SBURBDEV Forum

[Legendary]

Okay, so there's two big things to talk about with these kinds of enemies:

Kinds
Prototyping

I'm really avoiding prototyping as long as I can, so I will only discuss it as far as which kinds can be prototyped or not.

In Sburb's lands there are five common enemies: Imps, Ogres, Basilisks, Giclopses, and Liches. There are also Denizens, who seem to have personal minions (Grandpa Harley's trophy).

Now, the first question I have is, are five enemies enough? If not, what else do we add? Further, how are these five enemies different? Is it just raw power? I would like to answer no to the first question. If nothing else I would like a particular kind of sea-going enemy who is vastly powerful and capable of destroying just-entered players who think "Screw the gates, Imma gonna swim!" However, that doesn't address common enemies. What else is there? How do we handle this? Thoughts, please?

EDIT: All of the common enemies should be affected by prototypings, obviously.

Now, Denizens seem to be somewhat personalized but obviously we can't personalize a new Denizen for every player. We should instead make four or five Denizens per domain and give them each minions who look similar but are smaller. Denizens obviously stay asleep until late in the game, but they apparently can be woken early, or at least are guarded heavily, to account for John's death. I would also like to propose that Denizens cannot be affected (at least very much) by players they are not directly opposing. These guys are the individual challenges; BQ and BK are the group effort.

As for minions, they are probably just the enemies inside a palace, replacing Underlings. But maybe they do other things too. Not sure. We should brainstorm.

EDIT: These enemies, if the Typheus Minion is any indication, are not in fact affected by prototypings. Perhaps they have powers based on the Domain they have taken control of? Or maybe we should just stick to prototypings.

[AgentPaper]

I'm just going to jump in and try to nip the "uber-powered sea monster to kill new players that try to swim" idea in the bud. That reeks of railroading and programmer vs player mentality. Certainly we should try to construct the game to challenge the player and guide them along their way, but if the player decides to take an unorthodox approach to something, or does something risky, they should be challenged and rewarded appropriately, not brutally killed for daring to defy our "vision" of how they should progress through the game.

[Legendary]

Actually, yeah, that there was a dumb idea. Consider my proposal for it off the table. Plus, new players will already have a hassle heading out anyway. Sprites seem to stay at the house unless they're called, so there's no free healing if you decide to swim; and only a few players can do that. If John had tried to leave his house in a non-gate related manner he would have just broken every bone in is body. Dave, meanwhile, would have roasted alive. I would still like to push for sea monsters though, but just normal power. This way there's something to be concerned about if you're going to set out on your own path, but a good player can get around all of that. It just will give them something to do besides "push down D button, hope they make it to shore in time to get their client in."

[AgentPaper]

Well if the player doing something is going to break the game, then we should prevent them from doing that. Ideally the game would be robust enough that if you do decide to go for a swim instead of climbing up to your gate, then the game would account for that and just keep chugging along. More likely though in most cases we won't be able to do that, so instead having a physical barrier such that the player simply cannot progress that way would be the second best.

Actually, even the "huge evil sea monster that will pwn you if you swim" idea could work, as long as you treated it carefully. You'd have to make sure that the player knew for a certainty that if they enter the water, they will be attacked by a huge sea monster, which they cannot beat, for example by a warning from your sprite telling you that the world's Denizen roams these waters. It's only really bad if the player meets his doom without any kind of warning or chance to fight back or run away, just because he went a bit off the beaten path.