Terasology : The Game

[Ten'son']

Hi everyone!
This topic is about the gameplay of Terasology. The goal(s) that the player will have to follow (or not), etc.
So I start : As we want some inspiration from Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Defenders, the player(s) will have to build a fortress and defend it. So, mining (and wood, etc.). Now the question of dwarfs : will the player have some "slaves" ? If yes, will they be with him since the begining or will the player have to buy them in a village ?
Also, we're in a real-time game so how many dwarfs the player will be able to have ? I mean, imagine a huge fortress, how the player will be able to find his "gold miner" in this huge place ? Especially if he has hundred dwarfs!
Also, if the player is in multiplayer, there could be thousands dwarfs, monsters, NPC, animals, moving/digging/attacking at the same time!!! :O

EDIT: Maybe I'm a little far from the subject with the dwarfs problems. But if someone has an idea of goal for the game or something like that : sare it here!

 

[Cervator]

As I picture it the player starts all alone and in DK style needs to first build enough attractive "stuff" for creatures to be interested in joining up in return for something they want. Not expecting brainless slaves, although "slavery" could be an ethical dilemma to make the player face at some point during the game.

It might make sense to have a central "beginner species" that is more easy for the player to get a hold of - sort of like the imps in DK. Could be the GelCubes. Not sure.

Creature management - I'm not really thinking direct involvement by the player. You just design stuff (which includes stuff like designating areas to excavate, mine, build up, etc) and if you've got the right sort of creatures around they'll join up and help out. So you won't need to run down a specific creature. At most you might be interested in designating / finding specific rooms, which is a little more manageable (although trickier in full 3D).

All this is a fair way out, however, we'll be doing some simpler stuff to start with.

 

[Ten'son']

Ok
But will there be ennemies ? Other "fortress masters" controlled by IA ? Or just like a tower defense : some waves of monsters ?
If there are other fortresses, will they be finished or starting like the player ? But what if the player does not enjoy this place an then walks for kilometers, the other fortresses are unloaded from chunks and so, no more ennemies ?

I think that the world shouldn't be infinite. Very big, like in Dwarf fortress, but not infinite. It would resolve the problem of, for exemple, the "fortress master" controled by IA who, then, doesn't need to be in a loaded chunk.

 

[Cervator]

Keeping in mind that this is my personal desire and not necessarily the straight path for the game - yes

The design doc Mooncalf wrote has a "ring" based system of stronger and stronger enemies, and richer rewards, for a single "home base" (or bases) approach for a survival game type. That's closer. Longer term I foresee NPC societies that may become hostile and develop (slowly) even without their chunks actively loaded.

Multiplayer - multiple "fortresses" yes. Stay loaded/active somehow? Unsure. Fortress-to-Fortress PVP? Maybe. Too far out to really theorize in detail, we need to just get multiplayer working first and that's probably still a few months out.

Infinity - this I expect will be a world creation parameter. Some worlds might be infinite a la MC, others limited like DF (the "big map") with climate belts and such. And "thinly" generated other civilizations just represented with a tile on the big map you could then explore in person with more details as the chunks load.

 

[Ten'son']

I think that the player should be able to play the game as he wants. I mean, he could have the choice of doing a huge fortress or become an explorer or even just build some crazy things like in Minecraft.
But, if the player wants to build a fortress, I think that he should have something to protect against monsters. So I thought about a "personnal cube" that could be given to the player at his first spawn. But why protect that cube ?
That cube could be the player's "competences". So he needs that cube to upgrade himself.
Then, the monsters will be attracted by the cube. That's why it needs protection.
Thus, if the player is an explorer, he also needs that cube to be more accurate, faster, invisible?, etc.
Also, more the player becomes powerful, more the monsters become powerful too. For example, the werewolf could start spawning only if the player is level 10.

What do you think about that ?

 

[glasz]

One thing that could be interesting to modify is the speed of the interactions. In minecraft, destroying or building a block of stone is quasi immediate, and the slight delay is allready perceived as an inconvenience. By delaying even more the result of these actions it could change the game significantly, not sure if it can be for good.

 

[Cervator]

Slower harvesting encourages enlisting creatures, so yeah, I think that's a good thing - for that game mode

Protect the Cube sounds like an entertaining twist on Capture the Flag. I like it! Could be a nice toggle if you wanted to play that way. Heck, it would slide right into a Capture the Flag mode should somebody want to do PvP one day.

 

[Nym Traveel]

The CTF/protect the cube sounds nice!

Concerning blockbreaking:
This is quite a balancing act of having the player make quick progress in building on the one hand - and with his comes the need to break blocks fast. Imagine you wanna carve out a cave with a wooden pick (mc) you'll be grandpa 'till you have the first room. On the other hand is a bit of realism and of course the challenge of mining (stripmining with an diamond pick or ic2 drill is just too easy...) which needs from my point of view some slower progress.
Since the materials to build a pickaxe are quite limited in variation we could make different quality grades for the tools

Concerning Monsters:
As far as I know there are mainly two ways to control monsterdiffiulty:
- Make certain areas where monsters are harder. This could lead to very interesting game: you see a region where some awesome stuff is (Ghosttown with much loot, swamp with some rare stuff) but there also are much more difficult enemies. So you have to choose whether to go the risk or not.
- Make monsters more difficult with player level. Quite selfexplaining
I'm quite unbiased with this choice.

Maybe even combine them.
As cube/playerlevel progresses the monsters get harder to beat but there are also some regions with more or less tough monsters

 

[Sunray]

One thing that came into mind when playing Minecraft was that a two block high wall of dirt really shouldn't be an eternal defence against all mobs (barring spiders) With that in mind, maybe monsters (when added) could have the ability to break down blocks over time, therefore giving increased reason to explore and gather stronger materials for your fortress. Maybe even procedural degeneration could be implemented? So after a lot of time, walls would eventually crumble? Thaat could be annoying to advanced players who have diligently hoarded many strong blocks, so maybe some blocks could be immune to this effect?
I also had the idea of sieges I'm thinking fairly similar to Terraria here; once every red moon the moon will go red, monsters will be harder and more common and will actively attempt to breach your fort They could maybe even adopt siege tactics: like trying to starve you out, throwing flaming arrows, ramming your walls, digging under the fort or even use trebuchets And different monsters would have different tactics - flying monsters (if added ) would drop poop on you or something
I know I speak with the boundless imagination of someone with no technical limitations placed on them, but if some of those ideas are possible, I think they would be pretty cool ^^

 

[Cervator]

Yep, agreed, and I think most of that is already on the list for long-term goals! With difficulty sliders I'd like to think we could make just about everybody happy

 

[Ten'son']

One thing that came into mind when playing Minecraft was that a two block high wall of dirt really shouldn't be an eternal defence against all mobs (barring spiders) With that in mind, maybe monsters (when added) could have the ability to break down blocks over time, therefore giving increased reason to explore and gather stronger materials for your fortress.[...]

Climbing could be soo cool !

And I just found a Minecraft mod that does exactly what I/you had in mind :

 

[Cervator]

Nice. We theoretically have a bit of climbing already, although it is easy to miss. If you go all the way up to a 2 block height change and jump while hugging the wall you'll sort of climb up and over, instead of a free-form jump. Same with 1 block high changes if you don't jump early, helps avoid wasting time being stuck catching excess air

Nice invasion mod. Especially like the builders. And they've got a cave troll! Good design, you could challenge yourself with that Nexus block. Sounds almost like a portal...

 

[Sunray]

Oh cool, might give that a try sometime Yeah that's similar to what I had in mind, although maybe a bit less 'moddy' if that makes sense A bit of polishing and that could be very cool glhf to the coder XD

 

[Immortius]

Technically the current implementation is slight bug, but I know understand why it happens and how to fix it if desirable (it is because the player still steps up and down while they are not grounded).