Re: CF: Successful experiments - commit to CVS?

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

David Andrew Michael Noelle wrote:
> 

>     They don't.  Only the weapon's own magical stat bonuses are applied to
> itself.  Perhaps they shouldn't be, though.  A weapon that amplifies its
> user's strength might not hit any harder when there's nobody actually
> swinging it.  Weapons that enhance their owner's agility might not be any
> more accurate if they don't have an actual hand and eye to improve the
> coordination of.

 Ok.  I misread your original description, and thought it was the players stats
which adjusted the damage and whatnot.

 That said, I don't have as much problem using stats, except it could be
unbalancing - player gets really good weapon, and can animate it and slice stuff
to pieces from a distance.

 Maybe it should be that way.  Don't know for usre.


> >  Although, to be honest, I don't bother to look at most the messages it prints
> > out. (only time I really notice is if I see 'You missed' scrolling down the
> > side, which means it is immune to my weapon.
> 
>     As an attempt to make those messages more interesting, this wasn't much
> of a success.  In most cases, things are happening too quickly to read the
> text anyway.

 Correct.  If fewer monsters are added to the game, perhaps people may notice
the messages more.  But I think in a real time game, you really don't have that
much time to notice those details in the fast pace of combat.  And I can't
really see that changing unless the actual pace of the game actually slows down
so you could finish reading the last message before the next shows up.

 Even then, I think pretty quickly players will start ignoring any messages. 
Even in retail games I buy that do have slower combat, I may look at the message
or pretty graphics as I kill something while first playing the game, but they
get repetitive pretty quickly and then I start ignoring them.

 If anything, if you want to enhance/improve messages, changing the color they
are printed out based on damage or somesuch may be more interesting.   This way,
you at least get some better visual feedback on what you are doing, but more
importantly, a very interesting message will stand out a lot better.

 Color text was one of the more recent additions to the output (or it might have
been around for a long time, just not used very much).  A lot of stuff still
uses the basic black text, while color the messages, while just pure glitz, may
at least give better feedback on the importance or type of message for those
that don't really want to read closely.
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