The Drunken Lizard Pub

Another idea for option 1 with party would be a special combat screen/arena, where times for turns could be processed independently from the gameworld. Think albion if you know that game.
In the normal game world the party could be represented by a single person, or "group icon".
Sure, the fights would take longer, but they also would be more meaningfull and more special.
AND basiliskwrangler could test out some of his dungeonmaster engine code for the combats (again, i visualize albion here)

I would definately say Option #2. I am just surprised why the original engine was not designed to accomadate htis right from the get go...I mean the model was after all to make an old school isometric rpg., and those were all aprty based. (even the ultima's, where it was AI controlled party).

To baslisk, can't you modify the orginal engine so that the partymembers can join you, and be A.I. controlled? though this would be less desirable, and could result in poor A.I. decisions, it owuld still be better than option 1 and 3, plus it owuld make for some good roleplaying and plots. (i.e. a party member who betray's you).

Whatever you do, please don't go for option 3; I much prefer to be able to see my pc(s) and see their attack animations and spells as well as the clothing they wear.

Xex wrote:To baslisk, can't you modify the orginal engine so that the partymembers can join you, and be A.I. controlled? though this would be less desirable, and could result in poor A.I. decisions, it owuld still be better than option 1 and 3, plus it owuld make for some good roleplaying and plots. (i.e. a party member who betray's you).

please no, i hated that part in fallout and nwn1.

I want to vote for #1 cause I am not after some unbelievable game engine and incredible graphics that will cause my 8800 GTS to melt away... I like isometric view with simple graphics... If there is a limited budget then the money should be spent on the story line and brainstorming

BasiliskWrangler wrote:vid: Think of the way Book I handles turns. To deal with a party, we need to change over to a phased, action-point system.

Not necessary, have a look at Ultima 6

Currently in Eschalon. every critter gets its turn one after the other, and the world stops when it's the player's turn again, i.e. everyone else acted.

If you remove the player and his pause from the beginning of this loop, you have a continuous "living" world.

Now add a "PC"-flag to some of the creatures, that makes the world stop and wait for player-input instead of letting the AI decide the creature's action - et viola: you have your party-combat-capabilities.


Finally allow the player to toggle between combat and explore mode, and select one of his party members as leader:

In combat mode it works like above

In Explore-mode all "non-leader" "PC" creatures follow the "leader" "PC" creature, and support him in combat just like friendly people currently already do.

This is how U6 worked and it worked pretty well.


That said, #1 actually would be fine for me as well.

Well, so far it looks like over half of the players of Book 1 want to stick with Book 1's engine, partially to avoid any sort of vaporware status

While having even just one sidekick/mule would make for more variety, it certainly doesn't mean not having a party system will make it any less entertaining or "old school." Anyone here play Ultima 8? Loved it. Number of extra party members? Zero. Entertainment value? Off the charts

I'd rather have an optmized version of this engine with a higher resolution... while 800x600 scales fine on a CRT, who has one of those anymore... ?? I know my widescreen LCD doesn't like the res very much. The perfomance should be tweaked like crazy too... I dunno about the rest of y'all, but this "old school" game should not be slowing down on my 4000+ X2 w/2gb of ram and a Radeon 2600XT when I hit the tab key for the grid overlay. I didn't notice any jump in CPU usage either, but the game just seems to lag when not in a dungeon.

That all being said.... ON TO DEVEOPMENT!!!

I'd certainly play this trilogy with the same engine, and hope for another game that is party based.

heh ultima 8? one of the worst of the series on my books but if you liked it:P

What would be cool is just one s idekick man that would be neat andmake you really think things through....lcould very interesting.

You can, as people have said, have a 'sort of party' even with current engine. You just need an NPC who is friendly (as long as you behave), who will fight for you (like town guard) and follow you around across map boundaries (and through teleports etc).

Playing a party is a different sort of game though, and IMO not as immersive, although isometric view isn't very immersive to start with.

CrazyBernie wrote:Anyone here play Ultima 8?

Super Avatar Brothers may be called Pagan, but it never may be called Ultima 8, there is no such thing as an Ultima 8.

This game heralded the era of RPGs-in-name-only we face today. I loved Crusader, but Pagan was an insult to the ultima series, and not even the non-jump-n-run patch could change that.

pls create book II in options 2 with supporting higher resolution too . i voted option 2..

best regards.

myriac wrote:pls create book II in options 2 with supporting higher resolution too . i voted option 2..
best regards.

Without a 3D-engine, higher resolution just means either more detailed or even smaller tiles, the details are fine as they are, IMO and the tiles already could be a bit larger.

Most current TFTs are made for 1600*1200 and thus can display 800*600 perfectly. If you want options for a 1024*768 and a 1280*1024 TFT as well, the only feasible option is adding a big empty border to reduce the effective visible screen-size to 800*600.

And yes, emission and eye-damage aside, CRTs do have advantages.

For those who have played FFXII, I liked how it was possible to sort of script your allies actions.

As far as party vs. solo, I think it would be a lot more realistic party wise but its not like the game is based on realism so a one-man army is fine too. I would really like to get the chance to purchase the editor and play around with making my own stuff and if/when that becomes available I'm guessing after book III is done with, it would be nice to be able to have the option of parties instead of none at all. Option 2 would be preferable but time is a factor there so option 3 doesn't seem that bad.

I voted for option one. Mixing with concept will in most cases just ruin the game feel.

Keep what works... Option 1

You've already invested a large amount in the programming and design of the engine and it works well. I like the idea of a couple of 'sidekicks' maybe for certain quests and things... you just need to have some kind of action to push them out of the way if they do something dumb, like block your path.

Maybe you could do a party based game for the next trilogy