![[ie]](/mwf/flags/ie.png "Ireland")
What European developers need to know about American online gamersIn short what we need to do is:
- Less text everywhere, more showing things.
- More rewards, especially in the tutorials.
- More customization (note the 'z' to appeal American players!); I'm thinking of getting your own face on your clonks.
- Never think about a history related scenario; general war themes are okay though.
In unrelated news: Might be interesting for anyone who's interesting in the gaming industry. ;)
![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
>Never think about a history related scenario
What? No russians-, chinese- and terrorist-countries-szens? :|
Well, I guess Russians and Terrorists are well known to American players. But let them stay the 'bad guys' of course!
Anything to gain in attracting american players? More lag-situations in online games (if that is possible).
![[gb]](/mwf/flags/gb.png "United Kingdom")
> - More rewards, especially in the tutorials.
Achievements!
* No couch potato: Managed to move the Clonk in tutorial 1
* Dark corners: Managed to reach the cave in tutorial 1
* Ground contact is overrated: Managed to jump in tutorial 1
* Up and over: Scaled upwards in tutorial 1
* Subversive traveler: Flew the airplane in tutorial 1
... seriously though, I think we're niche enough that we can we can afford to be a bit proud of being "hardcore" :)
And depending on wether you are male or female in the tutorial there should be a sister/brother leading the way and you have to imitate the things they show you. They should make fun of you and say things like 'Catch me!' and when you reach the end of the tutorial you are rewarded by seeing them being beaten to death by your clonk!
![[ca]](/mwf/flags/ca.png "Canada")
I actually like the idea of having another clonk who you imitate to learn the basics. However, this won't really work well, because when you dig, loam, and blast, you're changing the landscape. Unless the 'teacher-clonk' is on another course, this is going to present the obvious problem of necessarily changing it back so you can repeat the action.All in all it's a lot more complex and would take a lot of work-arounds which probably isn't worth it. :/
I'd like to see a similar article with the headline "What European developers need to know about American open source game developers"..oO(
Achievements!
* checked out the repository
* built openclonk
...)
;-)
Why not? Perhaps also some like:- Gain 1000 gold nuggets
- Chop 500 trees
- build 50 flags (base flag)
- Kill 100 / 500 / 1000 clonks via network
And with a special key / key combination all archivements are displayed on screen and which are left.
> In unrelated news: Might be interesting for anyone who's interesting in the gaming industry. ;)
Forwarded to my game designer and pm ;-)
While we are in off topic, when are you coming back to Germany?
![[at]](/mwf/flags/at.png "Austria")
>- More customization (note the 'z' to appeal American players!); I'm thinking of getting your own face on your clonks.
Hats.
>I'm thinking of getting your own face on your clonks.
If you think of making a photo of yourself and bringing it in a special shape to make it fit, keep in mind this system often gets abused. In Multiplayer people can walk around with, proverbial, shit in their face or flags and symbols that shouldn't appear in the game.
> More customization
On the other side I'm for more customization as well. I saw there are different Clonk models in the game. I don't know if they are "classes" or just ... well, different models.
I once helped Randrian with a project which is frozen, so I guess I can post this screenshot:
There was a system that let you equip a lot of different clothes and items. That should be much easier with OC, the Clonks are 3D models and no 2D graphics were you need to use overlay graphics for everything. OC seems to have a heavier focus on one single Clonk and since we all love to level our Clonk, watch him grow and give him weird names, why not adding things like:
- changing the gender for a Clonk
- different face textures
- different kind of hairs + color
and then either:
- different clothing styles (like I saw is already possible for the player profile)
or
- different slots like feet/legs, chest, arms/hands, head (hats like boni said)
Once a system like this is existent it's easy to add new things over time with new updates. The clonks could be created randomly and be editable in the crew part of the player selection screen.
Thinking a little bit further there could be clothing and armor (knights) that give you some kind of armor value. Equipping it changes the Clonks appearance, discarding gives the old clothes back.
A clothing system might at some point be a good idea. But until then please note this topic is in OffTopic, for a reason ;)
It's more like 'look a funny article' but the recommended changes are not to be taken serious. I know it would be horrible to give everyone the possibility to have anything on the clonk's face ;)
>I don't know if they are "classes" or just ... well, different models.
They are simply different models.
>That should be much easier with OC, the Clonks are 3D models and no 2D graphics were you need to use overlay graphics for everything.
Unfortunately the engine does not currently support what is needed here. While there is a bugtracker entry for it (I believe), you cannot attach a rigged mesh which will deform with it's parent unless that attached mesh has the same set of animations exported into its .skeleton file (of course, this is totally impractical).
While it would be incredibly cool to have a system such as what Morrowind/Skyrim uses for building the character model, it's not really possible at the moment. And if we did have such a system, much work would need to be done reworking the character models to work in such a system.
Another related missing feature is the ability to load multiple .mesh files in the same .ocd, so even something like a rigid suit of armour that attaches a separate mesh to each limb (therefore bypassing the need for inherited deformation) would require another object for each piece.
Pretty much the easiest and most rewarding thing is hats. It's ludicrously easy to make since they require nothing but a non-deforming mesh attached to the clonk's head. However, I remain unconvinced on the whole issue. I have been planning for a while now to add things like suits of armour and deep diver gear (currently only practical by changing the whole player skin :( ), and would be wary of a system involving gear from two sources (player customization and actual game-world items). I assume the point of clothes being a pre-defined character customization option, because I cannot really see players caring much about spending resources dressing up their clonks. I could be wrong, but it seems unlikely to me.
I guess my main gripe is that hats change the actual shape of the player character's head, and that needs to be noticed when you are designing other equipment and animations (especially in the caricartured proportions of a clonk).
>Unfortunately the engine does not currently support what is needed here.
>much work would need to be done reworking the character models to work in such a system.
>Another related missing feature is the ability to load multiple .mesh files in the same .ocd
>I have been planning for a while now to add things like suits of armour and deep diver gear
So it's not really important to do more player models/textures right now. Imo a pre-defined character customization option is not satisfying. It feels like this MMOs where you have 3 heros and can change their hair colors, but in the end all look the same. The difference for other skins/clonks in CR and predecessors was that all the clonks were different. The different look was 'just' to see that their different. Since the current Clonk is much more versatile only because of the different system there is no need for special clonks. Except for the possibility that there would be a change, but I'm pretty sure you aimed for a more versatile from the very start. I suggest pushing the games features and possibilities and decide this later on.
But when it's possible:
>I assume the point of clothes being a pre-defined character customization option, because I cannot really see players caring much about spending resources dressing up their clonks. I could be wrong, but it seems unlikely to me.
In general I would love it. And I think a lot of players feel the same, making their Clonk unique. Though I see what you mean with "ressources". That's something I hadn't in mind when I posted this: The possibilty that it's not worth it.
There are two things I could think of. The first one would really be a global system like I had it in mind earlier. Your clonk looks like you dressed him - in every game. You change it in the game main menu, not in the "matches" itself. Different systems could provide things to change appearance:
1. Everything to customize your clonk is accessable from the very start
2. You need to build something in the game to unlock it
3. You get it as reward for doing achievements
The second system would be that it is more RPG-like and different clothes give you bonuses for the different tools or the clonk himself. That would change the gameplay, but since the Clonk is more versatile now I think that is manageable.
But like I said earlier this is something you can think of later on, when it's in general possible and when there's the time for something like this. The core game needs to be pushed more. And I know that there are different opinions, but when I see the game it needs better graphics and effects. I already saw the shadows thread and the possible glowing effects (lava). I think the game material needs to look a little bit different as well and I think it looks a little bit awkward to have the 2D materials and the 3D objects. "Right now" the 3D objects don't feel like an improvement contrary to the 2D objects (beside of the fact that you can zoom in without getting pixel all over the place. But I heard that will be very probably hardly restricted). I know that making the landscape kinda 3D wouldn't be really possible, cause of the voxels. But I think that look needs to be different. Regarding the possible clothes for Clonks I would surely do a lot of assets. I started the thread about the imo better fitting cartoon look and I'm right now learning and trying to give the game (buildings for now I should say) this look. A bit off topic, but well.
> While there is a bugtracker entry for it (I believe)
Hm, can you point me to it? I don't remember anything here... what exactly would be needed? When you attach a mesh to a Clonk's bone and that bone changes orientation in an animation then the attached mesh will be rotated accordingly.
Well, my search in the bugtracker didn't turn up anything, so I must have never submitted it. :s>When you attach a mesh to a Clonk's bone and that bone changes orientation in an animation then the attached mesh will be rotated accordingly.
What I am thinking of here is the functionality to have an attached mesh deform with it's parents skeleton. So, it would be exported with vertex groups equal to that of the parent mesh, and it would be deformed by the parent's bones. This isn't something I would list as high priority at all, but it would be useful for such things as outfits.
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