today I'm going to work on the trainer system, and the ministries of guilds and economies. Right now, most of the stuff is in place to sort of make decisions about what you want. That is, if you decide to try and get a better weapon, you can visit the ministry of war database and have a look.
@p
Something cool, that I hadn't really anticipated, but vex is actually mostly just about /doing/ whatever you need to do. There isn't much in the way of obstacles. Shooting monsters does help to regulate gameplay but overall, if you want something, the main obstacle is just figuring out that you want it. I'm not 100% sure if this is all good, but hey, it's how it is. I think it is kind of a nice change from always feeling like, boss X or level Y or item Z is in your way and must be defeated/acquired before you can progress. With that said there are actually a few obstacles, but generally the game has a certain flow which is much more nonlinear. Playing vex is almost a casual experience, in contrast with other games which require you to GO GO GO for the full time. That's a nice thing for console game where you want to escape for some time, but actually in a way vex is not purely an escape so much as a diversion. It is meant to be played more casually, for instance, windowed. One of the reasons games like solitaire/freecell are so popular is becuase they aren't really intimidating to get into. You never feel like you have to block off a large chunk of time to play it (though in reality many people do burn hours and hours at those games...)
@p
This is not an entirely original idea on my part, a lot of game media have talked about WoW and said it's nice because it appeals to the "casual" gamer. Meanwhile, most single player games literally take MINUTES to boot, and the worst part is that isn't just load time, it's like, the publishers animation (who the F cares?) or something similarly retarded. Games aren't movies. We can learn a lot from the movies industry in that we are entertainment, but the way people approach computer games simply isn't the same as movies. I guess I believe that people use their computers mainly for work, and/or communication, and so if you really want to have a successful PC game you should wake up to this reality. If as a game you can somehow coexist with a web browser, MS Office, etc., I think you are being a lot friendlier. To this end, I should really really look at optimizing vex load time as much as possible.
@p
Anyhow, so today it's economies, guilds, maybe work a bit more on the weapons database (right now it only shows very much useful information for cannon type weapons) and trainers. Trainers trainers trainers. I really need to get this organized because it's the main place to spend XP.
2005-01-11