Standardizing RP combat.

Live in squalor. Forget I said anything.

Maybe some DON'T WANT dcs?

I mean.. go figure that they don't want to be all the same.

DCS is far from proven, setting up a sim takes time, finding a balance takes along time. These things can be done from the ground up alot easier.

If you think its inconvenient..don't play there. Your choice emo.

I own RCS, DCS, CCS, and FFRC... and I don't have complaints.

Oh and one thing - as a standard.. why not CCS? Or RCS? Why DCS?

Don't take my word for it -- try all three. When they do, I think they'll arrive at the same conclusion: DCS is the best combat system. Everything about it, from the way it records damage, to the diversity of weapons and features it embraces, to the overall quality of its user community, is superior.

But, really, try CCS, DCS and whatever else and see if DCS isn't by far the best. The more important issue isn't even what standard people choose, it's that we get a standard at all. Because there needs to be one. You say we don't want all the combat systems to be the same. But some of these sim owners invest so much time into reinventing a combat system that's not as good as what's already in widespread use that everything else about their sim is cookie-cutter. We don't need another gray, urban wasteland sim with a half-baked proprietary combat system.

And, again, getting a good RP sim is not about what the sim owners want, it's about building the best user experience. Right now, we have crappy user experience, and a lack of standards is a big part of it.

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Ps: I'll save you the trouble -- Everyone please note that Mr. Banker thinks I'm a whiny, emo goth kid, etc...

I really think that the reason there is no single standard is that there is no agreement on what constitutes the "best" system. I've tried DCS, and while I was impressed with it in some ways and have respect for it's developers, it fell far short of what I was looking for. So did nearly everything else I've tried. Not the fault of those developers, they just don't have the same criteria that I do.

I don't see a strong reason for standardization, frankly. I found the one that I prefer over all others, and I'm sticking to it. I couldn't care less if there are others out there that are not the same, the users of those systems are probably not likely to feel the same way about mine that I do, so power to them.

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The Wasteland combat system is nice.. if you release controls to move while dead, or fly, it deducts from your healing ability, eventually leaving you no way to heal if you cheat too much, unless you buy a new hud.

That element available in DCS would be nice.

Is there any place where a review or comparison of these combat systems can be found? I've experimented with some of the systems out there, and haven't found one I like. But I'm still interested in trying Second Life combat. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ishii has a great point. I think the RP horizons would expand tremendously with the standardization of a combat system. A number of sims have serious crossover potential, and realizing that may do wonders for getting them energized and even more popular. That cannot be a bad thing for a sim owner, especially one that has any vendor clients.
Perhaps what's needed is a serious wish-list for the Ultimate Combat System?
Take the best of the current systems and combine/synthesize them...and if the designers can get involved, set it up so that each time a system is vended, they ALL split the profits.
Dev kit it, and make that puppy widely available and you'll see an increase in LOTS of business.

I think Archer Braun is absolutely correct.

Here are the things I, as a player, like in a combat system:

1. Ease of use.
2. Hard to cheat.
3. Lots of weapons/weapon compatibility.
4. Lots of options different sims can customize.

Let's see your wishlists.

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I like all of the above...with one addition...a HUD to control multiple weapons choices.
*laughs hysterically* Not that I'm asking for a LOT. *grin*

I like the Battlezone system, myself. One that allows for environmental, in addition to, scripted weapons damage. Where you actually lose health and stamina from jumping off a bloody four-story building...or trying to swim underwater for more than a few minutes at a time.

A standardized combat system would bring a number of advantages to the RP table, aside from the obvious crossover potential that I listed. By increasing the size of the pie, every developer and scripter would stand to gain an ENORMOUS base. Not to mention those weapons builders who currently have to work with a mishmash of systems, at present.

It'd be nice to get some RP sim owners involved in the discussion...because THAT's the level of involvement it would take to get a project like this rolling.

Nexus Prime/Midian City/The Wastelands are just three of the urban/future systems that would benefit from such a collaboration. There are many more out there.

why should we standardize combat in SL?? no two RPG games play exactly alike, why would you want every RP in SL to play exactly alike? most people dont like the current DCS system that is commonly in use. its not bad, buts too limited and basic for what most people want. in the sims i spend most of my time in, they have to use 3 or 4 diffrent systems to get something interesting and complex enough to be worth playing with. (DCS for base combat stats + in house currency system + bocca's resource harvest + envirnmental/physics damage meter)

now what if we dont want every other sim in the game using our unique setup? part of keeping an RP going, is keeping people coming in, and keeping interest. if every sim in SL has the same system, whats to keep people from wandering over to some other RP and abandoning you and your group?

There would also be a problem with standardization - A human can't leap off a 4 story building, or stay underwater without gear for 30 minutes. A vampire could.

Too much standardization kills the variety of RP that people desire.

Why? This is why.

Sims in SL are relatively small. And, frankly, on a sim-by-sim basis, very few of them have much going on. They're not like entire MMORPGs, they're more like zones. Very few RP area have more than one sim and it might be nice for smaller RP areas to join in on the fun as well. Now imagine if you're travelling through EQ/WoW/L2/EVE and every time you change zones, the majority of the rules change -- both in-game mechanics, and guidelines for conduct. That's exactly what SL is right now and it lends itself to a dreadful player experience.

Some people already cross over between sims of similar themes. For example, they might rent or own a home in one dark urban RP sim and frolic around in a much bigger one with a bigger population. This kind of behavior is, in general, very healthy for the RP community and we should seek to foster it. No one sim offers everything a player wants in a game -- all the right shops, real estate, people, plot, combat, RP, etc... So we need to make the player's experience more portable.

To make the experience more portable and user-friendly -- and, thus, have more players, more consumers and more fun -- standards need to be set. These exact conversations transpire in every developing industry, and the same arguments are made against it, but at the end of the day we're all better off for having things like 110 volt outlets (or whatever you have in the EU), FTP and the World Wide Web. Before we had these things, everyone had their own little fiefdom and way of doing things and it slowed the progress of real development. Now we don't worry how we transfer files, or plug in a toaster, or view information online -- we worry about improving the files, toasters and information themselves.

There's no reason we can't set at least a casual guideline, for instance, for whether or not shell casing particles are a good idea to have activated inside a sim, or what constitutes threatening behavior in an RP sim. I know everyone wants to be a special snowflake and march around saying -- I am the sim owner, so I know what's best! -- but these things need to be ironed out in order to make the games more inviting to players and the world better for everyone.

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True. But I am very interested in hearing about people's wishlists, and I'm sure developers of other combat systems would find it at least somewhat interesting as well.

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Banking,

Combat systems already handle the differences between different races. That's not even a problem now. Do some homework.

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Mechanics in regard to environmental hazards to not address the difference ebwteen races - example a spider and a burning car in DCUR both hurt for about 15% of most platers health, and toxic moss for about 10%.

Vampires can't be poisoned, so shouldn't ve affected. Zombies either.

No they DON'T differentiate between races well enough.

Go do some homework.

Some sims allow particles, others don't. DCS can include particles, or not. It doesnt need even a casual guideline, no reason to have one.

The benefits of standardization far outweigh any potential drawbacks. If it were an open-source collaboration between scripters, so much the better.
As far as racial differences, why couldn't you script an attachment that allowed your non-breathing, superimmune vampire to ignore selected sets of damage?
Scripters could have a heyday with that sort of modular setup. Write a vampire script attachment, another for lycans/garou, another for drow/dark elves...whatever you want.
Create the framework with an eye toward allowing scripted attachments to interface with a HUD...and you could build whatever kind of RP sim you wanted.

As far as people "abandoning" your RP sim...it's more often the quality of the RP experience that keeps people coming back. In addition, Ishii is again correct. Today's RP environment in SL is more like a scattered set of "zones" rather than any one sim being truly large enough to handle the scope of representing a world. Let different sims rely on their strengths to attract patrons. Some will do cities exceedingly well...others will be premeire wilderness areas...and still others can be harbors for naval battles or dragon aeires...or whatever.

Standardization would in no way KILL your sim...it will, in all likelihood actually INCREASE interest in it. Whatever you might possibly lose by one or two people leaving would be more than made up for by the exponential increase in new traffic to your area.

What keeps me from exploring YOUR territory? The fact that I'll have to buy, outfit, and then learn my way around yet ANOTHER freakin' combat system. That detracts from the immersive experience I want. That means I'll never see the interesting coolness of some other RP area.

Is designing a standard system a challenge? Sure it is. Will it be difficult? Yep...I'm pretty certain it will be. But would it be WORTH it? You bet your bottom dollar.

Providing someone with the ability to concentrate on developing the rich environment of a sim - instead of struggling to find the right mix of combat systems/RP HUDS/whatever...could really help revolutionize the way RP is handled in SL...and make it much more widespread and popular. That's just plain good for everyone in the SL RP world.

Actually its drawbakcs outweigh its benefits.


DCS2 has no 'type' of damage so environmentally cannot be stopped. Vampires will still get hurt by toxic moss. The onyl way to stop it is constitution, which would make them next to impossible to kill under any means.

Also, if you use seperate attachments for each race.. it isn't really a standard of anything.

Secondly, everyone who hadn't bought into the system made standard would have to buy new systems, new equipment.

Thirdly, sim owners would have to adjust every piece of scripting to the new system, from traps to doors to equipment pieces and plot devices. If it wasn't DCS those toxia monsters would need complete rewrite..

What if we made the 'standard' RP one you didn't own? Then you'd have to buy all the equipment and setup.

Is it a challenge? Yes.

Is it worth it? Not in the least.

Banking...if you like a certain system over another, then you have the choice to stick with it....as does everyone else in SL.

But, providing a modular, standardized system IS distinctly more advantageous to almost everyone involved in RP, sim owners and players both.

Sure, there would be work involved in making a switch for those existing sim owners, and sure there would be an expense involved in buying new weapons. But the existing setup is MUCH more expensive and cumbersome for players who want to participate in multiple sims. They have to switch combat systems AND any interactive weapons/HUDS/attachments to move between sims with differing CS's. A standard system, with features we can agree on would be a major convenience. Making it an open-source effort would keep the core cost down, and drive the ingenuity of scripters and builders to designing weapons/traps/attachments that would function in a MUCH bigger marketplace.

If your sim has no interest in being part of a wider, more interactive world, then it doesn't need to make any switch at all. But for those who can see the benefits of opening their virtual borders to a much bigger audience, such a system would be an incredible benefit. You could have your cake, and eat it, too. Getting the owners of sims involved would help streamline the process, setting goal dates for launches and such, finding a place to test the system, etc., would, I think, be a VERY interesting thing to see.

I think all we're really looking for is a list of features such a generic system would include. And regardless of what those are, such a project would be a pretty massive undertaking, and practically begs to be a project that relies on the collaboration of some of the most talented scripters and designers SL has to offer.

Its distinctly disadvantageous, in that it blends the flavors of too many soups into one pot. I've already shown my reasons and as far as cost.. the base DCS costs 75L. CCS is free. RCS is 200 or so. FFRC is 150l. It is the accessories that cost alot more - specialized weapons, for instance.

Not to mention scripted traps, monsters, etc.

By making one big pot, you're overrunning the flavor of any individual sim, even if all you do is make one central rp system.

Are all of these systems twitch-based mouselook systems? I've been trying to find a place to compare and contrast them, and haven't been able to. The few I've tried have all seemed to be broadly similar, though, and I never gained enough experience (no pun intended) to tell the differences. Is there a source of this information anywhere? Thanks.

Right now, all SL has is flavor -- but no stew. If all you want to do is look cool and see a bunch of people who look cool with a lot of cool scenery, SL has all of that in spades. I look cool. All my friends look cool. We hang out in cool places. And... it's boring.

And your argument has been disproven time and time again. Perfect example: D20. There are hundreds of different D20 games and, if you have one D20 player rulebook, you can play any of them. You're going to tell me that the myriad different D20 game settings don't have enough individualized flavor? There are fantasy games, steampunk games, spy games, sci-fi games, board games and miniature warfare games that all run smoothly using D20. I'll admit, I have friends who are bored stiff with D20 -- after playing it for years and years on end.

Again, all the energy it takes to worry about the "flavor" of the dice can be much better spent making plotlines, cool NPC avis and better storylines. If you want to sit around and make a really, really, really interesting way to subtract hitpoints, more power to you. I think the rest of us should pick one and worry ourselves with more interesting things.

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Lots of creative people look at something and say "I can do better than this". Even if you create a modular system someone will look at it and say "this way is a lot more efficient".

And that is the joy of SL, if I don't like something I can make my own vision of how it should be. If that happens in a non-sandbox game, its tough, lump it or leave it.

And that's great but, again, we have all flavor and little of anything else.

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You can't play 2nd edition Ad&D which was my favorite. No, We had to go out and get all new books (which weren't cheap)

You also can't play any of them. Many have different spells, classes, races, world rules, etc.

A very imperfect example.

If you want to pick a base way to play, the pick one..don't try to push one system on every sim..hell, you yourself called Everwind crap and its one of the better sims out there, so when you say 'at least the good sims' you really don't have a leg to stand on.

If you have a basic working knowledge of D20 rules, you can show up at another game, make a character and go right into the game.

And I didn't say "every sim," but the situation as it stands is not reasonable for users to endure.

You're putting words in my mouth and unreasonably so. Also, my feelings about certain sims on an individual basis has nothing to do with this conversation. You've made your perspective very clear and I see no reason to continue conversing with you on the topic.

If you're content to own 30 combat meters and memorize 30 sets of RP rules, then by all means do so. But many people want a more user-friendly situation and this topic is addressed to them.

If I were you, I'd start a thread on why all SL sims should be disjointed and onerous.

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