Any notes on this yet? I was looking at the design docs and beginning to cook up a plot, I hope thats ok?

I can draw a game universe map, areas of interest, built up areas and that, unless they are already decided.

I can start on stories and plots, involving many chars, and the overall theme/goal perhaps? points? flags? revenge? personal glory/wealth or all of the above?

It says in the design that it is low tech, I think the Deathworld books by Harry Harrison are a great example of low/tribal tech

the plot involves the character making linden jars, and distilling oil with rusty broken machines to appease the barbarian like natives with his 'high tech' knowledge, they treat him as a god but clans also fight over him and capture him a lot to try and win over the others. it is a selfish, backward and raw survival story


anyway, is the name set for the Land it is based? something like Dune, but not copyrighted? I dunno 'scorch' 'dustbowl' or something simple and catchy, what unintelligent natives might call their land

is it a planet like Dune (all desert) is it just an island that is desert with some water (the goal of the game to get water?)

The design doc said more 'realism' so i guess eating and drinking would be important, and seeking water also fairly important. thought large sources would be fought over viciously i imagine

What is the year it is set?

let me know your ideas or plans for this and I will play around with some ideas!

bye

One thing that's already been mentioned is that there won't be an overall plotline. Different factions will have different plotlines, and hopefully some will rule out others, and you can create your own story, but there isn't one common to every play through.



Frankly, having to go into your inventory and use food and water items is liable to get old rather quickly. I'd probably suggest simply having said items in your inventory and having them be depleted over time, based on how you're handling rationing. As to the rest, I wouldn't mind seeing that in the game.

ok cool, yes having no plot for the player might get confusing, but getting caught up in others business and playing the teams against each other might be interesting.

In the game Stalker, the player is given just one objective "Kill Strelok" while finding out info about this person and why he has to kill him along the way.
Something simple to push people into a fight at the start might be helpful.

Perhaps a clan of marauders kills your family or something, so you set off to find out which clan it was and avenge them

There is an auto heal system in Age of Armor, which triggers at a user set percentage, that will remove micromanagement of more fiddly things

Yeah, there's no main plot, but many optional and hopefully dynamic threads you can pursue. There are many different start points too, so you may start off in a village with a family and it gets raided by bandits, or the village knows in advance and is preparing for the defence, or you start off conscripted into the army and thrown into a battle. Group battles are a good thing to kick off with because the player will be weak and have other NPCs watching his back. These different start points should give the player a good place to kick off before they find their own way.

I was not thinking of including the need to eat and drink because it can get tedious, especially when you have 20 characters scattered all over the world, it will get old fast. Although feasting and drinking at an inn would be a good way to speed recovery from wounds.

I have already made the world map now, its mainly desert but there is a sea in one corner, and pools and oasis's dotted around the map. At the moment, it makes no claim to be set on Earth. No idea for a name yet.

Anyway you are welcome to throw in your ideas, scripts etc. Just remember I can't guarantee I will use anything or not.

perhaps you could have a system where the food and drink were deducted over time from your inventory? needs a lot less management, and allows for more strategy if you go down the 'own an army, conquor the world' route

Something you might do is have characters who are in/near a town or settlement in which food/water can be bought automatically spend money if they don't have food and water in their inventory to keep themselves fed and such. Basically run it like in sims how you can try to keep your sim from eating, but eventually, they get pissy and run off to get food in any way necessary.

You might also have rations that are cheap, plentiful and light, as well as having survival skills that reduce the need for food and water out in the wilderness, eventually negating the need for it altogether (the character can survive off the land so well that he/she and the party never need to take food with them when traveling as long as they're near the character with the uber survival skills).

Another thought is to make the game without the need for food and water, but release a realism mod that makes things tougher by adding more realistic things like the need for food and water. This would make it so that the more hardcore fans that want it can easily get it, but it's not forced upon those who'd rather not deal with it.

No backstory yet? Set it on an alien planet that a colony ship crash landed on for unknown reasons, like Trigun Maximum!

Well, that was a tad random...

closer to what I had in mind though,

Hm...I just had a thought.

What if you give the player a choice at the beginning of the game? The choice would be their starting point. A small village peacefully making its way, a town in the middle of nowhere threatened by a nearby horde of bandits, a bustling city, etc. Then, once they choose their starting point, they begin the game, doing whatever it is they choose to do.

For instance, they could choose the town soon to be destroyed by bandits and help defend it, or hide off in the nearby forest, wait for the bandits to move on, then come back and loot the town, or hunt down the bandits to avenge their home. None of these would be scripted obviously, just choices that would be present due to the nature of the game.

Giving players some choices in starting location, then choices in their characters starting specialties would allow for a pretty open-ended way to begin the character's tale. It could really put the characters in control of the story they choose to create.

Already planned. Also a good way for the player to add a new custom character, and that character starts off miles away in a slave camp or something and you'd have to rescue him

Damn you and your habit of already coming up with all my good ideas!

I WILL come up with a good idea you haven't thought of by the time this game is finished, mark my words! *shakes fist all epically*

Not likely. I am currently on A4 notepad of ideas number 8.

But you might be able to think of some different starting situations before me.

So, when comes the new chapter? Advance warning would be courteous.