What a RL should be ?
Crypt
opinion what is a good RL ? (in a PLAYER point of view) What do you like ?
Interaction ? Growing up a character ? Exploration ? Quests ? Huge world ?,
etc.
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Crypt wrote:
I really enjoy Rogue recently.
Levels small enough to prevent boredom.
With good connectivity of rooms.
Food clock to keep me going.
New monsters every level (with new special abilities).
Items that really have impact on the gameplay (I have to play
differently depending on what I find first).
Lots of "traps" -- situations where I'm not really forced to
fight, but the reward looks so good (and would be lost if I
didn't fight), that I often try it and die.
--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski
"Computer Science is no more about computers than
astronomy is about telescopes." [Edsger Wybe Dijkstra]
Michal Bielinski
- presents me with situations requring much thought and careful
spending resources at disposal
- most obstacles can be tackled with more than one way
- risks offering good rewards that are not necessarily to be taken
(like Crawl's dungeon branches)
- densely packed levels with features (that may be unusual monster
coalition, a vault, dungeon feature, secret room ... ) to keep me from
bieng bored
- character advancement can be minimal. I rarely pursue collecting
experience to level up PC
--
Michal 'Ancient' Bielinski
Crypt
- to be often surprised
(this covers a lot of things : interactions possibilities i did not previously
thought of , new map features, etc.)
- to have a lot of possibilities to pass an obstacle.
- to have a lot of possibilities in using an item or map feature. Not only the
single obvious usage.
- persistant maps.
- no variant of variants which are themself variants of spells, monsters,
etc...
A Greater Blue Caporal Fire Zombi of CthuMogBan is no fun.
Nor a Greater Ultra fire bolt of lesser green hell.
No need for 600 spells nor 1250 creatures if only 10% of them are really
unique.
(that's one of the things i hate in the Bethesda elder scrolls's spells)
Krice
> - to be often surprised
This is it. It doesn't even have to happen often. It's great to be
surprised in a way you never expected.
Gamer_2k4
I know I'm not as 'hardcore' as I should be, but I like being able to
make mistakes without each one being fatal. For example, in Gearhead I
might be doing a quest, but I fail it and my mecha is destroyed. It
sucks, sure, but at least I don't have to restart the early game (think
of the tedium in ADOM) or rebuild my NPC relations.
When you don't die as often, you are able to focus much more on
character development. That's also important to me when I play
roguelikes.
I also really like a tactical element in combat. Anyone who has played
Shogun:Total War (or a similar game) knows what I'm talking about, but
that sort of thing is rare to find in roguelikes. I like alternatives
to the 'hold down the arrow key until the monster dies' method. For
example, Hengband has a ninja class. Combat deals with hiding, then
popping out and scoring critical hits. If you go head to head with a
monster, you'll soon be saving a character dump.
Finally, I like a plot and game developement. I like tangible evidence
that I'm progressing in the game, something more definitive than "Hey,
these monsters are getting harder." On that note, quests are
essential. I think the best quests are those that involve no combat,
since these quests offer a break from the fighting tedium I mentioned
before.
Gamer_2k4
gf
- A rich, interactive, consistent, persistent, world - not necessarily
huge though (Rogue/ADOM have relatively small but feature-rich levels)
- Many skills to learn/apply that affect gameplay
- Nice language/text not just "a sword +1/-2", "you hit the orc. the orc
hits you", "a town", etc... -> a bit more flavour
- Quests that depend on each other, making your decisions more complex
As a player I like to play games that feel unique and suck me to their
world: ADOM's chaos-infested Ancardia, Nethack's dungeons that everything
can (and will) happen, GearHead's mechaworld, Crawl's dungeons of tension.
Grabbing the player's attention is the first thing a game worthy of its
code should be able to do.
--
Giorgos
Crypt
>popping out and scoring critical hits.
yes, good idea, i must add backstab to my project.
Mario Donick
Well, that's a good question...
I like to grow my characters. I want to become better in general and in
certain skills, I want to collect treasure and I want to find artifacts
and items. Therefore I like games with hundreds of items, regardless if
some of the items aren't very creative. For example, if I had a simple
sword first, then buy a better sword, than get a sword that enhances
i.e. my magical defense and than get another sword that enhances not
only my magical defense but also casts fire on an enemy - that's great.
Become better and better and get better and better items =)
Related to character growing is battle. I really enjoy to get hunted by
monsters and lead them into dead ends of dungeons or into traps or into
rooms which I then leave and close until I have time to come back and
kill them. So the maps should provide some interesting, perhaps
difficult, movement opportunities.
Quests are nice, but there is no need for an endless number. I like the
way Diablo did it. Six quests per act, and the rest of the time I'm
hunting and chasing for items ;)
My own project, LambdaRogue, will become exactly the kind of roguelike
I personally like. Therefore it emphasizes battle; there are many
enemies at the same time, hunting the player and for me, this
hack'n'slay feels very good. I'm also trying to implement many items,
but in the moment there are only about 100.
Mario
Ray Dillinger
> Crypt wrote:
>
>>We all add more and more features to our beloved projects, etc.. But in your
>>opinion what is a good RL ? (in a PLAYER point of view) What do you like ?
>>Interaction ? Growing up a character ? Exploration ? Quests ? Huge world ?,
>>etc.
>
>
> I know I'm not as 'hardcore' as I should be, but I like being able to
> make mistakes without each one being fatal. For example, in Gearhead I
> might be doing a quest, but I fail it and my mecha is destroyed. It
> sucks, sure, but at least I don't have to restart the early game (think
> of the tedium in ADOM) or rebuild my NPC relations.
Actually that's a pretty good mechanic for Gearhead. Your mech
defines certain things about your capabilities, and getting it
destroyed is a major crisis in the early game - but not a
game-ender.
Alternatively, once you have sufficient money, you can approach
each problem with the "right" mech for that problem, which adds
a strategic element to the later game.
Bear
Radomir 'The Sheep' Dopieralski
Mario Donick wrote:
> Crypt wrote:
> Related to character growing is battle. I really enjoy to get hunted by
> monsters and lead them into dead ends of dungeons or into traps or into
> rooms which I then leave and close until I have time to come back and
> kill them. So the maps should provide some interesting, perhaps
> difficult, movement opportunities.
I have some vague vision of a roguelike, in which you play a member of
the gnome race -- but a really gnommy gnome, not just a crossbreed of
an elf and a dwarf, like in most roguelikes with gnomes.
It's not relly ready for a game, not even for an article, but I will
write some about it here.
You see, I imagine that gnomes, those ugly, big-nosed, happy little
fellows, are naturally "a little" malicious. I mean, they love gems,
but they also love machinery, and they love pranks and practical jokes.
So, the "natural" way of handling monsters would be to trick them in
various ways, set traps, kill at distance with darts, bash on the
head with a hammer by surprise, and then run laughing maniacally.
Pitting them against each other is an option too, of course.
The problem with all those activities is that it's usually pretty
hard to award experience for them -- but you could get experience
from collecting gems intead, for example.
They woudn't use magic directly, but instead build machines (small
and large), with a little help of magic, that could be used instead
of magical spells. Obviously, as all creations of a genius inventor,
those machines would often malfuction in inpredictable and funny
ways, and the gnome would have to use his wits to handle the situation.
Slash
I am not too much of a hacknslasher/munchkinianist, so I think
exploration is a big factor of sucess.... get to know new places,
obtain ancient artifacts, meet powerful enemies...
I like open spaces more than dungeons altough there is always something
fascinating on exploring the depths of the world.
A believable world generator that can be used again and again, with
freeform for its characters... and that offers realism only to the
point required to be consistent, thats what I want to achieve with my
(soon to be restored) project, Guardian Angel
I also like the pleasure of vanquishing monsters for pure fun, without
too much hassle into the realm of realism, and thats what CRL is :P
--
Slash
Sabreman
I'm very new to Roguelikes, so naturally a few of the things I'm keen
on and not too keen on are a result of learning the right way to play
them. Permadeath initially was a shocking concept to me but I soon
warmed to the idea of it. It's just that I came from a gaming lifetime
of computer and console RPGs and playing a Roguelike just requires a
different mindset.
Anyway, one of the things I enjoy most in any game like this is the
exploration and character advancement. I'm not much of a tactical mind
- which of course has already led to a number of deaths as I go in guns
or swords blazing. The thing I like the most - the thing that Crawl
does - is the persistence of dungeons once they're created. I do find
randomizing levels very frustrating and it does somewhat take me out of
the game experience. I'm playing ToME at the moment, and it just seems
very odd that I'd go into the Barrow-Downs, descend one level then come
back up the same steps only to find a completely different, unexplored
level. Randomly creating the dungeons on the first entry or during the
initializing of the game and then keeping it consistent would be
better, in my opinion.
Oddly enough, when I first started playing RLs I always sought out tile
graphics versions. I still prefer the tiles simply because I can look
at the screen and see that a snake or a kobold or a dragon(!) is down a
tunnel, without having to mentally decipher the screen every few steps,
or enter into a sequence of key presses to identify things. Having said
that, I have become somewhat accustomed to the ASCII in things like
ADoM, which has no tiles support. There is definitely a kind of beauty
to them. I just find that 32x32 tiles are a perfect balance between
simplicity and functionality.
Narf the Mouse
exploration, not get in the way. A timer that adds tension, while still
benifiting the player. Plenty of detail to make and play a character,
without too much difficulty in doing so. ( The interface does need to
be greatly streamlined, though. What is it, six pages of keybindings?)
Kornel Kisielewicz
I added this thread to RogueBasin, I hope no one minds -- it's got a lot
points that are worth proper archivising:
http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=What_a_RL_should_be%3F
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (adminATchaosforge.org) [http://chaosforge.org]
"It's much easier to make an army of dumb good people than to
make one single smart good guy..." -- DarkGod
DrGong
1. Random
2. Perm-death
3. A range of critters to fight or ignore.
4. rewards careful play
5. some overall quest, even if you might not win the quest after 5
years of playing.
Crypt
> I added this thread to RogueBasin, I hope no one minds --
do no hesitate to correct my poor english sentences.