Have you guys played the game Dark Ages from Nexus?
Try it...
I used to be afraid of the dark, until i saw the light.
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XP or XP's
Okay, I really just skimmed over a couple sentences here and there...but I think I understand the basic concept behind all this.
Anyhow, this is probably going off on a little bit of a tangent, but has anyone played Betrayal at Krondor (or Betrayal in Antara)? In BaK, there are no experiance points at all. You have a set of skills (Melee combat, barding, lockpicking, etc.) that improve as you use them. So, you could sit around all day, go into taverns and play, and improve your barding skill, but your others skills won''t grow at all. Or, you could never try barding...just run around and kill stuff, and your combat skills will go up (and these depending on which combat skills you use), but nothing else. It really makes for a good game.
BTW, if anyone hasn''t played Betrayal at Kronder, I recommend running off and getting a version however you can. Sierra was giving it away for a while...I dunno where to find it, now, though.
P h a n t a s m -- "Through dreams I influence mankind."
Anyhow, this is probably going off on a little bit of a tangent, but has anyone played Betrayal at Krondor (or Betrayal in Antara)? In BaK, there are no experiance points at all. You have a set of skills (Melee combat, barding, lockpicking, etc.) that improve as you use them. So, you could sit around all day, go into taverns and play, and improve your barding skill, but your others skills won''t grow at all. Or, you could never try barding...just run around and kill stuff, and your combat skills will go up (and these depending on which combat skills you use), but nothing else. It really makes for a good game.
BTW, if anyone hasn''t played Betrayal at Kronder, I recommend running off and getting a version however you can. Sierra was giving it away for a while...I dunno where to find it, now, though.
P h a n t a s m -- "Through dreams I influence mankind."
Have any of you played a game called Final Fantasy Tactics? It uses an interesting system. There are two types of Exp: regular experience point and job points. Basically, while in a fight, whenever you perform an action, you gain both types. Exp affects your stats(like strength, speed, etc.) and job points allow you to gain levels in your job class and they also allow you to learn skills. The way the job system works is that each character starts out with two classes available: squire(physical) and chemist (magic). As you gain JP, more jobs open up to you. For instance, once a character reaches a certain level of squire, you gain acess to new jobs, like the archer and the knight class. Each class has a unique set of skills (the knight class has the ability to break the enemy''s armor, weapons, etc. and the thief class can steal stuff). If you decide to switch from a thief to let''s say an oracle or a bard, you can still equip the thief skill set as a secondary skill set (you have two, a primary and a secondary), but you will lose the thief''s speed bonuses and it''s ability to equip knives. In addition to this, special characters have a unique job class instead of the squire, such as Holy Knight and Engineer.
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I guess the message here is that you should make a XP system that suits your game. Don''t just use one because it worked well in this game or another. I''m not saying "reinvent the wheel" just change the tyres that suit the terain your game will be going through. That''s all.
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Our Goal is "Fun"!
I love Game Design and it loves me back.
Our Goal is "Fun"!
I guess XPs have a reason to exits, the problem is just why the heck do YOU want to use it. There is the reward XP , or pavlovian way of doing it (in my opinion) : "Good PC, gooood PC, there you go, some XP". Which is appropriate for teenagers, because it make it easier to brage about (" Well, YOU are still 27th level, so SHUT UP!").
But personnaly I believe XPs have a use for more interesting things, jsut like most of us have shown it above.
The decision, I think, is whether you want to use XP as an internal counter for some interesting feature of the gameplay, or if you want to use it as a score thingie.
I think most of us agree that it''s time to evolve beyond the simple scoring system, whatever you call it, and move to a more mature way of seeing Role playing.
Of course if 90% of the market are hormonnaly unbalanced prepubeous teenagers ... should we bother at all ?
youpla :-P
But personnaly I believe XPs have a use for more interesting things, jsut like most of us have shown it above.
The decision, I think, is whether you want to use XP as an internal counter for some interesting feature of the gameplay, or if you want to use it as a score thingie.
I think most of us agree that it''s time to evolve beyond the simple scoring system, whatever you call it, and move to a more mature way of seeing Role playing.
Of course if 90% of the market are hormonnaly unbalanced prepubeous teenagers ... should we bother at all ?
youpla :-P
We could also design games wich would attract other parts of the population. If you make only games to please little-brained people (well some games are like this anyway), then only them will play.
Most of my fellow rôle players don''t play computer games anymore because of that "rpg" game wich wasn''t rpg at all.
What about people wich are NOT attracted by violence, senseless killing or the such ? Women for example ;-)
I think computer gaming could touch a much larger audience if it was not targeting only male 10-18 years old.
"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arius there was an age undreamed of..."
Most of my fellow rôle players don''t play computer games anymore because of that "rpg" game wich wasn''t rpg at all.
What about people wich are NOT attracted by violence, senseless killing or the such ? Women for example ;-)
I think computer gaming could touch a much larger audience if it was not targeting only male 10-18 years old.
"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Arius there was an age undreamed of..."
You know, having read my earlier posts, I realise how ludicrous the system is, really. Why don''t we dump experience altogether? Just say "look at you, you accomplished {such and such}. Good for you." and let the player go on with their game. Eliminate experience and you suddenly get a game that is based only on the player. The character is, for the most part, only going to need to "statistics": strength and weight. With those two you can effectively derive all other "statistics" in other games: agility, defense, constitution, etc. These two "statistics" (god that''s annoying) can change as the character accomplishes various tasks, but it''s never necessary for them to "level up". Anything to add to this idea? What about skills, magic, and the rest?
-Jaemes Weare
-Jaemes Weare
How about you have a traditional XP and level system, where you dish out heaps of rewards for accomplishing story points or whatever..
And make them mean nothing except a gauge of how much you''ve done. Make all stats and skills change dynamically, unrelated to xp. That''ll mess the players up a bit.
And make them mean nothing except a gauge of how much you''ve done. Make all stats and skills change dynamically, unrelated to xp. That''ll mess the players up a bit.
Damn XP.. And Damn the leveling system all to hell! Skill based is the way of the future. You get more aptitude at SPECIFIC skills and they gain levels by training them at a required location (like a gym). XP is EVIL! EVIL I TELLS YA! 
Well, maybe only for what I use it for 
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-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
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Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
Well, maybe only for what I use it for -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft
"The Philosophers' Stone of Programming Alchemy"
IOL (The list formerly known as NPCAI) - A GDNet production
Our Doc - The future of RPGs
Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
quote: Original post by DungeonMaster
What about people wich are NOT attracted by violence, senseless killing or the such ? Women for example ;-)
Funny you mention that...my girlfriend is better at Doom than I am (and I''m not too shabby, IMHO). She doesn''t let a level go by without killing EVERYTHING in the level...
Point to this post? There''s an exception to every rule...
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