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impressions and suggestions

gussak 14 years ago
Hi!

Great game!

- cool turn on light effects

- the firefly (btw, what about it use the flowers to replenish its light [I mean like to refill its (mana?) to be able to produce light!]; i wansnt enough time with it to let it ask for another btw..)

- the physics puzzle, that block to put to be able to pass thru the door, cool! btw, I think complex physics puzzles should not prevent the main story flow, I mean, complex ones should grant access to powerfull items (not without a fight also!) but I *blush* am not that smart HAHA, and liking action I would come back for the puzzle at a later time when I got patience again xD.
- bug: after I blocked the mechanism, I + theCat(forgot name, btw it looks like a dog?) + firefly, tried to go thru the door at same time the 2 skells come also the other side, so we all got stuck, no one could hit the other one, it seems to require free space to be able to hit?

- I use a trick move, I hit and walk back, not sure but that could be making the game easier? also, the wolves are so slow, may be they could move slow but leap forward when near, use stamina.

- controls are very responsive, great work!

- when talking to ppl and mobs, we could go on 1st person view (I know, more work with textures and face meshes...), but would be interesting, just add a fog to the background to not show too much stuff xD

- "talking" telepathic animals... no? xD, that make me wonder if the wolf mobs could talk also, I mean we could avoid a fight thru talking (not that I want to do it ).

- usability: when you get items, they could go to the inventory and not the quick bar, I had to move all stuff to there.

- bug/problem?: when leveling, I couldnt avoid the selection of glowing perk.

-suggestions:
- hold shift to sprint run (use stamina?).
- setuppable keyboard, I am lefthanded (mouse), having some trouble..
- accuracy attribute for chance to hit, dexterity for dodge/quick self moves and hit speed (my personal taste that is )
- weapon speeds (dagger faster, sword slower)
- punch lowers stamina, as bashing with weapons, but punch would allow 2 hits per "round" (2 fists.. right? xD), and also be faster, but hit little, unless u r strong.
- zoom out view with scroll
- minimap (despite I like the map not being so big, so I had not much trouble to scavenge all places, I like to scavenge each corner!!!)
- swimming capability (despite I always thought that to swim with loads of items on a cold water was something weird on RPG games, irl we avoid getting wet...). May be we could use swimwear to acomplish some underwater task, taking only a dagger may be...

- when wearing bow, the view could zoomout and highlight mobs you can see, but dont zoomout if they are near and attaking you...
- when arrows end, could equip previous melee weapon
- bow shooting is automatic, that is cool, melee fighting could be auto too, after mob selection, could use a key to select next mob

- ctrl key to show item names could be togglable, or items could blink-shine, could have a perception attribute to let you find items farer/hidden.

- add quicksave and autosave, add time to the save name, I have several saves that I cant see the diference as they have only date, I save too often!

- it works perfectly/flawlessly under Ubuntu Linux!! (Notrium also works great here!)

- is it possible to add bumpmaps?

- bug?: there was an endless sound of a rock being moved on the floor, may be there should have a music? or may be some problem linux related only (I use Wine to run it, yeah it is an application not only a drink ).

- MAJOR BUG!!!! I found a door that said me to come to this site, after coming here, the door is still closed so I cannot continue playing D: ... uuuu
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Endymion 14 years ago
the blog says that combat system is being redone into a turn based one(so at least movement trick shouldn't work) and there will be minimap.
"gussak" said:

- the firefly (btw, what about it use the flowers to replenish its light [I mean like to refill its (mana?) to be able to produce light!]; i wansnt enough time with it to let it ask for another btw..)
I believe something like that was planned but didn't make it to the preview. At least I recall seeing a lantern of somekind that used fireflowers as fuel somewhere.

"gussak" said:

- when talking to ppl and mobs, we could go on 1st person view (I know, more work with textures and face meshes...), but would be interesting, just add a fog to the background to not show too much stuff xD
Wouldn't just portraits be good enough?

"gussak" said:

- usability: when you get items, they could go to the inventory and not the quick bar, I had to move all stuff to there.
They could go to both if quickbar was simply shortcuts instead of storage place.


Also if you like you could check out some of the mods that can be done with the editor. Like Port Potomac, Scavenge and Zombies
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ville 14 years ago
Thanks for the suggestions gussak! I'm filling up my todo list, and I hope you can give more ideas later on when we release a new version of the demo.

I've been wondering about the physics puzzle myself, should it be compulsory or not. Some seem to get it the first time, others get stuck permanently. I might at least leave that out of the demo and only use it in the full version. People who buy the game are usually less prone to get stuck.
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JakeWedding 14 years ago
smaller puzzles could be done, simple Move item A to slot A etc...
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gussak 14 years ago
Cool, I saw the mods, will try them as soon I can .

When is the next demo scheduled for? , no pressure... I check once a... day... lol xD

Concerning physics puzzles, I think they are very fun, but I cant stand "thinking" on games, sorry xD. If I dont figure out in the 1st minute I simple give up. I am action gamer as I said b4; despite I have to play notrium in easy mode !!, the medium mode I get nervous, I like time to think strategically, and I always forget I can pause the game... ... mmmmmmm... notrium could auto pause if you are not moving for 5 seconds!... just an idea...
So a very good alternative, would be optionally give hints! Ex. highlight the box that need to be moved, make it shiny blinking (even add a sound to it when you get near), and create an arrow saying where that item must be moved to; each step of the physics puzzle being hinted that way; I would simply turn this option on from the beginning xD.
These hints could also be timed, if you dont figure by yourself in the 1st 10 seconds, you get a hint. Also, if you figure out before you receive the hint, you could even get extra points, like cleverness points or something (could be even experience points but may sound strange, but may be interesting also). May be loads of cleverness points could provide you with something: in game items; access to a very complex no hinted level where you get some big prize; or when you end the game you receive a medal. Anyway you can always load back to have a flawless fast guess of the puzzle, what would invalidate the medal idea, unless you make it online, but now that idea starts to get bigger... right?

A turn based combat? Oh well... at least add an option to "auto end turn", so we begin the fight and just wait it ends, hit a key to pause so we can change the course of the battle if needed; you know, so we dont have to hit a button each turn... Better yet, allow the gameplay flow optionally in action as it is today; I like you have to go freak and battle hard to avoid and defeat mobs, and at later you can say "it was a good fight, hahaha!"; I have no clue how hard will it be to cope both modes tho, just an idea...
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Anonymous1157 14 years ago
A lot of games give hints for puzzles. In the newer Metroid games (Or at least in MP1, can't remember hearing it in MP2), all major items hum. You can find a lot of otherwise well-hidden missile expansions by listening for the hum.

I LOVE games with hard puzzles. Of course, there should be some easy ones thrown in to make everyone happy, but as I progress in games, I expect and look forward to some of the items getting harder to find while still being all over the place.
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MageKing17 14 years ago
I suggest simply making difficulty level affect puzzle complexity. You're on easy mode? Insert this object into this slot to open a door. You're on hard mode? Finish this Rube Goldberg machine to open the same door.
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ville 14 years ago
Unfortunately the top-down view doesn't offer much of a variety of physics puzzles, all the good ones need gravity. But if I come up with more puzzles, my plan is to make them optional, at least in the beginning. I could cleverly give hints from within the game, it's just a lot of playtesting to get them right.

About the combat, it will be turn based in the sense that your character doesn't need guidance for every single strike he does. You command him to attack someone, and he will continue punching until someone is dead - no need to click the enemy constantly. The innards work by using turns, but it's not visible to the player.

Also, I don't have a schedule for the next demo version. I'm working on the demo levels right now, but I'm still having to program a lot of code at the same time which is slowing me down.
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Venom31 14 years ago
"ville" said:
Unfortunately the top-down view doesn't offer much of a variety of physics puzzles, all the good ones need gravity.
Use suction fans!
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ville 14 years ago
There could be magical gravity fields and magnets of course.
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E_net4 14 years ago
"ville" said:
There could be magical gravity fields and magnets of course.
That would allow side scrolling maps, right?
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TheSlider 14 years ago
Hello there,

Is there any place with tutorials or a faq/wiki on how to mod ?
Getting started with a blank mod folder (minimal files).
How to create a new player character / npc / item and animate them.
how to create custom 2D or 2.5D (like the one with trees) textures.
Getting started with scripts (creating a custom script and using it).
etc ...

I've started doing stuff but it's pretty hard to figure out how to do things. One time i managed to make an npc say something on sight and follow me but i couldn't reproduce it on the next day... embarrassing. XD

Some things i'm trying to do are making the player enter a car (that taxi ! ) and then beeing able to move it around with new control mechanics (GTA like) . And replacing the player with a ball that respects gravity and bounces on walls.

PS : Is there a way to bind keys to scripts for Like pressing 'F' would turn on and off a custom flashlight or pressing '?' would pop up a random joke from my joke script ?

thanks : )
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Endymion 14 years ago
Sadly there is no faq of any kind yet. I was thinking of writing one when I have time but, since I wasn't sure how necessary one would be or if I should wait for next version to be released before doing it, it was pretty far down in my to do list. But I guess I might as well start writing one tomorrow or someday, if I feel like it .

As far as I know for now there is barely anything that you can do with player character or bindings. No changing race in game(changing race.inis second entry might allow some minor changes), but I suppose that there might be a some sort of (undocumented)variable for each key but I doubt it, and keys.ini doesn't look promising.
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TheSlider 14 years ago
Thanks.

I saw your post on how to use the editor and managed to learn a few things.
I hope more people will get involved and add stuff to make it cover as many aspects as possible of the editor.
Playing around with user made maps has helped but it's quite tricky to understand why something was done this way and not the other.

Thanks again : )
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ville 14 years ago
There are a lot of modding related things I've done in the newer version, and a lot of things yet to do before the full version is released. My plan for Driftmoon modding is that mods would be compatible from the next demo version upwards - but it shouldn't be too difficult to make any current mods work either.

I'm going to focus on modder requests (such as riding a car or a horse for instance) after the initial version is released, so expect to get some cool ways to mod the game. I'm obviously hoping to make use of everything I make in some future version of the game.
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Culthero 14 years ago
Firstly, I want to thank you for this wonderul game. I have just played and finished the preview and I wanted it to continue so badly. The game takes you in pretty easily as you don't pretty much know anything about your character and wander into the game world wondering about a lot of things: 10/10.

The game reminded me of other well known games I have played: Neverwinter Nights, Temple of Elemental Evil, Fallout and Dink Smallwood (especially the humor in the last two).

Things I liked which make the game better:
- I love unique items and characters in a game and many RPG lovers are like me. Therefore, by making various items and characters useful in the game you have made a great job. I like how you can get an NPC early and get lots of items early. Items and NPC tell a lot about what kind of world you are in if you are careful.

- I loved the feature that you can drag items around. The more strength the easier this may be, so that you can throw big rocks around rooms if you have 10+ strength or so. And it adds to curiosity because you don't what might be behind or below that thing. Rewards careful players who get in the game world itself.

- The User interface is great. You can do anything with a click. Though I couldn't find out how to view my npcs' stats. Maybe you can add a few small buttons for those. The "highlighted items are currently in use" feature is just great. You don't even need a paperdoll, and it's just great! Also don't forget to add paper portraits. The portraits in NWN and Temple of Elemental Evil were so good I still remember some of them; you can make your game unforgettable, too by adding suitable portraits for each character.

- The player doll shows whatever we wear from hats to gloves to shirts! Even good games don't do that. But if you put in a lot of unique items you should also make it so that they will look different on the player character.

- The secrets are well thought and the difficulty to find them increases gradually but getting familiar with them cancels out most of that, so we can enjoy the game without spending hours to find one small item. Well-executed.

- Graphically the game is very satisfying. You never need to change anything graphical. Just expand your world, characters, items, etc. I can play this kind or game forever as long as the gameplay allows and the world goes.

- Humor level is good. Not so serious, not "LOL?! Whut?" kind of. A few suggestions:

Item suggestions:

- Pacers: Boots that set your movement speed/agility to 7 (70%). Not much not less, even if you have more or less it is fixed to that value until you take them off. Takes 1 square in inventory.
Description: "These boots have marched...a lot. Probably in a soldier's feet. It says 'Frank' in the bottom. Frankly, do you want to be in his shoes?"

- Grandma's Fishing Rod: A shiny rod that makes you catch 2-5 fish at night time or lights up 9 squares around. Takes 3 vertical squares in inventory.
Description: "After Grandpa Joona died, Grandma Noora took up the rod to feed her children. However, she was later swallowed by an Orca. Also useful as light source in dungeons."

- Big Cat Mask: Adds +2 to dexterity, +2 to agility and +1 to intelligence. Is looted from a unique black panther boss enemy. First you skin him and Paul or another person shows you how to do this.
Description: "This is the face of Guencaviar, the Bloated; the boastful but toasted cat."

- Chairmail Armor: An armor that is made of... a chair. The tips of its legs are sharpened so that ramming skill gives max damage and each successful block gives 1 damage to opponents. It is found on the beach. In the middle of goblins who can't figure out whether to wear it or not. for crude image:
http://img165.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=59253_chairmail_122_256lo.JPG
Description: This is either a joke or another anomality. Armor 3. They get 2 slashing damage for each successful block by you. And ramming skill +4 piercing damage with this.

Keep up the work, and we will go on talking about your game to more people.
Cheers.
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LunaticNeko 14 years ago
I'm here to talk about physics puzzle: maybe yet another sokoban implementation? Simple to learn but not that easy to really master.

I might find more things to suggest when I see the newer builds.
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TheSlider 14 years ago
Hi !
I've been toying around again this afternoon and got stuck again when trying to do weird thins. :p
Anyway, here are some other things i'd really love to see in future versions :

Check whenever a key is pressed but I guess it implies that :
- Modders should be able to add specific key assignments to the in-game mod-specific settings.
- Players should be able to reassign their keys to suit their playing style (using arrows, numpad or wasd (zqsd in my case) plus any other keys for extra gameplay features ( inventory, sprint, ...).
That way i could for example set a key (F) to order the players pet to attack and the player would be able to remap it in the settings menu from the default (F) to his preferred key (X) and it still would work as i would be using the assigned variable and not key code.

Being able to switch the player character to and from anything (a cat, box ...) using a script and still being able to move (or not ).

Allowing more complex physics shapes for objects/bots/items (polygonal).

Making the camera be an entity that could be placed over a given spot or follow a given object/item/bot.

Animation paths or 'moveTo' script that objects/bots/items use. (Could be usefull for setting patrol routes )

PS : I love it
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MageKing17 14 years ago
"TheSlider" said:
Check whenever a key is pressed
Do-able. Make an invisible item with a quick-use key set. This is how pressing I opens your inventory and pressing V picks up a turret.

"TheSlider" said:
Being able to switch the player character to and from anything (a cat, box ...) using a script and still being able to move (or not ).
Have you looked at the code for the escape pod intro? The player does change forms.

"TheSlider" said:
Making the camera be an entity that could be placed over a given spot or follow a given object/item/bot.
You can make the camera follow something other than the player with an effect.

"TheSlider" said:
Animation paths or 'moveTo' script that objects/bots/items use. (Could be usefull for setting patrol routes )
I once recall reading someone talking about using invisible food items to get the AI to follow a pre-determined path. I don't know if it went anywhere, though.
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Amarth 14 years ago
"MageKing17" said:
"TheSlider" said:
Check whenever a key is pressed
Do-able. Make an invisible item with a quick-use key set. This is how pressing I opens your inventory and pressing V picks up a turret.

"TheSlider" said:
Being able to switch the player character to and from anything (a cat, box ...) using a script and still being able to move (or not ).
Have you looked at the code for the escape pod intro? The player does change forms.

"TheSlider" said:
Making the camera be an entity that could be placed over a given spot or follow a given object/item/bot.
You can make the camera follow something other than the player with an effect.

"TheSlider" said:
Animation paths or 'moveTo' script that objects/bots/items use. (Could be usefull for setting patrol routes )
I once recall reading someone talking about using invisible food items to get the AI to follow a pre-determined path. I don't know if it went anywhere, though.
Except this is the Driftmoon forum? :p
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Pete 14 years ago
"Amarth" said:
"MageKing17" said:
"TheSlider" said:
Check whenever a key is pressed
Do-able. Make an invisible item with a quick-use key set. This is how pressing I opens your inventory and pressing V picks up a turret.

"TheSlider" said:
Being able to switch the player character to and from anything (a cat, box ...) using a script and still being able to move (or not ).
Have you looked at the code for the escape pod intro? The player does change forms.

"TheSlider" said:
Making the camera be an entity that could be placed over a given spot or follow a given object/item/bot.
You can make the camera follow something other than the player with an effect.

"TheSlider" said:
Animation paths or 'moveTo' script that objects/bots/items use. (Could be usefull for setting patrol routes )
I once recall reading someone talking about using invisible food items to get the AI to follow a pre-determined path. I don't know if it went anywhere, though.
Except this is the Driftmoon forum? :p
Im sorry, but that is funny. Imagine I put a captioned image here.
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Anonymous1157 14 years ago
"Pete" said:
Im sorry, but that is funny. Imagine I put a captioned image here.
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MageKing17 14 years ago
My only defense is that I had just been in the Notrium modding questions thread. Also, I access posts through the "view new posts" button which doesn't emphasize which subforum the post was made in.
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thomaz117 14 years ago
so far so good i like this

i would like to know will there be traps?
and will there be a free roam like go around try and surivie build your fort and find people
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Pete 14 years ago
Probably not in the main game. But theres definitely mods of the sort coming up in the future...

Speaking of which, are there any plans for the player to have a base of operations of some sort?
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Anonymous1157 14 years ago
"Pete" said:
Probably not in the main game. But theres definitely mods of the sort coming up in the future...

Speaking of which, are there any plans for the player to have a base of operations of some sort?
This I like! Even if the main game can't have it, I can easily see a mod for Driftmoon being created that implements some sort of singleplayer RTS, possibly with wave-based difficulty progression or something like that.
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thomaz117 14 years ago
"Anonymous1157" said:
"Pete" said:
Probably not in the main game. But theres definitely mods of the sort coming up in the future...

Speaking of which, are there any plans for the player to have a base of operations of some sort?
This I like! Even if the main game can't have it, I can easily see a mod for Driftmoon being created that implements some sort of singleplayer RTS, possibly with wave-based difficulty progression or something like that.


or some mod which ports driftmoon into a stragetey game were you build a base create the units and send them off

(offtopic) why not try it on nortium aswell

(ontopic) is there any mods out now for driftmoon or are we just going to wait for the next verision or the full verision to come out and then start modding it

EDIT: i was also thinking off easter eggs such as mably port a monster from nortium into driftmoon as an easter egg
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Kario 14 years ago
or you could just make a mod of notrium into driftmoon or a mod of driftmoon into notrium?
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Venom31 14 years ago
"Kario" said:
... mod of driftmoon into notrium?
If you finally get to know what Driftmoon will be like, after all. With all those changes to everything, we may end up anywhere. How can one implement turn-based combat into Notrium (as a mod)? That's a rhetorical question.
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ville 14 years ago
Culthero: Excellent item suggestions, and glad you liked the preview!

TheSlider: I will tend to modding needs after the initial release of the game, so I don't know yet what will be possible. Quite likely anything that was possible in Notrium should be possible here as well.

Pete: I was planning a fort or a basecamp for Driftmoon, but I decided not to include it. I'm leaning the gameplay more towards going on to new places and experiences - going back to camp every ten minutes didn't suit it.

Venom31: The basic gameplay will still be a lot like in the preview. I think only the combat system has changed from that in regards to the very core gameplay.
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Pete 14 years ago
You could always use a bag of holding with a house inside...

Anyway, perhaps any news on the demo? I really am itching to try my hand at this now but I hate making things that are obsolete by default...
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ville 14 years ago
The demo will still take a while, but I should be able to start on the second map this week. I had to work on some minor background tech for a while, but I can finally get back to adding content again.
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Amarth 14 years ago
Good to know. I've started meddling around in the editor and it would be silly to "lose" all the work.

Not that I will make anything remotely fun, mind you. Just getting the hang of it.
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Luminon 14 years ago
Hello! I'm a new preorderer and veteran of Notrium.

I haven't played the demo yet, I just have a suggestion for now. It is a location suggestion, and it's based on one local WW2 joke, with possible extension.

Make a location called Magical echo cave.
The cave has a sign in front of it, "Throw in a coin and speak!"
The player speaks:
"Hello!"
Hello! the echo replies
"Anybody there?"
Anybody there?
"It's so dark within I'm afraid!"
It's so dark within I'm afraid!
"I think I'll go back to the forest!"
I think I'll go back to the forest!
"What if I throw a fireball into that cave?"
I think I'll go back to the forest!

At this point, conversation should end.
Throwing another coin in there, player says:
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?"

The voice of a cave says:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peters... oh GOD DAMMIT! You son of a burgit!

After that Ville, it's up to your fantasy. Will anything come out of the cave? Will be the enraged hermit diffcult to kill or calm down? Will he drop any loot, or give any quests or hints? Will he cast a terrible curse upon the player?
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ville 14 years ago
Sound fun! I'll definitely put this in if I have a place for it somewhere.
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