The "War" Aspect of the game

Few things I have notice in the couple hours I have played:

1) No clear way of telling who is firing at you, close up or far away. (Hopefully improved 3rd person in the pipeline? Some FPS games tell you who killed you when you die, but this is more of a role playing/sim game, so maybe just 3rd person animations that let you know who's pulling the trigger, aiming at you)

2) You don't know your being shot unless your staring right at your health meter, which isn't very often if your in the middle of typing, building, etc. (Maybe add red screen flashes when your hit?)

3) I had mentioned this before, but I see it on almost every player holding a gun. It isn't being held properly when a player attaches it to their hand.

4) When you make your property "no build" it renders people unable to fight around or at your property, can we make two different functions for that? I know some people don't want people building on their property, but will allow fighting.

5) A better animation of death besides just disappearing. :\

BTW, I am enjoying your game so far, and I hope we are providing valuable information for stress testing servers.

ya 3rd person animations are needed fast,and some kind of flinch or something when getting hit.

also tracers would help identify i combat in progress,if you are minding your own business and dont want a fight but see up ahead a bunch of tracers flying thru the air then you can decide not to go thru there.

as it is you can tell if there is a fight going on or even if you are getting shot practically.

also maybe a default weapons set made by linden would be good.

also if this is gonna have a war aspect something has to be done in regards to weapon scripting,if anyone can just script their own limitlessly powerful weapons then that takes the competition and fun out of it.

Heh, we just got third person flinching in WWIIOL, and now you want it in this game?

But tracers and a red flash would be nice...

LOL I don't care about the flinching, I am more interested in seeing what the attacker is doing, right now it is only obvious some people are in mouselook/aim mode with certain guns (from my limited experience so far).

Tracers and muzzle flash would be a good addition, as well as a beefed up 3rd person weapons animation.

BTW...who made the gatling gun? $1000 piece of equipment that shoots the "ping pong" bullets at 30 a min is silly.

Not a slam against the builder at all. I equip that bad boy all the time. Is it a game design where X amount of shots can be fired in Y seconds?

I believe its the owner of X-Calibur who made that Gatling Gun (sry can't remember name at this time of night). Personally I use the Shotgun and wear a Mine-laying Backpack.

Some thoughts:

1. On death animations: I'd rather the Lindens saved this for a later update. I know the combat portions are driving some of the newer members of our community, however, unless they become a vast majority, I'd rather see development be pushed in the direction of physics, land improvements, building improvments and possibly expaning Sim capacity for people.

2. On tracers and muzzle flashes: The great thing about SL, is you create the game!. For the muzzle flashes, I suspect you can modify the explosion script for a flash. For the tracer, you can create a new object "tracer" and then modify the weapons script to fire the tracer every 5th shot nstead of the "bullet object.

3. For Yuniq and the other weapons designers: Have you thought about settng up a suggestion box ala the Gov's 4/15 Tax Break plea? You could not only create weapons people want for an extra fee, but possibly even get into the "custom" weapon design business whereby the customer might want a signature weapon no one else has and would not only pay an extra design fee for it but possible a small monthly stipend to keep the weapon "private between you and the buyer.

- A message letting you know who killed you should be implemented.

- Flashes and tracers can be implemented in game, good luck convincing your snipers to use them though.

- The way damage works is broken. At least in my opinion. You are correct that you shouldn't be able to make just any weapon 100% damage. There are a couple of threads pushing for the damage done to be related to the size and speed of the object. A cruise missile should do more damage than a pistol.

There already is a custom weapon suggestion box at X-Calibur.

But tracers I would like to see universally, as its hard as hell to tell where you are getting shot from in this game. Flash of red when getting shot would also be very nice.

hallik:
1) i think the simplest thing for this would be for the game to tell you who killed you when you die

2) your avatar makes a sound when you get hit. if you go to preferences>audio, you can set the threshold at which the avatar will make the sound (i.e. less than 10 damage dealt = no sound). i do kinda like the red flash idea, though. nothing big, just a light red tinting of the screen when you get hit.

3) this is model oositioning. it is up to the bearer of the gun to edit it and turn it around properly. there is really no way for the game itself to tell which way a gun should be held and where it should be held (the root object of the linked set will be closest to the hand, but things like the offset and rotation are beyond the capabilities of the game)

4) "no build" also means "no attach" and "no rez" if i'm not mistaken. therefore people can't attach their guns, and i don't believe the guns can fire bullets either. perhaps a "no avatar rez" flag for this, to just prevent avs themselves from creating stuff? i don't know quite how item attaching is handled, or whether it's currently possible for the game to tell the difference between attachment and straight creation.

5) this would be nice, but does not affect gameplay itself, so while i'd like to see it before SL goes live, it's not a high priority, IMHO

chaunsey:
1) as others have mentioned, this game was not designed with war in mind. i agree that a flinch would be a nice indicator, but for now a red flash would do.

2) tracers would not be nearly as easy to do in SL as they are in most FPS games. in FPSes, bullets with tracers travel in a straight line, so the rendering engine is simply told to draw some small lines behind the "bullet" (which often isn't even visible itself). in SL, the bullets all have physics. although there are ways to give them "tracers", the only methods i can think of to do it would be fairly costly in terms of processing power.

3) a default weapon set would be redundant, when there are so many people out there already creating different weapons. go see ammunation (in perry or lusk i think) or x-caliber (clyde) for starters

4) while you do have a good point here, the lindens want to tread very lightly with regards to this subject. i imagine it would be hard to put limits on what guns could do in a way that wouldn't cramp some of the legitimate creative license currently allowed with guns.

ama:
3) size and speed DOES affect the damage dealt. unfortunately (although quasi-realistically) it's the size and speed of the projectile that has the most influence on the damage dealt. i believe bullets can be scripted though to be insta-kill. there needs to be a way to make this not-so, while still allowing some things (grenades, nukes, etc) to be insta-kill.
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i apologize if i sound like i'm criticizing anyone's ideas, i'm not trying to, but i find myself mixing fact and opinion by necessity, so again, if it sounds like i'm criticizing or berating you, i apologize, i did not intend to do so
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my 2¢

hehe phil youre right aboutthe tracers...but i guess wwIIol has me spoiled,it has a full physics model and tracers.

In "no build" areas, you can attach objects that are already in your inventory (by dragging them onto your avatar, selecting "attach" from the right-click menu, or by puttting on an outift folder that contains attachments). However, you won't be able to "drop" the attached object as long as you're in a "no build" area.

In other words, you can draw your gun, but you can't leave it behind when you go away.

Aaron

This is IMO what SL is all about.

This should be handled by the players. The Playersr MAKE thier OWN game.

If you want rules etc.. you need to buy some land and turn off outside scripts. Then you can approve scripts that can be used (kinda like approving equipment) and define the Rules of play.

However, if you want people to play, they'll have to know about it.

OK matter of things. Keep in mind I'm a simple idiot who has strong, but lackluster, opinions

First off I love the fact that this is a social sim with combat, brilliantly fun. I enjoy it too much. My first day on I went to a part at a barn and wiped out all the guest. And I have to agree, the just dissapearing when your dead just isn't satisfying.
Tracers, another good idea, but that should be left to tha makers of the guns.
Red Flash, better idea, I like that alot
Knowing who hit you by being advised, NO! this just makes me think too much of quake3, fun as it may be, not here.
Limitless power. Unlike the real world (sort) we can make anything, problem is making things is TOO easy, I could make qa Baretta that's automatic, and kills every thing in one hit with an explosion with a 100m radius for the same amount of time it took Yuniq to make his/her (never can tell in sl) Deagle. So why would I want a weapon thats weaker and just as easy to make? I wouldn't except for the fact of fairness. So there should be some way to limit ones power, even if its just an honor system. The downside is we can't do that because of the weapons already made... unless we some how do a recall.
Also my own personal beef, Dying is painless. I die, I respawn, I go back... no penalty, have us pause for 30 seconds or watch a really disturbing cut scene, I'm sure this death cutscene can be added to weapons, but I would like to see it universal, or better yet you log out!!! Now I know no one wants to be inconvinenced like that, but thats the point of death. No more. Ceasing (not spelled right I know) to be. No longger given the joys and unabsolute of reality, of life. And to rob that from the player wil make his death more complete, make people want to build defenses agienst our weapons, and weapons agienst those defenses. We ned a reason not to die, even if it is just a spice girls video. (shrudder).
Also if combat cant be perfect, well thats bad, but thats not all this game is about, this game though DOES need something more, as it stands the most popular shops (that I've seen) are weapon stores, there should be more to this world than that, otherwise its just a really really open ended anarchy (ok bad example but its all about the combat) we need to find other things to make and explore, like video stores, ebooks, recording booths, space travel. Just something to push the game further.

Thanks for bearing with my rant, if you read it all treat yourself to a cookie.
~Aiosa~

so you're saying that because someone out of my view is killing me every time i try to visit my friend in the outlands, i should just put up with it because i can't find them. NO. if we at least know WHO is killing us, we can hunt them down and return the favor. as it stands right now, there is no punishment for griefers who can manage to hide well and pick off people at random just for kicks. i understand the purpose of the outlands is anarchy to an extent, but it should be a two-way street. in the same way that they are allowed to kill us, we need a way to exact payback.


i agree here. unfortunately, i can't forsee any method of control that will limit "insane" weapons (like a derringer that can fire two rounds a second that are one-hit-kill, with a 10m splash radius) without trampling on legitimate creativity.


this ties in to the first comment. now what you're suggesting is that not only can griefers kill us without us being able to find out who they are, but they can get their rocks off even harder knowing that they're making us endure this penalty every time they kill us. furthermore, when you combine it with the limitlessly powerful weapons mentioned above, you've got a recipe for a game that players will learn to hate more than the Sims Online.

and this isn't even taking into consideration accidental deaths. perhaps i'm warring in the outlands, and am getting low on health, so i flee to my bunker. however, as i approach the door, i get a lag spike, and fly into the door full speed, taking out the last of my health and killing me. should i really have to endure a penalty because i lagged at the wrong time?


people do make other things. there is a house of poetry, for example. there are also non-destructive forms of entertainment like SLB and LindenBall (i think that's what it's called). however, some things (like a video store) are hard to do because, for example, we can't upload MPG/AVI files to show as a true video. thus, we're limited to either animating many, many individual images (very costly to upload), or something with the complexity of an animated GIF on the web. other things we just don't have a use for, like a tavern. although it would be nice to have a tavern, our avs don't need to drink, and there aren't really any av animations for drinking, so at best it would wind up being a social hangout. however, there are plenty of other places to hang out already, and people do so. combat isn't the only thing we do


i don't have any cookies
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on a side note, aiosa, i'm not trying to knock down your ideas (well i am, but not rudely anyways, just offering constructive criticism), so please don't take offense to this post

When we get killed, i think there should be a message that you were killed by so and so. so that we at least know who did it.

thinking back on it the who killed you would be usefull.

And dont worry about shooting me down, I need it.

Lastly, HOW CAN YOU NOT HAVE COOKIES!?!?! BUY SOME, THEN TREAT YOURSELF TO ONE!

hehe, i created a script tonight on an "attack finder shell" that tells me who shot at me and what direction it came from

unfortunately (or fortunately?) it's a stationary object and non-physical, so it's really only useful when you're editing. i created it after some %#@!ing morons killed me two or three times while i was busy looking up reference material for a script i was working on (i was standing outside, unarmed, faerie dust particle thingies CLEARLY indicating i was editing, and doing nothing else), and the teleporting back home (i was working on this script for someone else) put the script editor "out of range" of the object, so i had to copy the existing code, then go back and paste it into the object again . so, it told me who was taking potshots at me, and i promptly hunted them down and made them pay

and before anyone asks, no, it's NOT for sale
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regarding the cookies, i found some last night and dug in

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I see the idea here, but much like the early versions of the mute function, you could end up with a problem having a restrict on just av's rezzing objects.

If you have an object like a gun not restricted so it can rez bullets, then it also opens the door for someone to have an object build other obnoxious objects.

There are a few people who build things and rez objects via. the spawning script. Myself included....so this limitation would need some serious work to make it effective. So honestly I agree with the following quote…….




Next Quote:




As some of you have tried already, I have a very elaborite maze built that now includes traps and for those who get lost beyond all tolerance, I now included a maze cheat that can only be enabled by me.

I plan on maybe holding events in the maze for hunting style gun fighting. So when its completed and once I am ready I will periodically allow damage on the land.

edit:

Also I think the maze would be perfect for treasure hunts, both Linden sponsored and private run.....I do plan on also holding a treasure hunt myself, but it won't be a money prize hunt unless the Lindens would sponsor me to hold it. I plan on making the treasures release a prize to the people who find them.