Friday, February 10, 2012

Wilderness encounters on the horizon

Just t let you know: I spent the last two evenings implementing wilderness encounters in ADOM II. I now have a nice and stable implementation that is much more flexible than anything in ADOM.

The new engine will show its full power over the next couple of versions but it already now includes the following features:

  • Encounters can be made up from completely arbitrary beings (ADOM allowed but four monsters types maximum).
  • Encounters can be dynamically modified during runtime (ADOM never could do that; so in ADOM II e.g. monsters that follow you into wilderness become encounters).
  • Encounters can be very flexibly tuned to be available or not (e.g. an encounter that works on several wilderness tiles, not just one as in ADOM or under certain conditions or...).
  • There can be non-hostile encounters.
  • Encounters can come with highly individualized maps.
  • Encounters can be one-time or repetitive.
  • Encounters can be dynamically extended (important for ADOM II Deluxe ;-) ).
For the next release I intend to add a number of standard encounters known from ADOM to have some more color while traveling in the wilderness. Much more will be added later on as I'm trying to not again get sidetracked too much ;-)

Oh, and encounters with hostile armies still need to be added - but the infrastructure now is there and this should be pretty simple ;-)

Read ya!

12 comments:

  1. I like the idea of non-hostile encounters. EG:

    - You meet a wandering wizard; he teaches you the spell fire bolt

    - You meet a fellow adventure; he warns you of the orc cave ahead

    - You stumble across a travelling circus. Would you like to visit? (Y/N)

    Etc.

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  2. Lots of potential here, and I'm especially interested in recurring encounters and non-hostile encounters.

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  3. Some very nice gains there from the looks of it---everything continues to shape up nicely even if in an order you'd perhaps not have envisioned beforehand.

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  4. can we have someone run into us while resting in the wilderness? bizarre

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  5. Can there be things like dragon's lair with a probability of encountering the dragon in wilderness dependent on the distance to the lair? :)

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    1. I really like the idea that wilderness encounters could be aware of the surrounding environment. The dragon encounter near its lair is one idea, but you could also have things like:

      * a black knight's keep that introduces random patrols of evil mercenaries into the surrounding areas
      * a wandering sage who can provide information on nearby locations
      * a mystic portal that increases random encounter frequency in nearby areas
      * a bailey that reduces hostile encounter chances and increases non-combat encounter chances in the area
      * a spider cave that increases spider encounters nearby

      Random terrain features could be designed in such a way that they also include surrounding environment effects, so that, for example, placing a haunted graveyard in one area will change nearby terrain to haunted lands, increase hostile encounter percentages, and also have a few unique random encounters tied to the that location.

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  6. @Marek: Technically that would be possible - I had not yet thought of it. Noted down, thanks for the cool idea!

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  7. "Encounters can be dynamically extended"
    Does this mean that encounters can call in re-enforcements during a wilderness encounter, or does it mean that the area in which the wilderness encounter takes place can be extended in space to allow for more room to retreat/be pursued in?
    I like the idea of both to be honest, I'm just unsure what that bullet point means.

    If you have possible wilderness encounters which are the result of something *following* you then being snagged by a different ambush could become quite entertaining as it shows up half way through a different encounter!

    Equally, requiring a specific distance between you and hostiles when fleeing them can allow for more interesting encounters (distance required being proportional to aggressiveness and speed of attackers to reflect their desire and ability to run you down).
    It allows you to keep retreating and pick off foes at range rather than being mobbed on the edge of the map just because you wanted to fight.
    Or in the case of really big armies it allows you to plough on in to the centre of the army (extending the map and generating more foes) whilst only allowing one "exit" direction.

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    1. Or alternatively, permit you to hunt down foes who escape off the edge of the local map because you were killing other minions?
      There isn't any kind of ranger/tracker skill at the moment is there? Could be an extension of Survival I guess, if it were implemented.

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  8. @PseudoFenton: Oh, actually it means something totally different but your interpretations are very interesting as suggestions :-)

    What I wanted to express is that others will be able to add new wilderness encounter setups by programming them themselves (in the Deluxe version). Thus you will be able to customize and extend the game and even distribute those extensions for the enjoyment of others.

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  9. Thanks for the update! Looking forward to it.

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  10. About wilderness, it may be nice, if player with high Charisma stat will have ability to control more units per turn (something like squad system) and have more units in his companions, because in ADOM amount of units in your "army" was limited by 7, unfortunately. It good, to be one-person-army, but possibility to roleplay general of army would be nice.

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