Elysian Shadows

Hello,

Myself and a friend have decided to team up and create a text based RPG, both for fun and for educational purposes. The game we're making will be based on Mortal Online, a next-gen MMORPG in development, it's a project for us, and the games community. Here's some of the features I'm thinking;

- Combat system, randomly generated numbers depending on current skill levels, ie, if archery is 5, and the rat has 50HP, than a random number of > 10 would do that much damage, if it generated < 10 then the player will miss.

- Skill system, three skills for each build, total of three builds, melee, ranged and magic, 9 skills total.

- In-depth roleplaying style.

- Question based gameplay. For example; "You see a bear in the distance, do you; A) Attack, B) Run away or C) Give the bear a cake?

We are beginner programmers, and I know that this is a giant project, we haven't got a deadline and we don't expect to be finished within a week, we're trying to finish before Mortal Online is released, in Q4.

So my questions are:

1: Is this even possible for someone of our level, we are very determined and have alot of time on our hands, learning is not a problem.
2: Does the 'dice roll' combat system sound possible? Will it work well?
3: Is it possible to set a skill decay system on skills, if I choose build x, I have skills x, y and z. If I use skill z 75% more than y, can I decrease y, or is this too advanced?
4: Is it possible to delay text appearing on the screen, instead of everything coming onto the screen immediately, can I bring one line at a time, or something? If so, how?
5: Is the creation of a menu hard, if I'm out of combat and not doing anything, can I hit a button to bring up a menu with different option, like Go to location, Information, Objectives, Stats, Inventory ect.
6: Would a game like this require AI?

We are using VC++ 2008, in C++. This is a big thing for both of us, and I can't stress enough how much we want to succeed. If something like this is just amazingly complicated, please say so, we have other plans, this was just #1 on the list.

Thankyou in advance!

1. Yes, the main thing to do would be to make sure you're comfortable with the very basics of C++ so that you can concentrate on more important things than "What's a function".

2. It sounds like it will work, but you won't know until you try it.

3. Not sure if I fully understand what you're saying but it sounds like it will work without much advanced.

4. The only way I can think of is waiting for input before outputting the next line.

5. In text based games a menu would be something like this Most text based games use these sorts of menus for nearly all player interaction.

6. Yes. It may not be as complicated an AI as in other games but things like your combat system would have to use AI.

.

Thanks!

1: Is this even possible for someone of our level, we are very determined and have alot of time on our hands, learning is not a problem.
2: Does the 'dice roll' combat system sound possible? Will it work well?
3: Is it possible to set a skill decay system on skills, if I choose build x, I have skills x, y and z. If I use skill z 75% more than y, can I decrease y, or is this too advanced?
4: Is it possible to delay text appearing on the screen, instead of everything coming onto the screen immediately, can I bring one line at a time, or something? If so, how?
5: Is the creation of a menu hard, if I'm out of combat and not doing anything, can I hit a button to bring up a menu with different option, like Go to location, Information, Objectives, Stats, Inventory ect.
6: Would a game like this require AI?

1. if learning is not a problem, then go learn!
I would suggest that you do that first though, you don't want to start making a text RPG, only to find that on day 50 using GOTO: statements wasn't the best idea to setup a menu system!
2. sounds pretty good, no harm in trying it
3. you could keep count of the amount of times you use the item/power in a integer, and decrement your skills if the uses reach a certain level I guess, the question is can YOU implement it with your current knowledge
4. yes, you could, i've made some homemade C++ timers before, they're not perfect, but they do the job, just Google it
5. no buttons, the console is not capable of buttons, you can only use command-line commands , menus can be text-based

6. I don't know, would it? It's your game, I would imagine that some structure and a degree of logic would improve the gameplay, but I guess you could just make it random!


So, if I were you, I would think about this one, I would recommend that you learn the language you're going to use first, and make sure the person on your team isn't going to just sit back and let YOU do the work, if you two are serious about this then you need to both know how to 'program' (I won't give my long-winded definition as per usual), and you need to understand the scale of your project.

If you can say "yes I can program, and I know what is required of the project, i.e. time ,and technical ability required " then you're ready to go!

Good luck with your project, i'm sure any support required can be provided by us here at the forums (or by our good friend Google )

EDIT: how much C++ do you know?

For Ai you wouldn't really need anything major, certain things like randomising certain aspects like damage, missed, dodged, critical hit?? Seeing as it's text based, it isn't going to be any type of free flowing combat most probably it'll be turn-based, & really the basics of a turn based game aren't so hard. It gets harder when you have certain aspects like:

-To use health potion if low on health Or
-For some type of magic spell (if any?)
-magic (if any)

The list goes on. I made a text-based, turn-based fighting script in Lua awhile, i'm stayed it shouldn't be hard to make one in C++ or C.

If you haven't seen this already, you might find it worth your time: Wrath Lands

I have watched some of that "Wrath Lands" and it is helpful. I am also starting
a text-based RPG.