Neocron Reloaded

ps. found this on youtube. it might be worth looking up all the nc videos on there and posting some links for the users. it would help spread the word. i tried to but couldnt. im not sure why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyPu...eature=related

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doc Holliday

ps. found this on youtube. it might be worth looking up all the nc videos on there and posting some links for the users. it would help spread the word. i tried to but couldnt. im not sure why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsyPu...eature=related

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OT: Saw that vid in another thread, it's very good. I've only recently sorted out the THN's youTube channel after an account conflict with Google apps.

What I was going to suggest is you create a playlist, and then I add your playlist to the THN's channel. However, it seems YouTube doesn't seem to have an option to do that. 8|

I tried putting my MotU videos up there the other day, decide not to bother after the first part of the final was only visible in Japan...
So for the time being, guess most of them will remain at my site

Trivaldi,

plz clear your PM Folder.

OK, everybody is going to have an opinion, but here's some things I think are worth considering for Neocron reloaded:

Vital:

• Give NCR true FPS combat - guns fire either hitscan or projectiles, that do damage on impacting targets. The weird hybrid system of NC might have been all that was practical in its time, but now there should be no reason not to do things properly. So many of the problems NC faced with PvP (many of which were blamed generically on "clipping" would never have occured with such a system, defensive strucutres would be more useful, and it would drastically improve PvE, both ending (or at least severly limiting) safespotting while making player positiong vs mobs much more important.
• Minimise instancing. I don't say no instancing at all, as appartments after all are just permenant instances. I also see the chance for procedural mission generation that uses instancing. However, if you want to recreate the feel and best parts of NC, then the real, continuous world is an important part of that. Being able to meet up with friends, ambush enemies, or just encounter new acquaintences anywhere in the world is what made it work.

Opinion

• Focus on Neocron - I'm guessing there's no easy way to import World Geometry over to Unity. Even if there is, fixing it up for the new engine will still be a big pile of work. What I'd suggest then is that rather than trying to recreate the entire world for first launch, is to just initally focus on the Neocron city. It's the most interesting part of the game, and huge chunks of it (most infamously Mainsewers, but also most of the Outzone and Via Rosso as well as things like the clubs in Pepper Park) went mostly unused. Make the city the real focus of the game. Make Mainsewers relevant and perhaps the link into higher level environments. Worried about the lack of OPs? Create player contenstible facitilites in an expanded Industrial Area. The wastelands can still be developed and implemented, that'd be great - but for starters, just the city would be enough.
• Know that some systems in Neocron are outright broken - Outposts for example. Player contesible territory is a fantastic part of the game. However, optimal play in terms of maximising territory for OPs involves always attacking and pretty much never defending, as if both teams are playing to win, then there is a huge bias towards the attackers. The rewards for owning so many of the OPs are downright useless as well. All these things can be fixed - but they're broken enough it's not worth starting from where we were. Hacknet is another one. Cyberspace is a core part of cyberpunk fiction. But Hacknet was a joke - gameplay just a very, very slimmed down version of Psi Combat, carried out on the same 5 narrow walkways over a not-quite-bottomless-enough chasm. Do it right or don't bother. What I'm drving at is don't waste time recreating in new, more stable code for NCR things which are conceptually broken.
• No click zones - or at least, as few as possble. Make it so that maps can easily have new walk across zonelines added - even better make the world continuous and zoneline free, however that would likley be difficult. Click zones are an obvious bodge, have a bunch of weird behaviours tied up in them, and attack one of Neocron's strongest aspects - it's sense of place.

Those are the straightfoward things. I could write at length about what I'd recommend doing (that shouldn't be too difficult to acheive, unlike the grand, almost new game scale of DJ's Big Fix) to make a new Neocron (condsidering that all code and a bunch of other thngs will have to be new for NCR) that fixes what was wrong and builds on what was right about NC, while still feeling like Neocron. It's worth pointing out that I could also write you a full design doc for the cyberpunk MMO that I would make - and it would be nothing like Neocron.

I have one request of many for NC:R.

Please go back to the old style names for implants.

Instead of

• Pistol Targeting Matrix V0.1
• Strengthen Heart V0.2
• Drone Distance Interface V1.3

How about

• Pistol Combat Eye 1
• BioTech Strengthen Heart 2
• Drone Distance Interface V1.3

This V0.1 or or V0.01 or V1.2 stuff is just a little too complicated IMHO and not very consistent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brammers

I have one request of many for NC:R.

Please go back to the old style names for implants.

Instead of

• Pistol Targeting Matrix V0.1
• Strengthen Heart V0.2
• Drone Distance Interface V1.3

How about

• Pistol Combat Eye 1
• BioTech Strengthen Heart 2
• Drone Distance Interface V1.3

This V0.1 or or V0.01 or V1.2 stuff is just a little too complicated IMHO and not very consistent.

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I'd sort of assumed going back to the older implant system would come under the "taking the best parts of NC1 and NC2". An implant system that pretty much requires doing lots of out of game calculation is not a good implant system. In general, there is a huge amount of stuff that could be simplified in NC to make it more accessible to players, without losing the underlying depth of the system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CMaster

I'd sort of assumed going back to the older implant system would come under the "taking the best parts of NC1 and NC2". An implant system that pretty much requires doing lots of out of game calculation is not a good implant system. In general, there is a huge amount of stuff that could be simplified in NC to make it more accessible to players, without losing the underlying depth of the system.

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You referring to the decimal modifier values of say APU +2.64 instead of plain simple APU +3

Yes please get rid of those annoying numbers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CMaster

I'd sort of assumed going back to the older implant system would come under the "taking the best parts of NC1 and NC2". An implant system that pretty much requires doing lots of out of game calculation is not a good implant system. In general, there is a huge amount of stuff that could be simplified in NC to make it more accessible to players, without losing the underlying depth of the system.

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Simplified is most often a contradiction to depth, I would even go as far and neglect the few cases where it is not and say that it is always a contradiction. I always liked that, going through all the different possibilities and think about what might be the most feasible option for my playstyle. That was something which I really liked about NC. There were days I spent more time on fiddling around with my skill setup than actually playing NC and that was a hell lot of fun. Especially in the case that there is no perfect setup which suits all cases you always have to adapt and that's cool. In any other game there a just one or two possibilities two distribute your skills for pvp. No options to choose from and I am afraid that simplyfing the system would lead to exactly that. But I agree that integer numbers for implants would be great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CMaster

OK, everybody is going to have an opinion, but here's some things I think are worth considering for Neocron reloaded:

Vital:

• Give NCR true FPS combat - guns fire either hitscan or projectiles, that do damage on impacting targets. The weird hybrid system of NC might have been all that was practical in its time, but now there should be no reason not to do things properly. So many of the problems NC faced with PvP (many of which were blamed generically on "clipping" would never have occured with such a system, defensive strucutres would be more useful, and it would drastically improve PvE, both ending (or at least severly limiting) safespotting while making player positiong vs mobs much more important.
• Minimise instancing. I don't say no instancing at all, as appartments after all are just permenant instances. I also see the chance for procedural mission generation that uses instancing. However, if you want to recreate the feel and best parts of NC, then the real, continuous world is an important part of that. Being able to meet up with friends, ambush enemies, or just encounter new acquaintences anywhere in the world is what made it work.

Opinion

• Focus on Neocron - I'm guessing there's no easy way to import World Geometry over to Unity. Even if there is, fixing it up for the new engine will still be a big pile of work. What I'd suggest then is that rather than trying to recreate the entire world for first launch, is to just initally focus on the Neocron city. It's the most interesting part of the game, and huge chunks of it (most infamously Mainsewers, but also most of the Outzone and Via Rosso as well as things like the clubs in Pepper Park) went mostly unused. Make the city the real focus of the game. Make Mainsewers relevant and perhaps the link into higher level environments. Worried about the lack of OPs? Create player contenstible facitilites in an expanded Industrial Area. The wastelands can still be developed and implemented, that'd be great - but for starters, just the city would be enough.
• Know that some systems in Neocron are outright broken - Outposts for example. Player contesible territory is a fantastic part of the game. However, optimal play in terms of maximising territory for OPs involves always attacking and pretty much never defending, as if both teams are playing to win, then there is a huge bias towards the attackers. The rewards for owning so many of the OPs are downright useless as well. All these things can be fixed - but they're broken enough it's not worth starting from where we were. Hacknet is another one. Cyberspace is a core part of cyberpunk fiction. But Hacknet was a joke - gameplay just a very, very slimmed down version of Psi Combat, carried out on the same 5 narrow walkways over a not-quite-bottomless-enough chasm. Do it right or don't bother. What I'm drving at is don't waste time recreating in new, more stable code for NCR things which are conceptually broken.
• No click zones - or at least, as few as possble. Make it so that maps can easily have new walk across zonelines added - even better make the world continuous and zoneline free, however that would likley be difficult. Click zones are an obvious bodge, have a bunch of weird behaviours tied up in them, and attack one of Neocron's strongest aspects - it's sense of place.

Those are the straightfoward things. I could write at length about what I'd recommend doing (that shouldn't be too difficult to acheive, unlike the grand, almost new game scale of DJ's Big Fix) to make a new Neocron (condsidering that all code and a bunch of other thngs will have to be new for NCR) that fixes what was wrong and builds on what was right about NC, while still feeling like Neocron. It's worth pointing out that I could also write you a full design doc for the cyberpunk MMO that I would make - and it would be nothing like Neocron.

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Agreed on everything :) good post CMaster.

How about this:

After NC City is done and polished and people start to get in the game, Make a Gene Replicator list for the areas that are most relevant to the working of system quests and class items, like WoC Lab, Regant's, Graves, etc. The way it could work is you teleport directly into the sector where the dungeon is which isn't still accessible by map (since you would still be constructing it), but available by Genrep.

That way people would still be able to level, get items, basically get busy and distracted while you end up doing the rest of the game.

Then, on a final stage remove the genreps on location and put them back where they used to be so people use their vehicles, explore, etc.

And i also agree with CMaster that some places are conceptually broken and should either be totally discarded or simplified - like Industrial Area, Sewers, etc.

Either way, i'm very happy to see this is a work in progress and that NC isn't forgotten, and best of it all, it's being remade :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by r2d22k

Simplified is most often a contradiction to depth, I would even go as far and neglect the few cases where it is not and say that it is always a contradiction. I always liked that, going through all the different possibilities and think about what might be the most feasible option for my playstyle. That was something which I really liked about NC. There were days I spent more time on fiddling around with my skill setup than actually playing NC and that was a hell lot of fun. Especially in the case that there is no perfect setup which suits all cases you always have to adapt and that's cool. In any other game there a just one or two possibilities two distribute your skills for pvp. No options to choose from and I am afraid that simplyfing the system would lead to exactly that. But I agree that integer numbers for implants would be great.

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Integer vs Decimal implants is a great example of complexity/simplicity not being equal to depth. Decimal implants make thing much more complicated for the player, while not actually making the implant system allow for anything much more interesting. Hell, it possibly hurts the implant system, as there are so many combinations now that fall just short of thresholds. I've actually got a sneaking suspicion that we could do away with all negative effects on implants and still only improve the system, however you'd have to test to know the truth about that.

Regardless, there are lots of examples in game design where there is not a straightfoward relationship between complexity and depth. However sometimes a bit of complexity is a fun thing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CMaster

Integer vs Decimal implants is a great example of complexity/simplicity not being equal to depth. Decimal implants make thing much more complicated for the player, while not actually making the implant system allow for anything much more interesting. Hell, it possibly hurts the implant system, as there are so many combinations now that fall just short of thresholds. I've actually got a sneaking suspicion that we could do away with all negative effects on implants and still only improve the system, however you'd have to test to know the truth about that.

Regardless, there are lots of examples in game design where there is not a straightfoward relationship between complexity and depth. However sometimes a bit of complexity is a fun thing.

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I think Integer vs Decimal values is not a matter of complexity it is a matter of convenience. What I termed as complexity was the complexity of the decision making process the player has to go through. In case of decimal vs integer value and similiar discussions I aggree, there is no straightforward relationship between complexity and depth.

As for the implant system, I think it can be as complex with integer values as it is with decimal values, but it is most probably harder to achieve that complexity, that's for sure.

I was talking about complexity in a sense of decisions the player can make. A feat based system like in other MMOs is certainly not as complex as the NC skill based system. This is something NC shouldn't loose, its complex skill system. The complexity made pvp even more fun, because knowing the weaknesses of your enemy helped alot, but your enemy was also able to adapt and therefore you again have to adapt and learn about the weaknesses of your enemy and so on. (Due to balancing issues most people focussed on something, until that balancing issue was fixed and the next came up, balancing such a complex system is really a hard, nearly unachievable task)

However, a better tutorial/help system which introduces one to the possible choices one can make would be great. So new players are able to understand/grasp the complexity and the fun of NCs skill system.

See, again you are mixing up complexity and depth. The two are often, but not always related.

In a game design context:
Complexity refers to how intricate the system is, however many different variables there are to twiddle with. Depth is about how many different actual options the system presents, how much the player choice matters. Chess isn't an especially complex game, but it has a lot of depth from the way you can use those rule. Go, is less complex in that it has only one piece, however the number of decisions to make and the impact of those decisions is even greater. Go can (argubly) be an example of having less complexity, but more depth. This isn't to say however that complexity and depth are never linked. Chess and Draughts (or Checkers in the US) are similar games in many ways. However Chess is unarguably both the more complex game, and the deeper game.

There's plenty of writing out there on the subject - here's one place to start

oh wow, civilized and intelligent discussion, where did we drop down the rabbit hole? :D

I think you need to introduce the term confusing instead of complex to the discussion as well. the number of decimals doesn't really increase or decrease complexity, it's still an implant with only one value. It's just that decimals make the actual understanding of the complexity/depth more confusing, since it's not easy to read like integers are.

I also think that the basis for people to think the decimal is the problem, is because at the time when the decimal system was introduced, the whole balance of the implants was changed as well. A whole load of implants became obsolete not due to the number of decimals, but because they were "balanced" too much.

I think implant decimals are a bad design decision from a usability point of view, but I think they were introduced so that tweaking balance would be more continuous instead of in discrete steps. Of course because they never actually balanced the game after implementing the changes to allow for it, now we only have the disadvantages of the decimal system (confusion), while not profiting from the advantages (more sensitive tweaking of balance), even going so far as having the supposed advantage turn into a disadvantage because the first try at balancing made lots of implants obsolete.

edit: and r2d22k, get on steam :p I wanna show some stuff :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CMaster

See, again you are mixing up complexity and depth. The two are often, but not always related.

In a game design context:
Complexity refers to how intricate the system is, however many different variables there are to twiddle with. Depth is about how many different actual options the system presents, how much the player choice matters. Chess isn't an especially complex game, but it has a lot of depth from the way you can use those rule. Go, is less complex in that it has only one piece, however the number of decisions to make and the impact of those decisions is even greater. Go can (argubly) be an example of having less complexity, but more depth. This isn't to say however that complexity and depth are never linked. Chess and Draughts (or Checkers in the US) are similar games in many ways. However Chess is unarguably both the more complex game, and the deeper game.

There's plenty of writing out there on the subject - here's one place to start

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Thanks :) You are right, I completely mixed up those two terms. Never thought about it much. I always used the term complexity for both, complexity and depth, but as you nicely explained they are two completely different terms :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Biglines

I think you need to introduce the term confusing instead of complex to the discussion as well. the number of decimals doesn't really increase or decrease complexity, it's still an implant with only one value. It's just that decimals make the actual understanding of the complexity/depth more confusing, since it's not easy to read like integers are.

[...]

edit: and r2d22k, get on steam I wanna show some stuff

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Hehe, that's true confusing is also one thing one should think about. At a first glance Neocrons skill system is quite confusing, especially for those who are used to todays games. One should somehow introduce people to it. But I think that is also a point on KKs to-do list, introducing new players in a more noob-friendly manner to the gameplay mechanis.

As for your edit: getting on steam on a Linux machine is kinda hard ;) I am currently at university, looking out of the window and thinking about all the fun things one could do instead of working on a Ph.D. thesis, because the wheather is simply great!