From: kirby@pyramid.unr.edu (Stephen Kirby)
Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm
Subject: Re: New PeBM game through internet
Date: 16 Oct 92 01:31:09 GMT
Expires: 31 Oct 92 00:00:00 GMT
Reply-To: kirby@pyramid.unr.edu (Stephen Kirby)
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Nevada, Reno  Department of Computer Science

In article <Bvx8vG.9qn@mach1.wlu.ca> wool8657@mach1.wlu.ca (john woolsey 9209 U) writes:
>
>As far as the game goes I have just started writing since two o'clock local
>time. It seems to be going great so far. Character generation, and
>maintenence works great, and I have been adding various fighting styles to
>the game. The game as it stands works like this:
>
>Far into the future on the Planet of Artemis there was a penal colony
>established. This colony has long since been openned by the Federated
>worlds, but to this day arena fighting still exists on the planet. Although
>the fighting in general has been greatly cleaned up so that it can be sold
>to interplanetary television. I have not developed all of the rules for the
>fighting yet, but the fights will be held in a blast crater, and people will
>be able to move around as they fight. Each fighter will enter the arena from
>opposite sides where they will close to fight. Many version of weapons will
>be available, but most high-tech distance weapons will be banned. It makes
>the fights far too fast for real network selling. There will be some cover
>which will probably vary from fight to fight. 
>
>Now comes your input. How would you like to control your fighters through
>the fight. What would you like to have control of during character
>generation other then just the name of the character. I have also though of
>having alignments for the characters and the like as player controllable. So
>please give me some feedback if you get the chance or have an idea. Please
>also post so that other people can comment. No big arguements on the issues
>though if possible. I will decide on my own what to do in most cases pretty
>quickly, so long arguements won't have much of an effect on the game, ideas
>will however, since I like to make things great for everyone.

	I disagree with Russell about there being no interest. Just look
at Duelmasters on this newsgroup.

	As to how to control... Did you want this to be just a pbem, or
possibly something like empire going on in 'sorta' realtime, or something
like acm in real time?

	If you want to do something in pbem look at Duelmasters. It is
based along a very similiar premise, and I think you could take a lot
of good ideas from there and maybe add some.  Duelsmasters is actually
(to me) rather out of the players control. Yuo give some general 
directives and the program figures the results.

	If you were going to go at a faster rate ....
	Well, in a fast paced game what could be used would be a number of
abbreviations for type of swing, special attacks, target location on
opponent. This would allow for faster input and would likely lead to
players developing macros for attacks.

	If you are looking for an opinion on which style to try I'd say
either strait PBEM or maybe realtime.  I'd be for both. I would also
strongly recommend contacting RSI and trying Duelmasters as well as
talking with the Duelmaster players. I've just started playing and am
still learning. 

	From Duelmasters the only suggestion I would have would be to
balance attributes, if you use them. In Duelmasters what ends up
happenign is that some attributes are REALLY important, others are nearly
useless. Since you don't get to create your character if you are given
poor attributes you usually kill off(DA) the character and hope for a
better roll-up.

	I like creating my entire character, style, race, attributes,
name, sex, history... I like to let my creativity go. The big fear
is that a certain kind of individual would come to predominate the
arena simply because it won the most often.

	I like some ideas I have seen discussed from Olympia. The very
general character development and depth of the development. I don't
see now how it could be easily done (maybe BUY specialties and styles
in initial creation ... that would be fairly balanced).

	You idea really exites me, so if you want any more ideas ... or
just have some questions about duelmasters ...

Steve

Newsgroups: rec.games.pbm