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Yes, yes, yes I know that the title is harsh, but it does! Now, don't get me wrong, I love Coldstone. If I didn't have an xBox I would be on it all the time, but alas Elder Scrolls 3 keeps calling my name whenever I come near the mouse. Anyways, I know a lot of you are going to scoff at me because you are so loyal (as I once was.) But think, was there any time, when you wished there was a timer, parties, or guards that actually fight for you? For your convenience I have compiled a short list:
1. THE EVENT SYSTEM The Bad: In order to make a complex action it requiers many confusing globals, and a whole ****load of other events and event calls. The result? Too many events, a cluttered workspace. The Good: The initial Column, and then the Links. My Suggestion: Why not just have 1 column to start with, and the option of adding more columns? That way, it would be much more compact and less confusion. For example: I open up the new event and it shows me one column titled 1, pertaining to a body on the ground that you can either bury or loot. Then I compile a whole bunch of actions and then decide I need another one to make the loot actions. I hit the new column button, and boom, I have a new one. Using the link button CGE draws a line from my action to the column, showing relativity. Much easier.
2. SKILLS, GIFTS, ATTRIBUTES, FAULTS The Bad: Honestly, what good RPG doesn't have skills? Anyone? Diablo 2 does. Baldurs gate does. Morrowind does. No matter what you name them, proficiencies, powers, skills, bonuses, they play a huge role in most major RPGs. This also ties in with the system. I think it's fine, but for the more advanced users, who want more flexibilty, there should be an option to define what exactly Strength does. Or make our own attributes, skills, and faults. How does a Level 2 flamebearer, with 15 Status, 17 flamethrowing, and the ambidextrous gifft, along with the chivarly flaw sound to a Level 2 Swordsman, Strength 14? The Good: You can use globals to define some of this, but it is very time consuming and difficult. My Suggestion: What I said. Have an option for the combat and interaction systems to be user-defined.
CHARACTER ART Need I say more?
ITEMS The Bad: Can't make new types. The Good: Nothing. My Suggestion: Also make it advanced user definable.
CLASSES The Bad: Can't make specific animations for a class (is it really THAT hard?) and have a TINY class description. Ties into Attributes, Skills, etc. The Good: I like classes, except school ones. My suggestion: Do what I say.
Whell that's all for now, but my list is rapidly growing as I get more proficient. My big suggestion:
Why not just make the whole system open-sourced/ended??? For example: Logs in to CGE, and then I window prompts stuff to work on. I click on Combat System, and a new window opens, with a single tab (you know, one of those tabs you click on and drag down to various choices.) I click on it and see stuff like if, but, and, while, etc. I scroll down to IF. Then I click on the New Tab Button. Another one appears. This time it's filled with stuff like the user-defined attributes, gifts, skills etc. Having already done this I choose Fighting Prowess. Then I click on a new one, and this time it's if, not, greater than. I choose greater than. Next I choose enemy's- then Fighting Prowess, then Execute attack script. There I choose animations, etc.
Please, actually consider this rather than thinking of it as usual nagging.
Thanks,
Smodis
You know, you have a really great idea here. However, Coldstone was never really designed for the kind of market niche you're leaning towards, so don't expect anything to come of this idea.
------------------ The greatest of harm can result from the best of intentions — Wizard's Second Rule, Stone of Tears. — Cafall
Two more things I'd add to your list:
Animation picture files should be relative to their own folder, not the game root folder, and you should be able to specify a font.
------------------
My quibbles are: 1. Font options. Like making stuff bold, purple, etc 2. An event to change classes and races. That way we could have a location with large pictures, click the class you choose. 2. New Resistances. So you could have resistance to more than five types of attacks.
------------------ Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
(This message has been edited by spitfire (edited 07-18-2002).)
My two cents:
Parties. Need I say more? O.K., the code is there for Coldstone to set up multiple alliences for NPCs. So you could have NPCs follow you and attack monsters with you, thus comprising your party. Add something that would bring up a party NPC's inventory for trading and equiping items, and we have a party (pun intended)! Also, this multiple alliance thing can let you have NPCs attack each other (can you say huge epic battle?)
New Items. Why not have a button or something in the item creation window that creates a new item type? This would just so you could equipt stuff like rings, pants, and cloaks in addition to the default item types. This adding "button" could also be used by resistances( like spitfire said), gamebuttons, and so on. You could just have what you need.
A More Flexable Menu System. Why can certain fields (MaxStamina, Armor, etc.) only appear in certain menues? Why not have user defined menues? You click a button in the game options menue to make a new blank menue (like the stuff in #2). And the fields can appear in any menue you want. I'd also like fields that would display stuff like globals, if I added new skills.
------------------ Someone give me a funny signature! PLEASE!
Quote
Originally posted by Cafall: **You know, you have a really great idea here. However, Coldstone was never really designed for the kind of market niche you're leaning towards, so don't expect anything to come of this idea.
**
Unfortunately true. I just sent Beenox an email, telling them they have created "Sim Game"; Pretend to be a game developer! No prior skill required, no art talent needed! Just assemble a simple game from our pre-made parts -- and when you are done, you can actually play the game you've made!
At less than the box price for Warcraft III they can probably make a tidy profit selling entirely to those who have never tried to make a game before... and never will again.
Which is a terrible pity. Whenever I speak on the subject Toast or someone croaks back "It wasn't designed to be professional! What do you expect; open-source engine, 3D sprites, animation blending, multi-user support?" Which is NEVER what I have asked.
Coldstone has 90% of the functionality in there already. What was released was unfortunately beta-ware. The 1.0.1 patch will make it vastly more functional already.
Also, functions are already partly implemented (for instance, a party structure) and completing that nearly-finished work would also add greatly to the functionality without adding too much more programmer time.
I have researched the competition. Visual Basic, TNT, the Quake engine, Marathon Open-Source Project... Coldstone has a niche, all right. A niche for the beginning to intermediate developer who wants to concentrate on story and graphic elements and demands only a basic (yet flexible) engine to support it. The developer who does not want to spend precious creative time in coding from scratch, or learning a complex and possibly hostile development environment.
Yet the attitude of Ambrosia/Beenox (and some of their shills) has been that making Coldstone fully functional -- as advertised, as documented in their own manual -- is unimportant; "That was never our market to begin with."
Which is why I call it "Sim Game."
---
Sorry for the diatribe. I was chased away from this board over this subject, and I am still waiting for the patch so I can come back to my abandoned game.
------------------ "I know the stranger's name." Turandot
I doubt that any of this will have any effect, but anyway:
Originally posted by smodis: **THE EVENT SYSTEM ...My Suggestion: Why not just have 1 column to start with, and the option of adding more columns? That way, it would be much more compact and less confusion. For example: I open up the new event and it shows me one column titled 1, pertaining to a body on the ground that you can either bury or loot. Then I compile a whole bunch of actions and then decide I need another one to make the loot actions. I hit the new column button, and boom, I have a new one. Using the link button CGE draws a line from my action to the column, showing relativity. Much easier. **
I'm not sure I follow your suggestion. Allow multiple groups of action links? Would that really offer that much additional functionality? I'm afraid I don't see what you're getting at.
**SKILLS, GIFTS, ATTRIBUTES, FAULTS ...My Suggestion: What I said. Have an option for the combat and interaction systems to be user-defined. **
Any thoughts on how to actually implement such a thing? I've thought about fully custom-definable game mechanics in the past, but I really can't see any neat, user-friendly way to do so. (Yes, I read your example at the end of your post, but it's pretty simple - if I were to create a custom combat system, I'd want it to be much more complex than that.)
Make what user-definable? Coldstone has many more item types than any console RPG I can think of, and there's certainly nothing that says the "names" of the types are written in stone. (Heck, in the game I'm working on, "armor" is the only type that the game and the editor agree upon!)
CLASSES The Bad: Can't make specific animations for a class (is it really THAT hard?)
Add conditionals to Main.cet: "If Class is equal to "fighter" then change character graphic to Fighter". What's so hard?
------------------ Who are the people most opposed to escapism? Jailors! - C.S. Lewis Only member of the webboard to gain 2 karma points by writing a flame, and openly atychiphobic since 2000.
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: Coldstone has a niche, all right. A niche for the beginning to intermediate developer who wants to concentrate on story and graphic elements and demands only a basic (yet flexible) engine to support it. The developer who does not want to spend precious creative time in coding from scratch, or learning a complex and possibly hostile development environment.
Sounds about right to me. What's the problem?
**Yet the attitude of Ambrosia/Beenox (and some of their shills) has been that making Coldstone fully functional -- as advertised, as documented in their own manual -- is unimportant; "That was never our market to begin with." **
Tell me, what features are documented in the manual and/or advertised, yet un-implemented? (And no, I'm not just talking about stuff that's buggy currently - 1.01 will be out Real Soon Now™ and fix a lot of the bugs.)
Look, folks - I'm less than happy about some of the design decisions made by Beenox et al. (turn-based combat, party support, and user-definable fonts and buttons come to mind), but Coldstone simply cannot be all things to all people. If you really want a professional engine where you can custom-define everything from the game mechanics to the magic system to the scripting engine, sorry, but you're not going to find it at shareware prices.
That's not to say that some of the suggestions here don't seem quite reasonable to me - more flexible interface layouts (all applicable fields in all interfaces, rather than the current situation where some (arbitrarily?) are not available in some interfaces), and also custom fonts/button images would seem to me like things that could be added into the engine with a minimum of fuss. As to the others, well, I suspect that they would rather likely require nearly a ground-up rewrite of Coldstone, which is rather unlikely at this point.
</Beenox-Ambrosia shill>
Originally posted by Glenn: **stuff **
How much did they pay you to say that? Glenn fingers a five dollar bill Anyway, I would like to say that I am content with coldstone. Some features could be implemented with minimul fuss, but take a walk in Dee's shoes for a second here, he really would rather program 3D games. Also, it doesn't help if people are constantly nagging him for the update/new features. Call me a hypocrite Also, as for parties/turn based, you have had plenty of warning that it would not be possible. Glenn is right, it cannot be completely customizable and easy enough for Joe Blow to use. spitfire fingers a five dollar bill
Here are my 2 cents - two of which were not mentioned.
I'm happy with coldstone with the exception of certain limitations - others I can live with, but...
1. I agree with the creating a party thing - and it hurts to hear that the technology is already in place, but that an update that will make it work is WAAAYYYY OOOFFFF!!
2. I would like to have (about, but probably more) three levels of blocking - all of which the character can't pass through... A. One can be shot through and can be seen through. B. Another that can be seen through, but not shot through (i.e. bulletproof glass) C. Can't be shot through or seen through... so on and so forth.
3. The third one was gonna be NPC's not being able to see through certain walls, but the above took care of that one...
OK, that was my 3, not 2, cents worth.
Thanks!
Originally posted by Glenn: **Tell me, what features are documented in the manual and/or advertised, yet un-implemented? (And no, I'm not just talking about stuff that's buggy currently - 1.01 will be out Real Soon Now™ and fix a lot of the bugs.)
Funny... I am talking about what's buggy currently. I do not make discussions based on vapor-ware. When I have loaded that patch and tested its functionality, I will include it in discussions.
Documented in manual and left out of game...ah, what about &&-values in coordinate boxes? Sounds minor, I know, but try to do anything creative with animations or behavior and that one rises up and smacks you.
As this is meaningless wish list anyhow...what about being able to add boxes to interface screens? Hell, why not go whole-hog and replace the "Columb A, Columb B" thing with something that actually looks like scripting? Anyone remember WorldBuilder? Hey, anyone remember Hypercard?
I don't know what the game code looks like when you peek under than menu, but I do wonder if it might be possible to have the simplified events list sit like a WYSIWYG editor on top of a script that the power user could hand-edit... I know, I know. "We never saw the power user as being part of our market. People who can learn Hypercard stacks are already qualified to program their own engine in C++ ...."
Right; "Everyone is arguing for the game to be different than it is." Actually, a very few people have asked to make a third-person shooter. A great many people have asked for allies, a party system, more than one level of blocking, ability to customize certain screens beyond their present limits. These aren't simple. They also aren't alien to Coldstone as it is presented.
Oh, a request in the other direction...if we are so adamantly click-and-build here, why force the user to create all the events and screens for the game shell? How about expanding the good start made by the "medieval game template" and make it a one-click creation of a completely functional front-end all the way out to a all-grass, one-player opening map? After all, you can always edit it later...
Oh, yes, I can do the same thing. In fact, I did! (I deleted everything from the medieval game except the minimum basic functionality, then saved that as a blank game). But we are talking about supporting the know-nothing, I don't do code, I get my art off the CD user here. Let's give them a better "Make the boring parts of my game" button.
P.S. If that patch comes in and does what it is rumored to do you will be seeing more of me. In the meantime, I have an EVO plug-in to work on.
(QUOTE)Originally posted by Commander Arashi: Which is a terrible pity. Whenever I speak on the subject Toast or someone croaks back "It wasn't designed to be professional!
Woah!! I didn't mean to destroy your sleep by that comment. I was new on the board and perhaps a little presumptious at the time. These postings have created some of the more interesting dialog and exciting to read that I've seen on the board lately.Don't run and hide, give your hero more stamina and a bigger sword and stay in the fight. After all you are from Berkeley Calif. PS; I'm probably a SIM builder, I used to really be into Hypercard. But then look what happened to hypercard.
Never give up never say die. and don't hold a grudge.
Glad to see you back Mr. Arashi.
Originally posted by Commander Arashi: what about &&-values in coordinate boxes? Sounds minor, I know, but try to do anything creative with animations or behavior and that one rises up and smacks you.
Minor? Not in my world. Of course I rely heavily on tag values. Rest assured though that this will be fixed with the update. And as Glenn mentioned above, that should be out soon(much sooner than the last time someone said soon too!).
A great many people have asked for allies, a party system, more than one level of blocking, ability to customize certain screens beyond their present limits. These aren't simple. They also aren't alien to Coldstone as it is presented.
I agree. Wholeheartedly.
P.S. If that patch comes in and does what it is rumored to do you will be seeing more of me.
I hope the patch takes care of the bugs that you have experienced and lets you continue doing development. It is definitely frustrating to attempt to do something that is supposed to be supported, but doesn't work. For me it was a map editor bug that caused CGE to simply crash, and take any changes I had made since the last time I saved my work. This bug caused me to stop all development. Thankfully it will be fixed with the release of the update.
Anyhow, hope to see you around.
------------------ "Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." -- Gene Spafford, 1992
(quote)Originally posted by Toast: **(QUOTE)Originally posted by Commander Arashi: Which is a terrible pity. Whenever I speak on the subject Toast or someone croaks back "It wasn't designed to be professional!
**(/quote)
Thanks for the nice words. I guess with all that heat came a little light...! I'm gonna stop talking until that patch comes out, tho. If nothing else, I've been away from the program so long I've forgotten everything. ^_^;;
Originally posted by spitfire: How much did they pay you to say that? Glenn fingers a five dollar bill
You think I'm that cheap? I'll have you know that Beenox and Ambrosia had to give me free license codes to both PoG and Coldstone to get that much shilling out of me!
I'm so happy whenever a thread of mine causes so much harping and strife. Anyways, I am not hoping for some 3D gaming engine with scripting and 8 AI teams hacking each other in turn-based hyper-realistic, blood spraying, bone crunching action, 2227 pixels per inch, first person, slow motion, instant replay, President Bush (sorry, I had to throw that in) combat! All I'm hoping for is a little more flexibility when making not "run of the mill" games! Some of my ideas were purely optional, ther weren't meant to be "requirements for a game engine otherwise I want my money back." If coldstone stays like it is, I'll be perfectly happy! But, if Beenox want's to make a truly flexible game engine, as it's advertised, then please make some basic changes that are expected of even a novice's gaming engine! Some of my suggestions are also purely time-saving, like a window in the class editor for different animations. Not neccesary, just the long way around is annoying. Also, I agree with whositwhatsit in that there should be a do all the boring stuff button. If it's advertised to be so user-friendly, why the deluge of events at the beggining. I'm not hoping for a re-write, just free updates for registered users that slowly, over time imrpoves the system for more flexibilty. Please, don't use this thred to b*tch at the developers about promised features, use it to BASH THEIR HEADS IN! Nonono just kidding, use it as a suggestion box, or, if you really want to, a urinal.
Originally posted by Glenn: **< /Beenox-Ambrosia shill>
What's that?
------------------ Thank you.
Look, I don't want a new, ground up, harder to use coldstone, I just think these would be nice adds to it, to make a better RPG with. I love coldstone, just so you know, I've used many of gamemaking programs, and this seems to be the best yet. These are just suggestions, it's ok if they're not made, so don't get mad at me if I sound like I hate coldstone, because I just told you I love it. I'm just trying to make it even better than it is now (as hard as it is to imagine). It's more options for people who don't know much about scripting (which coldstone is for already, just more cool options). I wouldn't mind if they jacked up the price because of this, I would still get it if it had these options.
1. I think what would be AWESOME for animating is for 12 year old kids (like me) just wanted to make a cool, easy to use, animation for their character without having to buy some 3D thing, that we might never use again! They should put in a 3D Drawing application to make the characters. Who here, besides me, is sick of opening up Adobe and switching back and forth between that and CS? It gets annoying. I know this sounds like I'm lazy, but it gets REALLY annoying. Also, drawing ALL those animations, then realizing, why not download what someone else did? I slightly insulted myself, for I realized that I had just said I couldn't do it. Oh well... Why not build a 3D editor INTO coldstone? If any coldstone members are reading this, take a hint please! If you put this into the full version, I would definately get it! 2. I think they should make something more flexible. I am trying to make a sims-type game. You walk around the city, and you get a job too. You do that job (i mean really do, as in be part of it). I want you to be able to have money. Some type of global that you can have SHOW UP IN THE GAME ON THE GAME INTERFACE! Instead, I had to make money experience..... :eek: 3. Why not be able to make movie type things (going back to that 3D editor thingy) and play them before the start up screen? I would LOVE to do that. Like, in Nintendo games, after a while (when you do nothing) it shows little clips of the game. Sure, you could somehow compile it into a quicktime appication, but what if you don't know how to do that (like me)? Going back to that epic battle, you could show a movie of it at the beginning! That would be AWESOME! And the whole thing could be in 3D! 4. Allied NPCs would be cool as well. Like, if you had a FF type game, where bad guys can follow you (i only played the starcraft version, so I could be wrong), good guys will be waiting at the town gates, and kill them. That would be awesome. 5. Why not put in a sort of create the game essentials program. What I mean is have a program built in to ColdStone that lets you build the Dialogue Picture (3D of course) in the way they want you to, so you don't have to check for .pct, or 72dpi, or 16-bit. You wouldn't get those ANNOYING warnings. 6. Items. Make them equipable more easily. Put in items, and have sub-items for them. Meaning: Someone mentioned Bow and Arrows. Have the Bow be a main item, then have a button that says Sub-items for this item. Have arrows be a sub-item, and have poisonous arrows a more expensive sub-item. 7. When editing a map, and you click on events, switch to the tool that lets you put events on tiles, put MORE EVENTS IN THE LIST (such as teleport, which gets me) Instead of having to start up the game, which some can't because of dialogue pics they still need to fix, then look in the default bug or whatever by pressing d, then quit, then go to coldstone, make the location, go to events, choose map position and teleport, then test and see if it works. Add the events that are IN the list when you click on add event in the game browser (you know, the thing that has create new map, ect.). That way, I would be MUCH happier. Also, put an Events guide in the CS Folder, so that you can check in there and figure out how to do events.
Just some ideas i had, PinkFluffyBunny
PS. look for me in Pop-Pop as DEMOFluffyBunny
------------------ Be carefree like the bunny; nibble on grass, prance through fields.
(This message has been edited by PinkFluffyBunny (edited 08-10-2002).)