attack this Orc or not..."
Disadvantages: Code of Honor. You always wanted to play a good guy,
right? Violate your code of honor and your god (have to have a god
to go with the code) does anything from lowering your level in
the guild to lowering your levels period to striking you dead.
Roger
Louie Doulias
Better graphics
Other people who adventure like you, and who may join you and actually
make a difference in a fight.(these people could also turn on you or get
in a fight over who gets the loot from the dead orc)
Smaller dungeons
Smaller towns (do we really need big town with 90% of the building
being useless)
A smaller world (Whats the point of a world being bigger than the solar
system if every place is the same, and in Daggerfall, every place is the
same)
Easter Eggs like Ultima
Fewer characters and these characters actually being people with brains,
not random characters, random names, and random conversations.
More varied quests. If I have to go for rotten mummy wrappings one more
time ill screem.
Have your character MAKE a difference in the world
I absulutly HATE going back to a dungeon and having found out that
everything I killed is back again. This Really sucks and is a failling
point to the game. I also think that If I empty out a dungeon, and i get
a quest to go there and get something, then the enimies should still be
dead, not reset for a new quest.
The different races should make a real difference in the game.
The guild fueds should make a differnce (go in and kill a rival fued, and
then have the remaining guild members chase me)
i wanna be able to go in and destroy a dark brotherhood and not catch
shit from the police (I did this in Daggerfall, and I went to jail, no
mention of who I killed)
I wanna be a king and have people kiss my ass.
But most of all i want the warm, cozy fealling of knowing Im making a
difference, being significant in the world, knowing individual characters
and there problems like I can do in Ulitma 7.
These total open ended games have alot of work to do, Bathesda is
on the right trak since I like Daggerfall and I hated Arena. But I think
If they scale down the size and work on the detail like Richard Gariot
has done. Then we will have a perfect game.
Louie Doulias
The Black Knight
Robert Berryhill
bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us (Roger Books) wrote:
>Hmmm, how about wall spells? You can have a fire based wall, a magic
>based wall, a ....
How about "Pass Wall?" It would definitely make things easier.
>Disguise? Wouldn't it be a shock when that innocuous townsperson actually
>turns out to be an assassin in diguise?
Cool idea!
>Other people on horses?
I agree. And animals that actually move around instead of staying
"put."
>Friendlies in the dungeon. "Should I attack this Orc or not..."
Haven't been high enough to try yet, but I'm hoping that's what the
language skills are for.
>Disadvantages: Code of Honor. You always wanted to play a good guy,
> right? Violate your code of honor and your god (have to have a god
> to go with the code) does anything from lowering your level in
> the guild to lowering your levels period to striking you dead.
Yeah, I think that the gods should have more effect on what happens.
X-Signature: Rob
Rob
ind...@bga.com
.
Micheal Keane
Heck. I'd be happy with Elder Scrolls III if they just remember to remove
the damn bugs first.
--
Micheal Keane(ae...@u.washington.edu) Join the Church of Last Thursday!
"Q: What goes bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,
bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud,bang,thud?
A: A Time Lord committing suicide." -- Set Piece, Kate Orman, Doctor Who
VuNguyen
Smaller dungeons or maybe a "tracker" to find the damn thing they sent you
in there to find in the first place.
I HATE the dfall dungeons.
URL Covington
VuNguyen wrote:
>
> Smaller dungeons or maybe a "tracker" to find the damn thing they sent you
> in there to find in the first place.
>
the reponse " no such place on map. Then hafta exit the province map ,
exit the world map, click on my characters face, click on log, scroll
down the entrys and find its " Oracle of Krantious ". So then I click on
exit, then on exit again then I type "W" to get to the worl map then I
click on the province then I click find then I type " Oracle of
Kranthious" or was it Kyrantious? Gotta do it all again..........
Ric Rutledge
URL Covington <ecovi...@sprintmail.com> wrote:
Heh, I hate this too. I think the solution would be to have a list
box pop up centered on the first few letters typed.
Ric Rutledge
Seattle, Washington "A day in Seattle is like a day without sunshine."
Email: rutl...@rutledgelaw.com
URL: http://www.rutledgelaw.com/rutledge/
Greg Miller
vung...@aol.com (VuNguyen) wrote:
>Smaller dungeons or maybe a "tracker" to find the damn thing they sent you
>in there to find in the first place.
>I HATE the dfall dungeons.
I'd like to see more variety in the quests, and I'd prefer not to have
to walk up to someone and ask "Excuse me, sir, do you have any quests
to pay me ridiculously small sums to complete?"
Nas
Here am some improvements that I've been considering for TES III:
There is a book in the game which tells a story about "Divahd The
Singer" or something like that. Anyways, it mentions an ancient order
of mystic/warrior "sword singer" bards and a special art of "she shaie
se" or "sword singing" or something like that. I think that it would
be interesting if the Bard class in the game was more fully developed
to something more like what the book discussed. The bards in
daggerfall, to me, are nothing more than jacks-of-all-trades.
Perhaps, bards in TES III would have skills in a 6th school of magic
"sword singing" and a Bard Guild might appear. Maybe even a knightly
order (how about the Knights of Rhythm?).
Another improvement that I'd appreciate is better inventory
organization. As much as I love DF, I think it's too cumbersome to
keep clicking on the scroll arrows while searching for a dai-katana in
my cart full of hundreds of items. Perhaps a customizable system for
grouping items might be helpful in resolving this.
In addition, I think allowing pcs to put items into shelves or boxes
in their homes or ships would be a nice aesthetic feature. My pc is
amassing a library of all the books known in Hard Rock. However, at
home he isn't able to put the books in the bookshelves, but is forced
to throw them in a pile on the floor. It would be nice if there were
more of the interactive objects (usable racks, shelves, etc.) and less
of the decorative eye candy.
More monster types is another feature/improvement that I would like to
see. I was disappointed after realizing how few types of monsters
there were in Daggerfall. Granted that they increase in strength as
the pc does and that the level of difficulty is therefore maintained,
the lack of variety adds to DF's repetitiveness. I realize that
several game producers often alter the color pallettes of various
"monster" bitmaps to produce a larger variety of "monster types" while
minimizing memory/space requirements. I would be willing to settle
for this as long as the creatures possessed different enough
traits/strengths/weaknesses as to make them distinguishable.
Lastly, IMHO, TES III should allow the option of a multi-char party.
I have never played Arena, but I am under the impression that it
allowed multiple pcs in a party. I think TES III would be great if it
were possible for certain characters to join the main pc. This
feature would make reputations so much more significant in this game.
Perhaps, rather than joining the party and being under the player's
control, the npc's would follow the pc and behave with a degree of AI.
This would then allow all kinds of twists in quests (i.e.
double-crosses, literal backstabs, npc-dungeon guides, hired merc
escorts, etc.)
G. Fischer
In article <3261C9...@agt.net>, Louie Doulias <do...@agt.net> says:
------------(snip)----------
>Smaller dungeons
I really like the big dungeons and can make my way around fairly
easily now. I would not want this to change.
>Smaller towns (do we really need big town with 90% of the building
>being useless)
Now this, I *totally* agree with. After finishing a dungeon quest,
and having a great time doing so, the gameplay really drags as I go
to one end of the city to sell my stuff to this shop, to the other
end of the city to sell what the previous shop wouldn't buy, to the
herb shop to sell my ingredients, to the bank to trade my gold for
credit slips... and on and on. The city automap is slow. And whatever
happened to the feature in Arena where you could go up to a building's
sign, Right Click on it and that would put it's name on the automap.
It is a pain in the ass to have to go *in* to a shop or tavern or
whatever just to see what the name of it is, especially when going
in and out of buildings seems to be a crash-causing event.
I would have preferred much smaller cities with more detail... such
as making the different shops look *much* different inside. Nice
touch having the shelves in the herb shop contain some plants but I
would have liked more of this kind of thing. The shelves in the pawn-
brokers look the same as the shelves in the clothing store, etc. Same
goes for the shopkeepers. Making these really different would have
made going around the town much more interesting and much less tedious.
>A smaller world (Whats the point of a world being bigger than the solar
>system if every place is the same, and in Daggerfall, every place is the
>same)
I agree with this as well.
>Easter Eggs like Ultima
This would have been fun.
>Fewer characters and these characters actually being people with brains,
>not random characters, random names, and random conversations.
Agree, agree, agree. Has anyone else been called "Frostfire"? Most
people get my name right but every once in awhile, some dope calls
me this.
>More varied quests. If I have to go for rotten mummy wrappings one more
>time ill screem.
I am still 'young' in this game and have not run into many repititious
quests but it looks like that may change. And that will be a bummer.
>Have your character MAKE a difference in the world
Like how?
>I absulutly HATE going back to a dungeon and having found out that
>everything I killed is back again. This Really sucks and is a failling
>point to the game. I also think that If I empty out a dungeon, and i get
>a quest to go there and get something, then the enimies should still be
>dead, not reset for a new quest.
Yes, yes, YES!
--------------------(the rest be snipped)-----------------
>Louie Doulias
>The Black Knight
Good post Louie.
D SCOTT BENNETT
A couple of minor disagreements (I agree w/ 90% of what's already been said),
then a couple of new ideas.
In article <3261C9...@agt.net>, Louie Doulias <do...@agt.net> wrote:
>A smaller world (Whats the point of a world being bigger than the solar
>system if every place is the same, and in Daggerfall, every place is the
>same)
I disagree - I like a big world. Ultima (8 at least) was maybe too small.
>The different races should make a real difference in the game.
Don't they already? Different starting stats, for example, and I'm also
really really happy my High Elf is immune to paralysis.
>The guild fueds should make a differnce (go in and kill a rival fued, and
>then have the remaining guild members chase me)
Some of this is there, maybe not to the extent you want, since your
reputation does change depending on what you do. There are a few guilds
where no one will talk to me b/c of poor past behavior.
Two other improvements.
1) Make the "kill" and "spell drain" fields that you come upon in dungeons
work more slowly. Now, you step in the wrong place and !poof! you're dead.
There's no way to avoid death. A field that takes maybe 5 seconds to kill
you, and maybe starts making a frying sound, would give your character
a chance to role-play his or her way out by running, instead of using the
god-like solution of resurrection (reloading).
2) I want a new spell, "Make Tunnel Through Dungeon Wall". I don't know
how many times I can hear all sorts of critters just on the other side of
a wall, but because of twisty dungeons have to search the whole thing,
including a half-mile away, for the secret door that gets me to that
other part. If you want to make it challenging, add a % chance of
ceiling collapse every time you drill a new tunnel.
I think if the game was upgraded to SVGA and a new world was developed,
without changing the engine, character creation, or magic, and if the
bugs were fixed and the dialogue were fixed, people would buy a TES
III with just that much difference.
--
---------------------------------
D. Scott Bennett
Department of Political Science
The Pennsylvania State University
Robert Berryhill
gfis...@indyvax.iupui.edu (G. Fischer) wrote:
>It is a pain in the ass to have to go *in* to a shop or tavern or
>whatever just to see what the name of it is, especially when going
Just use the Info mode (F3) & look at the buildings. They will then
show on the screen & if closed will show the time the store opens &
will also put the name on your automap.
Sharon Mock
First of all, the things I *don't* want to see:
1) Smaller world size.
2) Smaller/fewer towns and cities.
3) "Individual" NPCs who will tell me about their hangnails if I can only
figure out the right keyword.
4) The elimination of all elements not deemed "important."
I know not everybody agrees with me here -- but some of us find the huge,
algorithmic world appealing. In any case, these are the features that
give Daggerfall its distinct personality and its non-linearity. Some
people seem to want Daggerfall to be Ultima Underworld III; I'd rather
Bethesda leave that to Origin and continue making their style of game.
That said, and as much as I like the game, there are a few things I would
like to see:
1) Give each character "type" more of a distinct personality and access to
different information. Yes, this can be done while maintaining the basic
conversation style. The rudiments are already there, and I wouldn't be
surprised if the designers are working on this even as I type. In fact, I
wouldn't be horribly surprised to see this as a patch to Daggerfall.
2) Give the really important NPCs (e.g. royalty) individual personality.
Again, while maintaining the basic conversation style.
3) I personally happen to love the large, intricate dungeons, but since
not everybody does, maybe it might be wise to allow players to choose
dungeon size.
(These last are closing up loopholes that allow players to get very rich,
very fast.)
4) Have there be a percentage chance that storekeepers call the guards on
any player in their store after hours. (Presumably they have gone to
sleep upstairs and may be awakened by the sound of merchandise purloined
from shelves.)
5) Have shops go out of business if a certain percentage of their goods
are stolen.
6) Mark dungeons as "used" once explored. A "used" dungeon generates no
treasure and contains only non-treasure-bearing creatures. Quest dungeons
are marked "unused" even if the player has already explored them --
clearly something moved in after the player cleared it out.
-- Sharon
Will Dieterich
In article <542l6d$9...@aim.et.iupui.edu>,
G. Fischer <gfis...@indyvax.iupui.edu> wrote:
>In article <3261C9...@agt.net>, Louie Doulias <do...@agt.net> says:
>
>------------(snip)----------
------------( Double snip)----------
>>Have your character MAKE a difference in the world
>
>
>Like how?
How about having rumors that orcs are amassing, you might then get the quest
of someone else has gotten the quest. If you complete the quest,
the rumors die down, and people are happy. Else if you fail the orcs
attack a city, if you are in the city you can help in its defense, other
wise the city is destroied(ok, you would have to implenet damage to
building) and would have to be rebuilt, also the size of the army would
increase. In helping with the defense we now get fights outside of a
dungeon, and who knows maybe if you help kill the attacking army you
get a fountain built in your honor.
Besides that I would like to see the death of this main story quest.
Really how many of you have put off this important quest from the king,
just so you can fill your houses with gold and treasure.
Instead of that how about you start hearing rumors, or seeing thing which
lead to the main story, fame and fortune to complete it, otherwise it
goes on by its self.
More Items
----------
How about different weapons, and armor that have there own effects. Currently
the only differenses between the axe and a sword is thier damage, and graphics
All weapons have the same benfits and no disadvantages.
Someone else originally mentioned this, but how about wars between the
various city/states not just on the boards, but with actual armies and
you can get quests from. The various knights of the cities or towns
could be involved with some information seeking, or as key attackers or
defenders.
Some quests that don't require dungeons. Like escort duties, or hiring yourself
out to prevent attacks on a caravan, or if you are a thief how about
robbing from a caravan.
Some limitations and reactions between the various guilds. While the
hint books rumors about various fractions in guilds, I have yet to
see any evidense of this.
Overall the biggest addition would be the abaility to better react with
this world the same way you would with the real world.
--
William Dieterich Call Sign: KD4LZE Email: wdie...@rmi.net
"As the flowers are all made sweeter by the sunshine and the dew, so this
old world is made better by the lives of folks like you" inscription on the
tombstone of Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde fame.
Yama
gfis...@indyvax.iupui.edu (G. Fischer) wrote:
>credit slips... and on and on. The city automap is slow. And whatever
>happened to the feature in Arena where you could go up to a building's
>sign, Right Click on it and that would put it's name on the automap.
>whatever just to see what the name of it is, especially when going
You have to *left*-click on a building wall (with the "look" icon
active). Gives you the store name along with the hours of operation
(if it is closed). Don't click directly on the door though - or you
will enter. However, the player notations on the automap are nowhere
near as good as Arena was. Also, there is the occasional shop that
will never show on the map, whether you left click "look" at it, go
inside, climb the walls, ...
Yama / Storm
Yama
wdie...@rmi.net (Will Dieterich) wrote:
>How about having rumors that orcs are amassing, you might then get the quest
>of someone else has gotten the quest. If you complete the quest,
>the rumors die down, and people are happy. Else if you fail the orcs
>attack a city, if you are in the city you can help in its defense, other
>wise the city is destroied(ok, you would have to implenet damage to
>building) and would have to be rebuilt, also the size of the army would
>increase. In helping with the defense we now get fights outside of a
>dungeon, and who knows maybe if you help kill the attacking army you
>get a fountain built in your honor.
Good ideas. They did implement this is an *extremely* limited way.
General news will often mention your recent exploits / blunders. I,
for one, would come to the immediate rescue of anything that
threatened my favorite shops (Odd Blades, etc).
>
>How about different weapons, and armor that have there own effects. Currently
>the only differenses between the axe and a sword is thier damage, and graphics
>All weapons have the same benfits and no disadvantages.
>
There are several differences. Speed of strike, degree of damage,
ability to use, degree you can enchant the items, and weight
encumbrance. I'm all for having more realism - but what is missing?
>Someone else originally mentioned this, but how about wars between the
>various city/states not just on the boards, but with actual armies and
>you can get quests from. The various knights of the cities or towns
>could be involved with some information seeking, or as key attackers or
>defenders.
Yep - right now most of the "wars" is between guilds. I assume
it's possible to get an assassination assignment from the DB related
to these "Guild Wars" - but don't know that I've actually seen this.
City / State disputes would be nice - if you defended a city your
legal rep might rise. Give you a reason to call a place "home."
>
>Some quests that don't require dungeons. Like escort duties, or hiring yourself
>out to prevent attacks on a caravan, or if you are a thief how about
>robbing from a caravan.
>
Yes. There are the "duel impersonations" and guard duty. But more,
like you've suggested, would be better.
Yama
Howard L. Ring
How about a fast travel option for the city? I kind of like
roaming the large city, but it would be nice to dispense with
it once in a while. I like dashing between buildings at night
to avoid the ghosts. I've also had ghosts take me by surprise
during the day.
BTW you don't have to enter a building to get its name. If
you click on it with the eye icon showing (look mode) it
will tell you the name, and label it on your map.
I would also find the maps more useful, if I could scale them
to fit more on the screen at one time.
Howard
|>
|> >Smaller towns (do we really need big town with 90% of the building
|> >being useless)
|>
|>
|> Now this, I *totally* agree with. After finishing a dungeon quest,
|> and having a great time doing so, the gameplay really drags as I go
|> to one end of the city to sell my stuff to this shop, to the other
|> end of the city to sell what the previous shop wouldn't buy, to the
|> herb shop to sell my ingredients, to the bank to trade my gold for
|> credit slips... and on and on. The city automap is slow. And whatever
|> happened to the feature in Arena where you could go up to a building's
|> sign, Right Click on it and that would put it's name on the automap.
|> It is a pain in the ass to have to go *in* to a shop or tavern or
|> whatever just to see what the name of it is, especially when going
|> in and out of buildings seems to be a crash-causing event.
|> I would have preferred much smaller cities with more detail... such
|> as making the different shops look *much* different inside. Nice
|> touch having the shelves in the herb shop contain some plants but I
|> would have liked more of this kind of thing. The shelves in the pawn-
|> brokers look the same as the shelves in the clothing store, etc. Same
|> goes for the shopkeepers. Making these really different would have
|> made going around the town much more interesting and much less tedious.
--
============================================================================
Howard Ring Email: hr...@ford.com
============================================================================
Will Dieterich
In article <32653fd0...@news.airmail.net>, Yama <Ya...@Death.com> wrote:
>wdie...@rmi.net (Will Dieterich) wrote:
>How about different weapons, and armor that have there own effects. Currently
>the only differenses between the axe and a sword is thier damage, and graphics
>All weapons have the same benfits and no disadvantages.
> There are several differences. Speed of strike, degree of damage,
>ability to use, degree you can enchant the items, and weight
>encumbrance. I'm all for having more realism - but what is missing?
At a speed of 100, I don't really notice a a difference is the speed of the
strike. I get around 5 per combat round, and that is with a a two-handed
sword. The damage is different, but overall there is no reason to select
axe or short sword as your weapon choice. The long swords do the most
damage, and have no disadvantage. The only thing that really affects
damage is the type of swing you use, which is a nice option.
I cannot say about the about each can be enchanted(found the sword I use
pre-enchanted with vampiric strike) but based on the items I have enchanted
it seams to be the better type of material the more you can enchant it.
But I wouldn't be surprise to find the long sword catagory of weapons
can hold the most enchantments.
The things that can change would be stuff like, area needed to use the
weapon in, effects on different type of monster(already seen with the smaller
damage some undead take from non-blunt weapons), range of yourself to enemy
to hit, better and worst change of defending against certain weapons
defpending on what weapons you are using. There are a lot of other things
that cause theses weapons to be initally developed.
The same with armour, in daggerfall you have different graphical
representations for the same type of armour(same defense, same weight)
Maybe there is a difference between the various armour designs but I have
not noticed it. But in Real Life you had armour that had better defenses
agaist arrow attack, some had designs that worked better agaist slashing
weapons but did poorly agaist point based weapons.
Overall, this is probably just me wanted to have a reason to use an
axe instead of a sword, but with the sword doing more damage that is what
I will probably stick with.
TheZork
ds...@cac.psu.edu (D SCOTT BENNETT) writes:
>2) I want a new spell, "Make Tunnel Through Dungeon Wall". I don't know
>how many times I can hear all sorts of critters just on the other side of
>a wall, but because of twisty dungeons have to search the whole thing,
>including a half-mile away, for the secret door that gets me to that
>other part. If you want to make it challenging, add a % chance of
>ceiling collapse every time you drill a new tunnel.
>
I agree with you 100%, but it would be HARD to make that spell now that the
dungeons are not flat anymore. If you cast 'passwall' while climbing some
stairs you would open a hole into the void, which would present a whole new
set of problems.
>I think if the game was upgraded to SVGA and a new world was developed,
>without changing the engine, character creation, or magic, and if the
>bugs were fixed and the dialogue were fixed, people would buy a TES
>III with just that much difference.
>
I agree, even though graphics are not the main selling point to a RPG
it would be nice to see Daggerfall in SVGA.
-Zork
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
cory_...@ccm.hf.intel.com
czo...@ix.netcom.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Yama
wdie...@rmi.net (Will Dieterich) wrote:
>At a speed of 100, I don't really notice a a difference is the speed of the
>strike. I get around 5 per combat round, and that is with a a two-handed
>sword. The damage is different, but overall there is no reason to select
>axe or short sword as your weapon choice. The long swords do the most
>damage, and have no disadvantage. The only thing that really affects
>damage is the type of swing you use, which is a nice option.
>
>I cannot say about the about each can be enchanted(found the sword I use
>pre-enchanted with vampiric strike) but based on the items I have enchanted
>it seams to be the better type of material the more you can enchant it.
>But I wouldn't be surprise to find the long sword catagory of weapons
>can hold the most enchantments.
You're right. Since I favor the long sword myself - the fact that
it appears to have most of the advantages (where there are any) hasn't
bothered me in the least. I note the advantages and congratulate
myself on such a wise choice ;-) I'm pretty sure I could tell the
difference in speed between an axe and a short sword early on - but my
speed is approaching 100 now also. Really can't say whether the short
sword is faster than the long sword (but it should be).
The material used in a weapon appears to be the most significant
component re: magical abilities. My guess - is that after that it is
strictly by weight (I would also think speed is weight based). If so,
then a nice, heavy axe would hold more magic. My current character
cannot use an axe - so I haven't tested this.
>The things that can change would be stuff like:
>area needed to use the weapon in
Not sure whether you mean "body part area" or "environment area".
I guess both would apply. Good point.
> effects on different type of monster(already seen with the smaller
>damage some undead take from non-blunt weapons), range of yourself to enemy
>to hit, better and worst change of defending against certain weapons
>defpending on what weapons you are using.
These could already be factored into the game mechanics - but if
so I can't see the effect. I may actually block better with a short
sword than a long sword - but since I kill the enemy faster with the
long sword it's awfully hard to tell. Maybe someone from Bethesda?
>The same with armour, in daggerfall you have different graphical
>representations for the same type of armour(same defense, same weight)
>Maybe there is a difference between the various armour designs but I have
>not noticed it. But in Real Life you had armour that had better defenses
>agaist arrow attack, some had designs that worked better agaist slashing
>weapons but did poorly agaist point based weapons.
Same thing. It may already be in the calculations of damage - but
I can't "feel" the difference either. If it is "in there" - maybe they
should emphasize it a bit more. I had hoped someday to have a CRPG
where, based on the likely enemy population of a dungeon, I either
took an axe or loaded up on cross-bolts. I agree - right now you just
take the weapon with the highest hit point range you can utilize.
I also restricted this character from using a bow. Are they very
effective in dungeon crawls? I remember reading they became less
effective in close combat (reasonable) - so I figured I wouldn't lose
much by restricting them.
Of course, some people may feel this is too much "thinking and
strategizing" and not enough hack-n-slash.
Yama
Rob C. Johnson
er, Frostfire is an epithet. if they say that when they see you,
your rep is not so good with them... I think. at least, when I
carry the Prison of that Deadra B*tch, noone calls me Frosty!
Ha, like anyone would be stupid enough to look up from the ground
at I, Rob the Psycho Vampire, sometimes Prince Rob of the Really
Big Sword!
Rob sez 'Hi!' (rcjo...@prairienet.org)
kirin
Some random encounters when you walk around in the countryside, not just
when you camp. The Arena had them and also put in some small keeps or
house or something out there that you could bump into like an orc
campground with a few orcs, a fire, maybe some thatched huts that could
be set on fire and destroyed (possible quest idea?). Right now all its
good for is to practice running and jumping skills... Maybe steal a few
spell ideas from Magic carpet... in an encounter on the open countryside
maybe have like a sinkhole or raise volcano spells that you could place
on the ground beneath a monster...
Also being on horse back mode could be made more interesting. On city
streets or open country you should be able to choose to ready a bow or
lance and use them in battle. What fun is being a knight or paladin when
you can't fight on horseback? Perhaps have a big country fair once a
year where fighter types can win prizes in jousts, thieves can run amuck
with all the fat purses, and mages can have a spell meet (my fireballs
bigger than yours!) etc...
Steven Klug
Ok, here's some improvements I'd like to see that I haven't seen anyone
else mention:
1) Roads! I remember in Arena we has roads or at least paths leading
away from the cities. Bring in some roads! This way the Cautiously/
Recklessly settings could me travelling on the roads or off. Also,
this could bring up the possibility of caravan guard duty, etc.
2) Related to #1, outdoor "dungeons." Why should all dangerous areas
be underground? Make some outdoor adventuring areas, like dark forests,
creepy canyons, etc.
3) (this one has been mentioned) Outdoor encounters while travelling.
Have a chance of being attacked on the road (or off the road). This could
really be cool. Imagine travelling to Sentinel when you get attacked by a
group of sand people. After defeating them you realize their lair is nearby
hidden in the dunes. This could be a whole new way of introducing quests.
Simply by accidentally passing by their geogrphical location. The other
nice benefit of this would be that it would give you some reason to actually
explore this vast world. One thing that somewhat dissapointed me about DF
is that the concept of wilderness is highly underused. Who cares if there
is a landarea the size of turkey if we only see the cities and the little
areas that surround dungeons. I like the fact that there's so much land
mass, if they'd only USE it.
4) Here's a spell they could asily implement. Ethereal travel. Use that
nice effect of being in "the void." Make a spell that would allow you to
travel this way. Obviously this woudl be very powerful. You would have
to limit it with "risk." Make short time limits and if you're not back in
a corridor when the spell fails, oops, I hate it when I materialize in
solid rock.
Anyway, just some ideas.
Steven Klug
sk...@hightower.com
Nas
On 16 Oct 1996 21:33:32 GMT, TheZork wrote:
>ds...@cac.psu.edu (D SCOTT BENNETT) writes:
>
>>2) I want a new spell, "Make Tunnel Through Dungeon Wall". I don't know
>>how many times I can hear all sorts of critters just on the other side of
>>a wall, but because of twisty dungeons have to search the whole thing,
>>including a half-mile away, for the secret door that gets me to that
>>other part. If you want to make it challenging, add a % chance of
>>ceiling collapse every time you drill a new tunnel.
>>
>I agree with you 100%, but it would be HARD to make that spell now that the
>dungeons are not flat anymore. If you cast 'passwall' while climbing some
>stairs you would open a hole into the void, which would present a whole new
>set of problems.
Perhaps a passwall spell could be implemented if it were constrained
to work only under certain conditions. (e.g. it would work if another
part of the dungeon existed on the other side of the wall, otherwise
and/or sometimes it would just fizzle out, so the pc is unsure if
there actually is a part of the dungeon on the other side.) This
would allow pcs to travel through walls where no other means through
is available, but would prevent them from literally "tunneling" a
straight passage through the dungeon.
jarvinen
>More would like to sees,
>
>1. people in stores that move around, especially at night.
Yup.
>2. I'll give you that a dwarven warhammer should be better than
> an elvish warhammer, but a dwarven sword better than a elves is
> kind of iffy, and a dwarven bow better than an elves is downright
> wrong. :) (So says the person with a character that can't use
> dwarven or orcish materials, I'm an elf #!MN!T)
Yup.
>3. If you really want to improve the immersion, get rid of the 2-d
> objects everywhere. 2-d people are even worse.
Yup.
>4. Stuff in stores that is not level dependant. Why should the store
> wait to have mithril stuff until I'm 6th level?
Yup.
>5. A pretty major one. Do away with the 6 classes of magic. make
> individual spells skills.
NOPE! I like different flavors!
>6. Fix the spellcaster level-gaining abuse. (Get a hotel room for
> a month, cast spells so your levels go up.)
Yup.
>7. Drop the stupid "100% in a skill stopping levelling" bit. It discourages
> people from making a character class that has appropriate skills. It
> also forces micromanagement of your skills. Uh-oh My Primary skills
> are exceeding my two biggest major skills by a large margin. Time
> to work on the Majors and stop getting the Primaries or I am going
> to lock myself out of levels. The 95% for other skills is fine, just
> the levelling needs to be fixed.
Yup.
>8. Appropriate Dungeons, for instance, if I go to a castle once I'm inside
> it should be a castle instead of a twisty-turny labyrinth.
Yup.
>9. The oft-mentionned "dead things stay dead when I leave" thing. This
> also kills some of the monetary abuses.
Yup.
>10. If the shopkeeper sees you take anything after hours the gaurds should
> immediately show up.
Yup.
Wow! 9 out of 10. Not bad...
Dick
------------------------------------------------------
jarv...@proaxis.com "T.W.I.G.T.D.T.W.Y.C.Q.M."
D SCOTT BENNETT
In article <3267a379...@news.vt.edu>,
Nas <the.man.in...@vt.edu> wrote:
>On 16 Oct 1996 21:33:32 GMT, TheZork wrote:
>>ds...@cac.psu.edu (D SCOTT BENNETT) writes:
>>
>>>2) I want a new spell, "Make Tunnel Through Dungeon Wall". I don't know
>>>how many times I can hear all sorts of critters just on the other side of
>>>a wall, but because of twisty dungeons have to search the whole thing,
>>>
>>dungeons are not flat anymore. If you cast 'passwall' while climbing some
>>stairs you would open a hole into the void, which would present a whole new
>>set of problems.
>
>Perhaps a passwall spell could be implemented if it were constrained
>to work only under certain conditions. (e.g. it would work if another
>part of the dungeon existed on the other side of the wall, otherwise
>and/or sometimes it would just fizzle out, so the pc is unsure if
>there actually is a part of the dungeon on the other side.) This
I think that would be a good solution. The dungeons have to be implemented
with some type of coordinate system that is easily used to see how close
you are to a creature location (so you can hear them, can't rest, etc.).
Why wouldn't it be easy to have an algorithm that simply said (for digging
a tunnel north, say, and rewrite in your favorite language ;) )
Destination := Current_coordinates;
Destination.north := Destination.north + 10;
If location(Destination) = valid then create_tunnel(Current, Destination);
Valid could check on identical dungeon level, and maybe make sure that
you aren't connecting to a sloping passageway or staircase since maybe
they'd cause trouble.
Of course, I'm sure the tunnel would be subject to the same other dungeon
problem of disappearing when you left the dungeon. But, oh well!
MARTIN J WITKOWSKI
Ok folks, this isn't funny.
B&M demo *DELETED* my HD.
I downloaded the B&M demo, tried it out, and found it to be crappy.
I then wanted to delete it.
I ran the AUTORUN.EXE and selected the uninstall option.
The only thing I did that was out of place, was I clicked on it twice,
because my mouse sucks.
The Interplay uninstaller has then proceeded to completely delete my
HD with the exception of a few directories.
I lost one of my school assignments, which took me 4 hours to recover,
as well as the contents of my windows, and system directories, which
cost me over 8 hours to resotre and reconfigure.
I consider myself lucky that I had all the appriopriate backups.
A big "fuck you" goes to Interplay for providing a shitbag product that
not only sucks, but also happens to trash the user's HD.
I know they provide the demo's with a crapload of disclaimers, and
I won't get any satisfaction from them, but you're better off staying
away from this pile of crap.
Once again, Blood & Magic will delete your HD.
I will never buy another Interplay product again (so far, they all sucked,
but I did get Stonekeep), if they can't even get an uninstaller to run
reasonably, then I can imagine the full game will probably implode your
monitor or give you cancer.
Brent Burkholder
In article <547u0b$5...@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>,
D SCOTT BENNETT <ds...@cac.psu.edu> wrote:
>Destination := Current_coordinates;
>Destination.north := Destination.north + 10;
>If location(Destination) = valid then create_tunnel(Current, Destination);
>
>Valid could check on identical dungeon level, and maybe make sure that
>you aren't connecting to a sloping passageway or staircase since maybe
>they'd cause trouble.
>
>Of course, I'm sure the tunnel would be subject to the same other dungeon
>problem of disappearing when you left the dungeon. But, oh well!
>
Forget that... just give us a teleport spell that works like the old Bards
tale spell...
Teleport: 50m north, 30m west, 6m down If you hit a passageway or a room
you're ok, otherwise you're dead. I think it'd work rather well. Combine that
with having the automap tell you how far away a "clicked" piece of the
dungeon was and you'd be set!
It's elegant, it's useful (use it to get across chasms and stuff... who needs
levitation?), and its risky if people want to try going where no man has
gone before. ;)
--
--------------------------- ------------------------------------------------
Brent Burkholder < < "To coerce God is to coerce reality and answer
Brent.Bu...@amd.com > > your own prayers." - Diamond Mask, Julian May
-------------------------- -------------------------------------------------
Brent Burkholder
In article <5466rf$m...@server.cntfl.com>,
Roger Books <bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us> wrote:
>5. A pretty major one. Do away with the 6 classes of magic. make
> individual spells skills.
>
Yes, exactly my thought... why should practicing at throwing a fireball make
it any easier to put someone to sleep?
>6. Fix the spellcaster level-gaining abuse. (Get a hotel room for
> a month, cast spells so your levels go up.)
>
Well, it DOES make a certain amount of sense... if you practiced fighting
for a month you'd get better at it too. And you can do it for any skill, it
just may require leaving the building, going to a guild, training, coming back
etc. More tiring for a player to do, but just as quick in terms of game time
for the character.
>10. If the shopkeeper sees you take anything after hours the gaurds should
> immediately show up.
Actually, the shopkeepers should just kick you out when they close.
Paul Edward Rupe
I've seen lots of good ideas listed here. Bethesda, are you reading this?
Anyway, here's my 2 cents:
Quests should be better integrated into the game interface. Why is it
when you're offered a quest, the message pops up in a separate text
window? It should use the same conversation system as everything else.
This would allow you to ask for more information before embarking on a
quest, e.g. How far away is this dungeon X? What kind of monsters does it
have? The quest-giver may or may not have accurate information, and even
that opens up a lot of possibilities.
On the same note, these mysterious 'messengers' that pop up and give you
letters should actually exist as NPCs. I seriously doubt they will
levitate up to you or climb up on a roof to deliver their message, but in
DF that's apparently what happens.
I love the skill system. It's about time levels were based on something
besides how many monsters you've killed. I will suggest that raising
levels shouldn't be quite so restrictive. I thought not being able to
level once a major or primary skill reaches 100 was a rather arbitrary and
unnecessary limitation (bug?). My opinion is that as long as the player
is willing to work at it, he should be able to advance, though it may get
harder and harder. The only hard coded limitations should be ones
necessary for storage--like max possible hp is 65535 or something--and
should be irrelevant in the game.
Also I don't like the fact that the quests don't actually exist until you
are offered them and click 'Yes'. Ok, you're given a quest by the
Fighter's Guild to clean out some shop of rats. So what if you just
happened to walk into that same shop and never talked to the Fighter's
Guild? The monsters should still be there and maybe if you slay them all,
the owner will be grateful and reward you on the spot. The Guilds, etc.
should give pointers to existing quests, not just magically create them as
soon as you ask for work. Stumbling accidentally into a quest and having
to react spontaneously gives more opportunity for role-playing and would
keep players on their toes. It's easy to pass a test when you know when
and how you're going to be tested. Suppose you, a high-ranking member of
the Fighter's Guild, walked into that rat-infested shop and turned tail
and fled. How would that affect your reputation?
Some have complained because DF wasn't done in SVGA. *shrug* I'm just
glad it runs in VGA on my poor 486/66. By the time TES III is out the
technology level should be high enough that that SVGA will be reasonable.
Also they want everything done in polygons and no bitmaps for the
monsters, etc. People constructed out of polygons always looked rather
silly to me. (I for one will be happy to see a 3-D engine that isn't
limited only to polygons, but I guess that's still a few years off.)
Someone suggested earlier that a description of a monster should include
some guess at that monster's skill, e.g. "You see a skilled fighter" or
"You see an idiot with a sword". Well perhaps if you could actually see
their equipment, this would convey that sort of information. If you see a
fighter wielding a Daedric Long Sword and enough magical armor to light up
the room, you'd guess he was pretty skilled, while the guy wearing
half-rotted leather armor and holding a rusty iron dagger would be less of
a threat. What I'm trying to say is that if you're going to put in a
fancy new engine like that, be sure to USE it for something other than
looks. Actually showing the enemies holding their weapon and shield and
wearing their armor would be something you couldn't do easily with bitmaps
and would add a lot to the game.
The archery skill is nice, but how about some other weapon types?
Crossbows, slings, daggers you can throw, poisonous darts, etc.
Another thing I liked was the language skills, which give an alternative
to hack-and-slash. It could use some expansion though. Perhaps if you
pacify a monster, you could actually talk to them like other NPCs and get
information about the dungeon.
The Spellmaker, Itemmaker, and Potionmaker, are wonderful. All I can
suggest is make them even fancier with more effects, etc. Spells should
also have some effect on the world, not just the monsters you blast with
them. For example, maybe you can shoot a force bolt (or a well-aimed
arrow or other projectile for that matter) at that out-of-reach lever to
trigger it. If you're not strong enough to bash down a door, how about
blasting it with a fireball? I kind of miss the ability to make/destroy
walls and floors as in Arena. I assume the new engine made this too
difficult to implement.
Regarding dungeon design... this has already generated a lot of posts. I
agree, in DF the dungeons are usually a few interesting rooms with random
windy corridors connecting them. The fun of exploring is all but gone,
and I'm forced to stick with the old 'follow the right wall' trick all the
time to have any hope of finding my goal. Each dungeon should be designed
individually and should be based on a theme of some sort. I can handle
huge dungeons as long as there are lots of interesting landmarks to help
me navigate. The automap in DF is all but useless, though I'm not sure
how to improve it given the structure (or lack thereof) of the dungeons.
Perhaps being able to view one 2-D level at a time or showing the walls in
the 3-D mode as transparent outlines like Descent. I'm not sure these
would help, but I suspect that if the dungeons were better designed,
players wouldn't have to rely on the automap so much.
NPC interaction: While I certainly don't expect every character to have
their life story to tell like in Ultima, it would be nice to add more
variety to the dialogue. Hearing about your own exploits via rumors is
a nice touch for example.
A lot of things could be done to improve the interface. An earlier
example was that in the travel map, you should be able to type in a string
and get a list of all the places that contain that string so you can
scroll through and pick the one you want. In the spell maker, I hate
having to click on those bars to change the numbers one point at a time.
Just let us click on the number and type over it if we want. The
inventory system is a pain. I hate having to scroll through zillions of
items in my wagon to find what I want. A few things that would help this:
First it would be nice if items of the same type stacked together like
arrows and gold do. Also the player could buy bags and keep stuff
organized like that. A slider on the scroll bar or a page up/page down
command would help for searching through long lists of items as well.
Other miscellaneous annoyances... mana isn't on the status screen, you
have to click on Int instead; encumbrance should also be on the inventory
screen; as far as I know there's no way to split a group of arrows so you
can drop some and keep the rest; there seems to be no way to leave gold
(one of the heaviest things while exploring a dungeon) on your wagon.
The guilds are one of the strongest aspects of DF. Perhaps when you are
high enough rank in a guild you could start to have some control over its
politics. You could declare war on other guilds or side with some noble
to overthrow the king, for instance.
That's enough for now I guess.
Paul Rupe
kirin
Roger Books wrote:
>
> Oh yeah,
>
> Desynchronize the people. It looks really wierd to see everyone
> raising and lowering their arms at the same time.
>
> Roger
Combat on horseback!!!!
Have lances so that you can arm them on horseback for josts and
fighting in the streets or in the countryside and horse archers!
Knights that always fight on foot????
Scott Milne
kirin wrote:
>
> Combat on horseback!!!!
> Have lances so that you can arm them on horseback for josts and
> fighting in the streets or in the countryside and horse archers!
> Knights that always fight on foot????
Have tournaments or gladitorial matches hosted by the local Magistrate
with the prize being an item or land of your own.
Why just towns or dungeons, why not the Dark Forest of BLAH.
Have other prominent adventurers completeing quests and glorious deeds
as well.
Special destructive weather ie. Thunder and lightening storms,
tornadoes, blizzards that leave lots of snow not just the dusting that
we see now.
Have people approach you and ask you for directions, or ask you for
quests. But not the phantom messenger who seems to have the ability to
find you no matter where you are.
If you have ever killed anyone in town you'll notice that all the
townsfolk just keep walking around blissfully unaware of your deed. Make
them run screaming, calling for the city guards or begging for mercy :-}
I guess what I'm trying to say is make the town have a life of its own
that you are a PART of. Its a tall order but Daggerfall was a good step
in this direction.
Nas
On 19 Oct 1996 19:57:31 GMT, br...@dvorak.amd.com (Brent Burkholder)
wrote:
>In article <547u0b$5...@r02n01.cac.psu.edu>,
-snip-
>>Valid could check on identical dungeon level, and maybe make sure that
>>you aren't connecting to a sloping passageway or staircase since maybe
>>they'd cause trouble.
>>
>>Of course, I'm sure the tunnel would be subject to the same other dungeon
>>problem of disappearing when you left the dungeon. But, oh well!
>
>Forget that... just give us a teleport spell that works like the old Bards
>tale spell...
>
>Teleport: 50m north, 30m west, 6m down If you hit a passageway or a room
>you're ok, otherwise you're dead. I think it'd work rather well. Combine that
>with having the automap tell you how far away a "clicked" piece of the
>dungeon was and you'd be set!
>
>
>It's elegant, it's useful (use it to get across chasms and stuff... who needs
>gone before. ;)
I disagree with you here. A teleportation spell like that would open
up all kinds of opportunity for abuse. I could imagine TES III posts
asking "What are the coordinates for the quest object in so and so
dungeon.... from the entrance?" In addition, implementing such a
spell would be difficult due to sloping hallways and pits and curves,
etc causing the pc to materialize partially imbedded in rock. I would
hate a spell that required me to use decimals or fractions (50.25m N,
39.722 W, 31.3 D). A tunnel spell would be much more balanced and
easier to implement.
BTW, I personally like levitation and would stick with it anyday.
Ante
Ok, First off I would like to ask a few questions, it would be
apriciated if you could e-mail me with a reply.
1)I am on a quest from the prince of sentinel to go to "Castle Falleem"
to find somthing has to do with his saposedly dead brother. Has anyone
else had this yet? What am I looking for? Well I killed a zombie that
had a letter sown to his scin that read "Go to the king of the worms."
So I went there and he gave me somthing to cath the soul of a dead
prince of sentinel in. I am sapose to go to the Sentinel dungeon and
catch him. Are these quests related? Is getting this for the king of the
worms what I was looking for in castle falleem?
2)I am retarded. Well at least in a sence. When the princess of wayrest
told me who had the letter I was sapose to find and destry for the guy
at the imperial palace I forgot. IT DID NOT RECORD IT IN MY LOG BOOK!
Well, where am I sapose to go <I hope it is the same for everyone cause
if not Im screwed>
3)Should I start a Ddaggerfall homepage with a posting page for serious
daggerfall players. It would have chat room, Buletin board, text files,
etc.
Ante
swbe...@worldnet.att.net
P.S. Thanx
Nas
On 19 Oct 1996 20:04:43 GMT, br...@dvorak.amd.com (Brent Burkholder)
wrote:
>In article <5466rf$m...@server.cntfl.com>,
>Roger Books <bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us> wrote:
>
>>5. A pretty major one. Do away with the 6 classes of magic. make
>> individual spells skills.
>>
>
>Yes, exactly my thought... why should practicing at throwing a fireball make
>it any easier to put someone to sleep?
Well in the world of Daggerfall, practicing throwing fireballs isn't
so much practicing a particular spell, but rather practicing
destruction magic. So there really isn't so much mystery about it.
It's like practicing longblade. A swordsman can practice on his
hacking, slashing, chopping, thrusting, parrying, etc... but any of
these will increase his longblade skill.
Likewise a Magic User need only utilize a single spell from the art of
destruction to increase his/her proficiency with destruction.
The alternative, to make individual spell skills, is obviously just
too excessive. Magic-using classes would also become severely
crippled.
Ralph Scott
In article <326A40...@chat.carleton.ca>,
Scott Milne <smi...@chat.carleton.ca> wrote:
>kirin wrote:
>>
>> Combat on horseback!!!!
>> Have lances so that you can arm them on horseback for josts and
>> fighting in the streets or in the countryside and horse archers!
>> Knights that always fight on foot????
Cool.
>Why just towns or dungeons, why not the Dark Forest of BLAH.
Yes. But make the dungeons/whatever smaller. Why is it that a
'hovel' is twice as big as a castle?
>Have other prominent adventurers completeing quests and glorious deeds
>as well.
And make it possible to join up with them. Or vice versa.
You needn't have to be able to control them, but they should be
able to travel with you in the dungeon.
>
>Special destructive weather ie. Thunder and lightening storms,
>tornadoes, blizzards that leave lots of snow not just the dusting that
>we see now.
Look at magic carpet 2 for cool effects like this.
>I guess what I'm trying to say is make the town have a life of its own
>that you are a PART of. Its a tall order but Daggerfall was a good step
>in this direction.
Yes. Smaller world, but more entwined.
Make regional differences in spell availibilty/choice. Perhaps an effect
that can only be learned from some people in the south.
---ralph
R. McPherson
On Sun, 20 Oct 1996, Ante wrote:
:1)I am on a quest from the prince of sentinel to go to "Castle Falleem"
:to find somthing has to do with his saposedly dead brother. Has anyone
:else had this yet? What am I looking for? Well I killed a zombie that
:had a letter sown to his scin that read "Go to the king of the worms."
:So I went there and he gave me somthing to cath the soul of a dead
:prince of sentinel in. I am sapose to go to the Sentinel dungeon and
:catch him. Are these quests related? Is getting this for the king of the
:worms what I was looking for in castle falleem?
I think you must find the "finger" of the dead brother or a note
describing how he died after being imprisoned. You will see a
message on the screen when you find it and it will be green in
your inventory (if you patched the game).
The king of worms will send you on a quest to find a lich and
kill it in castle sentinel. The lich is beyond the blue barriers
in the room to the south east. When you kill the lich it will be
accompanying you and you must return it as instructed in your
log.
:2)I am retarded. Well at least in a sence. When the princess of wayrest
:told me who had the letter I was sapose to find and destry for the guy
:at the imperial palace I forgot. IT DID NOT RECORD IT IN MY LOG BOOK!
:Well, where am I sapose to go <I hope it is the same for everyone cause
:if not Im screwed>
You spelled sense wrong but that may not mean that you are
retarded. Not all suggestions get written into the log. Quests
get written in though. Look to see if when you talk to a person,
there is a new entry under "tell me about" or under "where is
PEOPLE" . This is sometimes all the pointer you get to the next
step. The quests are spelled out and tutored in the begining but
become more cryptic later on. Be sure and pay attention to every
word Lhotun says when you finish and then search the isle he
mentions for the biggest dungeon.
rjmc...@uci.edu R. McPherson, Psychobiology Dept, UC Irvine
Howard Roy
Hi folks,
I think further improvement in the ItemMaker is needed. One should be
able to mine for raw metal ore, such as rare one like Ebony (Daedric is
a refined form of Ebony, or I guess there should be no raw Daedric ore),
and then bring it to a blacksmith and have him/her forge it into a
weapon/armor/item of your choice. Then you can bring it to the mages
guild and have it enchanted. Isn't that fun?
Also I believe TES 3 is very likely to be a multiplayer game, so can you
guys come up with even more fanzy ideas about it?
--
- Howard Roy |8^)
- Computer Science, University of British Columbia, Canada.
- Author of Memory Reporter 32 and Memory Reporter for Windows
( http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/spider/u6m1/download.html )
____________
/ \ ____ \
\/| </~~\> | nternet URLs : http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/spider/u6m1
| ||~| | http://www.mortimer.com/users/howard/
| ||~| |
/\| ||~| | nternet email addresses : How...@mortimer.com
\_/ <\~~/> / HR...@unixg.ubc.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~
Howard Roy
Hi folks,
I really hate to see when I've wield a katana/dai-katana (a curved and
single edged weapon), it always show up the same weapon in the combat
mode, (i.e. straight, double edged long blade as for long sword,
boardsword, etc).
I hope they'll fix this in TES 3. I've wrote to them long before TES 2
was released, and they replied to me saying they've modified the thing,
and said I'll be pleased with it. They were wrong.
Laura of Shyr
>
>
> Forget that... just give us a teleport spell that works like the old
Bards
> tale spell...
>
> Teleport: 50m north, 30m west, 6m down If you hit a passageway or a
room
> you're ok, otherwise you're dead. I think it'd work rather well.
Combine that
> with having the automap tell you how far away a "clicked" piece of the
> dungeon was and you'd be set!
>
>
> It's elegant, it's useful (use it to get across chasms and stuff... who
needs
> levitation?), and its risky if people want to try going where no man has
> gone before. ;)
> --
> ---------------------------
------------------------------------------------
> Brent Burkholder < < "To coerce God is to coerce reality and
answer
> Brent.Bu...@amd.com > > your own prayers." - Diamond Mask, Julian
May
> --------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
>
I see merits to both Teleportation Spells and Excavation spells. With a
teleporting spell, you would have to cast it every time you're trying to
move to a different place, or to the other side of that pesky wall. With a
Dig spell, you'd dig once, and the tunnel would be there permanently (or
until the dungeon resets when you leave it).
To handle the Dig spell, it would destroy once 'square' wherever the
character is looking. By looking down, you could cause a declining ramp to
be dug (or even a pit, by looking straight down). Or tunnel upwards by
ramping up. It would be limited to a set number of squares, like Passwall
in Arena, but I'd give it a higher base casting cost. I believe I'd
classify this spell from school of Alteration.
Teleportation could be handled several ways. One way is an expansion of
the Recall spell, by allowing the caster to posess several anchors, but he
or she must have visited each site at least once. Or, the caster could get
detailed coordinates from another source (or by guessing), and try to
teleport to a location directly. The danger of teleporting into a solid
like this could be lessened by adjusting the spellmaker. A high degree of
safety would cause the spell simply to fail if trying to teleport into a
wall, whereas a low safty percentage would cause the poor mage to teleport
into an inconvienent tree and kill it (and him too)
-- Lorlelya, a 9th level Paladin Mage stalled out in Sentinel until a new
patch or two come down the road
Brent Burkholder
In article <01bbbf10$61e4ff00$1a286ec6@ryan>,
Laura of Shyr <shy...@grfn.org> wrote:
>or she must have visited each site at least once. Or, the caster could get
>detailed coordinates from another source (or by guessing), and try to
>teleport to a location directly. The danger of teleporting into a solid
>like this could be lessened by adjusting the spellmaker. A high degree of
>safety would cause the spell simply to fail if trying to teleport into a
>wall, whereas a low safty percentage would cause the poor mage to teleport
>into an inconvienent tree and kill it (and him too)
I don't think you'd want absolute coordinates with this system... make them
relative coordinates (ie. i want to teleport 50 meters to the west) If
you get coordinates for a location from somewhere, they'd also have to give
you an exact place to cast the spell from as well or else you could end up
just as dead. :) As for a degree of safety... I don't think that's neccessary.
Let em risk their life once in a while... :)
(actually, cool correllary spell...
Mystic Eye: 1 round/level
Creates a mystic eye that you can fly through the dungeon. You always
know its position, relative to you. This "body" is impervious to damage,
is invisible, and cannot interact with the environment in any way (no spells,
flipping switches, etc... you can't fly through walls :)
It'd be neat to be able to "scout ahead" as well as using it to help teleport.
It'd also allow less combat-oriented classes a chance of surviving. Play
a custom class of "Mystic" :)
"Hmmm, that Ghoul's Tounge has to be down there somewhere... lets go find it.
But first, I'd better get comfy."
Jackson Liu
MARTIN J WITKOWSKI wrote:
>
> Ok folks, this isn't funny.
> B&M demo *DELETED* my HD.
>
Same thing happened to me. Luckily nothing important was on that drive.
kirin
Scott Milne wrote:
>
> kirin wrote:
> >
> > Combat on horseback!!!!
> > Have lances so that you can arm them on horseback for josts and
> > fighting in the streets or in the countryside and horse archers!
> > Knights that always fight on foot????
>
> with the prize being an item or land of your own.
>
>
> as well.
>
> tornadoes, blizzards that leave lots of snow not just the dusting that
> we see now.
>
> Have people approach you and ask you for directions, or ask you for
> quests. But not the phantom messenger who seems to have the ability to
> find you no matter where you are.
>
> If you have ever killed anyone in town you'll notice that all the
> townsfolk just keep walking around blissfully unaware of your deed. Make
> them run screaming, calling for the city guards or begging for mercy :-}
>
> I guess what I'm trying to say is make the town have a life of its own
> that you are a PART of. Its a tall order but Daggerfall was a good step
> in this direction.
oops I guess you can arm your sword and stuff on horseback though
fighting is EXTREMLY clumsy and as of yet I havent found anything like a
lance. Right now my new character (others got wiped out in save game
corrupt file crashes) is only 3rd level and the princess at weyrest is
already sending poor Angie into Scourge Barrow (talk about suicide
quests) to take something to the worm King...
We do need forest/swamp areas with stuff in them in TESIII so Rangers
and Elves don't always have to go into dungeons to advance and people
could roleplay there too... To borrow an idea from Betrayal at Krondor
maybe if you have a bard character you can "use" a musical instrument of
some sort and depending on your reputation and personality scores you
could play in a tavern and make money and in a potential combat it would
double your "talk to" chance of them not attacking you...
William Geiger
>Special destructive weather ie. Thunder and lightening storms,
>tornadoes, blizzards that leave lots of snow not just the dusting that
>we see now.
>
Heh, Heh, Have the character try to outrun a tornado..
GURPS' Chris
Jackson Liu (l...@subsys.enet.dec.com) probably wrote:
: MARTIN J WITKOWSKI wrote:
: >
: > Ok folks, this isn't funny.
: > B&M demo *DELETED* my HD.
: >
: Same thing happened to me. Luckily nothing important was on that drive.
I don't know a whole lot about this, but I understand that the
more recent demo does not have this problem. If you do have the
BAM demo, and you are not sure of the version, I would personally
manually delete it, and not use the uninstaller.
And, personally, I apologize for any data that might be lost.
That's a really bad bug, and I've heard through the grapevine that
some people have gotten their ears chewed off for this one. But I'll
be honest, and admit that I don't know a lot about what happened with
this.
pax,
--
The game designer formerly known as "Stonekeep's Chris" is now GURPS' Chris.
Chris Taylor Official Interplay support: sup...@interplay.com
ana...@netcom.com Official Interplay website: http://www.interplay.com
Computer Game Designer I am not doing this on Interplay's time, I swear.
Charles A Smith
ana...@netcom.com (GURPS' Chris) writes:
>Jackson Liu (l...@subsys.enet.dec.com) probably wrote:
>: MARTIN J WITKOWSKI wrote:
>: >
>: > Ok folks, this isn't funny.
>: > B&M demo *DELETED* my HD.
>: >
>: Same thing happened to me. Luckily nothing important was on that drive.
> I don't know a whole lot about this, but I understand that the
>more recent demo does not have this problem. If you do have the
>BAM demo, and you are not sure of the version, I would personally
>manually delete it, and not use the uninstaller.
> And, personally, I apologize for any data that might be lost.
Holy batshit cowboy! This is your reaction? Your company puts out a
horribly destructive uninstaller that was NEVER tested... and you just
apologise? If I was you, I'd prostrate myself before the crowd and beg
forgiveness... or somethin. If *my* hard disk is ever erased by some
braindead company, I would look for, and find, someone's head to place
on a platter. This is amazing. Incredible. Frightening.
I'd look for someone named Bubba who weighs about 340 pounds to
pay a little visit to Interplay's office and erase a few hard disks.
I will never, ever, download anything produced by Inertplay, no matter
how "hot" it's supposed to be. Your uninstaller erased hard disks. Amazing.
You should be truly ashamed.
>That's a really bad bug, and I've heard through the grapevine that
>some people have gotten their ears chewed off for this one. But I'll
>be honest, and admit that I don't know a lot about what happened with
>this.
Ears chewed off? Oh my. How about FIRED!!! Or chew something else off,
other than or in addition to their *ears*. Sheesh.
A "bad bug?" No shit. That's not a bad bug, you hack, that's a disaster.
Your cavalier attitude toward destructive disk erasing is truly amazing.
I'm sitting here feeling kind of numb about the prospect that a blanking
game uninstaller would do this, and that a company like Interplay would
be responsible.
Oh yea, pax,
Chuck Smith
Killtaker
YEAH!!! Stick it too the man!! Right on!!
killtaker
.....
: YEAH!!! Stick it too the man!! Right on!!
: killtaker
And you wonder why game designers dont post in newsgroups!!!!
Xaxar
>> And, personally, I apologize for any data that might be lost.
>
>Holy batshit cowboy! This is your reaction? Your company puts out a
>horribly destructive uninstaller that was NEVER tested... and you just
>apologise? If I was you, I'd prostrate myself before the crowd and beg
>forgiveness... or somethin. If *my* hard disk is ever erased by some
>braindead company, I would look for, and find, someone's head to place
>on a platter. This is amazing. Incredible. Frightening.
The damage is done, what else do you expect him to do? He cannot magically
wave his hand and make the disk restore itself. The only thing that they
can do is say that they're sorry and fix the problem for future users.
And what do you think that their head on a platter is going to do for you?
Tough, but that's the way it goes.
--
Colin Day
d...@cs.colostate.edu
Stefan Hager
Heh,heh, I just remembered the EOB-Trilogy, where you could fire
an arrow, run and finally bump into your own, flying arrow and
taking accurate damage.. :) Seems to me that somebody that fast
might also be able to outrun a tornado ;)
--
Blessings,
Khaelon
The next sentence is true. The previous sentence was a lie.
http://nuernberg.netsurf.de/User/shager
Mark Baker
On Tue, 22 Oct 1996 16:39:49 GMT, ana...@netcom.com (GURPS' Chris)
wrote:
> I don't know a whole lot about this, but I understand that the
>more recent demo does not have this problem. If you do have the
>BAM demo, and you are not sure of the version, I would personally
>manually delete it, and not use the uninstaller.
>
> And, personally, I apologize for any data that might be lost.
>That's a really bad bug, and I've heard through the grapevine that
>some people have gotten their ears chewed off for this one. But I'll
>be honest, and admit that I don't know a lot about what happened with
>this.
Just their ears? Shouldn't their asses have been chewed off also?
Or did the managers go easier on them because they are into TQM?
;)
I can see why you guys would be embarassed about releasing a demo
with that sort of a bug. It wouldn't endear buyers of that game to
your company. I know if a demo or full version of a game deleted
the stuff on my hard drive I'd be real pissed.
Thanks for the reminder that I really should do backups more
often...
Lord Phoenix
Hi!
Paul Edward Rupe <ru...@cs.unc.edu> wrote in article
<549qph$l...@weiss.cs.unc.edu>...
> I've seen lots of good ideas listed here. Bethesda, are you reading
this?
> Anyway, here's my 2 cents:
>
> example was that in the travel map, you should be able to type in a
string
> and get a list of all the places that contain that string so you can
> scroll through and pick the one you want. In the spell maker, I hate
> having to click on those bars to change the numbers one point at a time.
Why don't you try left-clicking on the number and then moving the
mouse up/down to increase/decrease the number? I found by luck,
the manual doesn't explain how it works and I hadn't noticed the little
arrows on top and bottom of each number, so I tried clicking and
draging just to see what would happen and it worked, in fact is my
favorite way of doing it!
> Just let us click on the number and type over it if we want. The
This would be good too!
> inventory system is a pain. I hate having to scroll through zillions of
> items in my wagon to find what I want. A few things that would help
this:
> First it would be nice if items of the same type stacked together like
> arrows and gold do. Also the player could buy bags and keep stuff
> organized like that. A slider on the scroll bar or a page up/page down
> command would help for searching through long lists of items as well.
I also would like to have gold displayed has another item, it would be
easier to check out how mutch of it your carrying...
> Other miscellaneous annoyances... mana isn't on the status screen, you
> have to click on Int instead; encumbrance should also be on the inventory
> screen; as far as I know there's no way to split a group of arrows so you
> can drop some and keep the rest; there seems to be no way to leave gold
> (one of the heaviest things while exploring a dungeon) on your wagon.
This one's really annoying!
--
-----------------------------------------------
Lord Phoenix - Warlock Lv2
go...@esoterica.pt
-----------------------------------------------
GURPS' Chris
Mark Baker (mba...@ix.netcom.com) probably wrote:
: Just their ears? Shouldn't their asses have been chewed off also?
: Or did the managers go easier on them because they are into TQM?
: ;)
I was originally going to say the second, but thought better
about it -- my keyboard gets upset if I type nasty words on it. ;)
: I can see why you guys would be embarassed about releasing a demo
: with that sort of a bug. It wouldn't endear buyers of that game to
: your company. I know if a demo or full version of a game deleted
: the stuff on my hard drive I'd be real pissed.
I don't even work on BAM, and I'm embarassed this happened.
What a shi@@^$ (see) thing to happen.
: Thanks for the reminder that I really should do backups more
: often...
Yes, absolutely.
GURPS' Chris
Charles A Smith (cas...@ksu.ksu.edu) probably wrote:
: Holy batshit cowboy! This is your reaction? Your company puts out a
: horribly destructive uninstaller that was NEVER tested... and you just
: apologise? If I was you, I'd prostrate myself before the crowd and beg
: forgiveness... or somethin. If *my* hard disk is ever erased by some
: braindead company, I would look for, and find, someone's head to place
: on a platter. This is amazing. Incredible. Frightening.
Look:
a) I don't work on BAM.
b) I'm not the official rep. Try: sup...@interplay.com
c) I thought I would pass on some important info.
d) I'm truly sorry for *anyone* who this affects.
e) There isn't much I can do about it, except apologize.
f) I would contact support, and see what they have to say.
: I will never, ever, download anything produced by Inertplay, no matter
: how "hot" it's supposed to be. Your uninstaller erased hard disks. Amazing.
: You should be truly ashamed.
You bet that this will change some policies here at work. At least,
I would hope so. *I* am ashamed, and *I* hope it never happens again. Bugs
happen, and bad bugs happen to good people. This was just a very, very
unfortunate bug -- and it happened to be in the worst possible location in
the code. Dumb? Yes. A criminal act? Never.
: >That's a really bad bug, and I've heard through the grapevine that
: >some people have gotten their ears chewed off for this one. But I'll
: >be honest, and admit that I don't know a lot about what happened with
: >this.
: Ears chewed off? Oh my. How about FIRED!!! Or chew something else off,
: other than or in addition to their *ears*. Sheesh.
: A "bad bug?" No shit. That's not a bad bug, you hack, that's a disaster.
: Your cavalier attitude toward destructive disk erasing is truly amazing.
: I'm sitting here feeling kind of numb about the prospect that a blanking
: game uninstaller would do this, and that a company like Interplay would
: be responsible.
As soon as the bug was discovered, we pulled that demo -- replaced
it with a fixed version. There is a simple workaround -- don't use the
uninstaller. And as far as I know -- it does not occur on every system.
Still, it is a *bad bug* (official desigination: critical fault).
It has been fixed. And I'm still sorry that it happened, and I know that
the people responsible have been dealt with.
Heck, I'm even sorry that it made you upset...
John C. Reif
Paul Edward Rupe wrote:
<lots of snipping>
> In the spell maker, I hate
> having to click on those bars to change the numbers one point at a time.
> Paul Rupe
Actually, if you left click and hold on the number, and move the mouse up
and down, it scrolls through the numbers much faster. Though you should
be able to type in the number you want.
I liked your comments, especially about quests that exist on your own and
visual clues to the nature of badguys. However, I'd like to stand up and
say I find the automap very useful. Zooming down to the level you are on
is the key. It is slow though. Anyway, sorry about cutting most of the
post out. It was long, and I wanted space to rant about...
SLEEPING IN DUNGEONS!!!!
Okay, Daggerfall players, how many times have we seen this scenario?
You're hankering for a nice nap in a secluded corner, but noooo, there
are enemies nearby. You look around, but there are no enemies. Or
there's a vertical shaft nearby, with enemies on another floor who still
manage to stop you from that much desired nap. I'd really like to see
something done about this for TES III. How about being given the
warning, and then an option of whether or not to ignore the phantom
monster's slavering and go to sleep. And if a monster did approach while
you were sleeping, it would get a free hit on you.
And how do you know there are enemies nearby? Hearing? ESP? A close,
personal relationship with the programmers? Have this based on a stat or
skill that could be improved. Give different monsters different stealth
abilities. The monster detection skill could be used when deciding
whether to nap, and maybe use it to give you a chance at waking up if the
monster is about to attack. Otherwise, it would get a free hit. What do
other Daggerfall players think about this?
John
"I have claravoyant paranoia."
kirin
There should be magic scrolls available at guilds and pawn shops (1 shot
spells usable only once per purchaed scroll copy) not all spells just a
few 10 or so useful ones for non spellcaster classes (like recall,
invisibility, waterbreathing, jump, heal, cure poison, disease, etc..)
can have an easier time if they have the money... I hate being a ranger
, fighter or thief and get lost in a dungeon or catch a disease and
haveing to start a new charater... this should make things more even...
and less frustrating at least early on in the game untill you find or
make magic items...
Plus for each skill there should be a master of it around somewhere on
the continent. You should be able to do a journey to find the master
and learn at his feet. (He can train you in just that one skill up to
100% instead of the usual fifty but he wont be cheap and may require
some odd errend or item once in awhile)...
Rash
Hey gurps don't take it to personal.
A lot of people were very pissed off about that harddisk erasing
uninstaller ( one HELL of a uninstaller)
Thanks for the message and don't stop posting because of a couple angry
messages.
Greetings
--
B.E (or not to be)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ettema
ett...@xs4all.nl
American beer is like having sex in a boat..
Fucking close to water
GURPS' Chris <ana...@netcom.com> wrote in article
<anarchyD...@netcom.com>...
Rash
Tournaments!!
These would be very cool.
Jousts,fighting on foot with other knights,archery competitions,socialising
with nobles ,having your rep increased if you win ,cheating (by using
magical weapons)...the list is endless!
Arena's would be cool also, you could be caught stealing something and
given the choice to go to prison or to fight in the arena.(or you could
just sign up for the money)
It would also be cool to go and watch tournaments and arena fights
--
B.E (or not to be)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ettema
ett...@xs4all.nl
American beer is like having sex in a boat..
Fucking close to water
kirin <y...@psnw.com> wrote in article <3269E0...@psnw.com>...
> Roger Books wrote:
> >
> > Oh yeah,
> >
> > Desynchronize the people. It looks really wierd to see everyone
> > raising and lowering their arms at the same time.
> >
> > Roger
John C. Reif
Roger Books wrote:
>
> Oh yeah, when I run into a badguy it would be nice to actually see them
> wielding/wearing what they have. I'm going to run much quicker from
> that gaurd with the red sword and armour than I am from the gaurd with
> the dull-steel.
>
> Roger
Good idea, except I'd run right at 'em, yelling "Daedric armor! Come to
papa!!!!!"
Anyone notice sudden jumps in monster toughness? I hit level 10, and all
of a sudden every mage and spellsword kill me almost instantly if they
get in close. I'm starting to regret taking low tolerance to shock...
John
"She split my head open with a pickaxe, and I loved it."
hel...@worldaccess.nl
On Sun, 03 Nov 1996 18:51:54 GMT, n....@worldnet.att.net (Nick Old)
wrote:
>
>In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, Matt Schaeffer <scha...@cwis.isu.edu>
>wrote:
>
>>I don't think there is any need of needing danger to get better at a
>>skill. I do a lot of computer networking, and it sure doesn't take
>>danger for me to get more skilled at it now, does it? :)
>
>Agreed. But in the game, you're not playing the part of an ordinary
>person living an ordinary life. You're playing the part of an
>adventurer: someone who has to be able to use his skills in risky and
>unusual situations.
>
>If you had to put together a team to sneak into a foreign military
>headquarters and sabotage their primary computer network, who would
>you choose: an expert programmer with extensive experience at covert
>operations, or an expert programmer who's spent his entire career
>working in an ordinary office job and never did anything sneaky in his
>life?
>
>Note: I'm not in any way putting down people with 'ordinary office
>jobs'. :-) But skills and experience gained in an office won't
>always apply in risky field operations, and vice versa...
>
>Magic skills gained by throwing fireballs at the wall of your room are
>great for someone who's going to spend his time throwing fireballs to
>entertain a crowd. But that doesn't sound like a very interesting
>role to play in Daggerfall.
>
>Happy monster bashing!
>
>--
>Nick
Some excellent comments have been made in this thread.
Has a copy been sent to Bethesda?
Paul Helmich
***************************************************
Email: hel...@worldaccess.nl
Member of UDIC, Caribbean Dragon.
*******************************************************
Nick Old
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us (Roger
Books) wrote:
>There is currently a problem with spell improvements. This is causing
>people to make trivial, fairly useless spells in order to gain skill.
>A better way to do things would be, instead of giving a point for
>casting a spell, giving a point for every 10 spell points spent. In
>this way you get equal experience for casting little spells as for
>casting big spells.
I agree with your idea, and would like to suggest some additional
changes to skill advancement.
Right now, a spell caster can boost skills and max out his level doing
nothing but sitting in an inn casting spells and sleeping. And a
character with primary/major skills of jumping and running can also
make a lot of levels without ever actually doing any adventuring.
I'd like to see skill useage only count when there's a possibility of
danger involved, or when you actually pay for formal training.
For example, casting spells in a dungeon would count, but casting
spells when safe in an inn would just be a waste of spell points. Or
running in town to get away from guards would built your skill, but
running in town when there was no danger wouldn't make any difference.
--
Nick
Yama
n....@worldnet.att.net (Nick Old) wrote:
>In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us (Roger
>Books) wrote:
>
>>There is currently a problem with spell improvements. This is causing
>>people to make trivial, fairly useless spells in order to gain skill.
>>A better way to do things would be, instead of giving a point for
>>casting a spell, giving a point for every 10 spell points spent. In
>>this way you get equal experience for casting little spells as for
>>casting big spells.
>
>I agree with your idea, and would like to suggest some additional
>changes to skill advancement.
Let me say the same thing... in fact, I will. I agree with your
idea, and would like to suggest some additional changes to skill
advancement.
>Right now, a spell caster can boost skills and max out his level doing
>nothing but sitting in an inn casting spells and sleeping. And a
>character with primary/major skills of jumping and running can also
>make a lot of levels without ever actually doing any adventuring.
>
>I'd like to see skill useage only count when there's a possibility of
>danger involved, or when you actually pay for formal training.
>
I think the problem revolves around the fact that "going up a
level" provides the same benefit - whether you go up by increasing
running and jumping, or whether you go up by casting death spells in a
difficult dungeon. Both *are* valid ways to improve the level of a
character - but should not be equivalent.
Rather than have a Level 5 character who is primarily a Mage or
Thief - maybe you should have a character who is Level 5 at Athletic
Abilities (running, jumping, climbing), Level 7 at Arcane Arts (spell
casting, summoning), Level 3 at Edged Weaponry, Level 6 at Stealth,
Level 4 at Communication, etc. If you combine that with what Roger
originally said - that a 100 SP spell means 10 times as much to
advancement as a 10 SP spell, you get even more realistic.
While you don't want to be too realistic (otherwise - why play a
RPG) - some real life guidelines could help CRPGs. A person who does
nothing but sit in a room jumping up and down or running around the
building should be better at running and jumping (and other strictly
physical acts) than a character than performs difficult spells in a
life or death dungeon. By the same token, a strict spell caster should
not be able to increase his measly STR because he's been casting
spells.
So, if you "go up a level" from physical activity - the bonus
points could only be distributed to a limited set of physical
attributes. Likewise for spell casting or weapon usage.
You could actually eliminate the Levels entirely, and go strictly
with the skill sets in place. DF has a nice start on this as it is.
However, the "leveling up" serves as a reward - and I like it.
(Otherwise, I'd have no way to quit the game. As it is, I can say
"Next level - I call it a night." I tend to lie a lot, but at least
it's there ;-)
>For example, casting spells in a dungeon would count, but casting
>spells when safe in an inn would just be a waste of spell points. Or
>running in town to get away from guards would built your skill, but
>running in town when there was no danger wouldn't make any difference.
If you limited the benefits gained only to those areas appropriate
this wouldn't be a problem. Casting "Light" in a hotel should help me
advance in casting illusion spells just as much as in a dungeon. While
I definitely agree casting a destruction spell when there is no
opponent seems wimpy - it's not all that unrealistic. As someone in
this newsgroup said - If I were going into a dungeon with a sword, I'd
practice *before* I went, rather than learn in an actual fight-or-die
situation.
I enjoyed the dungeons in DF for a long time - but now I'm weary
of them. This shouldn't keep me from enjoying the game - or even
advancing. If I can't advance my (non-destructive) spells outside of a
dungeon, I'd be forced to go in one. Part of the elegance of DF is
players can choose their own path and focus on dungeons, thievery,
assassinations, dressing (dressing???), etc. I wouldn't want to head
back towards a linear game world.
You have some good points, I hope Bethesda considers a lot of them
as they develop TES: III. Just to make sure Don reads all of these
posts - when is TES: III (beta) going to happen?
>
>--
>Nick
Yama
Nick Old
Don Nalezyty
Hey all,
Don from Bethesda here! <G>
Yama, jim...@airmail.net asks:
>Just to make sure Don reads all of these
>posts - when is TES: III (beta) going to happen?
>
I do read as many posts as I possibly can... I have to admit I can't
even imagine when beta will start for TESIII. If I had to hazard a
guess, I would say fourth quarter 97. We're still in the very early
design and blueprint stages of TESIII, I would guess in a few months I'll
have a better idea of exactly when we expect to start the beta period.
Later,
Don
Paul Rupe
Nick Old (n....@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
: In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, bo...@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us (Roger
: Books) wrote:
: >There is currently a problem with spell improvements. This is causing
: >people to make trivial, fairly useless spells in order to gain skill.
: >A better way to do things would be, instead of giving a point for
: >casting a spell, giving a point for every 10 spell points spent. In
: >this way you get equal experience for casting little spells as for
: >casting big spells.
: I agree with your idea, and would like to suggest some additional
: changes to skill advancement.
I do agree that bigger spells should have a higher chance of improving
your skill (as well has a higher chance of fizzling out if your skill
isn't high enough). The whole reason people use these 'cantrips' is
because magic skills almost never increase through normal use. Worthwhile
spells are usually at least 30-50 mana (even higher at low skill levels).
Even with 3x magery and a +mana item you're not going to get to cast many
spells before you have to rest, so you'll rarely get an increase.
: Right now, a spell caster can boost skills and max out his level doing
: nothing but sitting in an inn casting spells and sleeping. And a
I don't see anything wrong with improving skills like this actually. In
fact, I think it makes MORE sense to practice your spells when not under
pressure. Think about it. If a mage spends time casting in an inn or
whatever, he will be able to pay closer attention to what he is doing and
learn more from his mistakes. You don't learn how to shoot a gun for the
first time in combat, and similarly a mage can't afford to waste time
thinking "Uh, gee, how does that spell go again? Hold on a sec, Mr.
Daedra." Practicing the spell in a non-pressure situation makes it come
more naturally, so when he's casting the spell for real he will do better.
: character with primary/major skills of jumping and running can also
: make a lot of levels without ever actually doing any adventuring.
My above statement is even more true for non-combat skills like running.
Do you think our Olympic runners train by having some hideous monster
chase them around the track?
Now you may ask should the mage get more hp/attribute points for just
casting spells in a nice cozy inn. Well maybe not, but this is a problem
with the level system, not with the skill improvement system. You could
just as easily ask why a mage should get more hp/att points just from
casting spells at monsters in a dungeon. I think they might as well go
ahead and ditch the whole level concept anyway; it's pretty redundant with
the skill system. Your main attributes can go up slowly with use like
skills do, and as for hp... well, one could argue that gaining more hp
doesn't even make sense at all. You can die from a well-placed dagger
thrust no matter how experienced you are. Instead of raw hp gain, you
should improve in dodging, parrying, shield blocking, armor class, spell
resistance, etc. to make yourself more durable.
In addition, your character isn't completely new to adventuring when you
start out; so maybe it's safe to assume he already knows how to handle
himself in combat, and the whole pressure/non-pressure thing is moot.
Paul Rupe
Nick Old
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, ru...@email.unc.edu (Paul Rupe) wrote:
>Nick Old (n....@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
>: Right now, a spell caster can boost skills and max out his level doing
>: nothing but sitting in an inn casting spells and sleeping. And a
>I don't see anything wrong with improving skills like this actually.
If your character can improve skills and max out in level just by
sitting in an inn, casting spells, and sleeping, then what is the
point of having any skill or character development in the game at all?
Why not just start the character out with his skills and level already
at the maximum, if you're going to design the game so that reaching
max levels is automatic anyway?
As far as the realism argument: no matter how many hours you spend on
a firing range or in simulated combat, you'll still have an awful lot
to learn when you first go into real combat - this is why guild
training won't advance a skill past 50%.
I guess it's just a matter of what I expect from a game. I want a
game where you have to do something useful or challenging (in game
terms) in order to make progress; I don't like 'giveaways'. I just
don't see much point in playing a game where I can build my character
up to be unbeatable just by sitting in a room throwing fireballs at
the wall.
--
Nick
craig
Roger Books wrote:
>
> There is currently a problem with spell improvements. This is causing
> people to make trivial, fairly useless spells in order to gain skill.
> A better way to do things would be, instead of giving a point for
> casting a spell, giving a point for every 10 spell points spent. In
> this way you get equal experience for casting little spells as for
> casting big spells.
>
I have been following this thread and find it interesting. Why is everyone
worried about trying to fix something that isn't really broken. This is
a breakthrough in in game character building and Bethesda deserves
kudos for implementing it. It really sounds like most of you are worried
that someone else is playing the game in a way you don't like. So what?
It's a game that provides fun for different people in different ways. I
personally like to build a strong character before tackling the dungeons
but then like to explore every step, wall, ceiling and secret place.
(I didn't leave the entry level of Wizardry I until my character had
reached fifth level, but I knew every wall, passage and aspect of that
level of the dungeon.) Others like to go with the absolute minimum
character and dash through getting only the essentials.
I also like to figure out how things work. I figured out (and first posted,
I believe) why Daedric Cuirasses were new but broken when equipped.
I think the real problem is that it is (still) impossible to use and
increase a number of skills (etiquette, streetsmart, impish, daedric,
climbing [?]...) And the maximum limit checking is weak -- my Vampire
had a running of 124 and jumping of 130. And the advertised benefits
of skills higher jumping means you can jump higher -- has anyone ever
seen this? There are some places in dungeons where you should be able
to jump rather than climb or levitate, if you're a good enough jumper.
And how about the basics? The game text and the players guide both say
that increasing END gives you a bonus to hits each time you go up a level.
This was not implemented in DF (try being a NightBlade with an END of
100 and accepting a roll of +4 Hits when your base is D8 and the END
mod for 100 claims to be +5).
But back to the main thread here. I feel that the problem is not that
some of the skills are too easy for some players to increase. The problem
is that some skills are still not implemented.
Roger Books
YAS (Yet Another Suggestion), this one triggered by some complaints
elsewhere. Do away with pickpocketing non-intelligent monsters.
What, that rat is really going to be carrying something I can steal?
Roger
Michael Dean
Don't give this guy the time of day, Chris.
-michael dean
On Thu, 24 Oct 1996 16:50:47 GMT, ana...@netcom.com (GURPS' Chris)
wrote:
>Charles A Smith (cas...@ksu.ksu.edu) probably wrote:
Inger Marie Jakobsen
Nick Old wrote:
> [stuff deleted]
>
> As far as the realism argument: no matter how many hours you spend on
> a firing range or in simulated combat, you'll still have an awful lot
> to learn when you first go into real combat - this is why guild
> training won't advance a skill past 50%.
>
Is this true? If my short sword skill is 50,
will I not be able to advance it more by
training in guild/temples?
--
---------------------------------------------
Inger Marie Jakobsen (i...@kmd.dk) oo
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/''
---------------------------------------------
Kirk Nelson
More (?) humor would be a nice touch to an otherwise
enjoyable game. The monsters are certainly engaging
and the search for more/bigger/better is addictive but
the NPCs are otherwise boring. I haven't really started
the main quest, perhaps it will be more entertaining.
Jesse Rosenblum
Actually, one thing that kind of bothers me is the fact that some
weapons (ie dai-katanas) are just better than others. Heavier weapons
should take longer to swing, and different weapons should have different
abilities against armored opponents. A great example of an
implementation of this is(Tah Dah!) Darklands, where weapons are rated
on damage AND penetration... a greatsword, then, did more damage than a
warhammer, but a warhammer is much better against plate mail (can you
say "can opener"? I knew you could) I like swords as much as the next
guy on this newsgroup, but I do like to see a little more diversity in
the number of weapons, and not just "this weapon is better because it
does more damage." My favorite weapon in terms of its appearance
(shallow, I know) is the broadsword, but when you get a katana (if you
like shields) or dai-katana (if you don't), the old faithful broadsword
gets the heave-ho....
Just a thought
Maximus
Bruce Rennie
Jesse Rosenblum (max...@mail.albany.net) wrote:
: Actually, one thing that kind of bothers me is the fact that some
Not to mention the trouble you would have just actually swinging a claymore
or dai-katana in some of the confined spaces in the dungeons.
/bruce
--
*******************************************************************************
* Bruce Rennie Q: Are We Not Men ? *
* bre...@interlog.com *
* *
*******************************************************************************
Nick Old
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, Inger Marie Jakobsen <i...@kmd.dk> wrote:
>Is this true? If my short sword skill is 50,
>will I not be able to advance it more by
>training in guild/temples?
Right - once a skill hits 50, the only way to advance it is to use it;
the guilds won't train you anymore (in that skill).
So to raise your shortblade skill past 50, you'll have to fight using
a dagger, tanto, shortsword, or wakizashi.
--
Nick
William Harris
In article <327FB1...@pacbell.net>, c...@pacbell.net says...
>I think the real problem is that it is (still) impossible to use and
>increase a number of skills (etiquette, streetsmart, impish, daedric,
>climbing [?]...) And the maximum limit checking is weak -- my Vampire
>had a running of 124 and jumping of 130. And the advertised benefits
>of skills higher jumping means you can jump higher -- has anyone ever
>seen this? There are some places in dungeons where you should be able
>to jump rather than climb or levitate, if you're a good enough jumper.
I can live with the "maximum" flaws. What I -really- detest is note (t) in the
patch file, the one that says "Streetwise and Etiquette skill increase properly
now". NOT. Hey, Bethesda, if you're reading this - in respect to these
skills, none of your patches has fixed it.
What I most hate is the bug fix note, when they didn't fix it.
--
William Harris
Nas
On Wed, 06 Nov 1996 12:31:06 +0100, Inger Marie Jakobsen <i...@kmd.dk>
from Kommunedata I-S wrote:
>Nick Old wrote:
>> [stuff deleted]
>>
>> As far as the realism argument: no matter how many hours you spend on
>> a firing range or in simulated combat, you'll still have an awful lot
>> to learn when you first go into real combat - this is why guild
>> training won't advance a skill past 50%.
>>
>
>will I not be able to advance it more by
>training in guild/temples?
>---------------------------------------------
>Inger Marie Jakobsen (i...@kmd.dk) oo
> \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/''
>---------------------------------------------
Skills can be trained up to 51%.
Jon Campbell
I think it was a wise choice to stop playing Daggerfall
and wait for at least patch DAG181 or DAG182 to be released
before resuming play to be on the safe side.
(Note : lastest patch is DAG179) So I suppose you can tell
just how bad things are... :( Bethesda seems to have
cultivated a habit of misinforming. eg. their patch for
DAG179 just doesn't fix the bugs they claim to fix
in their docs.
Also among the many bugs that I have encountered and
suffered for, in Daggerfall, I find the quests in
dungeons to be the most boring and very inane.
There are some quests whereby I simply find absurd.
One of such is the 'Hunt for XXXX person' quest.
For example, in one quest a so-called 'fugitive'
Ranger that was easily slain by my 12th level Knight
with only a blow of an Dwarven Sabre can ACTUALLY
survive and make a hideout in a dungeon with hordes
of liches and ancient vampires!!! Where THE HELL is the
logic here?! What?! He paid rent huh??!
The dungeons themselves though long and winding
are unimpressively monotonous and dreary. And
sadly, Daggerfall seems all too obsessed with
Dungeon-related quests that are really FAR too big
and boring. Spending 2 REAL hours+ in the a
dungeon that seems perpetually having the
same frigging walls for only a small sub-quest
is ridiculous.
C:01/13
--
Campbell
Jon Campbell
William Harris wrote:
> now". NOT. Hey, Bethesda, if you're reading this - in respect to these
> skills, none of your patches has fixed it.
>
> What I most hate is the bug fix note, when they didn't fix it.
That is what I call sloppy customer-support from a sloppy
company.
Too bad.
Can't be helped esp. when you hire a bunch of lamers who seem
to have undergone a crapcourse like 'C PROGRAMMING IN A MONTH'
to do a game of this supposedly 'large' scale. With every old bug
they think they killed, they probably created a few new ones in
the blinking process.
--
Campbell
uglm...@latte.memphis.edu
In article <328244...@fas.harvard.edu>, Drew Fudenberg <fude...@fas.harvard.edu> writes:
>>
>> Two, that's two votes for doing away with levels.
>
> Make that 4: I saw this mentioned in another thread this morning. :)
>
> --
> Drew Fudenberg
Make it 5: There's no real reason for anything at all like levels in
a skill-based system.
Kirin
Have henchmen, sidekicks, followers or whatever... Like once a year
after you're 5th level or some standing in a guild or so a 1st level guy
or gal in about the same profession offers to join and follow in your
footsteps. It would be like a computer controlled character with their
own stats and skills. They're loyalty and willingness to fight alongside
you is determined by various things like how you divide the treasure.
(alongside the wagon you can choose give to henchmen and you can see him
or her put on the weapon or armour) or if you have them in front as
cannon fodder (lowers loyalty) or stay back and provide support with
missiles or spells or look for backstab opportunities on monsters
(raises). Loyalty would determine what percent of their hit points
they'ed lose before they go into flee mode and just run and not fight
for you. If you treat them well and they live long enough they would
rise in levels with you. They could be like Robin or Iolo or Dupre...
Of course the game engine would have to be made so that you henchmen
just like the monsters don't get stuck on stairs and stuff while
tagging along.. .
Richard Menninger
Nick Old wrote:
> In comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg, Matt Schaeffer <scha...@cwis.isu.edu>
> wrote:
> >I don't think there is any need of needing danger to get better at a
> >skill. I do a lot of computer networking, and it sure doesn't take
> >danger for me to get more skilled at it now, does it? :)
> Agreed. But in the game, you're not playing the part of an ordinary
> person living an ordinary life. You're playing the part of an
> adventurer: someone who has to be able to use his skills in risky and
> unusual situations.
...
> Magic skills gained by throwing fireballs at the wall of your room are
> great for someone who's going to spend his time throwing fireballs to
> entertain a crowd. But that doesn't sound like a very interesting
> role to play in Daggerfall.
As I read this thread, I see a couple of things.
Gaining basic levels of skill would be done in a
safe place unless you are a fool. Once you have that,
then you need real experience for veteran levels of
those skills, but in real life you still practice.
All those martial arts people certainly do, and so do
people who use weapons. Some of the practice is group
stuff but some is in the dojo or where ever is the right
place to do it. It seems that DF compromised by using
the 50% threshold to approximate all of this in a simpler
way that let them concentrate on other facets for providing
detail. Places to practice are realistic. Do you want
specialized places? Will that really add to the play
quality of the game? It might interfere with real fights
happening at a given place or you may find out that your
skill does not work someplace when you expect it to. The
existing trade-off works reasonably. Maybe you really
want a different (lower) threshold to be used. If it was
lower, how much lower would seem about right to you?
Take care of yourself
Dick
Student s738344
: Is this true? If my short sword skill is 50,
: will I not be able to advance it more by
: training in guild/temples?
: --
pri and maj. are :(
--
CU
CE
email : end...@dds.nl
Larry
I see both of your points. Joshua's point is more toward trying to
force a player to "play"... But, if someone wants to take this huge
adventure game, park it at an in, and cast some flame dart spell 2000
times to get his character to a level he is happy with... I guess
that's okay by me. I would find it boring after a while. When I was
close to making a level, I have often parked it on my boat and did a
spell fest to get those last couple of destruction %s.... The old
adage: practice makes perfect works in the game... much like in real
life.
What if they threw in an experience factor for each skill... kind of
like all this swinging my sword around in the air gets me more
proficient with the weapon in that I can weild it quickly and
accurately.....however, put another variable onto that skill.. How
well do I recall all those lessons when I have an uptight liche
blowing me kisses in a dungeon. I think that would be easy enough to
incorporate into a game. Kind of like Education Level versus
Experience Level with an item/skill. Running is running.... in fact,
you'd probably run alot faster if you were in a dungeon than just
cruising over to the local mages guild... but fighting would be an
entirely different thing. Casting that Wild Fire would be too tough
on your mettle, if the orc is 50 yards away... Get him in your face,
and use a roll to see if the player screws the spell up out of being
rattled... The more I think of it, the more I like it. Add more depth
to the term "battle hardened veteran", yes?
Larry
On Sun, 03 Nov 1996 02:51:10 -0700, Matt Schaeffer
<scha...@cwis.isu.edu> wrote:
>Joshua Io wrote:
>>
>> n....@worldnet.att.net (Nick Old) wrote:
>>
>> >I agree with your idea, and would like to suggest some additional
>> >changes to skill advancement.
>> >Right now, a spell caster can boost skills and max out his level doing
>> >nothing but sitting in an inn casting spells and sleeping. And a
>> >character with primary/major skills of jumping and running can also
>> >make a lot of levels without ever actually doing any adventuring.
>> >I'd like to see skill useage only count when there's a possibility of
>> >danger involved, or when you actually pay for formal training.
>> >For example, casting spells in a dungeon would count, but casting
>> >spells when safe in an inn would just be a waste of spell points. Or
>> >running in town to get away from guards would built your skill, but
>> >running in town when there was no danger wouldn't make any difference.
>>