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The General Game World Concept

Pieter Boelen

Pieter Boelen

Navigation Officer
Administrator
Storm Modder
Hearts of Oak Donator
Just for good measure, I'm re-posting some of my thoughts on what I would like in a future pirate game.
I do not expect ALL of the below can be done -at least not in Corsairs 4- but there's several random suggestions in there that might be useful and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on them. :cheeky


1. Seamless Game World
A game world which enables you to sail around and walk around freely without reload as much as possible.
Transistions between gameplay modes, eg. sailing around and walking around modes, should be as smooth as possible.
This would give a more filmic impression.

Imagine starting the game in dark, foggy London in England* and you are completely broke. You somehow get yourself aboard a ship. You get a bit of a tutorial during this time and once the tutorial is over, you'll end up in the bright Caribbean, the land of opportunity! Transitions between walking/sailing would consist of actually walking up the gangway of the ship yourself, if the ship's at anchor in port, or landing with a rowboat (or at least seeing yourself do this).

When you're at sea, you would be able to switch to first person mode, in which you take on the role of the CAPTAIN instead of the SHIP! You would be able to walk around the ship yourself and interact with your officers and crew. You would also be able to take control of the helm and sail your ship in first person mode, climb up the rigging and spot oncoming ships yourself or take control of the ship's cannons.

In a ship-to-ship battle, on your ship's deck, there would be debris flying everywhere and you could actually see your ship getting damage and your crew dying. When boarding enemy ships, you would see the hooks of your crew flying to the other ships and see the ships being pulled together. You would see your crew swinging through the air towards the other ship. And in first person mode, you would be able to join in this as well. You could stay aboard your own ship and let your crew do the fighting and only defend your ship or you could grab a hook or rope yourself and get onto the other ship and be on the forefront of the battle.

And of course in 3D sailing mode, you would see your crew working the ship and each character would do something that makes sense!

As far as I'm concerned, one of the main things that I find unfortunate in any pirate games is that the games skip over the harder-to-achieve parts, such as what happens between sea mode and land mode and between sea mode and boardings.

* Hey! Why, not! It'd be nice to actually SEE where the player character comes from, and it'd give a nice contrast with the rest of the game world.


2. Character Personalities and Interaction
One of the biggest, if not THE biggest, opportunity for gameplay, as far as I'm concerned, lies in interaction between the player and all other characters. This might also help in making the boring parts of the game more interesting. If you're sailing around on the ocean in DirectSail mode, there really isn't much to do. But it'd be great fun if you could pass the time by interacting with your crew and officers, play games with them, get to know them, dine with your officers, etc. And all of this would actually have a great impact on the gameplay and your skills.


3. Time Compression
Of course some time compression would be required to make the game less boring. After all, voyage in REAL life could take weeks and you just can't have that in a game.
I'd prefer it if this could be handled in a way that does NOT literally involve speeding up the passing of time.
There should be Fast Travel in ports, but I'd prefer it if there weren't Fast Travel at sea. At least not in the same style as in PotC.
Instead, imagine leaving one of your officers in command and tell them to head for your destination.
You can then return to your cabin and you'll be notified if anything happens underway or you have reached your destination.

If you encounter an enemy ship, a crewmember will come and notify you of this and gives you as much information as reasonably possible.
You can then decide whether to make the ship ready for battle, pursue or leave it.
Once you've reached your destination, you would again be notified by a crewmember and you can launch the ship's longboat to go ashore or dock the ship alongside if the port is big enough and there is space available.
This would be more expensive (harbour fees), but would greatly speed up any goods transactions.

And in case of ship repair or goods transactions, you would be able to see both these things happening! In port, there'd be people loading your ship or fixing up the rigging and, if the damage was big enough, the ship would need to be temporarily layed up and you can visit the shipyard to inspect your ship's hull yourself.
In the meantime, you would be able to explore the island and interact with the people in town.
If you become successful, you can even join the governor in his mansion and maybe visit some balls and the like.
However, you would also be able to take a room in a local tavern and request to be notified when the work has completed.
 
Expanding on your start location:

The game area be based for general game play on an accurate map of the Caribbean.
The limits of the map (assuming a seamless world) would be the coast of an adjacent country.

When traveling South and out of the main game play area, the edge of the northern coast of South America would be reached.
When traveling East and out of the main game play area, the edge of the Western coast of Africa would be reached.
When traveling West and out of the main game play area, the edge of the Isthmus of North/South America would be reached.
each "country" would need only one port - which would be neutral - and advises the player that they have reached the "end of the game world" in that direction.

Now, when traveling North, it would default to a major port of the country of the nationality that the player has chosen to play.
You, of course would arrive in Amsterdam and I, in Plymouth port.

Ports for America, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia and Spain, could be made.

These same ports could also have a land link to a major town of the same country which could be used as the start point for the game.
So at the beginning of the game, as you said, the player would start in his chosen country's town - go to its port, and sail south to the Caribbean.
During that journey the tutorial could take place.
 
That's even better than my original idea! It might then even be possible to do some trading with far-away ports and meet some Barbary pirates in Africa.
And you could return to your home country too, which might make for interesting developments.
Of course those non-Caribbean countries would be fairly limited, but adding those would be a good excuse to not have a HUGE amount of islands in the Caribbean which all look alike.
Instead there'd be enough in the Caribbean to provide gameplay opportunities and there'd be some highly varied additional places to visit on the other continents!
That'd certainly add some variety into the game!

When it comes to the sailing time required, preferrably without a worldmap with toy ships, my time compression ideas should work fairly well.
You just tell your officer to "sail East" and warn you if something worthwhile happens or you have arrived and then you'd just skip the boring parts.

I just remembered some sort of really obscure pirate game where at the end of the game world, the world actually DID end and you could get "game over" by dropping off the earth! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rofl" border="0" alt="24.gif" />

BTW: What about having actual doldrums too and your ship would be dead in the water, rations would decrease and crew morale would drop and you'd just be waiting. Of course with the "tell me when there's wind again" time compression thingey again. OR you could try and provide the crew some entertainment. And imagine then a raincloud or a school of flying fish to liven things up in the meantime!
 
<!--quoteo(post=311660:date=Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pieter Boelen @ Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311660"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's even better than my original idea! It might then even be possible to do some trading with far-away ports and meet some Barbary pirates in Africa.
And you could return to your home country too, which might make for interesting developments.
Of course those non-Caribbean countries would be fairly limited, but adding those would be a good excuse to not have a HUGE amount of islands in the Caribbean which all look alike.
Instead there'd be enough in the Caribbean to provide gameplay opportunities and there'd be some highly varied additional places to visit on the other continents!
That'd certainly add some variety into the game!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->THAT was going to be in the mod! (We do have our future to consider! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rofl" border="0" alt="24.gif" /> )
<!--quoteo(post=311660:date=Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pieter Boelen @ Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311660"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When it comes to the sailing time required, preferrably without a worldmap with toy ships, my time compression ideas should work fairly well.
You just tell your officer to "sail East" and warn you if something worthwhile happens or you have arrived and then you'd just skip the boring parts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I was thinking that that would be the time to read the quest book - then we could put some meaningful dialog in there - not just the "sail to Oxbay" stuff!
We could also expand on "things found in the sea" to include shipwrecked sailors with a story to tell and a quest to lead to.

<!--quoteo(post=311660:date=Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pieter Boelen @ Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311660"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW: What about having actual doldrums too and your ship would be dead in the water, rations would decrease and crew morale would drop and you'd just be waiting. Of course with the "tell me when there's wind again" time compression thingey again. OR you could try and provide the crew some entertainment. And imagine then a raincloud or a school of flying fish to liven things up in the meantime!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Not keen on that - I think boredom and frustration would kick in fairly rapidly in that situation.
 
Love the ideas here guys.

Some of the things I'd like to see is the ability to add your own notations to your captains log, and not just have the quest and rumor related stuff show up. You should also be able to add notes to your map if you wish, so you can say put a pin in it to remind yourself of something you might have seen or like in the game world.

The map should be a LOT larger than just the caribbean, or if it starts out only as large as the caribbean, it should be modifiable according to the player/modders whims, even to the point of replacing the map entirely with a new, custom map. Or maybe even have a random world maker ala Civilization, so there would be a lot of replay value and actual exploration you could do on your own.

Just a few thoughts to ponder.

Cap'n Drow
 
<!--quoteo(post=311668:date=Apr 7 2009, 11:25 PM:name=Short Jack Gold)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Short Jack Gold @ Apr 7 2009, 11:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311668"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->THAT was going to be in the mod! (We do have our future to consider! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rofl" border="0" alt="24.gif" /> )<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Haha! Indeed. Now you mention it, when we do get to evaluate the ideas seaward.ru have themselves, we might already be able to think up what things would need to be modified in the original game and also which things we can expand upon in mods. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

<!--quoteo(post=311668:date=Apr 7 2009, 11:25 PM:name=Short Jack Gold)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Short Jack Gold @ Apr 7 2009, 11:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311668"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=311660:date=Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Pieter Boelen @ Apr 7 2009, 04:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311660"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->BTW: What about having actual doldrums too and your ship would be dead in the water, rations would decrease and crew morale would drop and you'd just be waiting. Of course with the "tell me when there's wind again" time compression thingey again. OR you could try and provide the crew some entertainment. And imagine then a raincloud or a school of flying fish to liven things up in the meantime!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Not keen on that - I think boredom and frustration would kick in fairly rapidly in that situation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Maybe not if you just tell your officer to warn you when there's wind or fish. That way you'd skip the actual waiting.
It wouldn't occur often anyway and the chance would only be really big during intercontinental voyages: eg. ocean crossings.
You wouldn't do those frequently anyway, I think.

<!--quoteo(post=311737:date=Apr 8 2009, 06:31 AM:name=Cap'n_Drow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cap'n_Drow @ Apr 8 2009, 06:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311737"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Some of the things I'd like to see is the ability to add your own notations to your captains log, and not just have the quest and rumor related stuff show up. You should also be able to add notes to your map if you wish, so you can say put a pin in it to remind yourself of something you might have seen or like in the game world.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It would be fun if in your captain's cabin, there'd be a map and a log and the map would get expanded based on your explorations and you could write on it as well; same for your ship's log.

<!--quoteo(post=311737:date=Apr 8 2009, 06:31 AM:name=Cap'n_Drow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cap'n_Drow @ Apr 8 2009, 06:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=311737"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The map should be a LOT larger than just the caribbean<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I like Short Jack Gold's suggestion: put in the Caribbean and put in one location of the interesting countries outside the Caribbean.
Gameplay would then be mainly limited to the Caribbean, but occasionally to add some variety, you could set up an expedition elsewhere.
This should be a big challenge, but be able offer very interesting results.
You might be able to do some high profit trading runs because there's bound to be a large demand in the Caribbean for goods that come from far away.
Or you could get one of the Barbary pirates to join you your fleet and then return to the Caribbean.
And when you return to Europe, you might also get to meet the kings or queens of the various countries in person.
There'd be plenty of possibilities; a lot more than there would be if the game were 100% in the Caribbean only.
 
Hi,

For "Character Personalities and Interaction".....I hope they have or will sort out the AI to move out of the way instead of blocking everywhere up like in previous games. That'd be a step in the right direction (pardon the pun).
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rofl" border="0" alt="24.gif" /> Indeed! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />
 
I actually started to think of the Storm engine as very powerfull. I dont think, these dreams of yours is unreal.

I have spend the last week trying to figure out, how I could add new islands, but I´ll bet philippe or pirate_kk knows how to do this. I think, maybe damski62 also is trying to add new building models to the game, but dont know how far he got into that.

Is there a limit to the gaming area of Storm Engine, that can not be extended? I am quite sure, we could add completely new islands, if they are made with a terrain generator like i.e. this, the <a href="http://www.dreamlands.to/" target="_blank">Dreamland</a>.

Now, for Pieter´s seamen on deck to actually do something, that makes sense or for new characters, I found this:
I once heard somebody mention, they work with LightWave? This guy, Pawel Olas, has made som interesting plugins for LW.
There a a wide variety of TerrainGenerator, character setup, GrassGenerator and even a TreeMaker to deal with on his <a href="http://polas.net" target="_blank">SITE</a>.
 
Well for an excellent example of what can be accomplished with the Storm engine, go have a play with Voyage Century Online.

Its a massively multiplayer game that has the entire world to play in, all based on the Storm Engine.

Cap'n Drow
 
That's a modified version of the engine though, isn't it?
Personally I do consider the Storm engine to be very good. Especially as far as moddability is concerned. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
It may be modified, but much of it is still recognizable. The directory structure is very similar though not exactly the same. Still, models are exactly the same format, so we could use ALL of the ships and other models and textures from VCO with just a bit of modification work done to them.

The other main difference between VCO and the other storm based engines is that VCO uses XML files rather than .c and .ini files.

Other than that, they are still exactly the same engine and file layout from everything I can see.

Cap'n Drow
 
I once managed to get some islands in .gm format from that game. Although they only looked like they were funtioning as ("buildingsets"? like the backgrounds in hollywood you know) to the locations. They were not complete islands, more like coastlines.
The locations themselves was complete like ours, and in some cases even showed a horisontal mirror-technique I used to make in HL1 as well, giving the impression of reflections in the floow and the water of the buildings. So that is an absolute confirm, Cap'n_Drow!

Also, I see a lot of nice props and models, i.e. the horsecarriage and animals. Wonder if their animations fit 2.0? And, of course, they made pchars customizable, from 4 different models in combinations. Must be achievable, too? Maybe I am close to figure this out, because I can't model viewer to work with textures. So, right now I am trying to figure out, how to make an ingame modelviewer, via using two keys to go forward and backwards in the modelindex. And then combinations with h_models could be included later? Just an idea - I am really out of skills to do this, but if anyone want to try...
 
Why we dont use the GameBryo??
all these good ideas are realistc with that engine.
to create a new world, we can use the Oblivion TOOLS, there exists a .nif plugin for 3ds and newer Maya versions.
than the player have the options to create a unique face and we can change clothes in the game, you can be a saltyrat or a glamourus Admiral.

Create a really big world is no problem water have nice reflections and the weather(Sun, Rain, Night etc.) looks better than PotC.
Animatet Animals are nor problem there Horses, crabs etc. not that boring sharks.
We have tons of weapons, particle effects((Burning Ships)Spells) are possible, character animation looks special at the fights better than storm engine.

All Models are smoother than the .gm models, modeller can use 3ds, Maya and blender.
so its possible that the moder from oblivion came to us or helping us.

With GameBryo we have .dds textures so the golden buttons from the Admirals Uniform are Shiny and the material not.
Metal parts from ships shine, the wooden parts are blunt. with this textures we can create a really 3D look.

I think to change is not the badest idea from Seaward.ru.

finish build and dont start modding CoaS. thats what i think.
 
Is that assuming that Corsairs 4 gets made and we can get to mod that? Or would you propose us making a new game of our own?
Personally I don't see making our own game from scratch as being very realistic. And for Corsairs 4, we have no word on whether it'll actually happen.
Whatever the case, by the time we're done with Build 14, we'll be another year further and have much more information available.
So by that time, we'll be able to make the right decision. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />
 
i try to mod oblivion and i must say its not difficult.
Hey we have a scratch to make our own baby !

All Akella games a full of bugs. And perhaps we should eddy ask to give us there stuff. Hey he ask us to help and with the first steps of them we can make a pirate game for the western market and thats the wish he had, or not?

You have a great start for a really nice game. let us start with it. we can use a little bit from here and a little bit from there.

take a look at <a href="http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/latest.php" target="_blank">klick me</a> there are "free" stuff and when we ask these guys we can use there stuff.

think about it. we are all pirates and only a pirate knows about the pirates life.
 
Yo ho ho: I hear you. Makes me sleep like a baby!

Let's face it, the words "customer service" and "support" is just not an integrated part of east-caucasian mentality.

We will always just be in the shadow of the russians and the sparse things they throw our way.

But at the other hand, we are only a modding team, not a game developer. With no western releases of decent Age-of-Sail games, only PotC and CoAS are left to choose. You really think, GameBryo can handle the large world of PotC or CoAS?
 
Could it? Quite possibly. Can WE make that happen? Not so sure... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />
Anyway, I don't have that much of a problem with the Russian game developers so far.
seaward.ru has been quite supportive and PotC/AoP/CoAS are pretty good for modding.
Still not perfect though and indeed the customer support is not impressive.
But is that because of Akella/seaward.ru or the lack of a proper publisher for those games?
 
One step forward and we´re out of the russian shadow <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="xD:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

Fact: Corsairs4 use Gamebryo. Why when Storm can handle a bigger world? I would say that storm cant handle a bigger world!

Oblivion is not a small place and at the moment PotC and CoaS must reload and that can GameBryo too,with better Graphics and more stable!
with gamebryo and all our modders we can make a fantastic game thats sure.

the first step is the longest but all the little steps that follow would be gone fast.
For me is Important that we dont need only F***ing Maya 5.0.
We can use all modern programms with the right power to create a fantastic Caribbean or better World.
 
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Still not perfect though and indeed the customer support is not impressive.
But is that because of Akella/seaward.ru or the lack of a proper publisher for those games?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmm yes, Pieter. That is a good question. I have before written a whole lot about this, so please heave a read:

A developer team wants to make a game. They go to a publisher.
1) The publisher rejects their idea
2) The publisher wants to know more about their ideas and skills. The team is asked to make a designdocument (usually a big briefcase with everything about the game - extremely detailed - background almost from the main character was born, his first questline to the last explotion in the end : Linear/open gameplay issues, "If-then" boxes for events and scenes from start to end, intermediate scenes and where, the level of the main characters' interaction with the environment, use of motion capture/voiceactors/actors, dramathurgy and dialogs, concept drawings/architecture/styles, spreadsheets with budgets and deadline plans, inventory/further suggested tools for the making of the game - everything!

Let's say the publisher accept the team's idea on certain terms. If those terms are accepted by the the developer team, they are told to make an in-house demo - sort of a working alpha, with minimal content to show their skills and how they will realize the ideas accepted by the publisher.* After this is done, let's say the team still have a "go" from the publisher and the devteam usually get an advance payment here.
Now funding-issues, terms(including <u>user-support after release</u>) and deadlines are discussed and negotiated. If everything sums up for both parties, the game is in the forge. Tools are developed:i.e. editors for gameworld, animations and characters are developed for the team to use before making the game. If both parties are professionals and the team have kept their deadlines, the publisher will ask for another working beta prior to the release. This is demonstrated for the publisher to consider. If there are any corrections to the final game, the publisher now have the chance to say it. If everything is OK, the game is finished and released and the team either receive an all-at-once payment or a monthly percentage of the incomes from the game (funding and terms).

If the publisher and the team plans to release a later extension of the game, a wise decision will be to keep their in-house made tools for themselves. If not, they are usually released to the modding community, in order to further accellerate the sales of the game on a long term-basis **


-------------------------------------------------
*This alpha is made with what the team have, meaning 3DSMax/Maya/whatever - no editors/plugins are made yet, unless the team licensed the game-engine and they got a SDK(Source Developers Kit) from the engine-developer. If that is the case, a Non-Disclosure Agreement is usually tied to the game-engine and those tools can not be released to the public.
--------------------------------------------------
** Typical in the form of a in-house made SDK containg all or large parts of the source-code, examples of models (bone-structure, animations, export/import plugins etc) and what else is mentioned above.

So what we (you guys) have been doing for six years, is making an alpha for a new game - you see? This is why I would have no problems sending this team to any other engine in the world, because PA! is very skilled! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />
 
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