Other Travelers

[Geekman]

Whoever said that you're the only traveler out there? What if there were others who traveled from area to area?

This can be done extremely easy with variables, and I honestly think ti would be a nice system.

You could have it so that some people travel around randomly, or set it so they move when you want them to.

Here are some things I have thought up that they could do:

-Battle you

-Share items

-Talk

And many more!

If you have any other suggestions or ideas, feel free to comment. Think it's a good idea? Comment. Bad? Comment.

 

[Andar]

It has been done before (Wizardry 7 if I remember correctly, or part 6), and it depends entireliy on how it is done.

If the other travellers can just walk around and have conversations with you, this can be easily done - but the travellers are secondary to the story and some players might ignore them.

If the other travellers can clean out dungeons and take key items (so that the player has to look for them if he was to slow to get the item himself), then you'll have to think about balancing (gaining the item alone wont help the player to the EXP and levels from the monsters in that now empty dungeon), story changes (how to find out which traveller has the items now) and other effects. If done correctly this can enrich the story and be a different form of time limiter (encouraging the player to speed up to get the next key item before the travellers take it).

 

[Geekman]

Nice one. That'll be something to think about...

 

[Tai_MT]

It was also done in Dragon Warrior Monsters.  On the Gameboy.

 

[Berylstone]

Whoever said that you're the only traveler out there? What if there were others who traveled from area to area?

This can be done extremely easy with variables, and I honestly think ti would be a nice system.

You could have it so that some people travel around randomly, or set it so they move when you want them to.

Here are some things I have thought up that they could do:

-Battle you

-Share items

-Talk

And many more!

If you have any other suggestions or ideas, feel free to comment. Think it's a good idea? Comment. Bad? Comment.

It's an old game, but Seventh Saga did something similar to what you are suggesting.  It had a set amount of adventurers who all embarked on a quest at the same time, and you could interact with them during the game.  They would talk with you, join you or try to kill you based on the things you did in-game.  It was pretty cool I thought, and offered something new and helped mix up the plot some.  So I like the concept.

 

[Eurgh]

How would you go about doing this? It sounds interesting.

 

[Andar]

How would you go about doing this? It sounds interesting.

That's why it's rarely done - it requires a lot of planning and preparing alternate quest paths, and then a lot of work to implement everything.
If it's done correctly it can multiply the amount of work for the game, like any non-linear storyline.


Because if you have one option where the story follows the player when raiding the dungeon for a key item, and one option to follow a NPC party who got the item before the player, then that are two different hours of gameplay to be worked on, but the player would see only one of them, not both.


From the technical side: a lot of switches to check which part of the story the player currently follows...

 

[Eurgh]

Hmm, yes. Seems like a lot of effort to do it properly... However. I have random dungeons in my game, so on this concept. I could probably put in the 'other travellers' whom may be in that dungeon too sometimes when you go in. Or maybe there will always be another traveller in there; however they may  be hostile, while sometimes they may not be. 

 

[hiromu656]

Seems difficult, especially since you have to keep track of the other travelers' inventory, progression and location. What I mean by that is; if they can fight you and do dungeons, they'd need to be able to get stronger and progress. And still you have to have some sort of system to have them moving around the world, and keep track of everything they've acquired during their journey.

I'm sure it's possible, it just sounds like a TON of work. Three pats on the back if you can pull off something this cool.

 

[Andar]

Seems difficult, especially since you have to keep track of the other travelers' inventory, progression and location. What I mean by that is; if they can fight you and do dungeons, they'd need to be able to get stronger and progress. And still you have to have some sort of system to have them moving around the world, and keep track of everything they've acquired during their journey.

I'm sure it's possible, it just sounds like a TON of work. Three pats on the back if you can pull off something this cool.

There are ways to shortcut it - for example, the "other" progression doesn't have to follow the player's XP rules, they can be set according to the story point.

However, that will simply shift the workload from "impossible" to "really far to much work" ;-)

I would like to be able to do something in my game - but that is still in the planning stage for the engine, and I don't know if I can pull that off,,,

 

[Geekman]

Seems difficult, especially since you have to keep track of the other travelers' inventory, progression and location. What I mean by that is; if they can fight you and do dungeons, they'd need to be able to get stronger and progress. And still you have to have some sort of system to have them moving around the world, and keep track of everything they've acquired during their journey.

I'm sure it's possible, it just sounds like a TON of work. Three pats on the back if you can pull off something this cool.

http://yanflychannel.wordpress.com/rmvxa/gameplay-scripts/enemy-levels/doppelganger/

This script...

 

[Andar]

http://yanflychannel.wordpress.com/rmvxa/gameplay-scripts/enemy-levels/doppelganger/

This script...

Nope, we aren't talking about fighting here - the battles are the easiest part of having other parties/travellers.

The most difficult part is to make the story fitting to those travellers and branch the quests according to an inventory of those travellers (have they taken the key item or not)

 

[Geekman]

Nope, we aren't talking about fighting here - the battles are the easiest part of having other parties/travellers.

The most difficult part is to make the story fitting to those travellers and branch the quests according to an inventory of those travellers (have they taken the key item or not)

Yeah, but this just makes it easier to average the stats.

The Key Items would be possible to be controlled by using variables to track time. I have this image in my head about how easy it would be. It would probably be much harder than I'm thinking, but we'll figure out when I actually try to apply it...