A Valley Without Wind: Economies And Crafting Q&A

[c4sc4]

Hardcore mode was actually in Fallout: New Vegas, not in Fallout 3.

[x4000]

Ah, that would explain how I missed it; I never played that expansion.

[Flatfingers]

Absolutely right -- thanks for the correction, and apologies for the confusion.

[x4000]

No big thing!

[tootboot]

There's actually no armor in the game at all; instead we have a system of "augment gems."  You can wear these magic gems on various parts of your body, and you get various benefits from them.  Protection from kinds of melee, or from kinds of spells, or else buffs to various stats (stronger attack, etc) are all possible.  It serves basically the same function as armor.

Is that something that could change before release?  I think being able to change the visual appearance of your character over time helps provide a sense of ownership and accomplishment.

I certainly felt more powerful in World of Warcraft when I started getting armor that looked cool, and a common complaint I hear about WoW is that characters look very similar to each other if they're the same level and class.

[x4000]

There's actually no armor in the game at all; instead we have a system of "augment gems."  You can wear these magic gems on various parts of your body, and you get various benefits from them.  Protection from kinds of melee, or from kinds of spells, or else buffs to various stats (stronger attack, etc) are all possible.  It serves basically the same function as armor.

Is that something that could change before release?  I think being able to change the visual appearance of your character over time helps provide a sense of ownership and accomplishment.

I certainly felt more powerful in World of Warcraft when I started getting armor that looked cool, and a common complaint I hear about WoW is that characters look very similar to each other if they're the same level and class.

That's specifically why there's no armor, is because then people would expect the appearance to change.  There's no chance of that changing before release, and I'd be really surprised if it changes ever.  The reason is how the characters are constructed -- as sprites, there's no way to add on armor or whatever.  So yes, you'll have something like 60 different character sprites, and they never change for anything, not even shirt color changes or whatever, because that sort of thing just can't be done in any sort of technically feasible way that I can think of in 2D.  If I think of something later, that could change, but I've put a lot of thought into it so far and have not come up with anything that would be feasible.  Color masks, palette swaps, etc, are all bad ideas for various reasons, and they don't even begin to address armor, which is in a whole other class of not feasible.  Sorry!

[iamlenb]

Going back to a previous point you made about a parameterless initial game lobby, how about using some in-world toggle to set up options?  I had an idea that would be applicable to any parameters that can be toggled in game.

Example: various usable items placed throughout the world trigger hunger.  Pick fruit from a tree, accept a meal from a settler, or steal a pie and you have a usable item that toggles eating mode.  Should generate the off switch item in inventory, like a "Little Pill of Cure World Hunger".  Maybe the "hardcore" options automatically toggle off if you die.  Especially if you starve to death.

I'm not sure how to set it up intuitively without a manual or in game text explanation, but mouse over popup could suffice.  "If you eat this fruit, you will start getting hungrier."  Maybe set up a limited reward for managing the hunger level - if you just ate a horse, you shoot bigger fireballs or something.

Len

[x4000]

Yep, stuff like that could definitely work and is exactly what I mean by in-game gameplay options instead of menus.  The idea that if you eat a certain fruit or whatever it's like Pandora's box and makes you hungry ever-after is pretty cool.  Not sure if we'll use that, or hunger at all, but the idea is really neat.

[Echo35]

Yep, stuff like that could definitely work and is exactly what I mean by in-game gameplay options instead of menus.  The idea that if you eat a certain fruit or whatever it's like Pandora's box and makes you hungry ever-after is pretty cool.  Not sure if we'll use that, or hunger at all, but the idea is really neat.

You could have no hunger but instead, eating certain food gives you temporary or permanent stat bonuses. I'm not a fan of hunger systems in games. Can't begin to tell you how many of my Nethack characters have starved to death.

[Teal_Blue]

   Huge Thanks to Chris, for his patient and very nice explanations for all my silly questions. I sometimes (maybe all the time?) talk too much, so your indulgence was heroic!    Thanks, I promise to try and keep the wall of text down. 

And as to Flatfingers-
                                   "I was hoping my questions and the responses might inspire Teal_Blue to comment -- we seem to have a lot of similar interests in these game things."



          Haha, you know me too well sir, 

But thank you gentlemen for your kind words and explanations, it was very helpful and interesting to know how it is all coming together.

Oh, one last thing,

Sorry about the 'food' thing. 

I thought for a bit there i had caused a problem.

But whatever you and the players think after 1.0 sounds good to me. 

Thanks again for the wonderful response back,
Take care,

-Teal

[x4000]

No worries, and thanks as always for your enthusiasm!