Re: [DM-dev] Commentary on a 2D version

[Henningsen <sh...@gl...>]

At 12:33 AM 2/11/04 -0500, George wrote:
>
>> Oh, I fully concur with this. I always envision the "DungeonHack" program
>as
>> having as many 3d and 2d windows open as the user wishes, and the
>2d-windows
>> (for now, anyway) would display the mapview as is is already (somewhat
>> primitively) implemented in the current DungeonMaker (just add circles for
>> MOBs and avatars).
>>
>Maybe I misunderstand this.  This sounds like you are proposing letting the
>player
>see the entire level prior to his actually exploring it?
>
>I would think that this would be bad.  One of the driving forces, for me at
>least, in
>playing first-person (or third-person) is the sense of exploration, of
>seeing what is
>behind the next door or around the next corner.  If I had a map that
>detailed the
>current level (even the current output of DungeonMaker), much of the fun,
>for me
>at least, would be gone.  The sense of wonder and discovery would be missing
>and
>the game in my opinion would be nothing more a Quake-like capture the flag
>game.

IMO, the player should have the choice of playing with a revealed map or of
revealing the map through exploration. In single player games, the
exploration would probably be what most people do. However, the whole
project is intended to eventually lead to multiplayer games, and I have a
fully developed scheme to weed out cheaters in these games and keep them
essentially honest. Unfortunately, this scheme has no way of detecting a
player who would hack the code on his machine to play with a revealed map
(even with all the MOBs and avatars revealed), so I expect the normal way of
multiplayer gaming in DungeonHack will be "all revealed" except possibly
among friends who already trust each other.

My vision of the eventual game is that you have a 3D view open where you
play most of the time (doing all your fighting, anyway), and a 2D map view
open where you observe the movements of MOBs, checking whether you are about
to be surrounded and cut off from retreat, and doing strategic planning. 

The whole project is really intended for MOBs which are not stationary, and
the dungeons will have MOB populations which, if they all come together and
attack the players together will surely overwhelm them. So players will just
be able to raid a dungeon for a limited time. In this environment I think it
will be actually more fun to have the "all-revealed"-map, so that while
you're fighting a band of MOBs somewhere you also keep one eye on the 2D-map
to see whether another band of MOBs is about to attack you from behind and
box you in. Then at the last moment you skip into a side tunnel and make
your escape, shake off the pursuit, and start another fight somewhere else
or move into the next dungeon... This is a whole new approach to MOB-AI and
RPG-fighting, and we'll have to see how it actually plays and tune the
design during the development process.

Peter