Have you ever thought about online AG?

[Albrenado]

Hello.

I have an idea.
To make an online adventure game.
I mean making an online game, with point&click platform,
but to make possible that more than 1 player can play in a game,
and make a few endings(i mean 1 for good player wins, and 1 for the bad guy).
I dont mean creating a massive multiplayer but small- 2-6 players.

And maybe there will be players who will not get the main role, but they will have a target in the game.
everybody will recive a script in the beggining, and they will all try to accomlish their missions.

by the way everybody will try to talk , and act as actually as possible to the game, and with the spirit of the game.

What do you think?

[strazer]

This thread might interest you: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=12421.0
TCP/IP plugin: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=4343.40

Edit: Oh, and Welcome to the forums!

[jetxl]

Isn't the game paused everytime you use the GUI?
And what about MoveCharacterBlocking, is the game paused then as well?
I should check out those topic's shouldn't I.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Activision tried a sort of online experience in Zork - Grand Inquisitor... two player, one with an "Action cursor" and one with a "Look Over Here" cursor. The result wasn't much different from playing a single-player game with someone else in the room, watching and helping you along.

Hey, if anyone manages to do a multiplayer adventure Maniac Mansion style, I'm all for it!

[Mr Jake]

has anyone seen that old game show 'knightmare' They should make one like that 

[BOYD1981]

has anyone seen that old game show 'knightmare' They should make one like thatÃ, 

no they bloody well shouldn't

[Migs]

Hello.

I have an idea.
To make an online adventure game.
I mean making an online game, with point&click platform,
but to make possible that more than 1 player can play in a game,
and make a few endings(i mean 1 for good player wins, and 1 for the bad guy).
I dont mean creating a massive multiplayer but small- 2-6 players.

And maybe there will be players who will not get the main role, but they will have a target in the game.
everybody will recive a script in the beggining, and they will all try to accomlish their missions.

by the way everybody will try to talk , and act as actually as possible to the game, and with the spirit of the game.

What do you think?

I'd love to hear some of the details about your idea, Albrenado.  Care to share?  What do you mean by "everyone will receive a script in the beginning"?

[Baz]

he probly means ike when u start the game you will talk to someone who will give you an aim or something like that. Say like monkey island where guybrush is like "i want to be a pirate" the characted can do something like that, if you know what i mean.

[DCillusion]

Isn't that just be the Baldur's Gate Series with combat replaced with looking under rocks??

[Mr Jake]

..... no

[DCillusion]

That's an interesting simple way to defend your argument?  Care to elaborate?  In online BG your given a wide variety of goals, that any one member could pick.  You don't have to stick together, you solve simple puzzles, and can have any number of villians and/or heroes.  So H-O-W would it be different?

P.S.  Don't bother responding if you were just trying to be an elitist on a site dedicated to the fact that you don't have to be elite for interactive entertainment development.

[Mr Jake]

Calm down........

I didnt know about the online modes Ive only seen the single player. But from what you discribed its similiar, but not the same at all... Its a completly different Genre.

P.S Im not elite...... Im 1337  (j/king)

[Peter Thomas]

woah, illusion, calm down. Maybe you mis-interpreted Hotspot's intentions - all he was trying to do was answer your question. After all, you DID ask a question that had a yes or no answer, and HS answered accordingly to the best of his knowledge. Simply because he didn't know the FULL story doesn't mean his post was any more critical/eletist/snobby.

I think the online game idea, is fun, though. On a lighter note...

[m0ds]

Can we stop all getting so angry with each other?

This is a forum, not a chat room - if you've got a comment to make try and make it interesting and relevant, that goes for you too Hotspot, though there wasn't really a problem with what you said. And Boyd, stop ranting so damn much!

[Albrenado]

Hello.

I'm sorry for my delayed reply, i was a little busy ...

Migs :
saying scripts i mean: for exammple there are 3 players,
the 2 players are main characters, and 1 is side character.
and he recives the script(in the beggining of the game-
even before it starts, or at the first dialogue.
"You are a ship seller, you are interested to sell your old ship,
and to find your sister who is captured by 'badguy' and you can
use all means for that cause.(and get help from the active characters).
you have some bananas, a shovel".
(someone may need it (active characters mayB?) and they will do missions for you, that you cant (or do not want))

anyway, the idea is very abstract, and you can share your ideas, and corrections...

DCillusion :
no its very different from that in many ways, but similar with some others.

2d graphics, and point & click interface
for example have you ever thought making a monkey island,
where you can play the Pirate and someone can play Treepwood?
and there will be a few endings?

the dialogues maybe not a chart, they will be fixed, but the player will be able to choose from it.

making bigger worlds, and more quests for more people maybe an option.?
i mean if you go to a certain world you must make 5,6 quests before you can leave...
(thats getting more like to other games- but in point&click interface)

we are talking about quests, not an RPG game.. that BG is all about.

the point is to make the old fashined quests, with nice graphics,
but online , not a BG,worldofwarcraft(2d),morrowind(2d) style,
but an adventure-quests game!

maybe I'm wrong, maybe its not a good idea.
but i am sure that no one have ever made the exact genre of game I'm talking about!



strazer :
thanks.

by the way i have now read the  lnk,
there are some great ideas i have never thought about.
is that project actual?
i know a nice library it can have: SDL (simple directmedia layer)
and i know c++... maybe someone will want to work on it...

[DCillusion]

I think I understand it better.  It's a good idea, as long as you could get AGS to support networking, it would probably be as simple as having item "placeholders".  Sierra did this a lot - 10 or so items all called book.  Each book would tell the program what side of the game they're Playing.  Some puzzles would only work if the player had a particular item.  This would solve the different sides part

When one character did something that altered the game, a global variable would change what point in the game the players were.  If it were a competion, it would be easy.  Obviously, if an item were aquired, another character couldn't get it.  You would just need have alternate outcomes for puzzles, but that happens in single-player games; so I bet it would be easier than it seems.

Split the character-specific puzzles and competion puzzles 50/50, and make all the character-specific puzzles sound silmilar to the other characters.  That way, players wouldn't know which puzzles they share which they don't.  This would give each player a different experience, but they would always have the tension that they're competing with one another.  They wouldn't know if their puzzle was different or if they had the wrong answer, and no one would know who was winning untill it was over,  (don't have a score). 

Is this what you're imagining?

[Ryam BaCo]

i think that online point-and-click-adventures can't work. more than one player playing in one adventure would be much too chaotic (e.g. different inventories -> player a owns item b, which player c needs to combine with item d, but he can't because player a won't give item b to him) and hard to implement.

but i read about commercial online-only adventure-detective game, where players give hints to each other for solving a murder or something like that.

[Tarlash]

As for me, best idea is in the post that strazer gave at the beggining -  http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?topic=12421.0

[Migs]

Migs :
saying scripts i mean: for exammple there are 3 players, the 2 players are main characters, and 1 is side character. and he recives the script(in the beggining of the game-even before it starts, or at the first dialogue. "You are a ship seller, you are interested to sell your old ship, and to find your sister who is captured by 'badguy' and you can use all means for that cause.(and get help from the active characters).
you have some bananas, a shovel".

At the beginning of this game, is everyone given a randomized "script," or is the script the same each time the game is played?Ã,  In my opinion, if your idea is going to work, it would have to be randomized in some fashion to give the game replay value.

Although I'm the kind of person who loves playing certain adventure games over and over ad nauseum, not everyone finds adventure games all that replayable.Ã,  This is one obstacle adventure games will need to deal with if they are to become successful in the multiplayer gaming world.Ã,  Randomizing the game is probably the most obvious method for attempting to solve this problem, although too much randomization runs the risk of losing the game's personable feel and making the game just a generic do-these-tasks-in-order.

The only problem I see with randomized "scripts" and giving everyone a goal at the beginning is that you can only have a finite number of possibilities.Ã,  Eventually people will play them all, and then they'll get bored and won't want to play anymore, and there will soon be a shortage of other players to play with.

(someone may need it (active characters mayB?) and they will do missions for you, that you cant (or do not want))

Being entirely dependent on other players to finish the game is not a desirable feature, in my opinion.Ã,  You'd have to wait for the other player to accomplish his/her tasks.Ã,  What will you do in the meantime?Ã,  What if the other player is a complete idiot, or for some reason is just pissed at you and refuses to help you out?Ã,  If cooperation is going to be a feature in a multiplayer adventure game, I think it should be optional.

DCillusion :
no its very different from that in many ways, but similar with some others.

2d graphics, and point & click interface for example have you ever thought making a monkey island, where you can play the Pirate and someone can play Treepwood? and there will be a few endings?

the dialogues maybe not a chart, they will be fixed, but the player will be able to choose from it.

making bigger worlds, and more quests for more people maybe an option.? i mean if you go to a certain world you must make 5,6 quests before you can leave...(thats getting more like to other games- but in point&click interface)

we are talking about quests, not an RPG game.. that BG is all about.

the point is to make the old fashined quests, with nice graphics, but online , not a BG,worldofwarcraft(2d),morrowind(2d) style, but an adventure-quests game!

But what you're describing DOES sound like a bit like an MMORPG.Ã,  RPGs and MMORPGs are not wholly devoid of puzzle-solving, but adventure games tend to place emphasis on solving puzzles while RPGs tend to place emphasis on beating the crap out of bad guys.Ã,  What do you think would work well for an online Monkey Island online game?Ã,  Would each player's goal be to hunt down his/her opponent?Ã,  Would there be a complex story involved that's influenced by what each player does?

maybe I'm wrong, maybe its not a good idea.
but i am sure that no one have ever made the exact genre of game I'm talking about!

I think your idea has potential, if you fine-tune it a little bit and work out some of the details.

strazer :
thanks.

by the way i have now read theÃ,  lnk, there are some great ideas i have never thought about. is that project actual? i know a nice library it can have: SDL (simple directmedia layer) and i know c++... maybe someone will want to work on it...

Yes, it's a project I'd like to work on, as I think it has enormous potential.Ã,  I think it would be fun to try it out with the TCP/IP plugin for AGS.Ã,  I'm still working on the design document for it, which I'll share with the community for comments and criticism when it's finished.

[Migs]

i think that online point-and-click-adventures can't work. more than one player playing in one adventure would be much too chaotic (e.g. different inventories -> player a owns item b, which player c needs to combine with item d, but he can't because player a won't give item b to him) and hard to implement.

This hardly refutes the premise that online point-and-click adventures can work.Ã,  Maniac Mansion, one of the earliest adventure games, had multiple players, each with their own inventories.Ã,  You're only thinking of a specific instance in which players can theoretically hoard items and keep everything to themselves.Ã,  What you need to do is come up with an alternative solution rather than give up on the idea entirely.Ã,  You could, for example, limit a player's inventory to one or two items, and give players the ability to drop items.