I'm not sure I've played an RPG that didn't behave the way I described... :)
Depends what you mean by "in the beginning" - I can see that the first level or two might be that much quicker to obtain, but I've never experienced that I have to keep waiting longer and longer to progress. Otherwise in the later stages, you'd lose interest in any progressing up the levels. I thought it was standard D&D rules that although higher levels require more XP, you also get more XP for killing stronger enemies.
"Also this method mimics reality. We learn very quickly at first, but it takes years to become a true master."
But this is only relevant if you have different levels in different areas, as you suggest. Otherwise it doesn't mimic reality at all. Another way of modelling realism would be to give the level ups in approximate constant time, but if say a player keeps using the upgrades to improve the same skill, then the improvement becomes less and less with time. Alternatively, just because the levels increase in constant time, doesn't mean that has to equate to linear improvement.
Surely the main problem here is if each level takes more and more time to progress to?
I'd say a better system is where progressing to higher levels occurs in approximately constant time (each level takes more XP, but because you're stronger, you should be acquiring XP at a faster rate). This is how the games I've played seem to work.
So if you make a poor choice for a skill bonus when you go to level 2, it doesn't take any extra time to go up an extra level later on.
I've now released version 0.15, which fixes graphical problems on ATI graphics cards. The Linux version also now supports proper installation, and there are now binaries for Ubuntu (at https://launchpad.net/~mark-harman/+archive/conquests/+packages ). For the gameplay, many improvements and units now require various elements (stone, iron, etc) which have to first be acquired by the city.
It might be biggest in terms of raw number of games (though that just means more competition for us developers!) Not biggest in terms of number of users (Symbian is probably still the biggest installed userbase, and Android is the largest selling now I believe).
But obviously, it's fine to write for what you want. People write for OS X or Linux, even though it isn't the largest platform :)
Re: open source, I guess what people are getting at is that since this is a site for Free art, although it's perfectly fine for many free media files to be used in non-Free projects, many people may be unlikely to work for free, producing free content, specificvally for something that isn't itself going to be free. Also, are your games going to be sold for a fee, or are they free-as-in-beer?
http://zooboingreview.blogspot.com/ - currently seems to be full of Ipad and Iphone wallpapers, as if for some reason those were the only devices that can have desktop images, but there are some texture packs on the site too.
http://www.imageafter.com - free including for commercial use, but doesn't appear to use a "standard" licence.
Deviant Art and Flickr also have some stuff on free licences, if you search.
I agree this would be a good change. When making a note of licence details of content I'd downloaded recently, I found that for some I'd accidentally written down the submitter as the author, for the attribution! So I think it's important to make sure the author (i.e., the one who should be attributed) is displayed most prominently.
I think the low performance may be a factor in the sluggish response. What CPU / graphics card do you have? I'm wondering if there's a problem on some systems for some reason, or if the required spec is just higher than I thought.
What's the frame rate in the 2D mode (can be changed during the game, with "View 3D/2D"), and is the UI response any better? (A different rendering algorithm is used in 2D mode.)
I also wonder if running in full screen mode (from the Preferences) is any better?
Slightly off-topic, but I was shocked to come across a similar issue with wedding photographers - that it seems standard practice for them to retain the copyright, even though you're paying them for the work. For my brother's wedding, they received the full batch of photos he'd taken, but they were stamped with an ugly "copyrighted" watermark, the idea being they'd have to pay extra for each and every photo. Couples would be committing piracy just to give a copy to their friends, or upload to Facebook.
So although it's not a game related thing, I do wonder if there does seem to be a philosophy among artists that's different to programmers. I get paid to program for my day job, but that means I don't expect to keep the copyright too.
It's only when I go to preview or edit. The Rich Text box is 7 lines high; the non-Rich Text box is 5 lines high. This is on Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit). My screen is 1680x150, with browser window full screen - but I had same problem on my netbook at 1024x600.
Also some other issues I've noticed (on my other computer at the moment with Opera 10.10 - I can try testing with the latest version if you like):
If I type some text in non-Rich Text, then go to preview, it's reverted back to Rich Text - but line breaks are removed.
If I only use the Rich Text editor, and post (even without previewing), it strips out the new lines.
I've uploaded version 0.14. Regarding the points above:
1. Settlers no longer enter enemy territory when at war - should fix the Settler invasion problem.
2. I've switched to using a proper event model for mouse clicks. As I say, it's unclear why it was so slow - would be curious to know if this fixes or improves the problem.
4. The problem was when units were building roads/railways - they'll now attack an adjacent unit if the odds are better than being attacked.
5. The map is now a minimap that can be onscreen all the time; it's less blurry, and has clearer, softer colours. You can also click on it to change the viewpoint.
6. There was a crash I've now fixed with listboxes, where it would crash if you clicked in the scrollbar area, when no scrollbar was displayed (this is a recent bug - in the last version I'd rewritten the routines for scrollbar drawing and input). So possibly this is what you were seeing.
The crash when no shaders were used is also fixed.
And various other improvements - you can now create custom maps using Tiled Map Editor ( http://www.mapeditor.org/ ) - it was a thread somewhere on these forums that suggested Tiled; simply making my game compatible with the Tiled file format was certainly much easier than writing my own editor from scratch.
I'm not sure I've played an RPG that didn't behave the way I described... :)
Depends what you mean by "in the beginning" - I can see that the first level or two might be that much quicker to obtain, but I've never experienced that I have to keep waiting longer and longer to progress. Otherwise in the later stages, you'd lose interest in any progressing up the levels. I thought it was standard D&D rules that although higher levels require more XP, you also get more XP for killing stronger enemies.
"Also this method mimics reality. We learn very quickly at first, but it takes years to become a true master."
But this is only relevant if you have different levels in different areas, as you suggest. Otherwise it doesn't mimic reality at all. Another way of modelling realism would be to give the level ups in approximate constant time, but if say a player keeps using the upgrades to improve the same skill, then the improvement becomes less and less with time. Alternatively, just because the levels increase in constant time, doesn't mean that has to equate to linear improvement.
Surely the main problem here is if each level takes more and more time to progress to?
I'd say a better system is where progressing to higher levels occurs in approximately constant time (each level takes more XP, but because you're stronger, you should be acquiring XP at a faster rate). This is how the games I've played seem to work.
So if you make a poor choice for a skill bonus when you go to level 2, it doesn't take any extra time to go up an extra level later on.
I've now released version 0.15, which fixes graphical problems on ATI graphics cards. The Linux version also now supports proper installation, and there are now binaries for Ubuntu (at https://launchpad.net/~mark-harman/+archive/conquests/+packages ). For the gameplay, many improvements and units now require various elements (stone, iron, etc) which have to first be acquired by the city.
It might be biggest in terms of raw number of games (though that just means more competition for us developers!) Not biggest in terms of number of users (Symbian is probably still the biggest installed userbase, and Android is the largest selling now I believe).
But obviously, it's fine to write for what you want. People write for OS X or Linux, even though it isn't the largest platform :)
Re: open source, I guess what people are getting at is that since this is a site for Free art, although it's perfectly fine for many free media files to be used in non-Free projects, many people may be unlikely to work for free, producing free content, specificvally for something that isn't itself going to be free. Also, are your games going to be sold for a fee, or are they free-as-in-beer?
Here are some sites, which all have files compatible with open/free licences (though some sites also mix them with non-free licences, so be careful).
Sounds:
http://soundbible.com/
http://free-loops.com/
http://simplythebest.net/ - has some public domain ones.
Graphics:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
http://free3dstextures.com/
http://www.openfootage.net/
http://zooboingreview.blogspot.com/ - currently seems to be full of Ipad and Iphone wallpapers, as if for some reason those were the only devices that can have desktop images, but there are some texture packs on the site too.
http://www.imageafter.com - free including for commercial use, but doesn't appear to use a "standard" licence.
Deviant Art and Flickr also have some stuff on free licences, if you search.
I agree this would be a good change. When making a note of licence details of content I'd downloaded recently, I found that for some I'd accidentally written down the submitter as the author, for the attribution! So I think it's important to make sure the author (i.e., the one who should be attributed) is displayed most prominently.
Hi,
I think the low performance may be a factor in the sluggish response. What CPU / graphics card do you have? I'm wondering if there's a problem on some systems for some reason, or if the required spec is just higher than I thought.
What's the frame rate in the 2D mode (can be changed during the game, with "View 3D/2D"), and is the UI response any better? (A different rendering algorithm is used in 2D mode.)
I also wonder if running in full screen mode (from the Preferences) is any better?
Thanks for taking a look.
Slightly off-topic, but I was shocked to come across a similar issue with wedding photographers - that it seems standard practice for them to retain the copyright, even though you're paying them for the work. For my brother's wedding, they received the full batch of photos he'd taken, but they were stamped with an ugly "copyrighted" watermark, the idea being they'd have to pay extra for each and every photo. Couples would be committing piracy just to give a copy to their friends, or upload to Facebook.
So although it's not a game related thing, I do wonder if there does seem to be a philosophy among artists that's different to programmers. I get paid to program for my day job, but that means I don't expect to keep the copyright too.
It's only when I go to preview or edit. The Rich Text box is 7 lines high; the non-Rich Text box is 5 lines high. This is on Windows 7 (both 32 and 64 bit). My screen is 1680x150, with browser window full screen - but I had same problem on my netbook at 1024x600.
Also some other issues I've noticed (on my other computer at the moment with Opera 10.10 - I can try testing with the latest version if you like):
If I type some text in non-Rich Text, then go to preview, it's reverted back to Rich Text - but line breaks are removed.
If I only use the Rich Text editor, and post (even without previewing), it strips out the new lines.
I've uploaded version 0.14. Regarding the points above:
1. Settlers no longer enter enemy territory when at war - should fix the Settler invasion problem.
2. I've switched to using a proper event model for mouse clicks. As I say, it's unclear why it was so slow - would be curious to know if this fixes or improves the problem.
4. The problem was when units were building roads/railways - they'll now attack an adjacent unit if the odds are better than being attacked.
5. The map is now a minimap that can be onscreen all the time; it's less blurry, and has clearer, softer colours. You can also click on it to change the viewpoint.
6. There was a crash I've now fixed with listboxes, where it would crash if you clicked in the scrollbar area, when no scrollbar was displayed (this is a recent bug - in the last version I'd rewritten the routines for scrollbar drawing and input). So possibly this is what you were seeing.
The crash when no shaders were used is also fixed.
And various other improvements - you can now create custom maps using Tiled Map Editor ( http://www.mapeditor.org/ ) - it was a thread somewhere on these forums that suggested Tiled; simply making my game compatible with the Tiled file format was certainly much easier than writing my own editor from scratch.
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