Questions and answers

[The Toecutter]

Here I answer some questions and answers people have asked about this game. They are below. Questions are in italics. My answers are bold.

Here are the questions submitted so far. This list will be edited as time goes on.

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-So, how long, where, and when? (As in, how long will the game be, where does it take place or where will I be able to get it, and when will it be released)

-What did you program it with?

-When this is done, are you going to require people to pay to play it?

-How long will it be before you get the game ready to play?

-How large will your game map be?

-Also, as it goes without saying, AI among civilians, cops, and drivers must be upgraded immensely over GTA's. That's a requirement, regardless of whether or not you ignore everything else I've recommended. Will the AI be such?

-Also, don't forget about the superfluous items and tasks that should be available to the player if they have the time or money. Just because it's not for any practical purpose doesn't mean an item can't be fun. For instance, if they don't use a car much, have something available like a portable radio or walkman they could use on foot, or they could use their hard-earned cash on knick knacks or commemorative antiques, or perhaps on some ultra-rare Atari-quality game systems (as I would assume during this era it is no longer viable to produce them in mass). Will those superfluous things just to have fun be present?

-Will there be regional radio stations specific to a certain location?

-How will your game handle character death of playable characters during gameplay?

-How will your game's branching storys work?

-How are the battles set up?

-So for long chases... gas tanks? One of the things cops have over the chasee is always numbers and fresh cars. Do you intend to make the player keep track of a gas gauge? That would be a new idea.

-What is the length of an average day? GTA's clock always went too fast for my liking. I'm also betting that there will be a calendar, so what type of holidays might appear?

-What kind of injuries, illnesses, etc. will players have to deal with, and what type of items and treatments will be available for recovery? How long do specific recovery processes last?

-Returning to my mention of regional stations... what about a radio dead-zone deep in a certain wasteland or underground?

-Will things like public transport be available? (in which you can instantly jump to a specific location by first paying the price.)

-What level of satire will be present in-game? Or will there be an overall serious tone?

-What besides appearance and (I'm guessing) MP usage would set magic apart from other abilities? Elaborate on how characters use magic and get infused with demons to use it.

-Will players be able to survive multiple gunshot wounds through the sagacious use of armor and special abilities? How well?

-Are all characters essentially just clean slates with different base stats, or do they have unique abilities?

-Describe in brief the level of balance in the game from the start (obtainable items/money, abilities, capability of defending oneself or causing damage.)

-how do you plan to map out keyboard controls for driving?

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

So, how long, where, and when? (As in, how long will the game be, where does it take place or where will I be able to get it, and when will it be released)

The game will have over 200 hours of gameplay, usually 40-50 per playthru, with 5 different endings. Sidequests will add to the amount of time taken to beat the game, and can even triple the play time.

It takes place in a fictional parady of St. Louis thrown in a futuristic setting. If you mean 'where' as in where you can download it, I will certainly have a website up by the game is complete where it could be downloaded from, and if needed for bandwidth reasons, I'm sure I could find some people to host it.

When? Good question. It could be years before it is ready for release. After doing some basic work on it, I'm eventually going to need to get a few teams assembled, a team of voice actors for characters, pedestrians, and radio stations, a team of programmers to help with the AI, and a team of modellers to help me with some of the graphics. I am not kidding when I say there will be over 80 square miles to explore. We're talking a larger area than GTA: San Andreas, with a city larger than all three of SA's cities combined and a huge amount of rural area littered with small towns and abandoned cities, military installations, corporate factories and hydroponics farms, and refinaries. There will be over 200 buildings that can be entered and exited, the vast majority of which have multiple stories, one of them having over 200 stories.

What did you program it with?

I started with C++, then moved to Dark Basic. Dark Basic generally has a few problems with its interface, and I have moved on to Open GL.

When this is done, are you going to require people to pay to play it?

Nope. Free.

How long will it be before you get the game ready to play?

This is going to take plenty of time, so don't fret. I'm not looking to get rich or anything. I just want to make a game of outstanding quality, something that might just make a few professional games out there look like crap.

Before I start asking people, I'm going to get the following done myself and 100% functioing without bugs so I have some sort of format:

1) Get a small area of a few blocks with functioning traffic patterns, a functioning battle system, and half-assed functioning AI of the enemies I put there
2) Two or three practice missions, that aren't necessarily going to be in the game
3) A save point that works
4) A car mod shop, place to mod weapons/armor, ect. that function
5) About 5 or 6 car models that change during collisions
6) Perhaps 10 or 11 character models
7) A functioning set of 3 police vehicles and a helicopter to give a small chase
A place to upgrade character skills and buy equipment
9) A few generically made cutscenes
10) Day/night and weather affects, along with a built-in timing system
11) Some selection of generic radio stations that have a few songs or so

Also, I have most of the script, cars, items, weapons, characters, buildings, ect. written up. Before I start looking for people to help with the project, I'm going to want to have done a full, complete script, full information on every building that can be entered and exited, every district, every car and possible modification, all the physics equations, all the battle equations, ect. So far I have about 700 pages of material. I'm also going to have a full map of all the game's areas.

The first step is getting a 100% working template going, something small that can be worked off of and duplicated, with all the game's info already there so it can be jumped into right away, with code crunched right on out and areas built. I want to have made a set structure/pattern for programming and modelling that will be adhered to as best as possible and easy to understand, so should anyone have to quit working on the game, another could just as easily step in and take their place, at any time. I don't want anyone to feel pressured to stay with the project if they don't want to, as they aren't being paid for it, and I'll be glad to accept as many people as possible. I just ask, when I start the project, that if you work on it and then cannot work on it anymore or for an extended period of time, say so and walk away. I want no one to feel pressured to continue doing this. Most development teams break up and scatter, I expect and know it will happen, so I have to cater to members moving in and out on a whim, and maybe coming back to it later if they feel so inclined. With about 25 people, it would be done very quickly for a game of this type, maybe within a few months.

First thing is first, finishing all the writing and descriptions and maps, then moving onto the functioning template. I think you will see what I'm looking to do, and once I'm ready to start asking people, it's going to come out with a bang. I don't know when everything will be finalized. The limiting factor will be my time, and I don't want this limiting factor to hinder other people. Who knows. It may even wait until I'm out of college.

How large will your game map be?

I can assure you my map will be a lot larger than that of GTA: San Andreas. My main city alone is about as large as San Fierro, Los Santos, and La Venturaa combined, maybe even bigger.

Over 80 square miles, for certain. At least a 50,000 foot by 50,000 foot map is now planned.

Will there be regional radio stations specific to a certain location?

No radio station will be restricted to region. All will be available for listening anywhere on the map. The game's story will not lie about the map size, it will tell you up front that a town is only 10 or 15 miles away. Mobility is extremely restricted due to toxic rains and clouds of toxic dust that restrict gorund travel outside the map perimeter. You can actually travel on a highway outside the map, but as you get deeper out, it will become impossible to travel further. Large monsters for all intents and purposes will be impossible to defeat or outrun with maxed out characters or vehicles. If you do make it, your characters will start getting status ailments and losing health due to radiation and toxic air, and as you get farther, you rapidly lose HP. And if that doesn't get you, most cars will run out of fuel and you'll be 'stranded', and won't be able to walk back as by then the toxic environment would kill you.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

How will your game's branching storys work?

Yes, and yes.

Most of your money will be made illegally, but depending on the paths you take, your main character can take either of the following alignments:

Political alignments: Rebel, Centrist, Lawful
Moral Alignments: Rational, Chaotic

This will depend on the actions you take and affects your endings, characters that can join you, missions, and story branches. Certain alignments will not get certain types of missions.

If you decide to support the corporations or police, you may be taking the lawful political path. In this case, certain characters may defect and become enemies. If you are sadistic and like killing innocent people, you will have the chaotic moral alignment, which will change the types of missions you do. All of this will affect how you can play the game, sort of like Tactics Ogre. If you want the rational moral alignment, you will have to do your best to avoid killing innocent people, although the game will give certain situations where this will not hurt you such as a high speed chase, car crash, person being caught in a gun fight where you were deliberately not targeting them. Your party members will follow your alignment characteristics in battle. If you want to play the game like a GTA game and kill/destroy everything, you will certainly be the Chaotic alignment, while if you want to play with the story you are set with and be the 'good' character, even if you might slip up at times, you will have the Rational alignment. From there, you can side with various rebel factions and seek to bring down the system, or do your own thing and just try to figure out who captured your main character and why and mayber even seek simple revenge for a ruined life, or work for law enforcement/government/corporations. Choosing the Law path generally means you have a Chaotic moral alignment by default, however, as their missions revolve oft times around killing innocent people or rebels with good intentions because they threaten to bring the system down. Or you could align yourself with certain(not all) gangs or demons, which could be centrist or rebel with chaotic alignments. Killing anything attacking you, gang members, cops, people trying to steal your stuff, or killing anyone that you didn't target(jumped in the way), will not affect your alignment.

Your political and moral alignments will determine your main endings, and there will be sub branches and variences and certain scenes depending on the characters that have joined you and the faction(s) you support and perhaps the sidequests you have done. It will all be modular, though, and the same sequences and dialogue will be repeated for certain paths, even if they all have their variences. Again, like Tactics Ogre.

How are the battles set up?

I'll elaborate on the battle system then. If you have played FFXI, it is a lot like that when you use melee combat. but everything is in real time. Unlike FFXI, it is a lot faster paced, about as fast paced as Secret of Mana or GTA or some such. You can shoot from afar or use a fused demon for spells from afar in real time, but attacking up close is real time but still turn based. You can only control ONE character at a time, and switch between them, thus you could have one casting spells, one shooting, and one using melee combat. The turn-based system occurs so fast you have no commands that automatically pop up. If you want a character to use an item or a spell, you have to bring up a menu, which temporarily pauses the game until you select what you want to do, and select your item, spell, ability, ect. which will be executed next turn if the character has not already begun executing their attack. If they have, it takes the turn after, which is < 1 or 2 seconds. You can set character 'posture', like Secret of Mana and have three seperate grids determining character behavior, so you can keep certain characters out of the action, and certain characters in it. You can also press a button to activate a command and make all your characters 'escape', immediately ending combat, so you can get back to a car and what not or run like hell. Whichever character you are controlling, your other characters will follow as best they can, but depending on their set posture, if they are attacked, they might again resume fighting and you'll have to hit the command again.

Battle music only ensues in boss battles OR if you have a character initiate melee combat on a regular enemy. Melee combat or use of an item/spell MUST be initiated by the player, otherwise the character will use a gun, and do nothing if they have no bullets in their inventory. A character re-loads automatically, but will not load in rare bullets, you'll have to load special bullets like explosive rounds in yourself, but your character will reload those if you have it set in their inventory, until you take them off their gun or re-load with a different bullet. If they run out of a special bullet, they will automatically re-load a non-special normal bullet. Gun use is default over everything else, and whichever character you are controlling, you can use either 3rd or 1st person views using guns.

Think of it as sort of a thinking man's action game. Everything is in real time and the physics/damage will be realistic, but it still maintains the turn-based RPG element, although most won't notice it and it will be virtually seamless, like a pure action game is.

So for long chases... gas tanks? One of the things cops have over the chasee is always numbers and fresh cars. Do you intend to make the player keep track of a gas gauge? That would be a new idea.

Yup. Since the cars don't use gasoline but use compressed natural gas, they have a 20-30 mile driving range. For a GTA-like video game, this is a realistic limitation. You can run out of fuel and get stranded, and the area is so vast getting to a fuel station might be a 2 hour walk. You'd get killed by nomadic gangs or mutated creatures by then, surely, depending on area.

There will be long chases of up to 15 miles, one of them longer in which you pursue a nomadic gang over a long period, in which they are well ahead of you and you will need to stop for fuel.

The IFPs have hopped-up musclecars that use gasoline, so it is very difficult to outrun them with their unlimited(in comparison to yours) driving range, although a fast enough car could lose them. Cops and FBI also use gas, but they won't chase you outside the city, that is the job of the suicidal IFPs.

What is the length of an average day? GTA's clock always went too fast for my liking. I'm also betting that there will be a calendar, so what type of holidays might appear?

A game day will be 4 real hours. However, when a character 'rests', such as at a save point, 8 game hours will pass. sometimes time will pass during cutscenes, such as when characters stay overnight in an abandoned town.

What kind of injuries, illnesses, etc. will players have to deal with, and what type of items and treatments will be available for recovery? How long do specific recovery processes last?

I'm not listing all of them, but here are a few of the negative ailments, their effects, how long they last, and how to get rid of them.

Poison: HP is gradually reduced as time goes on, the attributes of Strength, Vitality, and Constitution see a temporary reduction by a few points. The more a character moves around, the greater the effect will be amplified. Depending on severity and your character's constitution, it can wear off, however if not treated, it is most often fatal, and if it looks to be fatal, it will keep increasing in severity. To cure it, an antidote must be administered, it can be healed with use of a demon, or it can be healed with a night's rest.

Injury(minor): Decreases movement speed and hinders ability of character to sprint. Certain types of drugs won't cure it, but can temporarily negate its effects. Can be healed with use of a demon, or from rest. Hospitals can treat these cases as well.

Injury(critical): Character is near death. Can't be in combat, can't drive, and generally either unconscious or too injured to do anything. Character must be carried by another to safety. Can be cured with use of demon or with a night's rest. Hospitals can treat these cases as well. If all characters rech this condition, game over. A character in this condition can be easily killed, but often won't be targeted by a human or humanoid enemy. A hungry creature from the wastelands, however...

Blindness: Decreases a charcater's accuracy using weapons, in both gun or melee combat. If you are controlling the character, the screen will be blurry. It makes driving a lot more difficult. Can be cured with certain types of drugs or use of a demon. Will go away om its own after a certain time period or from a nights rest as well.

Stun: Character is temporarily disabled. Automatically goes away anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Can be cured with certain types of drugs or use of a demon.

Death: A single character in this state will cause a game over if not treated in a few minutes. Can be revived with use of a demon with high levels of development, but if character is blown to pieces by an explosive, eaten by a monster, or too mangled up, they cannot be revived and it is instant game over if one character cannot be revived. A character in this state isn't necessarily dead, either. They can reach this state if shot in trhe spine by a gun and paralyzed, or if shot in the head. Only metaphysical abilities have a hope of taking a character out of this state.

There are status ailments some enemies won't induce, either. You can get your characters high and drunk off of certain drugs, and see temporary alterations of stats and abilities.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

Also, don't forget about the superfluous items and tasks that should be available to the player if they have the time or money. Just because it's not for any practical purpose doesn't mean an item can't be fun. For instance, if they don't use a car much, have something available like a portable radio or walkman they could use on foot, or they could use their hard-earned cash on knick knacks or commemorative antiques, or perhaps on some ultra-rare Atari-quality game systems (as I would assume during this era it is no longer viable to produce them in mass). Will those superfluous things just to have fun be present?

Lots.

There's drag racing, track racing, amusement parks, television, radio, shooting ranges, binge drinking, arcades, ect. They aren't all necessarily meaningless, some of these things are sidequest oriented.

Like if you get good at racing and beat certain characters, you might gain access to special items, car upgrades, ect. Or if you hack into a company database, you might be able to find a few nonconsequential but story-based dossiers made on some of the game's characters, just for the hell of it, or find out about certain equipment, car upgrades, cars, guns, or even 'employment'.

Some of the car dealerships have some hot European exotics on display, so rare where that might be the only said car in the game, sort of a sidequest to get at it, and you'll never see it driving on the streets. But you'll have to get around robotic gatling guns mounted into the ceiling that pop out, among other security features that will kill you on the spot if tampered with, if you try to rip the car off. Multiple ways to get to it(computer, tampering with building's security system, ect.), but will all require a character having maxed out skills in certain areas depending on how you wish to get at it. Total it and it isn't registered under your character, and that's it(You wouldn't be able to get it repaired). You'll never see another one in the game, and they won't replenish at the dealership. It will also be worth a sizable amount of cash. Stolen cars *can* be registered after you go through a few processes, but it will take a lot of time. It's easier just to buy one and use it, but ripping them off and getting them to chop shops or going through the registering hassels can pay off or eventually net you the car.

In this game's setting, Atari is hugely popular. The player can choose not to use a car(and even have a portable radio), but a car will be needed for the vast majority of the game. you are going to get pursued by the police, FBI, IFPs, and sometimes military quite often, not to mention the conflicts with gangs, both stationary in the cities or nomadic in the badlands. There will also be music disks you can pop in that have various songs featured in the game, if you don't want to listen to the radio in the car or on a portable radio.

Returning to my mention of regional stations... what about a radio dead-zone deep in a certain wasteland or underground?

I could have mentioned it, but yes that will occur. ambience makes a heavy appearance in this game.


Will things like public transport be available? (in which you can instantly jump to a specific location by first paying the price.)

Public transit will be available, but it won't be anywhere near as useful as a car, and it is only available in the main city. There are subways and buses, and they won't instantaneously take you anywhere. If you have money, you can eventually hire choppers and planes to take you places, but you can never fly yourself in this game. Air travel is the fastest travel in the game. It can get you from one end of the map to the other in under 3 minutes.

What level of satire will be present in-game? Or will there be an overall serious tone?

There will be lots of both. Satire will be on a much more GTA-like level as far as quantity, the satire itself will be much more subtle and usually require thinking to notice it, the story of the game's characters will be a lot more serious and less satirical. Think of it as a bastardchild of Robocop, Mad Max, and Blade Runner, only one of those films of which had a significant amount of satire, satire of which this game will have an entirely different and more subtle kind.

What besides appearance and (I'm guessing) MP usage would set magic apart from other abilities? Elaborate on how characters use magic and get infused with demons to use it.

There are 9 planned demons that you can make use of in the game, some you may not encounter depending on the paths you take. They are essentially seeking to accomplish their own goals, and will use your characters as a medium to excersise their desires, but only if the characters(up to the player) lets them. Demons have their own unique abilities and varying compatability with each character. On some characters, demons will grant abilities that only that character may be able to use with that demon. Not only that, but the more a character uses a demon, the greater the bond they develop with the demon, and new abilities can be learned and the demon may even alter the character's attributes for when it is fused, raising some and lowering others. Some characters will not be able to use some demons due to differences in alignment.

Will players be able to survive multiple gunshot wounds through the sagacious use of armor and special abilities? How well?

Depends on the gun, the armor the character has, and the character stats. Generally, a character will be able to survive 3-4 gunshot wounds without bulletproof armor, although one shot to the head will usually be fatal or result in severe injury. An equipped demon could make head shots mostly survivable to an extent. More often than not, without a bulletproof piece of gear protecting certain areas, minor injury will result from gunshot wounds.

A maxed out character will not be over-powered, and may take 10-15 shots to kill. The higher your stats, the less effective boosts in defense will become, although in boss fights these stats will become critical.

Are all characters essentially just clean slates with different base stats, or do they have unique abilities?

They are clean slates with their own unique attributes that do not permantently change. Their abilities the player can develop how they want, although given unchanging attributes, it would be better to develop some areas on certain characters than others given the capactity to be good at certain things for certain characters. Some demons, however, will have unique abilities for different characters, and even temporarily alter attributes.

Describe in brief the level of balance in the game from the start (obtainable items/money, abilities, capability of defending oneself or causing damage.)

At the start, with about 1.5 hours play, you might be able to afford to buy a used car(and repair it if it gets wrecked, although it won't be very fast and won't have a chance of outrunning police. Most story-based missions early on will provide a car that isn't yours that could be sufficiently fast, and usually must survive the mission), some low power guns, maybe capable of taking on one or two cops with a full party(3 characters at a time), and capable of defending self against one or two thugs. Stay away from nomads in the wastelands and gangs in the cities, and don't get the cops too upset in the cities. At the game's start, you'll want to stay out of large corporate offices, although there will be missions early on where you conduct raids and get some very powerful backup. Some areas in the wasteland have enemies you won't have a chance at unless you max out firearms or metaphysical on some characters, which is late in the game.

As for computer hacking, at the start with about an hour of moneymaking, you might be able to afford a cheap computer and conduct data heists on small businesses and make some small amounts of money.

Overall, expect to be able to play the game like a GTA game, progressing missions without much levelling. Stats will develop as you go on, and are more or less meant to restrict the areas you can go to due to diffficulty of enemies.

However, with about 15 hours of constant levelling, you could max a few stats on a character out, although stats are intended to go up as you play without having to resort to a level grind.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

how do you plan to map out keyboard controls for driving?

Arrows = Steer

A = accelerate

S = brake

D = handbrake

F = nitro(If present. If car is electric, nitros are replaced by either ultracapacitors or a motor controller-run controller bypass that doesn't get consumed, while nitros do. disadvantage is you could drain up to half your range on an electric car with one use. Rumors of cars with advanced batteries do turn out to be true in the game, so keep that in mind.)

W = shift up(If manual transmission), put transmission in drive(if automatic)

Q = shift down(If manual transmission), put transmission in reverse(if automatic)

Mouse = select target for characters in car to fire at and they will keep this target. You just need to drive by it. If another npc attacks your car, some might automatically change targets, but still keep the mouse-selected target as the primary one, depending on what their posture is set at

Z = initiate attack from inside car. If you have no target selected, your characters will do nothing inside the car, unless someone attacks. Their actions vary with what their posture is set at. When this is pressed, the windows in the car will be opened so actions can be performed. If it is pressed again without having a target selected, the attack is ended. If original target is destroyed, target may be switched automatically to another threat. This can be used for a variety of functions, from shooting out the tires of police cars to performing drive-by shootings.

Number keys = switch weapons among characters

V = get in/out of a car(Characters inside car will follow)

B = bail out of car while it's moving(Characters inside car will follow)

Enter = status screen(game is paused, equip can be changed, ect)

The player will be able to change the control scheme to suit them, however, and it will support an analog gamepad.

In a pinch, you'll be able to toggle through potential targets using Ctrl, so you won't need to access them with the mouse. The game will have a threat level system so it switches to the target that poses the most threat first.

How will your game handle character death of playable characters during gameplay?

If one main playable character dies and stays dead for more than about 3 minutes during normal gameplay(and not cutscenes, ect. this length of time varies by character stats, or if a character is blown to pieces in an explosion, it's instant), you cannot revive them and it is an automatic game over where you reload from where you last saved. Keep that in mind.

[osiris]

Re: Questions and answers

I actually read all of that...
If you can pull it off Terr/Toecutter that would be amazing

[Funk]

Re: Questions and answers

I'm still calling you Terr.

BTW, I didn't read a bit of that, but I'll read one post per day about Police State to make up for it.

[Redneck 2000]

Re: Questions and answers

I read all of it, and I am looking forward to this like a MOFO.

Remember I'm always here with my microphone in hand ready to record some crazy **** for this game.

[DK]

Re: Questions and answers

Did you get any books on OpenGL to start off? Which ones?

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

No books on Open GL. It's basically C#, and I know a bit of that.

[TheBranMuffin]

Re: Questions and answers

This game. Is going to be awesome. It's so complicated! And it's like GTA!

Oh oh, make sure you can play a mission over again once you've beaten the game. I also wanted to do that.

I'll help in whatever way is moderately convenient for me. :P

[Czechs Mex]

Re: Questions and answers

political and moral alignments? sweeeet.
terr, have you made non-RPGM games before, or will this be the first? this is a freaking ambitious project.
but hey, if anyone can pull it off it's you.

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

Not full-games per say, but elements of games, yes. I've made various programs that use one or two elements of programming each, but they couldn't exactly be called complete games.


There will be two types of missions. Storyline missions, and non-storyline missions. Non-storyline missions are run from a huge script and random, which you would be able to play as many as you want. You cannot play storyline missions over again. Also, there will be a "New Game +" of sorts. Unlike GTA, when you kill the final boss or whatever the qualification to get the ending has to be, the game is over. You can start a new game and after a few hours playing the new game, you'll eventually find a garage of the vehicles, weapons, armor, ect. you had on the previous game, with exceptions to a few special case vehicles(Like the main character's electric car. He always has it at the beginning of the game and the player gets to see him toy with it in an intro chase scene, parks it at home, then the intro scene shown in the other topic ensues, and the player never sees the car again until the middle of the game.).

[Syvarius]

Re: Questions and answers

Curious here: How often do you work on this? Is it just kind of a project on hold until you can find more time/inpiration, or a continual process with progress being made?

[The Toecutter]

Re: Questions and answers

It's been pretty much on hold for a long time, due to time constraints. I work on it a little every few months though. I want to get my car finished, first and foremost.