b0rsuk
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Randomly generated DROD is quite bad comparison b0rsuk thinks. That's because DROD is extremely unforgiving - one bad move often leads to death.
Roguelikes, with their randomness and all, have a safety margin - you don't die in one hit.

Personally I prefer persistent levels which are randomly generated at start. (Like in ADOM, Nethack etc). I didn't play Nethack much because I usually can't stand fighting kitchen sinks, or having tourist as player class. But ADOM does really good job I think, because:
- you get fresh levels with each game
- you get used to levels' layout. What I like is that levels have some kind of ultimate feeling about them. You can't just re-enter the level if you run into troubles, you have to deal with them ! I love the challange.
- random levels are mixed with hand-crafted vaults and ambush rooms. There should be even more handcrafted elements. But there's one aspect of ADOM I really don't like - there's only one style of level layouts.

Xenocide follows this path, but uses various random level styles on regular basis. That's as close as possible to perfection, as roguelikes and badgers' opinions go. Can't wait for next beta version.

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eytanz
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mrimer wrote:
So, academically... (correct me if I'm wrong, and excuse me for butting in and if the following seems banal) there are several layers of "dungeon persistence" in practice:

* randomly generated levels that change each time they're entered (Rogue).
* randomly generated levels that persist for the course of the game (NetHack).
- to do this, each saved game ends up being roughly the size of the dungeon spec itself, although certain optimizations can be implemented, like: only save the parts of the dungeon your player has actually explored in the saved game file; other areas will be loaded fresh the first time they are entered.
* hand-crafted levels with quasi-persistent state (RPGs/adventures like Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metroid, DROD). Hand-crafted dungeon areas that reset each time you (re)enter them, but some effects are retained (e.g. opened chests stay opened, main power-ups are only collected once, conquered rooms remain conquered, bosses stay beaten). Memory for a saved game is only for the set of global flags that track these states, and possibly for the room in progress.
* hand-crafted levels with fully persistant state for the entire game (hmm...I'm guessing certain D&D-based games, like the Baldur's Gate series) keep track of this much state). Saved game size issues are equivalent to those of randomly-generated persistent dungeons.
* hybrids: Randomly generated levels are interspersed with some hand-made levels (Diablo, Kroz, Dark Cloud).

This scale conflates two issues. Whether a dungeon's state remains persistent is a wholly different question than whether it is randomly generated.

That said, I don't think that's a particularly important distinction for the discussion that Neil and I were having, which is basically about the distinction between persistent-state randomly generated dungeons and non-persistent-state randomly generated dungeons.

Observe the persistence issue largely requires allowing multiple reentry into each area and is independent of how dungeon areas are generated, per se. That is, with linear games, state usually doesn't persist in exited areas because you can't go back to them.

True.

Now, the issue of which of these level design models makes for good game play is, imo, more subtle than it seems at first.

I don't think it's subtle. I think it's a total non-issue. Good gameplay is possible, in my opinion, for all the options you listed above. It's just a matter of putting them in the right context.

Some believe that playing a game with random dungeons means increased game play, i.e., you always have "new areas" to explore, as opposed to a static set of hand-crafted levels that will hold no surprises once you've explored them thoroughly the first time. However, I contend that the former gives no more "exploration play time" than the latter. Once you've seen the type of levels that are possible, then you will always expect that type and are not hoping for anything new, regardless of how extremely the rooms are shifted around each time. I argue that, in fact, it's not the randomly-generated rooms that get people interested in this type of level design, but the wide range of seemingly random events that can occur in each room. On exiting a level, no one ever says, "Wow, the way those rooms went together was just amazing!" Instead, the player remarks, "The monster zoo was quite a challenge!" or "I really liked that potion I found!"

True, but I can't see the relevance of this to the discussion. First, no-one on this thread actually claimed that non-persistent dungeons are good because they offer more exploration. I said that they offer more content, of a very specific sort - content which is new but identical in type to existing content.

I think the most successful games have found a way to combine the strengths of hand-crafted levels with random events. Levels made by people (usually) have stronger and more elegant game play. Imagine a reverse case -- randomly-generated DROD rooms, with some roaches and walls in this room, and some wraithwings and pits in the next room, and some puddles of tar in the third room. It would devolve into pure hack-and-slash, with some unsolvable rooms, not being fun at all. A seemingly limitless range of possible encounters and item/treasure types retains a player's interest. As new event types are encountered, with the sequence with which the player experiences them being different each time, the player feels they are still discovering the game. Providing the player the option of selecting from different player behaviors (i.e. character classes) expands gameplay still more.

Now you're moving even further away, I just don't see what any of this has to do with the issue that Neil and I were discussing. It's a totally orthogonal point. A good point, but orthogonal nonetheless.


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mrimer
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eytanz wrote:
Now you're moving even further away, I just don't see what any of this has to do with the issue that Neil and I were discussing. It's a totally orthogonal point. A good point, but orthogonal nonetheless.

Um, yes. I'm simply sharing my pontifications on a tangential idea. It just seemed a good moment to bring it up and I didn't want to start a new thread on these ideas.

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eytanz
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Fair enough, it just was formulated in a way that made it look like a response which I found a bit puzzling. This is actually an interesting issue to discuss, but I'm too busy at the moment to enter into a serious discussion of - maybe in a couple of weeks once my current deadline is over...

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wackhead_uk
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As to randomly created rooms - Toejam and earl was a rather good game until you got to the later levels and the randomly created levels made some of the stages almost impossible to complete, and some of them very easy. Diablo 2 is the pinnacle of random rooms, I think.

Oneiromancer
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Diablo 2 is so impressive in the randomness department because of the huge number of areas it has. But once you've been through it enough, it becomes quite familiar. At least, the outdoor areas are all about the same...most of the dungeons can have different floorplans on different playthroughs, but they still have the same generic style...or "tiles" that they lay down to make a random map, if you will.

I have a bunch to say as always, but we are pretty far off topic it seems.

Game on,

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wackhead_uk
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On Diablo 2, If you constantly switch between difficulties, the floor plans change, which confuses me greatly.

Oneiromancer
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Here's a new Roguelike: Iter Vehemens ad Necem (A Violent Road to Death), or IVAN for short.

The graphics are a bit more "up to date", although it is still a Roguelike at heart. Character creation is gone; instead, the skills you use while playing the game determine how you progress. There are various things such as being able to lose limbs, and monsters leaving blood trails for you to follow, etc. I've only just downloaded it to give it a try...not sure if I will like it, since it is still supposed to be very hard, but I thought I'd share.

Edit: well, I gave it the old college try. My favorite thing about it: it saves the state of the dungeon. They are random from game to game, but within one game it is the same. Which is nice because I wanted to return to town to sell some stuff...except then I couldn't figure out how to do that. I figured I should be able to because every item I can pick up has a gold value associated with it, but I wasn't able to figure out how to talk to the only merchant.

Editx3: Okay, I figured that out. Picking something up from the ground in his store means I try to buy it, but dropping something means I try to sell it. Unfortunately, he won't buy from me for story reasons, but at least if I get to the second town I'll understand better.

The most annoying thing...is that in order for me to move diagonally, I have to press a button so that certain keys on my laptop approximate a numeric keypad. But then all of those keys are useless to me, so I continuously have to switch back and forth, or just never move diagonally. It's not the game's fault, except that I can't bind new keys (it offers "alternate" movement keys but doesn't say what they are anywhere). Basically I have the same problem with all roguelikes in this regard...too many keys to use so I can't play the way I want to on my laptop. And when I'm on my home computer...I have dozens of other things I'd rather be playing. A game like this is a quick lunch-break kind of game to me.

Editx2: I figured out the alternate movement keys finally! Basically they make the I key like the 5 on the numeric keypad. Certain commands are then moved around or made to activate when holding shift. Very nice...seems made for laptops. Kudos!

However, this game does intrigue me more than others in the genre, so I may fool around with various things and see if it works out for me. I'm curious what veterans of the genre think, of course.

Game on,

[Edited by Oneiromancer at Local Time:03-17-2005 at 10:12 PM]

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Zmann
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Yeah, I played IVAN a while ago. Never got too terribly far in it, but I think it's pretty fun. Kinda like Nethack, with the static dungeons. I think the graphics suit the game very well.

Pretty nice game actually. I don't even really remember why I stopped playing it.

Maurog
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Wow, I'm impressed. IVAN has simply the best graphical engine for a rogue-like. That's how rogue-likes are supposed to look, unless you are a conservative fundamentalist and zealously reject anything that's not made out of ASCII chars. Also, I like the skill+stat system and the combat system very much. Basically, you improve in stuff as you use it, and you have trouble using items that are too good for you because you don't have enough skill or carrying capacity. Also, the story is good and funny, at least so far. Now to things I didn't like: First of all, you always start with a dog. Not that it matters much because it usually gets killed real fast, but if I'm forced to have a pet, please let it be a cat. Although, maybe it's all for story reasons, do they have cats in banana republics? Another thing is that all items you find come already identified. This reduces the exploring experience in my opinion. Maybe if you only identified items after you carry them for some time... And the last thing, it has less options, so it may look too simple for someone who played too much ADOM. On the other hand, it's probably an advantage - many people don't like ADOM because they have to learn the key map for 50 different commands. Overall it looks really good, even if pretty hard, and I'm gonna play it alot. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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b0rsuk
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Maurog wrote:
That's how rogue-likes are supposed to look, unless you are a conservative fundamentalist and zealously reject anything that's not made out of ASCII chars.

You see, there's that rule which says that if you don't care about graphics, coders never ever have to wait for it to be done and can focus on pure gameplay.
Anyway, it is not required to have fun with a roguelike. I'll tell you something. I like good music a lot, but I ocassionaly have no music on, even for hours. This happens when I run into something very interesting and absorbing. For example when I'm modding Notrium. I don't even notice the music going down.

And ASCII graphics can be very moody. Check this:

http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/gallery/alfons.html
...and don't forget it's just black&white, because that's how aalib works. Images like this can be inserted into roguelike games, particularly ones which use higher resolution terminals (for example Xenocide uses 80x50). And in such cases you can use colored fonts, too.

Not only that, but it actually has an use. Using aalib you can have 24 frames per second, using a webcam and... 56kbit modem.

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eytanz
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b0rsuk wrote:

Maurog wrote:
That's how rogue-likes are supposed to look, unless you are a conservative fundamentalist and zealously reject anything that's not made out of ASCII chars.

You see, there's that rule which says that if you don't care about graphics, coders never ever have to wait for it to be done and can focus on pure gameplay.

Yup. That's the main point, basically. Roguelikes are normally done by hobbyists working alone in their spare time for free. Graphics are very time consuming. Sure, even very conservative RLers like me think that having good graphics is great (at least as an option). It's just that few of us can actually afford them, and most of us really resent people who tell us that RLs are "supposed" to have them, unless they're willing to pay us a salary to make those RLs or else they do them themselves.

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Oneiromancer
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Maybe Maurog meant...that's what the graphics are supposed to be like if you want to get new players.

Actually, while I like the graphics, they don't necessarily make me want to play the game more or less. I do like that most things are represented by graphical symbols instead of keyboard symbols. I like the lighting effects. I like the little heart above my pet, letting me know that it's my pet. And as I mentioned before, I like that if a badly wounded enemy is running away from you, it will leave a trail of blood that you can follow...and that I bet will attract wandering monsters too.

I also hear that there are 2x2 monsters much later in the game, which sounds pretty cool to me...I bet this could be done in an ASCII RL, but would be too confusing as one would probably just think it was a collection of 4 monsters stuck together or something.

About the items all coming pre-identified...I don't mind too much, I guess. I'm not sure if what corpses do when you eat them stays the same from game to game yet. Also, you definitely can't tell what fountains will do...the first one I ever found sucked me in and dropped me down to a lower level when I drank from it. The next game, it just was water. I've also found books devoted to various gods...each god is devoted to certain attributes, and is also devoted to a certain alignment, which I assume affects the effectiveness of your prayers, and also will modify your total alignment in the game as well.

Anyway, arguments about graphics aside, what did you think of it, Eytan?

Game on,

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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
Maybe Maurog meant...that's what the graphics are supposed to be like if you want to get new players.

No, if they really want to attract new players then they need graphics that can compete with Half Life 2. The amount of new players you can get with low-res tile graphics and the amount of new players you can get with ASCII graphics are essentially the same.

Actually, while I like the graphics, they don't necessarily make me want to play the game more or less. I do like that most things are represented by graphical symbols instead of keyboard symbols. I like the lighting effects. I like the little heart above my pet, letting me know that it's my pet.
And as I mentioned before, I like that if a badly wounded enemy is running away from you, it will leave a trail of blood that you can follow...and that I bet will attract wandering monsters too.

I agree that all of these are great. Some of them I would definitely implement in my own games, if I could. I can't, though, so it's sort of a moot point.

I also hear that there are 2x2 monsters much later in the game, which sounds pretty cool to me...I bet this could be done in an ASCII RL, but would be too confusing as one would probably just think it was a collection of 4 monsters stuck together or something.

Yeah, I agree on this point too. Though personally I find 2x2 monsters a bit restricting - they open up the whole can of worms about monster sizes. If it's just accepted that all monsters are unrealistically the same size, that's not a problem.

Anyway, arguments about graphics aside, what did you think of it, Eytan?

It's too plot-driven and the gameplay feels too Nethackish to suit me - there's too much stuff going on and too many things to do. That's just not the kind of roguelike I like.

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Krishh
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eytanz wrote:
No, if they really want to attract new players then they need graphics that can compete with Half Life 2. The amount of new players you can get with low-res tile graphics and the amount of new players you can get with ASCII graphics are essentially the same.

Well, I'm probably one of the few that fall into this category. This is very much the only reason why I haven't tried ADOM and play nethack instead. ADOM already is quite complicated and has a steep learning curve, and the fact that none of the things you see make the least bit of sense until you have learned what they all me. (and I don't just mean things like ) means weapons, I mean things like what is the difference between a yellow ) and a red ), is a red h from the same race as a green h) And why learn all this, when I can play it's competitor for the best roguelike title Nethack instead, which has tiles.