I see why this takes you so long... running newgrounds, and with how much you seem to be putting into this game, I cant wait though, its going to be amazing!
Hi there! In case you didn't know, I created newgrounds. No, it wasn't made by some giant company - just some dumb kid who now has help. I also co-founded the Behemoth; we made Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers. Icon by Pegosho, banner by OmenaKettu.
Age 45, Male
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Drexel
Glenside, PA
Joined on 12/15/99
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Hehe, I honestly can't see why everybody's so psyched about getting the first comment.. Surely getting the first on site news is 'bigger', but meh.. nothing special ;)
(The fact that you took 3-4 seconds of your precious time to answer it meant the world to me though!)
(Just kidding.. at least a little ^_^ )
I feel kinda like one of those spammers now though, in my next comment I will make sure to comment on the actual news :P
I think you should just make it how you have it for the characters. If you did it would make the player try to level everyone up equally so they will always be set. The skills should definitely be independent.
As for the single player co-op, make the new people go to the last level if they want. If they want to beat the whole game than that's their choice. Let them choose making it more suitable to however the player feels like playing.
I wish I knew a little more about the genre of this game. I look back to the classic upright cabinets and they tell me that I can stick my quarter into any of the four slots and play any of the characters, and that I can switch at the continue screen if necessary (think TMNT arcade, etc). However, you do have the element of unlocking stuff which poses an issue.
I agree, I say that you restrict players from using different characters with abilities and levels gathered by old characters. For one, the metagame may not translate for some, and secondly, it takes away from playing the game over again and gathering the little bits and pieces lost (still playing Bioshock again).
As that factors into the multiplayer, I would ultimately let local matches have the players deal with the issue of picking and choosing colors, and online matches focus on entering their one character and letting the computer decide. Honestly, it sucks waiting to find a match because of color coordination, but it doesn't make sense having 4 blue characters running around, or someone getting scammed out of their choice.
Or maybe you can have 4 blue characters running around, but I understand the world of pain caused by that.
Good luck either way.
It was originally built with the arcade mentality in mind, where players could join in to a level at any time, and could also choose a new character when they continue. It has changed since then... The option to join in during a level will likely be gone from the final game, although players will be able to join in from the map screen between levels. The option to continue during a level may also be gone. Instead, players will have to complete the level with what they have in their life bar. If three of the players die during the level but one player makes it to the end, all of them get to continue along to the next level (similar to how the four player PDA games in Alien Hominid work).
The game isn't meant to be too difficult - nothing like Alien Hominid - and I hate repeating a level after dying, so we need to be careful about how much punishment there is for dying and starting back at checkpoints within the level. The goal is a fun whimsical adventure that challenges you ENOUGH, but doesn't feel like punishment.
We're also tinkering with stuff such as what does a player do after he dies, if he wants to stick around with his friends... Does he simply sit and watch them try to finish the level, or does he come back as a ghost who can occasionally zap enemies with lightning? That's the sort of thing I'm leaning towards... Having the ability to fly around alongside your friends and charge up an attack to help them out as they try to finish the level.
Leave the choise of who can join to the one who starts the game, perhaps he could choose a span of what levels are allowed (f.ex. lvl3-6 only etc).
But it do dependd alot fo how big the difference really is between the levels... I mean, if we're talking Diablo2, the difference between lvl 1 and lvl 60 is humongous...
And on that account, to make it more fair when it comes to weapons etc. have a minimum level required to use them. Maybe you guys already have that...
It would make sense trying to work towards getting the player actually wanting to play with other players about the same level, and with that approach in mind you could tackle every unique "situation".
I think you have the right idea. Each character has to be built up independantly, but I think that "special" items/weapons, once unlocked, are unlocked for everyone, extra incentive to get them.
Heres my 2cents, you choose what character you wanna play, for the sake of argument two people pick the blue knight, since 2 people picked him, they are taken to a second screen where they can choose a different colour/costume for him. colours like Pink, Black, Maroon, Indigo. therefore, neither player has the default Blue costume so they can tell each other apart. (i know the colour is important because of the different special moves) yet it seems a fair way of getting around this.
the other problem, the idea that a newcomer would be paired with a veteran. the only solution i would have is, give the newcomer a handicap. nothing to make him on the same level as the other players but to help him on his way. and in doing so, limit the amount of experience they would get, yet... because the other players are at a disadvantage of having a weaker player on their team they gain a certain degree xp more than they would if there were 4 high level people playing. (imagine it like their the squire or lackey of the other 3 hero's therefor they get less XP in comparison,)
so a lvl 1 player would get more experiance if he teamed with other people who are level 1 also, yet if no games are avaliable, he/she could still play online with other people and actually help them out
I LOVE the idea you raised that once you die you can still help out, i was notorious on Bomberman back in the day for chucking bombs in at the other players with perfect accuracy (i was a right bastard) and for me, the idea of always playing regardless of if your a live or dead and not the: "sit on your arse watching the other, better players, have fun" method since the heads of all the characters are quite square you could easily redesign them into a grim fandango like skull and have them as a sort of angel of death.
but what about the other angle? i'll tell you what i would think would be good AND origional, the ability to posses enemies for a limited period...
hear me out first...
say the blue knight been killed the ghost sits up shakes his head a bit (maybe doing a little cute animation of him trying to pick up his sword but to no avail :3 )
instead of having Hit Points (HP) he'd have Ghost Points (GP), which constantly lower until the amount reacher 0% and POOF the ghost is gone, the only way of slowing this down is by possessing a humanoid enemy, while possessed, the GP maintains its current level not increasing or decreasing. yet HP of the enemy naturally goes down at a slow rate, once the HP is depleated the player must rush to another living host in order to carry on fighting,
this also adds for strategy as the other players would have to keep certain enemies alive so the ghost players could carry on fighting
...
...yeah I'm no coder, in fact the very sight of actionscript makes me run for the hills, but its a suggestion that I thought i may as well give
any which road, i hope to see how it turns out!
is it only going to come out on Xbox360? i mean... Alien Hominid was a good laugh on the PS2
Yeah, there's a lot of thought to put into this. I think that characters should be saved individually (spelling?) since it would feel like cheating to suddenly have four buffed up characters, and would ultimately take away the replay value, and also it wouldn't be possible to experiment with new character builds.
And for weapons, just make requirement for them to be usable, especially if they're used in pvp combat.
Also i think that there should be an experince penality for partying with a high level character, so that a level XX can just jump around killing the strong monsters, buffing up XP real fast. This is seen in maplestory, where the highest level character gets the majority of the xp, so partying with a player in your own levelrange is the most giving.
Well I have no more thoughts for now.
The same can be said for any online game with characters who are higher level then newcommers. If you game has a level based system then my personal opinion would be you should only be able to skip levels if your team of characters has the "correct" amount of level/skill points to skip. IE if you plan for a character to be level 15 before he reaches the final stage then unless every player joins the game is 15 you can't skip to that stage and have to start from level one. This would make different games where people would play games that are "For new characters only!" or "High levels GOGOGO HOT GIRLS FAST HOST".
You could also do PRIORITY picking. Something like if you have the blue character to the highest level then you have the option of picking first. No matter what though in a game with four characters theres always going to be that last guy or so who just doesn't wanna play the stupid purple knight. I mean screw donatello who wants the be the gay ninja turtle.
You could have re skins of the characters, four different shades of blue with slightly altered helmets or something. I mean if two people wanna be the blue knight, there is NO other way to make them happy. People will always have favorite characters and when they can't have them, they will whine.
We've talked about the different shades of color, but that could still be messy in the case of FOUR shades of blue... If we did allow it, I would probably try something like in sports games, where each player has a cursor that appears at their base to specify who it is. We also talk about putting gamer tags above the players heads, but that would look like crap throughtout the game... It might do it when they first start a level, though.
I like the idea of priority picking... Watching your knight kick the other player out of the player slot so he has to pick someone else... Or doing a button mashing struggle for who gets the slot. Fun stuff. :)
Take a page out of Diablo 2's book. There's 4 different knight colors. I'd say go ahead and let different people have the same colors in each match. But Diablo allowed you to differentiate by looking at their armor, weapons and so on. So maybe go ahead and let them have different hats or armor types (I'm sure thats a pain in the ass to animate more than one armor type.) Anyone who's played Diablo 2 online, with its 7 different character classes, knows what I'm talking about.
I have a suggestion. Why the hell don't you port this to Wii and put it up for download on Wiiware? Everytime I read or hear about this game, i die a little inside, knowing I won't be able to play it unless I buy another console.
REAL suggestions:
What if some jackoff plays as the character you were about to play as?
Costumes. Give each character 4 different colour swaps or desgins, but keep the playstile unique to that character, etc. I'm thinking shades of blue fo the blue knight, or add on wardrobe such as a cape, hat, player designed insignia,...
That way, You will always be able to play as your leveled character and have some snazzy different style options as well, WHILE still looking the colour of the knight you selected.. Also, keep the fact that you all go to the character select screen together.
What is a newb plays with a vet on Co-op mode?
This is a tricky one...
I'm going to have to say: they can select the level they want to play, as long as the vet has it unlocked. That way they can both groups are satisfied.
Those who want to start from the beginning can do so manually.
Those who want to help their friend beat that hard boss can do so too.
Should stats be saved by profile or by character?
Character. You basically put the word in my mouth. I'd be lame if you unlocked someone at full power.
Should levels, weapons and the like be saved onto character profile or Xbox360 account?
I'm going to say character profile. If you played the game with an undeveloped character with awesome weapons, it'd be kind of weird. I don't know, I think you should have the players focus their attention on uprading their induvidual characters. Like in an MMORPG. Also, think of the replay value if you are forced to unlock everything else again if you selected a new character? I wouldn't mind it.
I'm no game developer by any means, but thats how I think you should do it.
Love the ghost idea. Much better than sitting around.
You could also give the option of everyone having a maxed out character with some but not all of the weapons and abilities. This is an option in Live play for Samuari Warriors II on the 360, where you can play with a top level character even if you havent maxed out that character. It assigns random skills and weapons. This gives everyone an even playing field for the most part.
I forgot about the death thing.
I love the idea of ghosts, to keep the action going non stop untill you all die, so I'd go with that. it's original and creative, and should totally be included in the game. But seriously, make sure the ghost if weaker than any live player. Try to keep it so that nobody is going to purposely die to become a ghost because it's just as or equally as strong.
Don't get levels involved in multiplayer. Problem solved.
OR have a system where the player does Rock Paper Scissors for a disputed character.
quit and work on finishing the store and ng mag.
^________________________^
It's so tempting. :(
Just a thought for your character selection problem. Have you thought of this: If the characters are the same (2 blue knights for instance) Have the ability for players to select a badge of some sort to differentiate themselves from the other players? Sort of like Halo 3, but more prominent and noticable. Coupled with a high level of customization, the badges could add a certain feel of personal identity to their character.
Just a thought! Please don't flame me! =)
Also, is this going to be something to purchase on the Xbox Live Arcade, or is this something I'll be picking up at GameStop/Where ever?
Xbox360 Live Arcade.
How different do all the knights play? I'm thinking when two people pick the blue knight, one of them is forced to take the "spirit" (stats) of his blue knight and throw it into another one of the characters. That way there is only one blue character running around, but both players get to use their built up stats
This game will be awesome! But I guess now I have to go buy a 360...
Maybe you could make the multiplayer characters at about medium-level strength by default, then when the players start the game they can level up in-game and whatever powers or stat upgrades they get are wiped when the game ends? although that may be frustrating... I'm not sure. I haven't been closely following the production of this game so I don't know much about it.
....
Otherwise, I'd say you should have the stats and weapons stay attached to one character. This would give gamers more incentive to play through the single-player game with all the characters.
knugen
Is this were I go "Nice Tom", and feel unlimited joy inside due to being the first to comment? ;P
TomFulp
Yes. How was it?