Warp vs Walking (Dungeon Enterances)
Author
With all the modern rendering techniques, is it better to have the character walk into a dungeon or us the doorway into the dungeon as a level load switch which warps the player into the dungeon? The pros of the walkin deal is that there is more continuity and less player figit time, the cons are that you are stuck optimising the engine based on the type of environment that the player is going to be in most of the time or kludging together a dual engine. The pros for the warp is that you can have multiple engines with little or no kludging and the player can get some snacks during level loading. The cons are that it increases player figit time and breaks the immersion.
I think it depends what kind of engine you use for the graphics ... but why I really posted was to ask :
If you can enter a dungeon filled with nasty monsters (grr) just by walking through a door or going up/down stairs, then why don''t monsters go through them too and escape into the real world?
If you can enter a dungeon filled with nasty monsters (grr) just by walking through a door or going up/down stairs, then why don''t monsters go through them too and escape into the real world?
Because your game includes dungeons and monsters (dragons, if you will... 
)
I would rather ask why there IS a dungeon to begin with, WHY there are monsters in it, and WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE GO INTO A DUNGEON WITH MONSTERS IN IT?! (answer: treasure) Why is there always treasure in a dungeon? Aren''t dungeons for holding/torturing your enemies? Do you want them to steal all your gold when they escape with the help of the monsters?
Seriously, you''re dealing with a series of abstract concepts left over from the D&D era. Don''t expect them to make sense. In answer to your actual question I say, go with whatever works best for the game you want to make.
This has been a Landfish rant.
)I would rather ask why there IS a dungeon to begin with, WHY there are monsters in it, and WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE GO INTO A DUNGEON WITH MONSTERS IN IT?! (answer: treasure) Why is there always treasure in a dungeon? Aren''t dungeons for holding/torturing your enemies? Do you want them to steal all your gold when they escape with the help of the monsters?
Seriously, you''re dealing with a series of abstract concepts left over from the D&D era. Don''t expect them to make sense. In answer to your actual question I say, go with whatever works best for the game you want to make.
This has been a Landfish rant.
Hmm,
Maybe there could be a rescue mission for the player to partake in where they save their comrade in arms from their enemies or badies that moved into the area recently. Okay, that was off-topic. {But answering LF is so much fun.}
Anyway, I don''t see where seemlessly putting two engines together would be so hard with how well portals work. {Of course I don''t progran these types of things, so I wouldn''t know.} Heck, in Might and Magic 8 I was a bit disapointed that the dragon wouldn''t give chase when you began attacking it. Especially since the cave was a 50 foot wide hemisphere with a hole straight to the outdoors. Would''ve been pretty cool running your party out of the cave with a fireball mere seconds behind bursting out of the hole. NPCs scattering about in confusion, you then stop the beast from attacking the village. As you can see, I''m quite for the continutive immersion.
Maybe there could be a rescue mission for the player to partake in where they save their comrade in arms from their enemies or badies that moved into the area recently. Okay, that was off-topic. {But answering LF is so much fun.}
Anyway, I don''t see where seemlessly putting two engines together would be so hard with how well portals work. {Of course I don''t progran these types of things, so I wouldn''t know.} Heck, in Might and Magic 8 I was a bit disapointed that the dragon wouldn''t give chase when you began attacking it. Especially since the cave was a 50 foot wide hemisphere with a hole straight to the outdoors. Would''ve been pretty cool running your party out of the cave with a fireball mere seconds behind bursting out of the hole. NPCs scattering about in confusion, you then stop the beast from attacking the village. As you can see, I''m quite for the continutive immersion.
Author
Universal rule should apply to all creatures in the game - anything that knows how can use doors, etc. I wouldn''t pull a DII on the player - the all powerful demon is too dumb to use stairs or potals - get real Blizzard. Also, the dungeon in this sense is generic, whether the dungeon is a bunker or cave.
What bothers me about dungeons is mainly that. It''s a nice little place where the mosters are, and they never leave. You EXPECT to be attacked in a dungeon. But if these things are a threat, shouldn''t they really be coming out and attacking settlements, wreaking demonic havoc, instead of staying in dungeons?
If you do it that way, you eliminate the need for a dungeon at all. It''s much scarier when the whole world is a dungeon, and the monsters can use doors...
======
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates
"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt
If you do it that way, you eliminate the need for a dungeon at all. It''s much scarier when the whole world is a dungeon, and the monsters can use doors...
======
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates
"Question everything. Especially Landfish."
-Matt
There are so many critics to do about the concept of Dungeon ... I won''t even start, I just assume it''s a nice metaphoric concept that went horribly wrong and turned into an actual part of any hack and slash game...
But to go back on the technical side, I''d really like to know, in MMORPG, how do you change zone ? I mean, is the map a gigantic single map, or do you change zone once in a while. And how does is occur ? Is it like crossig an inivisible line and if your zigzag over that line you would endlessly load, or is it another way, and how ?
youpla :-P
But to go back on the technical side, I''d really like to know, in MMORPG, how do you change zone ? I mean, is the map a gigantic single map, or do you change zone once in a while. And how does is occur ? Is it like crossig an inivisible line and if your zigzag over that line you would endlessly load, or is it another way, and how ?
youpla :-P
Author
ahw:
Depends - in the old flight sims, the game would load a ''look ahead'' set of data off the hard drive to keep the terrain continuous. Some games still do this, just the data set is larger. Some games use portals - you can only move from one zone to another using certain passages or doors. Some of these load the entire map (long load times, depending on map/zone size) and cache them ala Unreal or Half-Life. It all depends on data size and whether you will ever go back or be allowed to go back to the previous zone.
Wise use of dungeons (go into a castle and get an item) are ok, but just sticking a dungeoun somewhere for sport is not. If the dungeoun was small enough, you''d be able to do clean out the lair missions to prevent further monster attacks on a nearby village quests/missions. I usually have a hard time beleiving that you are the only person in the world on a quest. This is where applying the same rules to all the characters comes into affect, but that is a different topic entirely.
Which method of level enterance will hurt peoples feeling the least ammount, yet allow for continuous quality across all levels?
Depends - in the old flight sims, the game would load a ''look ahead'' set of data off the hard drive to keep the terrain continuous. Some games still do this, just the data set is larger. Some games use portals - you can only move from one zone to another using certain passages or doors. Some of these load the entire map (long load times, depending on map/zone size) and cache them ala Unreal or Half-Life. It all depends on data size and whether you will ever go back or be allowed to go back to the previous zone.
Wise use of dungeons (go into a castle and get an item) are ok, but just sticking a dungeoun somewhere for sport is not. If the dungeoun was small enough, you''d be able to do clean out the lair missions to prevent further monster attacks on a nearby village quests/missions. I usually have a hard time beleiving that you are the only person in the world on a quest. This is where applying the same rules to all the characters comes into affect, but that is a different topic entirely.
Which method of level enterance will hurt peoples feeling the least ammount, yet allow for continuous quality across all levels?
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