@DukeZhou no, it works for any NPC. It pulls dialogue from variables to display text, allowing lots of dialogue to be used :)

What version number scheme do you guys prefer? semantic versioning doesn't really make sense for games. It's more for APIs where "breaking changes" and "backwards compatibility" makes sense. But for games, you have to be on the latest version. I would prefer something like just automatically incremented, but also shows the current release; like alpha/beta/release.

Just do the thing you want. version 18.04.24 is a fine version number for today.

@erebel55 maybe something like ###.###.###.x where x is A, B or R

The usage of alpha/beta/release is so inconsistent that it is basically useless nowadays. I would skip it, but if it is important to you you can add that.

Right, I was thinking more of the terms of 0.x.x

where the 0 would show that it is pre-alpha

what does pre-alpha even mean though?

@TheMattbat999 ic. very nice!

Not feature complete or released to the public

I think it is supposed to mean "not feature-complete". Which it will be for almost all of it's life.

lol true

then there's a lot of AAA games that went gold as pre-alpha

after minecraft was a salable product in "beta" for like the first five years, the meaning of that term definitely changed.

(at least in terms of game products)

I'm calling our first release version the "Alpha" because it's still not fully featured, so we're still on versions 0.x.x.x

at the end of the day, it needs to be meaningful to you - I don't find the pre-alpha, alpha, etc useful for my development, but that's me

keep in mind though, that appending a 0 in the front doesn't tell anyone else it's pre-alpha unless you specifically say so

right, that makes sense

absolutely, more about marketing positioning

but, re: minecraft, I have paid good money for games on Steam still in Beta

how do people automate the version number with all the rules that go into it? or is it normally just manually maintained?

personally, I would also look at a #ing scheme & ask "how could this go wrong? how might this be unsustainable? how might it confuse more that it illuminates?"

^^^ that

internally, I use my repo commit #

yeah with continuous integration, it just seems like it should automatically increment so I don't have to think about it

I don't have an external release though, so that's another reason not to consider my system authoritative. I could probably spend as much time working on a perfect naming system as I have for developing the things I'm trying to # :)

Right, it's more important when it's external with multiplayer and patch notes

actually, I have to walk that back - the current things don't have a release. the smaller past projects, I think I just put out there.

And you never forget to update that before you build?

*before you release

ah okay

ahh okay yeah I've seen that. Pet nicknames for each release

re: pet nicknames, with Apple, I can never keep them straight. I have no idea of the name of the OS I'm on (not enough room in my brain for that info, only the numbers ;)

same with ubuntu animal names

at least those are by letter

but, re Tyyppi's (Holiday Update) that can be very useful in the manner presented, as an internal guide

My developer and I forced names for our AIs, over the objections of our marketing guy, and it's proven super useful to be able to refer to them by name.

names for enemies are great. I think that was the killer feature of PunchOut

(also, if they ever become superintelligences, they will see us as "first acceptors" of the new gods, and allow us to populate the post-singularity world)

(we hope--never a bad idea to try and hedge your bets;)

@Jimmy props. I used to love the old arcade versions of that game

I guess windows 10 uses the tyyppi school of versioning

Windows versioning... Sigh.

1, 2, 3, 3.1, 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10

Vista

8.1

We don't talk about Vista. Of course, I included ME, but...

8.1 wasn't a separate windows, was it?

It was just an update pack I thought...

and win10 updates are called v1607 (Anniversary Update), v1709 (Fall Creators Update) etc.

from what I recall, 8 -> 8.1 was pretty significant, about as much as Vista -> 7

@PearsonArtPhoto don't forget NT, their first stable server that turned out to have no security (conveniently discovered after major companies and implemented in production;)

stuff back then just wasn't very secure. You could log into Win98 (which wasn't NT) without a password via the Help button

NT is the business version, which is a different path.

1, 2, 3, 3.11, NT 3.5, NT 4, 2000, XP, ...

or, like, the escape out of screensaver to not have to enter password to unlock

@PearsonArtPhoto I stand corrected

I think that's how it went, but... Hard to remember.

ideed it is!

Lucky for me I was really in to IT type stuff until XP, so...

I've actually never used Vista, and haven't really used 8.

well now their versions are like windows server 2008 windows server 2016

That's server versions.

NT and 2000 were desktop operating systems intended for business.

3.11 too.

well as i understand it all windows are NT now

They merged the baselines for XP

since that kernel was better architected than the 9x line

You are probably right.

I think the main difference is the business versions supported domains or something like that.

98 was horribly insecure... I remember being able to bypass log in passwords easily.

I had a teacher in HS with a single letter password. I saw him type it once, and figured out what it was with only a few guesses, based on where he typed on the keyboard.

You don't even want to hear about the insecure passwords where I work. secure passwords are, apparently, too hard to remember

but, now that we've been hacked, they are finally coming around, grudgingly

I mean, OPM was hacked...

"Security Experts Agree: The NSA Was Hacked" technologyreview.com/s/602201/…

we implemented a password policy

everyone complained

especially about the "you must change your password once per year" part

Neal Stephenson had a nice little aside in Anathem that the bot swarms went feral, and no one was sure where they went or what they were up to

I won't ask if that's where you were.

that's not where I was, unrelated company

but I do security, so I had to listen to a lot of complaints

@Jimmy nice. "cyber" very hot field to be in

@DukeZhou thanks! I have 4 NPC's with dialogue now. 2 quest are available through dialogue also. Just need to add more dialogue options...

Because it is limited to Rumors, Directions, and Quest options, and I just feel there should be more...

Ideas?

@TheMattbat999 You know me, I can generate ideas like the sun generates light. Question is, which ideas will actually serve your vision?

Idk. I usually get something out of your ideas! Shoot.

Give them mini-personalities, and little mannerisms and sayings (just for flavor)

Let them give hints (advice), say, if the player does something to earn the hint, or figures out a riddle.

Nice. I already started to try to add some personality to them. The Noble of the town is rich, stuck up, and will say "I heard you are an idiot" when asked for rumors and laugh when asked for jobs.

but if you want them to have utility value, it partly depends on the structure of the game

haha-- that is awesome!

Also says "Find it yourself, fool" when asked for directions. I also thought about some sort of disposition system associated whether you helped them and your fame/infamy

One says "Veri (a quest NPC) needs help... in more ways than one" as a rumor to identify his crazyness

Veri is actual just paranoid after his encounter with a ghost

I love it. Humor and wordplay will almost certainly elevate the response to your game significantly. (See the popularity of GTA, which always contains humor.)

It's great how deeply you're developing these characters. Same thing playwrights and actors do--inventing a history for the characters they're portraying or creating.

Thanks. Just a few out of at least 50, 75? The game will include at least 5 towns

But you have the passion and the capability, so who knows how many will have personalities by the time you are done.

Hopefully all, because boring NPCs correlates to a boring RPG

If you do each one by hand, I'd call it "bespoke", but, if you can find some way to generalize the function, you could probably more efficiently paste less-unique personalities on everyone.

Nope. All by hand. Gonna do it right!

It don't take but a few minutes to rig up an NPC anyway!

I'd even go so far as to promote the "bespoke NPCs, each hand-crafted for your entertainment and amusement" in your eventual marketing copy ;)

YES

is there nice splatter when the player "brains" someone? [Brain (verb); to smash someone in the head with a blunt object, typically in combat. Synonym: Clock (verb)]

assuming you have maces or staves, that is...

No. No blood and stuff... yet :)

You might consider a switch to turn gore on and off--more parent friendly that way if you do decide to incorporate it.

Yeah. Smart. Though I will guarantee no cussing.

What about player owned housing? They could store loot

One way around the no cussing rule (great idea, imo) is to make up in-world curses and insults. Shakespeare has many colorful ones. See: 15 great William Shakespeare insults which are better than swearing

Google search for best Shakesperian Insults

Like the "N'Wah!" insult from Morrowind?

That's also a great way to go about it (but you can do much better than N'Wah I think :)

And, of course, if you want to reference Monty Python's Holy Grail (which, if you haven't seen it, will provide a nearly limitless font of inspiration,) have someone use the insult "I fart in your general direction"

Ok...

guessing you haven't seen the film?

No

Trust me. See it. You will thank me later.

Ok.

It's universally acknowledged as a comedy classic

How has Mbrane been going

Or M-Brane. Whatever it is :)

Not bad. I have that lecture coming up, but still don't have a fully featured product. (My developer gave me cross-platform network play instead--broke down and wrote his own server.)

Big problem is finding our initial niche. Been striking out a lot, but now is when we can afford to make mistakes. My marketing guy finally decided we have to go after the "really smart people niche" initially, with the current build. He posted on the Mensa reddit and got great response.

But we're in a long game, and my team get that. The game is so groundbreakingly original, the general, abstract game playing base is having trouble "grokking" it.

Ah...

But I taught my 7 year-old niece to play, and she can reliably beat the random AI, and rando-max AI.

YES. CONTROL THE KIDS AND YOU HAVE WON THE WAR ;)

(without fully even understanding the rules, she's consistently making choices sufficient to beat the weaker AIs)

she gets Power and Influence, and talks about attacking and defending territories, and understands Sudoku now, without knowing what Sudoku is

AND, middle schoolers are our most enthusiastic players--they have the right amount of mental elasticity and are undaunted by the complexity.

Though really this game is starter game for me. I have * WAY * bigger plans for the sequel...

Me too. We're building a kernel, not a single game, so we'll eventually be releasing a plethora of themed, graphical versions, little kid's versions, etc., on the same code-base

ideally, this is a launching pad for an AI company, and a massive, intrinsic, 5x MMORPG

but it partly depends on how long it takes us to get profitable with the current product line, which could be months or years.

Like actual 3d, special text-to-audio system to rid the need of most voice acting, and 56 different stats for a wide range of play styles.

And a huge, varied world to explore.

what you have going for you is youth--at the rate of current technological progress, things that aren't possible today will be plugins in a few years, almost certainly including neural networks for NPCs

True.

when you're ready to do that "world without end", we should revisit the geometry we worked on...

super compact method and all

Definitely. Still got paper on it. Never left my mind, and even added in a pure neutral element: Magi. And races to be associated with each element.

Been constantly working around and on it, really.

@TheMattbat999 do you know about chaotic systems and emergence? Worth perusing and allowing to percolate in your brain.

No, but I will read these links! I gotta go. I will post a pic of the current heptogram later!

later, yo!

hahah

@DukaZhou NOTE:I don't know why, but I have Essence wrote instead of Magi. Excuse that mistake :)

[TheMattbat999 has been suspended for 1 year for this mistake]

[] words are tge corresponding traits. () is the ruler of that element. CAPITAL is the race.

@doppelgreener crap!

that'll teach you!

But... I can still speak! It is a MIRACLE!!!