Archived Villages and AI

Hello! Here's some ideas for the game.

1: There should be a random generated village at the players first spawn location. This would be good if there is some sort of story. This story should be some NPCs giving you quests/tasks and then reward you with another quest that will continue the story and/or information about the world that makes you want to explore. Then you can choose to do the whole story, a part of it, or just ignore it to explore and walk around on your own. The characters in this village should look similar to the player.

2: The races should be friendly or agressive to other races.
Example: A dwarf is friendly to an elf, but not to to an orc.
Then the races can form alliances and start conflicts with other races.
Example: If a dwarf see an elf, they will try to make an alliance, while if a dwarf see an orc, they are most likely to start fighting each other leading to a conflict between the races.
If a player kills a character, the player will most likely become an enemy to that race, while helping characters should lead to that the player will be a friend to that race, allowing the player to build near that race's villages and eventually start an alliance with the race. If you start an alliance with a race, you will be seen as a friend to that race's allied races, and an enemy to the race's enemys.

3: The races should spawn at their own villages (random generated and one starting village for each race). Then some characters should take care of the village, some should hunt(kill animals, go back to the village giving the food to the merchants, and then go hunting again and so on), and some should adventure(leaving the home village and walk around in the world), making it possible to form alliances and start conflicts with other races and with the player(s). After a while a race should send a group (maybe 4 characters) to build another village somewhere (at a random place, but not too far from the starting village at first). These villages should not be as big as the race's starting village. This will allow the races to expand their "kingdoms".

4: You should be able to tame a wild animal to be your pet. You should only be able to have one pet at a time, so the pet must die or you'll have to release it into the wild if you want a new pet. It should be fun if you can name your pet when you tame it.

5: You should be able to create your own skins outside the game and use it in-game. Then there should be multiplayer so that you can build and explore together with players on the same server. Then you can use your skin so that other players can recognize you.

Looks like alot of scripting, but I think that this would be great in the game.

What do you think?
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
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Hello GoldenDragon, and welcome! We have plenty of ideas already, but not so much the time to implement them all :)

1 - There'll be something by the starting location eventually, maybe a fancier portal for starters. Quests are tricky since this is a procedurally generated world, although they may make sense in some contexts and could be done more and more as the game (and an individual world) matures. Terasology is never going to be Skyrim tho, and that quest + story-based approach is much more suitable to a single-player game.

2+3+5 - Yep. We've got a fair bit of direction on those topics

4 - Sounds a bit more like any one of an assortment of existing games. Sure, there'll probably be a pet system of some sort (heck, minions could be considered pets, or companions), but more dynamic, not quite that narrow

Take a look around, there's a ton of existing content to check out (forum, wiki, GitHub issue tracker), and let us know if you're interested in helping out implementing some of this stuff. If you come up with a really unusual concept that we don't seem to have written down somewhere around here (and assume anything basic is covered) then by all means chime up. And always feel free to reply to discussion threads if you can add something unique! :)
 
There'll be something by the starting location eventually, maybe a fancier portal for starters. Quests are tricky since this is a procedurally generated world, although they may make sense in some contexts and could be done more and more as the game (and an individual world) matures. Terasology is never going to be Skyrim tho, and that quest + story-based approach is much more suitable to a single-player game.
I think that the characters in the starting village should sell basic items and be known as the village where you (the player character) have grown up. You can make tasks like quests, but more simple: this will not give you any experiance points or items or something, this is only text that a NPC tells you and then change the text so that the NPC don't give you the task multiple times. You can make it like a intro.
Example: You spawn in the village, and a NPC spawns at a random position outside the village. You see a text when the game starts up (if it's the first time you're playing at the world/server) that is like a intro to the game and tells you to go to a NPC that has spawned in your house. THe NPC tells you that you should talk to another NPC (the one outside the village). That NPC tells you something like that the world is filled with wonders and adventure and then says that you should explore the world. Then you start playing the game without a story.

2+3+5 - Yep. We've got a fair bit of direction on those topics
:)

4 - Sounds a bit more like any one of an assortment of existing games. Sure, there'll probably be a pet system of some sort (heck, minions could be considered pets, or companions), but more dynamic, not quite that narrow
Maybe you will need something like a item or two? You should maybe need diffrent items for taming diffrent animals?
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
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Village is still tricky due to the multiplayer approach. Imagine 50 players spawning in that same spot, over a few weeks, all getting the same story, despite the area radically changing as other players build stuff. Or 500 over a few months. Or the same player over a dozen different worlds. It's too static (especially "your house" as a pre-generated structure), we need to start with something more simple and procedural, then let the players build up the infrastructure. That's the strength of a multiplayer sandbox world. Terasology isn't primarily story-driven :)

There are some advanced related concepts, but they're secret for now. Which I guess I forget to mention, there's another knowledgebase of even more planning stuff, but it is kept out of sight until we get closer to implementing. Right now we need the focus of what's close to being implemented (design-wise) and then the effort to implement it. That's what you see going on in some of the other threads like world flavor and extensibility - they're "next up". Detailed planning for "way out" stuff isn't quite as useful as we won't be able to get to it for a while.

Animal taming will have something involved in it. Exactly what? I can't say, it is too early to even speculate and get anything constructive out of it. First we need animals :D
 
:idea: Idea :idea:

You maybe should be able to find anbandoned village ruins. Then there should be survivors from a unknown race walking around the world. If you find one and talk to that character it will ask you if you can help. If you say yes it will ask you if you know the location of a village in ruins. If you say yes the character will follow you until you come to one of the village ruins. Then the survivor asks if you can help him/her rebuild the village. If you say yes, you should help, but if you say no, the survivor walks away, leaving the ruins once again. If you say no to the first question the survivor will ask you if you are here to kill him. If you say no, the survivor continue walking. If you say Yes, I am, the survivor will start to attack you.

What about this? This could maybe be the games big mystery? Maybe they will send you to a cave where you will have to use a special orb that summons some sort of boss creature that you should defeat to save the surviving race and then you just spawn back in the starting village and the race of survivors act as the other races. Then a timer can start and when it has reached two "days" (for example) you can see a big rock coming from the sky and the race will be wandering survivors again (and you can do this over again).

If you have a better idea of what could happen after you rebuild the village, please post it here.

What do you think of this?
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
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Again, it is too specific, too soon :)

Picture having hundreds or thousands of people playing the game, over many individual worlds, not just a single person once in a single world. Picture having a large world to fill with content that all needs to flow together smoothly, all needing lots of work to do individually. And remember that we won't get to this level of implemented detail for months if even that - at which point we'd then have to remember that these ideas are in here, in addition to the similar ones inside all our heads and documented elsewhere.. :)

At this point we have much more fundamental issues to work on, such as how you even define a building, let alone a village, in code and lighter weight data files. And to really be able to weigh in on that you need to know the code some, or similar concepts in existing code or projects elsewhere

If you want to really help out, and see your ideas take shape inside the game, pick up a nice book or internet tutorial on Java or game design in general, and spend a few weeks really digging in and playing with more simple challenges. For bonus points that'll also help you gain valuable skills for life and career options in general! :geek:

I am very familiar with the eagerness you feel to contribute via ideas - I was in the exact same spot as you're in now years ago and just couldn't wait to be part of something. Had I dug in and started learning skills that could truly be useful in projects like this then by now maybe I'd have hit it big like Notch. Instead I just kept being enthusiastic but not very useful, flipping between projects, until I finally started learning and doing things on my own. Now I'm happy as can be, being able to not just think of an idea, but implement it myself in code, launch the game, and see my changes live in the world. It's difficult to temper your enthusiasm with patience, but very useful and very valuable :)
 

metouto

Active Member
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Art
Cervator said:
If you want to really help out, and see your ideas take shape inside the game, internet tutorial on Java or game design in general, and spend a few weeks really digging in and playing with more simple challenges. For bonus points that'll also help you gain valuable skills for life and career options in general! :geek:
Cervator .... you know my background so keep that in mind .... I don't have money for the books and there are no library’s around and cards cost way to much if there was in my case, but I would like to "try" to understand …. So will you and the others expand on this ..... "pick up a internet tutorial on Java or game design in general" thing for me please :)
 

Cervator

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Google is your friend :)

First hit for "Java game tutorial": http://zetcode.com/tutorials/javagamestutorial/

Another one over here: http://javaboutique.internet.com/tutori ... ogramming/

Both go through some very basic concepts that are general to game projects. Going through them would be a huge help to understanding Terasology better, as it really is the same thing just much much deeper.

Neither necessarily covers the extreme basics of what editor to use and how to run examples. But then there are tutorials on that too. IntelliJ may be overkill for something like that, Notepad++ along with a command prompt can do wonders!

I'd like to do little base introductions via IRC sometime if there's interest, but also need to find the time for that in the first place :)
 
Maybe we should have a special character walking around the world, and the eventual story around him should be a great mystery and "created" by the players who met him/her in-game. He/she should be able to build with a special block that isn't easy to get, and is too hard to break with the wrong tools. He/she should be able to teleport him-/herself and have a more advanced AI than other races and creatures. He/she should be neutral, and travel and travel just to leave mystery constructions in his/her path. There should only be some types of constructions that he/she can build. If you break many of his/her constructins he/she will "know" it and will try to attack you, greif your builds, etc., but only if he/she happens to see you. If you are lucky or very friendly to him/her if you happen to encounter him/her you can ask him/her to build you a house, and the house will then be out of gold and diamond (if it exists in game). This means that this special character could be your friend and help you, or it could kill you in one swing with the sword whenever he/she happens to see you. If the character will help you or hunt you is the result of what you do with him/her and his/her constructions. You shouldn't be able to kill this character completely with known weapons.

Please DO NOT make another Herobrine out of this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think?
 

Cervator

Org Co-Founder & Project Lead
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It would be a mod, if somebody wanted to implement it.
 
Well, it would be, and I think it's good to have the mod (unless this is turning into another Herobrine couse that would scare players from playing the game, right?).
 

Cervator

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Well, it's great to have any and every mod imaginable, when you put it that way :)

Realistically, tho, with limited resources, is this something I could see the core team doing for the core game? No. It's a mod, and if somebody would really like to see it, then hopefully somebody will volunteer to code it.

That's not to say it's a bad idea.
 

ironchefpython

Member
Contributor
Architecture
Cervator said:
Well, it's great to have any and every mod imaginable, when you put it that way :)

Realistically, tho, with limited resources, is this something I could see the core team doing for the core game? No. It's a mod, and if somebody would really like to see it, then hopefully somebody will volunteer to code it.

That's not to say it's a bad idea.
Maybe if SOMEBODY were to reorganize the forums so that there were boards for the game engine development, and Genesis mod, Tao mod, and new mod ideas, we wouldn't need to clarify this every time someone has a mod idea.

*cough* SOMEBODY *cough*
 

Cervator

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Sunday SUNDAY Sunday! You can has Xenforo. Hopefully.

Go make some sample forums on the test site if you can't wait, just let me know if you want admin :D
 
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