Weaponary system

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Talaroc
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Post by Talaroc »

Well, as the trolls say, "You da boss." :wink:
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ElvenProgrammer
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Post by ElvenProgrammer »

Yeah I am :lol:

nah I need suggestions :idea:
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Kyokai
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Post by Kyokai »

It's important to remember that SoM creatively re-used sprites for similar weapons. Because animations were quick and had a fair down-time, it was easy to overlook that some weapons didn't quite match up. For instance...

All the walking and running animations for all characters are exactly the same, regardless of what they were carrying.

Attack animations for melee weapons (axe, sword, spear, etc.) are all exactly the same. As they are for thrown (boomerang, javelin).

Bow and Hand to Hand use the same sprite (the bow is pasted on top of a reversed punching animation)

Magic only had one animation. Remember that the characters just turned sideways to cast a spell?

This is a whopping total of...
3 running
3 walking
3 melee weapon
3 bow/h2h
3 punch
2 magic

17 animations of 4 frames each = (17*4) = 68 character sprites, 24 of which (walk, h2h) are already finished. Hope that helps a bit.
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Talaroc
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Post by Talaroc »

See, although the creators of SoM get points for inginuity, this is one of the places where I think we really need to depart from what they did. They re-used all those sprites because they had a premium on space. We, given that we're doing this for substantially improved technology, do not have that restriction; computers that can't handle the memory drain of a few extra sprites probably can't handle MMORPG's anyway. FOr us, more sprites just means more work, since we don't have the huge team that major companies do. However, for the sake of improved quality, I'm willing to do extra work, and make more sprites. SoM's fix may have solved their problem, but it was also IMO one of the really weak points of the game, as it interfered with immersion (No matter what, the ultimate rule: you do not want your players to think they're playing a game. You want them to think they are the character. The better you accomplish this, the better gameplay gets.).
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Kyokai
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Post by Kyokai »

Each of those basic frames will force the artists to draw extra clothing and weapon animations to overlap them, etc. I think we would create more immersion by making a huge array of weapons and armor with individual sprites, rather than characters who have alot of sprites, but only about 3 clothing options.
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Talaroc
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Post by Talaroc »

Bear in mind, that I'm talking from the standpoint of one of said artists. I don't think it's an either-or situation; though generating the extra character sprites is moderately difficult, clothing is actually quite simple, and wouldn't take very much more work.

See, the problem I have with few character sprites a-la SoM is that the characters wind up looking goofy. Yeah, they managed to get "bow" and "punch" with the same animation, but it means the chars jump around oddly when firing a bow. They managed to more or less fit all the weapons to the character animations, but it really doesn't look like the char is holding them; rather, it's like they're just floating there. The spellcasting one I didn't mind as much, since the spells themselves had extensive enough animations to divert attention, but in the context of an MMORPG, every spell can't take up the whole screen; the animations have to be tighter, which means more focus on the character. With so much going on that they don't need to pay attention to (other chars), players are going to be devoting that much more attention to their character, and any shortcuts are going to show. So yes, make a huge number of weapon and armor sprites. But at the same time, make enough character sprites to make the player's actions look natural. I'm willing to do the extra work for the significant jump in game quality it would produce.
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