Eisenstern : The RPG project

by Aardappel_ on 05/10/2006 01:20, 317 messages, last message: 12/12/2010 14:57, 205149 views, last view: 12/09/2021 01:11, closed on 12/12/2010 15:10

As you all know, we have been silently prototyping the RPG project for a while now, mainly in the form of Levels and design.

Today marks the day of the more official start of the project, with a name, a domain, and something hinting at a game design.

Check out the website: http://eisenstern.com/

Particularly note the design notes linked from that page. If you want to have your say about the direction this RPG is going, or feel that certain features "won't work well", then now is a good time to discuss that, in this thread :)

Just because we have a website doesn't mean that we should start announcing this project everywhere, unlike most people, I don't like advertising thing that I am going to do, I prefer showing what I have done :) But it is good to have a home for the project, because we'll shift a lot of our focus towards it as the FPS is getting more mature.

I will be doing some of the core gamecode for this project soon, so people can start to play around with it.

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#219: Re: ..

by absinth on 09/15/2007 14:38, refers to #212

>the absence of leveling up - imho, that kills the rpg aspect to it

I'm looking forward to an RPG that gets rid of the most boring part.
the most interesting aspect of RPGs to me is the immersion in and interaction with the virtual reality, the nature, creatures, peoples, quests, stories, background and setting. the "interactive novel" or "holodeck adventure" aspect. i couldn't care less about what my stats or level are or how much fire damage my staff does.

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#220: Re: ..

by Quin on 09/15/2007 22:10, refers to #219

Yeah, that's a great point. The whole "taking the focus awake from attributes" is the exact reason Eisenstern intrigued me.

I used to play role playing games when I was younger (pen and paper style) and most systems focus on attributes and skills, I ended up writing a whole system myself from scratch for us which took focus away from these and more on the story line (I had a flair for comedic role playing).

Once the scripts can actually drive a proper adventure I can see people having alot of fun both mapping/scripting strange things and playing those same maps.

People underestimate CubeScript 'cause not much is done with it yet (as far as customisation goes), but if you take a look at say the script driven enemies in my ssp game, you'd know what I mean.

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#221: ..

by makkE on 09/15/2007 22:46

It might not be of much relevance to the actual game mechanics if the "getting better" is achieved by items alone or also by using levels, stats, attributes...

It just feels strange to me, that´s all.
I simply dont want to be only the sum of my posessions.

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#222: Re: ..

by tman_elite on 09/16/2007 01:25, refers to #221

Is this a game problem or a moral problem... just kidding.

Maybe you could have like "perminant" increased stats that you can't sell, but you only get them by completing main quests or something.

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#223: Re: ..

by Quin on 09/16/2007 02:29, refers to #221

What are we in real life, if not that? :P

Though the idea of 'learned skills' could be a good idea to investigate, wouldn't it?

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#224: ..

by tentus_ on 09/16/2007 04:45

I'm quite looking forward to making a map for Eisenstern, on the basis that I'll be able to have the players "level up" the way I like the most. I spent a lot of time during my Cube Legends days daydreaming about ways to make the player level up- these dreams now have a chance of actually appearing.

A problem is that what I want will probably be quite different from what other people like (I, for one, really enjoy getting steadily more powerful). We'll need a good (consistent) way for the player to look up the current design. I'm thinking that it'd be some simple paragraph that shows up in a tab beside the inventory.

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#225: help

by rpgfannings on 09/16/2007 22:24

does anybody know how to add there own npcmen to eisenstern on a macintosh osx 10.3.9

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#226: RPG demo map

by rknigh21 on 09/17/2007 01:17

RPG demo map
Download at www.clearcrystal.co.uk

Though I'd have a go at putting a map and script together to see how it all worked. I know Aardappel says it's not ready yet (for none developers) but I really wanted to have a go at an RPG style map and find out what you could do with a map/script combination. Also if you get some feedback from a “user” isn't that help full to development?, and I never did have any patents.

Anyway I had a lot of fun putting all this together (I've never done an RPG map before), thanks all you guys who have built Sauerbraten/Eisenstern.

The game demo.
The player has a map to run around in and some simple tasks to do which are
1)Get some apples( for healing) avoiding the rats.
2)Get some wolf meat (for strength) by killing the wolves.
3)Pick up a spear while avoiding the golems.
4)You can trade wolf skin for a good shield.

The nman is just their to trade. Npcman is you friend and suggests what you might want to do next.

Installing
Just unzip the files into packages\base (the cfg and ogz)

Map
Simple map took me about 10 hrs to make

Script
This took quite a while(40 hrs) as I had never used used cubescript before and took me a while to get my head around it (actually not sure I have totally). I have commented the script.


Problems with Eisenstern

Items you pick up do not affect your abilities, i.e. Pick up an appler that has a high regen count and it does not affect the players regen rate. I was able to fix this in the code and recompile it (see download)

Entitys move at a fixed speed and you cant change it. I could not figure out how to make that work so compromised by slowing the player down which makes it much more dangers to play (msee download)

Sometimes if a npc runs into a wall it gets stuck going backwards and forwards along the wall and ignors the player. This was two complex for me to fix!

If anyone wants to know the changes just ask.

By changing the properties of the monsters per map the player will not know what to expect when they start a new map.


Wish list
Here's some things I wish the script could do (or I could figure out how to do!)


1)When someone has more than one of the same thing in their inventory just say how many instead of repeating the item Which generates a very long inventory).
2)Have the monsters stay nearer there spawn point (could that be a parameter), at the moment the wander of. Which is is good in some respects but can make it easy for the player if you leave two golems guarding a spear and they wander of and leave it unguarded!
3)It would be grate if things like doors could be opened from the script. Or could a door have its own script?
4)Find out what the player has without having to go through a take give.
5)Have events affect (like killing a golem) the player state.

Hope you find this interesting and it helps someone a little bit.

Have Fun Robin

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#227: Re: RPG demo map

by tman_elite on 09/30/2007 17:57, refers to #226

I'm experimenting with this game a little bit. I also think it would be great if monsters stayed near their spawn point.

For example, in a map I'm working on there's a cave full of monsters that you have to go through to receive an item for a quest. However, the monsters keep running outside the cave, so you have to fight them outside. Then when you go in, the cave's nearly empty.

The other things would be nice, but are not necessities. The take-give thing is a nuisance, but it works fine.

I do think there should be items that you can't sell (for example, fist, quest items, etc.) It would be annoying if you sell a quest item to a NPC, kill them, then you can't finish the quest.

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#228: Re: ..

by smartalco on 10/20/2007 05:21, refers to #215

'I thinking 'leveling up' is a waste. All it does is encourage players to run around and kill/steal things instead of focusing on the story-line.'

that is entirely dependent on how its done, look at elder scrolls, it has the most elaborate leveling system i have seen (not much of a claim) and it still is very fun

an rpg should have a good mix of all the technical mumbo jumbo and storyline, i think elder scrolls works because it has ridiculous amounts of both, you don't even have to pay attention to one or the other

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#229: Save Game

by tman_elite on 11/05/2007 21:57

Is anyone working on saving the game? As I said before, I'm trying to make my own eisenstern map/game/whatever in my free time and the inability to save is getting in the way. I'd do it myself but I'm not very good with C++. I'm just wondering if anyone else is already working on it so I can spare myself the time.

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#230: Re: Save Game

by Aardappel_ on 11/06/2007 00:34, refers to #229

savegame code is meant to be added after a lot of gameplay basics have been solidified. The reason for this is, is that savegame code is relatively difficult to make & keep bug free, so implementing it at a time when a lot of changes are still expected to the object structure is asking for trouble.

Though I don't understand why you need savegame functionality when just making a map.

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#231: ..

by Captain_Ahab on 11/06/2007 23:27

I'd like to make a suggestion for the RPG, seeing as save-game is mentioned...

would it be possible/easy to have 'playerstart' n

where n ranges from 0 to 255 and the command to load a map includes the 'n' as the chosen playerstart location?

/loadmap mapname n

loads the map and places the player at playerstart n

this might make linking several maps together easier. In my exact case, a map with several entrances and exits to another map<s>

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#232: Re: ..

by Captain_Ahab on 11/06/2007 23:28, refers to #231

...and where default playerstart is 0 if not given...

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#233: Development

by Sprintersoft on 11/07/2007 01:49

Our Dev team is planning on using the cube engine to make a fps-adventure-rpg game with both a story mode and online co-op mode. We will likely base it LOOSELY on Eisenstern, and will not attempt to make any money off it. Is this a good idea, or have we all gone crazy? If the Cube engine doesn't work out, we will turn to the Baja engine.
P.S: Visit our website at: sprintersoft.99k.org

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#234: Re: Development

by SheeEttin on 11/07/2007 02:02, refers to #233

Read the license: http://sauerbraten.org/README.html#license

You can pretty much do whatever you want with the engine. You'll probably need to make new all models, textures, etc., though.

Of course, I am not a lawyer, nor am I familiar with the various licenses that go with all the parts. I just play with it. :)

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#235: ..

by Acord on 11/07/2007 02:28

Code is free to use, provided that you keep it open source. Content depends on the license granted by the original authors, but most of them are hanging around here somewhere.

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#236: ..

by Julius on 11/07/2007 11:50

@Acord: zlib is not copyleft AFAIK e.g. you can make your modified version closed source.

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#237: >.<

by Deathbreak911 on 12/26/2007 01:30

Aardappel, I know what you mean. And most idiots do say that they want to make a MMORPG, which is fine. As long as they keep trying they will learn that they are going to make a ORPG, not a MMORPG, and slowly the game will get scrapped, and they will make another one, and scrap the current one, and make another, untill they finally have something good to work with. I'm not going to say all will eventually have a good ORPG, or even a good percent, I will say that a good 10% will make something decent that will eventually tap out at 50 members, and that's really just fine. Some games made by these people turn out fun, I've played some.

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#238: Multiplayer?

by BobFrank on 12/26/2007 02:57

Why don't you make it multiplayer? It would be fun to play with one or two friends as a co-op game.

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