Goblin Squad Member
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How sophisticated do we expect stealth to be? I'd really like to see shadows play a big part of this, but I've yet to see that in any RPG to date, so it's probably out of the question. What do you folks think?
Actually I have seen one, DDO for most of it's instances, basically in DDO stealth is done based on 3.5 spot/move silently rules, when you stealth different areas have different values, Basically it shows you 3 eyes if you are in bright light, 2 eyes somewhere in-between, and 1 eye if you are in a dim shadow, against the wall etc... I'd ballpark the bonus/penalty to be the equivalent of -3 to hide in 3 eyes, 0 in 2 eyes, and +3 in 1 eye (that is a ballpark since stealth does not work in PVP), That goes both ways also, if an enemy is stealthed if your spot beats his hide, you can see him with a transparent appearance to point out that he was hiding, or if your listen beats his move silent, it shows red markings at his feet briefly.
Now of course the plausibility of using mechanics like this in pathfinder are very unlikely, considering whatever DDO's engine is, it clearly was intended to 1. shine in closed in areas with less players at a time (the game is instanced). and 2. Consider PVP a non-factor in the game. Both of which are traits that sound the exact oposite of the direction PFO is going, so I doubt the feasibility of an engine of this sort.
Scott, you didn't answer one of my questions. Have you played Everquest?
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Goblin Squad Member
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No? I saw a whole thread on this. Do we have a definative answer? I haven't checked it out yet. I'd be for it, but I'll let that be known in another thread.
There are all sorts of threads about things that won't happen. The CEO of Goblinworks already posted early in this thread with some reasons why darkness isn't likely to happen. But people are still trying to argue for it.
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Put me in the pro darkness camp. A big part of fantasy roleplaying is exploring dungeons/caves and catacombs and having to manage your light sources accordingly. If not true darkness outside, please include it in instances. True, it doesn't take much to get around it, your visibility range should still be limited by it. It would really add to the atmosphere.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A big part of fantasy roleplaying is exploring dungeons/caves and catacombs and having to manage your light sources accordingly.
Really? This never felt like a big part of fantasy roleplaying to me. In fact, we almost never bother worrying about light sources in my games (unless the encounter features some kind of cool darkness mechanic like monsters who teleport through shadows or something). I always considered light sources fiddly and sort of a pain to track.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One way to have darkness be dangerous without trying to use it to vastly limit vision. Bring out monsters that only become active at night (like vampires and spectral undead) and make other monsters who have a significant advantage in the darkness more sensitive to your presence (so they can detect and react to you at a farther range). This possibly would allow for a significant difference in how the game would play in light and darkness.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One way to have darkness be dangerous without trying to use it to vastly limit vision. Bring out monsters that only become active at night (like vampires and spectral undead) and make other monsters who have a significant advantage in the darkness more sensitive to your presence (so they can detect and react to you at a farther range). This possibly would allow for a significant difference in how the game would play in light and darkness.
Give this man a trophy.
This would allow the effects of darkness to be hard-coded into the game to which no user could effectively hack. Not to mention its very cool.
Yep! I quickly graduated to WoW.Scott, you didn't answer one of my questions. Have you played Everquest?
And Everquest was to dark for your liking? And you thought it didn't work in Everquest and was irritating/frustrating and a waist of art assets?
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Goblin Squad Member
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And Everquest was to dark for your liking? And you thought it didn't work in Everquest and was irritating/frustrating and a waist of art assets?Yep! I quickly graduated to WoW.Scott, you didn't answer one of my questions. Have you played Everquest?
Unless you're remembering very different from what I remember, darkness wasn't very dark in Everquest. You could still see just fine.
Also, the game was ugly as sin.
And Everquest was to dark for your liking? And you thought it didn't work in Everquest and was irritating/frustrating and a waist of art assets?Yep! I quickly graduated to WoW.Scott, you didn't answer one of my questions. Have you played Everquest?
Unless you're remembering very different from what I remember, darkness wasn't very dark in Everquest. You could still see just fine.
Also, the game was ugly as sin.
It wasn't too ugly for its time, but it certainly didn't age well by comparison to the newer games that were being released later in its life.
Unless you're remembering very different from what I remember, darkness wasn't very dark in Everquest. You could still see just fine.And Everquest was to dark for your liking? And you thought it didn't work in Everquest and was irritating/frustrating and a waist of art assets?Yep! I quickly graduated to WoW.Scott, you didn't answer one of my questions. Have you played Everquest?
Yes, darkness wasn't that dark (still darker than WoW) but your view distance was reduced unlike WoW where you can see very nearly the same distance day or night. In a few zones it was even darker due to constant fog and/or weather effects but it added atmosphere to those zones and danger for the Humans that dared to travel through them.
I don't understand why you rail so hard against something that you admit wasn't that dark in the first place. Are fog and weather effect that limit viability not worth the effort either?
Also, the game was ugly as sin.
What year did you start playing? I started in beta, in late 1998. For the time it was a beautiful game. Maybe it didn't age well but it was ground breaking for the time. Some people say that your WoW hasn't aged well, I wouldn't agree with that but I've heard it said on a few occasions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't understand why you rail so hard against something that you admit wasn't that dark in the first place. Are fog and weather effect that limit viability not worth the effort either?
Also, the game was ugly as sin.What year did you start playing?
2001.
I started in beta, in late 1998. For the time it was a beautiful game. Maybe it didn't age well but it was ground breaking for the time.
I remember thinking that it was unattractive when I began playing.
Some people say that your WoW hasn't aged well, I wouldn't agree with that but I've heard it said on a few occasions.
WoW wasn't particularly graphically advanced upon release either. What WoW had going for it was truly brilliant art direction. That made up for a lot of low-key tech. Everquest didn't have this.
It's my sincere hope that PFO leverages some of its team's experience with art direction for the Pathfinder line into some killer visuals.
None of this says anything about darkness, though. It was a decade ago that I played Everquest. I won't be able to give a more educated opinion on how the feature played out without taking a look at the game in action once more.
Thanks for the answers up there, Scott.
None of this says anything about darkness, though. It was a decade ago that I played Everquest. I won't be able to give a more educated opinion on how the feature played out without taking a look at the game in action once more.
14 day free trail, we expect a full report when you're done! GO!
http://www.everquest.com/download/everquest-underfoot/
Oh yeah, PRO TIP: Start a Human in Freeport, it'll make it a a lot easier to get to Nektulos Forest, The Feerot and Innothule Swamp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I say let's keep it half-and-half. Sometimes, in-game the moon and stars will brightly light up the sky and you have that WoW-esque twilight that I keep hearing about. Other times, big mean clouds will hide the moon and stars and keep it a bit darker at night.
Of course, I know nothing about programming. Do I think the whole argument that it'd be cool to actually visualize the difference between not having Darkvision and having it would do? Yeah. But at the same time, I suppose I'll survive if its not presented.
I think having the variety of weather/environmental conditions that make it lighter or darker at night would be cool.
I think its just because I want to please everyone though. ^-^
Love!
---The Severed Ronin---
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Goblin Squad Member
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None of this says anything about darkness, though. It was a decade ago that I played Everquest. I won't be able to give a more educated opinion on how the feature played out without taking a look at the game in action once more.14 day free trail, we expect a full report when you're done! GO!
http://www.everquest.com/download/everquest-underfoot/
Good lord, no.
I likely missed this answer in the above (sorry, reading quickly), but is toggle-able darkness technically feasible? If not, no worries, but I appreciate having things be dark.
I'll go back and read the whole list at some point later on today or tomorrow.
I likely missed this answer in the above (sorry, reading quickly), but is toggle-able darkness technically feasible? If not, no worries, but I appreciate having things be dark.
I'll go back and read the whole list at some point later on today or tomorrow.
I'm sure it's "technically" possible but I don't know why it would be desirable. There seems to be more than a few people that would like to have night-time be darker than WoW and having the view distance reduced at night. However, the CEO of Goblinworks said it wasn't worth the effort because people will just cheat around it.
I'm sure it's "technically" possible but I don't know why it would be desirable. There seems to be more than a few people that would like to have night-time be darker than WoW and having the view distance reduced at night. However, the CEO of Goblinworks said it wasn't worth the effort because people will just cheat around it.I likely missed this answer in the above (sorry, reading quickly), but is toggle-able darkness technically feasible? If not, no worries, but I appreciate having things be dark.
I'll go back and read the whole list at some point later on today or tomorrow.
Right, I did catch Ryan's comments toward that point earlier, and they make sense (in that I figure most folks will figure out ways around what they don't like).
Back to catching up on the rest of the thread, but figure that's the upshot at least around the darkness question.
Ok, so after having read the thread, now understanding the technical challenges and getting a sense for player preferences, it seems like it's really up to folks wanting to or not to play as though darkness is a limitation.
Are there games that have played with Exhaustion mechanics? I'm thinking of how in the PnP version of PRG, one can't really haul across the landscape for more than 8 hours straight without running into non-lethal damage/fortitude saves.
Right, I did catch Ryan's comments toward that point earlier, and they make sense (in that I figure most folks will figure out ways around what they don't like).
I disagree with that, Pathfinder has 7 core races. 2 which have Darkvision, 4 which have Lowlight vision. So roughly, 15-25% of players will be playing humans who have standard vision. Of that, how many people do we believe will cheat to see better? 10%? 20%? Seems like a negligible number to me. People cheat, good game developers should create ways to detect and prevent/stop cheats, not design around potential cheats and degrade the game experience for those that don't cheat. If PFO was PvE game, I'd call it lazy game design as in this particular instance I couldn't care less if another player was upping the gamma on their monitor or using a no-darkness hack. It wouldn't effect my game experience at all. However, PFO at this point in it's design life is supposed to be a single server world, with world PvP. While I can see the point that having me (as a non-cheater) playing a Human vs someone playing Human using a no-darkness hack would put me a distinct disadvantage but no more so than if I was playing a Human vs a Half-Orc with 60' of darkvision sniping at me just out of my limited view distance. I'm not going to call that lazy game design but it sure feels like it. If people can hack darkness, I'm sure they can hack fog, rain, snow and any other weather and environmental effect that limits vision/view distance so I assume those are out too. Gaming with training wheels, I look forward to it.
Are there games that have played with Exhaustion mechanics? I'm thinking of how in the PnP version of PRG, one can't really haul across the landscape for more than 8 hours straight without running into non-lethal damage/fortitude saves.
It's an MMORPG, you'll be able run across world the non-stop just like every other MMORPG.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This thread has run its course anyways.
People voiced their appreciation for a realistic world day/night/rain/dark approach and RD and others told that while this would likely be nice sometimes, it is far too easily frustrating to not being able to see much and also opens the grounds for cheating and thus being an unfair feature.
So no, we will not see the dark of the night in PFO.
Yeah, I'm actually for darkness myself, which is why I'd like to see it as a toggle-able feature for those that want it. But the PvP disadvantage is going to make that tricky.
It's an MMORPG, you'll be able run across world the non-stop just like every other MMORPG.
Are there games that have played with Exhaustion mechanics? I'm thinking of how in the PnP version of PRG, one can't really haul across the landscape for more than 8 hours straight without running into non-lethal damage/fortitude saves.
Right, just checking if other games had done other things.
And to MicMan, yeah, it's pretty much set, just wanted to make sure I understood what's going on.
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Umm...a fantasy RPG without dark dungeons?
I mean lets remove all walls also as some might use wallhacks? ...?
EDIT: I might have missed something in this topic. Read a bit down...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Umm...a fantasy RPG without dark dungeons?
I mean lets remove all walls also as some might use wallhacks? ...?
Well name 2 MMO's that actually used darkness as a prime feature for hiding? Off the top of my head I can name only 1. DDO, in which darker areas of the floor granted bonuses to hide, and 1 dungeon in the game of which you actually had to carry a torch, and could barely see anything outside of 10' from the torch.
Actually using the walls as a major hindrance to sight is also very uncommon tactic that is rarely ever used in MMO's. In general I cannot think of a single MMO that actually used blocking line of sight as a key part of strategy, In general either the dungeons are laid out so that in every circumstance you see the enemy at a much greater distance then they notice you, or occasionally the enemy spawns right near you. Things are often made dark and dreary graphically, but as far as darkness or walls being a large hindrance of sight, that is almost never where any game bases the challenge around, for good reason.
Umm...a fantasy RPG without dark dungeons?
I mean lets remove all walls also as some might use wallhacks? ...?
Well name 2 MMO's that actually used darkness as a prime feature for hiding? Off the top of my head I can name only 1. DDO, in which darker areas of the floor granted bonuses to hide, and 1 dungeon in the game of which you actually had to carry a torch, and could barely see anything outside of 10' from the torch.
Actually using the walls as a major hindrance to sight is also very uncommon tactic that is rarely ever used in MMO's. In general I cannot think of a single MMO that actually used blocking line of sight as a key part of strategy, In general either the dungeons are laid out so that in every circumstance you see the enemy at a much greater distance then they notice you, or occasionally the enemy spawns right near you. Things are often made dark and dreary graphically, but as far as darkness or walls being a large hindrance of sight, that is almost never where any game bases the challenge around, for good reason.
Age of Conan did use line of sight, distance, level of lighting, and movement speeds as factors in hiding/stealth as well. If I recall correctly it worked fairly well, for the most part.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Age of Conan did use line of sight, distance, level of lighting, and movement speeds as factors in hiding/stealth as well. If I recall correctly it worked fairly well, for the most part.
I haven't played AoC so I can't say for sure, but as factors for a stealth/hide ability, I could see it as plausible and usable. Hnece the mentioning of DDO's use of it for that reason. However if it is effecting normal viewing difference, then it is just asking for cheaters to have an advantage. Mainly it is from a coding side. 1 or 2 characters being stealthed, the game can chose not to inform the client of the character until the last second fairly easily, but it doing it automatically for every monster etc... means that the client can't prerender anything, and thus everything is drawn right when you get it, putting huge strain on both the network and the game. I would assume that it will be unlikely to hide an entire army or something as I would guess a full army would be as easy to see as the person with the lowest stealth, making 50 people in stealth mode at the same time, unlikely.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Gaming with training wheels, I look forward to it.
During all of your ranting on the topic, I think you haven't actually taken a few things into consideration here.
Sure Everquest started out with some darkness. And after not too long, it was stupidly easy to negate the effect. The only people that were subject to it were new players who had no idea what was going on. It wasn't a cool, unique part of the game environment and atmosphere. It was an annoyance to be overcome as swiftly as possible.
You underestimate players who want to see in the dark. People who want to see in the dark will do it in one way or another. I think Ryan's whole cheating statement was a little bit silly. Sure, I think there'll be some who'd do that. I also think there will be a larger number of players who instead will just play a race that has some kind of darkvision. Thus negating your whole darkness idea.
The game world (environment, weather, foliage, landscape, etc.) is a vessel for players to interact in, with, and to enjoy. It should not in itself become an obstacle that has to be overcome 33% of the time. Especially not in a game that seems to be aimed towards having player conflict be such an incredibly large part of it.
Well name 2 MMO's that actually used darkness as a prime feature for hiding?
Aww...maybe I didn't read the whole thread.
I thought it was a about darkness/dark areas in general.
Naturally, using darkness to hide is not a good idea. This is not an action game. We should have dice rolls...dark areas could give plus to the rolls or whatever...
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Well name 2 MMO's that actually used darkness as a prime feature for hiding?
Aww...maybe I didn't read the whole thread.
I thought it was a about darkness/dark areas in general.
Naturally, using darkness to hide is not a good idea. This is not an action game. We should have dice rolls...dark areas could give plus to the rolls or whatever...
In any video game, even an action, there are all sorts of dice rolls/random numbers generated. The wonderful thing about the video game medium us that it moves the dice rolls and random number generators to a behind the scenes area and reconciles them about a billion times faster than a person sitting at a table, rolling dice, and adding modifiers.
Removed some posts. Don't make personal attacks, flag it and move on.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Backing the anti argument here, from a PvP perspective. It will be circumvented within a week, leaving those unwilling to hack the client at a major disadvantage. This will then quickly turn people off of PvP and ultimately the game itself.
Darkness is cool in environments where it cannot be circumvented. As soon as you can, it becomes an annoyance.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's the one thing that means that darkness isn't worth building into a game design:
Players can easily run software that will render the surrounding areas as if lit. If a game actually shipped with "meaningful darkness", a player-built patch to remove it would be available within hours. Then the only people who would "suffer" from darkness would be the ones who are unwilling to "cheat", and the "cheaters" would have a huge advantage.
Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero could be done to stop this from happening. (Look up what happened when people figured out you could make the walls transparent in iD games if you're interested in the cat & mouse between developers and those wiling to cheat).
Did you know that World of Warcraft runs a hidden process on your machine that is designed to detect this kind of cheating? It's called "Warden" (you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_%28software%29
And even with this, people still hack the heck out of the WoW client.
Ask yourself if you really want Goblinworks to be that creepy, all for the un-achievable goal of making people have to worry about torches, lanterns and light spells.
Ryan,
Depending upon the engine being used....couldn't you simply reduce the draw distance to simulate a "dark effect" or place a grey curtain or fog around the player in order to black-out screen elements that would otherwise be rendered if the engine doesn't show the player as having an appropriate light source (or dark vision)?
I get that people can pretty easly mess with the contrast of whats being rendered on thier screen in order to essentialy turn day into night..... but what if you aren't actualy rendering it in the first place? Wouldn't that eliminate a large portion of the advantage of such cheats? Just curious.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan,
Depending upon the engine being used....couldn't you simply reduce the draw distance to simulate a "dark effect" or place a grey curtain or fog around the player in order to black-out screen elements that would otherwise be rendered if the engine doesn't show the player as having an appropriate light source (or dark vision)?
I get that people can pretty easly mess with the contrast of whats being rendered on thier screen in order to essentialy turn day into night..... but what if you aren't actualy rendering it in the first place? Wouldn't that eliminate a large portion of the advantage of such cheats? Just curious.
For a client to run without lag, it has to draw outside of your viewpoint before it displays it. ANYTHING that the client knows, the player can trick the client into displaying. In network security, anything on the clients side, is guaranteed to be cracked. The only way to lessen draw distance, is to force the client to render everything at the exact moment it is known to the player. That is a technical infeasibility that would put insane strain on anything but the fastest CPUs and GPUs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personaly,
I'm in the "pro-darkness" camp if it was technicaly feasable to do in such a fashion that couldn't be easly bypassed by players cheating.
1) Atmosphericaly, I feel it just adds alot to a game setting. Particularly a swords & sorcery based game.
2) There is a gameplay factor involved. The limitations on vision and the things one might have to do to compensate for it could become a significant gameplay element/challange.
Too often modern gameplay mechanics devolve into little more then...."what sort of DPS, hit-points and spells does my opponent (whether PC or NPC) have. I'm all for anything that introduces a wider variety of gameplay challanges then that....limitations on vision, recon of hostiles, navigational and environmental hazards, traps, locked/secret doors....or just simply finding your way through the wilderness....are all significant gameplay factors in PnP games (or they have been in most of the ones I've played) that have largely been ignored in most modern MMO's....anything that can be done to help add some of those back into MMO's is a plus in my book.
I would like to see darkness. I would include it thoguh in areas that do not matter to gameplay that much. For instance, have a specific dungeon that has the gimick of being dark and having vision impairments. Sure, people can cheat. They miss out on the fun. Make the primary reward the experience and the fun, and not the awesome lootz. Make it a specific area that is dificult to PVP in, like an instance.
That is the only way I see doing this as being worthwhile. Other than that, it will be bypassed as soon as people can, which will be quickly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Here's the one thing that means that darkness isn't worth building into a game design:
Players can easily run software that will render the surrounding areas as if lit. If a game actually shipped with "meaningful darkness", a player-built patch to remove it would be available within hours. Then the only people who would "suffer" from darkness would be the ones who are unwilling to "cheat", and the "cheaters" would have a huge advantage.
Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero could be done to stop this from happening. (Look up what happened when people figured out you could make the walls transparent in iD games if you're interested in the cat & mouse between developers and those wiling to cheat).
Did you know that World of Warcraft runs a hidden process on your machine that is designed to detect this kind of cheating? It's called "Warden" (you can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warden_%28software%29
And even with this, people still hack the heck out of the WoW client.
Ask yourself if you really want Goblinworks to be that creepy, all for the un-achievable goal of making people have to worry about torches, lanterns and light spells.
I have seen the stuff Ryan Darcey is talking about, and I think we'd all be happier without an arms-race between Hackers and the Mods going on and drawing resources from other regions of the game.
Perhaps a nice medium is that in Darkness, without Darkvision (no penalty) Low-Light Vision (half penalty) or light-sources like Lanterns and Torches (no penalty, one hand tied up) and Light spells (no penalty), stealth is easier to pull off and 'hidden' objects are much more difficult to detect. In the Night-Cycle, certain skills should be harder to use, others easier, and reversed during the Day-Cycle.
Again, this is coming from a guy who can't even program a DvD player...
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can we please return darkness to the mmorpg genre? I mean real darkness not this constant twilight that present in today's mmo's? In EQ, I remember the exhilaration of going to places like Kithicor Forest, The Feerott and Innothule Swamp (as a human) and not being able to see much more than 5 feet in front of me. Was it terrifying at times? Sure, but I'd had friends with spells or night vision that would act as my guide so I could make it from place to place, and sometimes without dying!
I really like the way that The Witcher handles lighting and the significance of what you can do in the evening vs. daytime. i.e. normal business is closed at evening times, certain quests only can be accomplished at night,etc. I think it has REALLY added to the realism for me as a player. I realize it isn't an MMO but was hoping that PFO was going to include lighting as well. Oh well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really like the way that The Witcher handles lighting and the significance of what you can do in the evening vs. daytime. i.e. normal business is closed at evening times, certain quests only can be accomplished at night,etc. I think it has REALLY added to the realism for me as a player. I realize it isn't an MMO but was hoping that PFO was going to include lighting as well. Oh well.Can we please return darkness to the mmorpg genre? I mean real darkness not this constant twilight that present in today's mmo's? In EQ, I remember the exhilaration of going to places like Kithicor Forest, The Feerott and Innothule Swamp (as a human) and not being able to see much more than 5 feet in front of me. Was it terrifying at times? Sure, but I'd had friends with spells or night vision that would act as my guide so I could make it from place to place, and sometimes without dying!
Lighting in itself is fully possible, NPCs that are only available durring the games night/day cycle is also possible, Though it would also have to be done where a day fully passes on say a 3 hour time-frame or something (IE we can't have people in one timezone who have a certain window of time to only be able to play when you can't do certain critical tasks). The only effect of darkness that is a flat out no, is hindrance of vision from attacks, as people can circumvent any hindrances to vision.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really like the way that The Witcher handles lighting and the significance of what you can do in the evening vs. daytime. i.e. normal business is closed at evening times, certain quests only can be accomplished at night,etc. I think it has REALLY added to the realism for me as a player. I realize it isn't an MMO but was hoping that PFO was going to include lighting as well. Oh well.Can we please return darkness to the mmorpg genre? I mean real darkness not this constant twilight that present in today's mmo's? In EQ, I remember the exhilaration of going to places like Kithicor Forest, The Feerott and Innothule Swamp (as a human) and not being able to see much more than 5 feet in front of me. Was it terrifying at times? Sure, but I'd had friends with spells or night vision that would act as my guide so I could make it from place to place, and sometimes without dying!
Hopefully PFO will not shut down access to certain essential vendors during the game's night times. That strikes me as a potentially frustrating design decision.