A Changing World

Imagine a map that changes its shape. Imagine a world which tries it's hardest to kill you.

Using the same principle for the dancing platforms, i have worked out a way of implementing a really evil admin into a map. With this network of entities, i have 136 events that can be activated at random every time the world has an earthquake. The earthquake is a signal for things to come. The setup is actually rather easy, just time consuming. A logic_auto acts as a trigger, so that when the map loads the timer starts running. On a random time set via the timer options, a quake happens, shaking the world and the players. During that time an event could happen, such as a van exploding or a tunnel collapsing. In this way, people could die, or someone may be freed from someone's jail.

Just imagine the rules changing by the minute. And when the rules change, is it even the same game?

The birth of the end of the world: Part 2

Resolving the issue with what map to make fell to the people of facepunch. There, they had a nice democratic vote, with no bribes from myself or any third parties, and the votes passed on the idea of a seismic post-apocalypse.

Now...i watch a lot of "core" simply because channel 4 always show it when i want something fairly mindless to watch. The basic synopsis is that the core of the earth stops working and some people are found to pilot a craft down to restart it. Suffice to say, that film, added with a level from No One Lives Forever and Fallout has been part of the inspiration.

The map in question will be based around natures war on humanity. In the end, humanity would eke out a life of either survival or optimism, people would have mixed reactions to the situation.

There would be a few forgotten nuggets of technology remaining. A base similar to those volcanic lairs that evil genius' always seem to build would fit in nicely with the theme. Ruined military bases with screens full of data on satellites. Maybe even a wrecked missile silo, the missiles trapped in a semi launched position, never able to fire again.

More noticeable damage would be evident too, buildings torn apart by violent quakes, subway systems or storm drains full of molten lava.

However, where you find people, you find towns. Some living in huts, others behind electric fences and patrolling guards. I'll probably add a few towns of differing technological levels. Outside these towns, people would not want to dwell alone, for fear of the animals that have adapted to the harsh environments.

To finish, and to quote Jurrassic Park;

"Life will find a way"

The birth of the end of the world Part 1

So...i am a big fan of the ideal of nature taking over once more, something i routinely try to inject into maps. I am a massive fan of the fallout series. But how is the ideal developed.

Something i have been playing with recently is social balance. When a government falls, there is no central control of what the people can and can't do. Historically, law has fallen to the church to enforce through belief systems. Our concept of morality has come from religious beliefs, and is now drilled into our society. As such, the social balance consists of Military, Technology and Belief.

The balance is maintained by factions pulling in different directions, not letting any one faction obtain more power than the other two. Once these factions are realised, then the basics of map planning can begin.

I have worked out that one of the factions i want is a technological faction that worship a Machine God (yes, very wh40k). The structure will be a temple like construction with heavy machinery within.

I only have half mile cubed to work with...we shall see how it goes.

The death of the NPC

Welcome to one of my favourite rants...the continued use of NPC's in online games. World of Warcraft is one of those games where people pay 8.99 a month to play a single player game with a chat option. In inclusion on NPC's in an online game is baffling, especially when they encroach on the story.

Now, I do not suggest that the NPC should be completely removed, but changing it's role in an environment could be of benefit. Why should an NPC tell you to collect 40 rolls on fabric from the corpses of dead mammoths, so they can make a pair of trousers for themselves? Of course, you, as a player never see this benefit.

I would love to see NPC's employed by players to add service to towns. So a twon could primerely be inhabited by players, but NPC's are employed to act as shopkeepers, auctioneers or even sent out to run trade routes on the seven seas. Quests can still be handled by npc's, but if someone is employing them, it would seem more important to keep them happy and in shoes.

And, of course if another player starts killing your NPC's, you should have the opportunity to revenge them for increased experience.

Wurm Online (www.wurmonline.com) has a basic version of this, NPC's can be employed to be merchants. Maybe it's time for others to follow suite?

Ok, here it goes. This is my first attempt at smooth seamless terrain changes. The trigger for this is a logic_timer with a refire time of 3 seconds. This is linked to a logic_case, with the i/o's telling it to randomise the case. Each case then triggers a logic_relay that contains the instructions for each move. As such, we get this:

Introduction

Welcome to my blog. Mainly i will be covering concepts, ideas i've been working on, that sort of thing. My alias is usually dark phoenix, iron phoenix or mid_phoenix, or something similar, and i dabble in games design. Recently I have been working with a few concepts of modular rooms. Next post will cover the basics of my findings in Source...portal to be exact.

Testing

This is a test blog post to see how it looks...ignore, normal service will resume at some point i nthe near future