Game Suggestions

[PvK]

Heh. Well, darkentrees, I'm not ready to say that everyone won't enjoy the lantern oil management.

Case in point, the review which lists as a strong point: "oil is a neat resource to deal with" (http://jaguarusf.blogspot.com/2007/1...sa-review.html)

However, ya, that was my reaction to the demo, too. I like much of the overall design, but don't enjoy the oil aspect, which seemed like the most challenging part, in a way I don't enjoy. I don't really like being rushed through things on fear of running out of oil which must be found in the dark unknown.

Nethack is a common reference point which shows how lighting can be an interesting element without an overshadowing one:
* Many areas are lit by things other than the player. (In the Scallywag demo I didn't encounter any light sources except my own lamp, which didn't seem to make much sense.)
* Being in the dark can be dangerous, inconvenient, frustrating, but it just has certain logical effects, not insta-death.
* There are many ways to acquire light sources, and players can make decisions with tradeoffs to focus on lighting or not.

And personally even in Nethack, I find the lighting and food resource requirements overly steep and sometimes frustrating.

I also wish combat were more tactically interesting and less of a hitpoint exchange contest. Also I was really not looking forward to gathering rocks and using a sling for improved ability to fight flying monsters - seemed like a pain and not logical - it seems like it'd be obviously much easier to hit a bat with a stick than by trying to use a sling in the dark, unless it's stationary.

But, my conclusion was that this looks like it'd probably be a fun game for players who are more casual gamers and aren't FRPG grognards like myself.

PvK

[jab2565]

Maybe one solution for larger maps would be to have other light sources, (torches on walls, magic lamp posts,etc) That when your in their light your lantern stops draining oil for the time being.

[S.R. Krol]

Pfreak, that's a cool idea.

I must admit I've been rather surprised at the negative reaction the lantern has gotten by some. Personally I haven't run into a situation in the game where I felt hosed because of the oil, but that's just me.

One thing that I feel may be being overlooked is what I've mentioned earlier in response to Saxon, and that's changing the oil burn rate takes 10 seconds to do and you don't have to worry about it anymore. Chronic Reality designed the game from the get-go for easy modability, and fooling around with the lantern is a great way to get a feel for how easy it is. Don't look at Scallywag as simply a single adventure, but a toolkit for endless adventures.

The demo allows you to play around with a great many variables. Just look in your directory at the .CFG files.

[jab2565]

I hope the mod community takes off for this game. If I can mod the game (altered the enemy damage rate during beta) then anyone can mod this.

[kilmorr]

I'm sorry to see so many people bugging out about the oil problem, a minor fixable issue.

Here are a couple lines in the core.cfg that should improve the demo(for those who don't like the oil burning rate).
It makes the oil burn much slower, so running out of oil isn't much of an issue. It also makes you faster and able to see further. Just open <gamedir\Media\Config\Core.cfg and replace the entry [Rapuis] with this:

[Rapius]
Type=HumanoidPlayer
Text=Rapius
HasLantern=1
OilBurnRate=0.050000
Speed=400
MaxVisDist=12

There is so much more that can be done, try adding a line
Special=Strength(4),Armour(4)
to give the player better starting stats.[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Lightning.gif[/img]

Hope the community picks up a bit. Seems like its been quite in here for awhile.

[wazoo]

The "oil management" wasn't THAT bad. In a lot of ways it reminded me of good old Ultima I where every step you took just drained your food away. If you decided to do any "exploring" it usually ended up in a panic run to the nearest town to avoid death by starvation!

But given how simple it is to tweak / mod this setting, I hope it doesn't cost the company too much in lost sales.

Scallywag is more like every Id Software game, in that it's mainly used to show off the engine more than as "the" game itself...

[kilmorr]

I also find the lamp a fun aspect of the game. Whats great is that you can tweak the game to your playing style, so if you don't like it, you can change it!

Back on topic, a feature that I think would be kinda cool is a high score table, that shows the characters who made it furthest, what level they where, and perhaps even a way to name your player. That would make the dungeon romps a little more memorable.

There are other things, but I would like to see the plugin guide first to see just how difficult it might be to make some of them. I really would like a dialog, with choices, or at the beginning of the game a way to choose your character.