Design Doc Discussion Thread - Everybody Please Read And Comment

[heardie]

Thanks for reminding me to post here Joker

I agree with everythinig you say actually, except that I am still more incllined to have SP than MMP, but I take Amjayee's point that it is easy to make it MMP so wee dont have to keep re-writing the AI. Some things that I would like to add, cause I don't think I saw them there

1. Customization - Our vision about how customizable we want this to be,

2. Scenario Support - I remember someone wrote a description and then said if we could do this then our scenario support is good enough. Anyone know what that was?

[The Joker]

That's great, Heardie!

I agree that these two also need to be there.

Although I am not the person to do this at the moment. I don't have much time to work on GGS, and therefore I would rather do some more "creative" work in the time I do have.

I think I was the one saying something about scenarios. It should pretty much mean that we would need a great scenario editor, where people can make maps and place population and all other stats as they want, in an easy way. Then the sky is the limit! The level of complexity in the game would mean that people could make fantastically realistic scenarios on all areas they wish to. And this would make shorter games possible, which suits mp well.

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[amjayee]

Nice to see you here, Joker.

About multiplay, I agree to have also single player some time. But my point was, as heardie noticed, that it would be easiest to start with multiplay, with which we could test the game systems. When the system is ready, we could make the AI civs; the AI system relies on fixed game rules, and it would be next to impossible for us to be able to keep changing the AI as we keep evolving the rules. We have to know our limits here.

About technology, there would be "sort of" advances; every level of knowledge and skill would be kind of advance, and also each "milestone" technology. The player's role would be to fund the research work, set the priorities for it (for example he could ask to build better ships), fund the building of universities and such, and also apply the invvented technologies to practice. So no choosing the advances to pursue, as in civ2. The reason for this is, that there will be propably more than 1000 advances, with all the levels for the basic sciences and technologies, and also because many advances are being worked on simultaneously, and because the connections and requirements for technologies would be quite complex. And not to speak of being unrealistic to choose: "My, I think we will now start researching Iron Working."

[MarkG]

hey guys, you understand that this is like, Civ 10 or something, right?

[The Joker]

Well it's good to be here, Amjayee.

The technology system sounds quite good, then. So does this mean that we will have advances, unlike the Clash system of skill levels or what?


And Markos; it's actually GGS 1.0.

But obviously we are starting out with an 0.01 version, and then building on to that. Even the greatest journey starts with the first step, as I am sure you know.

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website
[This message has been edited by The Joker (edited January 21, 2001).]

[amjayee]

Yes, Joker, they would be kind of advances rather than only skill levels... certain level might be a prerequisite for some other advance etc... though we'll have to see for those things. And Markos, you can't really talk of civ x with any x, since this is quite different from civ altogether.

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by amjayee on 01-21-2001 04:31 PM And Markos, you can't really talk of civ x with any x, since this is quite different from civ altogether.

yeah, but "civ x" will "sell" more

[The Joker]

So what's the story with the discussion in this thread? Can everybody agree on all of this, or what?

Please, if there is anything that you do not agree with write it here. That's the point of this thread!

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"If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore!"
- Homer J. Simpson

GGS Website

[ElmoTheElk]

I see some really good ideas here.

1. Multplayer/Single Player
I now agree we make a MP version first. By the time this is finished we should all have fast/reliable/low-cost internet connections or all have a other network-play way to play our game with others. However I'd go for MP and then SP rather than MMP. I don't see anything in a civ-MMP because civ is not a good game herfore I think.
So my opinion: First make a MP version to test our game (balance) and then make an AI after that. The scenarios are a great way to implent good short-MP games.

2. GGS progress
The first think we need now is a decent UI system, abd I think we can have this finished in a month or 2 max. With 3 members workinfg on that (amjayee, crispie and vet) this should be possible. Then we need to make the actual game system. That means an event_manager and a map system.

I hope we can make some progress next months...

[amjayee]

The UI system is doing good. We should have no problems having it ready within a month. Next thing to do would be the multiplay system, and then we would test those two properly so they work. Then, my idea would be to create a skeleton GGS program with what we could start creating the prototypes for the game. Personally, I would start from the map. Then I would do the population, region and building system on top of it. Vet is going to make the government prototype. And so on. We'll see how we start to get on, but everything seems good now!

[VetLegion]

We should put this Design Doc on the web.

[heardie]

Vet - Prehaps on the 'Features' Page, and in the same form as now?

[The Joker]

Yeah, but before we do that we should make sure we agree on everything. Regions and characters we have still not come to any conclusion about. And we should.

I am willing to ditch characters without any complains, if that's what people want. I don't have much of an opinion there.

Regions are more of a trouble. Vet and me still have very different opinions.

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"My whole cheerleading career has been a lie."
- Bring it on

GGS Website

[VetLegion]

I dont know, but Features page sounds ok.

And different opinions dont hurt, Joker

I re-read your doc and I agree with most things. It gives a good overview of what we are striving for.

I disagree with some minor things, and I dont see how to implement some other things -- but I do not expect you (or anyone else) to describe game mechanics completely in a few pages doc! This one is really, really fine, I think I could not have done it better, which is as good compliment as I can give it

As for regions, they need very detailed description, exposing their functionality from all sides. Amjayee is working on it, and I think we can polish it once we take discussion to get more detailed level (0.3).

One of the main region problems, as said, that they split homogenous population. That is why we should perhaps divide pop interaction between region level and empire level (do some of it at both levels).

Regions have all the attention now, so we should agree on solutions soon I think.

[The Joker]

You are right that different opinions don't hurt. They are what makes coorporation so much more benefitial than working alone. But surely you must agree that we should all agree on the design doc, so we can work towards the goals described in it without disagreeing on very basic concepts. Right?

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"My whole cheerleading career has been a lie."
- Bring it on

GGS Website