What if you were playing an RPG where the towns and cities you visited changed. Maybe some of them grew, maybe some of them fell into disrepair. As you played over time, you might find new towns, or find towns you''ve been to before razed. I''m thinking about this mostly for a science fiction RPG, but it would apply to even a middle ages one as well. The idea is that there are empires that are fighting with each other, with the possibility of the player being in the middle of the action. To get what I''m talking about, imagine a game of Civilization (or Warlords III, or Master of Orion). Empires are growing and changing, and sometimes duking it out. In this case, you''d be a single unit (or ship or whatever), with your own free will, while the computer fought against itself. You would start in one of the empires, but be allowed to swear allegiance to another one if you wanted to. The more the empire liked you, the more it would give you juicy missions and rewards. A couple of questions: In an RPG, would you rather have an environment like this or one that stays the same? If you prefered the dynamic cosmos, how would you feel if the environment changed to be against you? Say, if you worked for the Republic but the Empire came in and wiped them out? What about if you bought fixed assets (like a home or a space station)in the Republic but lost them when the Empire took over? This bothers me a bit, because it''s not your fault that you lost them and there wouldn''t be much you could do... What do you think? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Definitely think that adding a "BUILD" and "DEMOLISH" ability to a town would be nice. At least then (for say, my RPG) my character could either attempt to build his own place (to feel more involved with the world) or pay for someone else to do it.

It would still work with my current randomisation of the world (which is going to be the hard task ), but because the towns are based around a focal point, they will still be locatable. Seeing as I have added a "BUILD" and "DESTROY" for the majority, it should be EASILY possible to allow razings or raisings of towns .

I would like to see what others have to say about Wavinators idea (I think it rocks!)

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

In Exile III, if waited long enough, towns fell into disrepair, people died, etc.

- DarkMage139
++++++++++++++++
I can do things, things you never knew,
I can change your world if you only knew.

I can do miracles if you want me to.
Anything is possible, I'll prove it to you.

Sounds really cool... I was thinking about this idea for a long time, but I knew that it would never be me who achieved it . Too far in the future, and requires a lot more manpower than I have . Anyway... hmmm... I have to think about how I put this in the doc.

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
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made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)

Your description sound very similar to the setup I was planning for a project that I am on! (although it may not be the end result, due to other members of the team''s differing ideas and abilities). The idea we''re working with is one of 3 or 4 different "factions" struggling for power, forming alliances, and controlling different areas of the world (specifically a large city). The PC starts as a member of a specific faction, and can work his way up in the ranks, and affect which of the other factions his allies with, and therefore what resources they have control over, or the character can always change alliances.

The individual factions would fight against eachother, but most of the interactions the character would be part of (probably 1 in 3, since at any given time, more than one action is going on).
Deciding which action to participate in and what comes of the other actions determines what factions are in power and are allied with whom when a given amount of time elapses. In theory, the character could just blow off his employer for the time being, take a alliance/reputation hit, and hang out in town while the factions duke it out with eachother.

In case anyone cares, the game I''m working on we''re doing with CDX, which has got to be the best DX wrapper I''ve found yet. Version 3.0 has just been released (although the website hasn''t been updated yet, you can get it through SourceForge), check it out!

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Sorry but there are a few things I forgot to say in my above post.
In my idea NPCs could die by starving to death. An NPC controled town could decline if all the NPCs starved and the town would dissapear. Or NPCs could migrate out of their town if their food supply vanished or monsters attacked, and they could form new towns.
I do relize this would be extreamly complicated, maybe immpossible.

Nah, not impossible. It''s done in empire games all the time, at a abstract level. The trick is to connect the abstract with NPC scripts and such...

Uhhh... at least I hope that''s the trick

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Either way, it would be cool to do... But you are going to need to really be able to make a fully variable NPC which will choose a new location and call that "home"... definitely like to see this. I might bring it up over at NPCAI for a later version

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
http://www.egroups.com/group/NPCAI/
made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)