This is where we are now:
1. Character progression will not be tracked per level. Instead you will be noticed when you learn new things and abilities. Skill levels will not be visible, instead you should get the feeling or know it intuitively that you have become better at your skills
2. Skills will be enhanced numerically (ie +1, +2 and +3) three times per skill. This will happen at the three different stages of a skill, ie the Intuitive, Intelligent and Instinctive stages.
3. Skills range numerically from -10 to 10. New abilities for each particular skill will be learnt at level 1, 3, 6 and 10. This will be tracked under the hood, as it were, and not be visible to the player.
4. Skill progression is planned to be tracked via a neural network. The actions of the character will be assosiated with what is going on inside the character, such as emotional states, and what is going on outside the character, such as smells and sights.
5. The speed at which a skill is learnt is determined by the three different mental faculties: Instinct, Intuition and Intelligence in association with the different stages the skills are in. So, if the sword fighting skill is a level 4, the intelligent stage, the speed is determined by the character’s Intelligence faculty.
6. Further to the learning rate, a characters motivation for performing an act, such as sword fighting, will also be dependant on the character’s motivation. Exactly how a character’s motivation will be determined I do not yet know. One way of doing it is to decide upon a moral alignment, a world view or ideals at the character creation stage or along the way during the game. Another idea is to use Soul Ages that I will have to go into detail on in a separate post.
7. Combat will be turn based but movement will not be grid-based, as is traditional, but instead a movement area will be displayed and the character can move anywhere within this area freely.
8. Damage will be tracked as a per damage basis. Ie, a broken arm is a broken arm and needs to be taken care of properly. Healing potions or a healing mechanic in general has not been decided.
9. Magic is so far two fold. Magic was initially approached in a scienticfic, or pseudo-scientific manner where you learn and use magic on a logical level. Now, we have found a peotic way of approaching magic which has almost the opposite direction of the logical method of learning magic.
10. Graphically the game is now in an isometric perspective and all graphics and animations are place-holder stuff.
11. Story and ideas behind the game will not be made public and the reason for this will neither be public.
12. We have planned to not have any dialogue trees and as little conversations with NPCs as possible. Instead we want to implement text as a game mechanic or environmentally. Think text as sound effects.
That is it for now.
Creation of the game ? 