TUESDAY, 15 JUNE 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
I have a number of upgrades to the Felling Skill which I hope will set a standard for the way the rest of the games systems feed information back to the player.
The GUI for Annor is quite reduced. We don’t want to add a load of clutter to the NWN2 display. Currently when you chop a tree nothing happens visually. Your character just hits the tree with whatever weapon until the tree falls over. You have no idea how well you are doing or indeed, how badly you are doing. You also have no idea how close to falling the tree is.
To inform you of your progress there will now be a new GUI window that pops up the moment your first swing makes contact with the tree (provided you arn’t punching it).
The GUI window will be dedicated to showing the FELLING progress. It will have a tree picture on the left (done in the Annor Classic GUI style of White & Colour like the Status GUI element). Next to the tree will be a V shape on its side making a wedge. This wedge will be like a progress bar and decrease as the tree gets closer to falling.
After each hit the GUI will update and tell you how good your hit was and how much damage you did to the tree in the process (for the last swing). It also tells you your level in Felling. This standard GUI will also be applied to the Bucking and Hewing systems when they are written. The images etc will be changed accordingly. Screenshots to come later this week.
TAGS: felling, GUI, lumberjack, skills
POSTED IN Character Skills, GUI | NO COMMENTS »
THURSDAY, 6 MAY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
So, election night in jolly old England.
While the polling stations do their maths, I have been slamming my head on the desk doing my own. Felling system for the lumberjack skill group. In short, the most pain in the ass group of sums ever.
Finally, I have them figured out. And here is brief example of how they work:-
Skill Effectiveness
((Skill Level x 6 )+ Skill Level %) + 1d6 (Luck Roll)
Chop Deduction
Edge Hardness – Wood Hardness x 10% of Max Felling Level (Original level of points until tree falls)
100 – Skill Effectiveness % of Previous sum result.
Wood Damage
2% of tree wood – Skill Effectiveness
And that is only half of it…
TAGS: felling, lumberjack, skill, skill maths
POSTED IN Character Skills | NO COMMENTS »
THURSDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2010 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Well tonight/this morning I finished the first draft of the Felling skill’s chop script. In many ways the script is basic as it doesn’t award the player any EXP. It doesn’t check for an axe. It doesn’t do any real maths. But it demonstrates how the script SHOULD work.
This concept is a concept I use when designing a system and developing it. I take the bits we need at the beginning and decide what the end result should be. Then I make a simple system for getting there quickly. Once that has been done, tested and ironed out we know that the system will work from start to finish and provide us with the ultimate result required.
From then it is a case of adding the details in the middle. The “luxuries” as I like to call them. Of course…. in this case they are not luxuries. Instead they are problems and penalties that relate to your characters abilities. Headaches… yes you can call them headaches.
Well I took some screenshots showing the prototype cut down models of a birch tree. I am waiting on Kaleotter for the finished version of this model. There are currently several issues with it. But issues aside, I have done some foresting and here are the pictures to show how anti-nature you can be.
TAGS: felling, kaleotter, lumberjack, screenshots, skills, tradeskills
POSTED IN Character Skills | NO COMMENTS »
TUESDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 2009 BY EARL (SIGNET)
Well Relentless is ill but I am not so I am continuing on with getting one of the most core systems up and running.
This system is of course the Skills system. The skills system is something that the players will love and hate at the same time. Especially if you think that just because everything is available to your character forever, you won’t find it easy to do everything.
The first skill of them all comes under the Lumberjack skill tree. Skills are organised in to groups but the groups are purely there for the players benefit. Lumberjack consists of 4 skills. Felling, Limbing, Bucking and Hewing.
Each skill level gained in any skill makes it harder to gain the next level in any other skill. So you could be the best at Bucking but crap at Hewing. Or awesome at both but pretty crap at Felling. You can basically focus on the bits you want to do yourself rather than aiming to be the best Lumberjack.
These ‘limits’ are applied across the board. The deduction is simple. EXP gained from doing any task that comes under any skill is reduced by a certain percentage. A percentage which is the same for every skill and increases with every level gained.
We are mean.
But this is to add depth…tactics…and above all…….social skills and teamwork. The clever guy is the guy who focuses on what everyone else hasn’t and established himself (or herself) and a specialist of some kind. The best in the trade at …. cutting off branches.
So chopping down trees is on its way. Keep an eye on the site.
TAGS: annor, chopping, database, lumberjack, skills
POSTED IN Character Skills | NO COMMENTS »
