I call it "dynamic balancing" where as "static balancing" is measuring and weighing what the values of something IS, dynamic balancing is measuring and weighing what the values of something COULD BE. I've worked on dynamic balancing once but what i did was to use a system that i also call "keys and locks" that helped me work out combinations and the total values of all combainations.

The keys and locks method keeps everything separate like oil and water and when they mix they're still distiguable. So combinations used in this system are only there for conveiniance rather than power-up.

If i was to be asked how to go about dealing with dynamic balancing first bit of advice would be to make a system designed to help out with the task. Or design the game so the system is imbedded in the design.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Edited by - Paul Cunningham on September 17, 2000 2:42:22 AM

Idea of creating sounds really nice to me, especially for a multiplayer RPG (uo, everquest). If a person gets bored to the daily hack''n''slash, he can just go to street and start painting. Then he could sell his paintings to other people and they could take them in their home. Portraits of other players would be neat, too . And of course you couldn''t import any jpegs in the game, but instead you''d have to draw all the pictures inside the game world.

And building statues would be cool too. Think of a statue, made by you, decorating the local town square . But this would be hard to implement (i.e. how to make those statues that are 3d models).

But I''m not sure if internet bandwith is sufficient for either paintings or statues.

An off topic question:
I haven''t played any multiplayer RPGs but are there any contests held in those games'' worlds? Like an arrow-shooting contest where the winner gets 1000 gold pieces? Or a horse-riding contest from town A to town B? This kind of entertainment would be nice to see in a game world.

-Hans {home page} {e-mail}

That would be lots of fun, Hans. But imagine if you started having Grafitti (sic?) taggers going around tagging buildings, that might annoy people, and need a police force (well, Jet Set Radio is about tagging whilst skateboarding)? Or, maybe people could only paint on certain materials like canvas, or you might have to purchase the stone slabs.

I agree that Jpgs shouldn't be allowed to be imported, as that would lead to porn being imported, or copyrighted material.

People might be able to combine their talents, for instance a potter could make a vase, and then a painter could paint it so that it looked awesome. . This could lead to a thriving designer goods industry, or just be fun for players (although they would be jealous of better artists, just like in real life?). Maybe some artifacts could be engraved/ painted with Magic Runes, if this was done + some other things to make it magic, then some magic artifacts could be made this way.



Off-topic. Hans, yes Archery contests, fishing, lumberjacking, racing, pottery contests would be really cool. (I haven't played any MMORPGs either), but these things have all played a part in the popularity of (single player) games, where they were either hard but fun tasks to complete (Zelda -fishing, timetrials, horseracing, Final Fantasy 7-racing) Or in games like Elite where players tried to beat each others fastest routes between two starsystems.

Edited by - Ketchaval on September 17, 2000 8:28:31 AM

And also, if you couldn''t just import jpegs, the art would have much greater value. You couldn''t just import a scanned photograph in to medieval game and you couldn''t use someone else''s cool artwork and sell it in low price. You also couldn''t copy artwork.

Every single piece of art you''d see, would be created inside the game''s world and that''s what would make them very valuable, 100% hand-drawn and 100% unique. You would know that "This piece of art I just bought, is actually hand-painted by someone with artistic talent". Cool. I can imagine art galleries set up by rich players with 5$ fee to get in. Or art galleries set up by people that want to sell their own art.

Yes, small industry like pottery making would be awesome too.


-Hans {home page} {e-mail}