A BYONDscape Classic! There are lots of good ideas in here, so take notes.

BYOND Can Do It Better
by Lummox JR

Summer, 1990. The PC revolution has finally picked up wings as yesteryear's console computers (Atari, Commodore, Vic-20) begin to fade from the market. The unspeakably awful horror of CGA graphics has all but died to the vastly superior EGA and the even-better VGA, which gives consumers the first 256-color graphics mode: 320x200x256. Coupled with this phenomenal breakthrough is the rapid fall of hard drive prices and the rapid increase in capacity; now about 80MB for a standard new system, and rising rapidly. Sound cards are rare and expensive, but gaining in popularity as the SoundBlaster really comes into its own over the cheaper Adlib (which can only play music, lamely, and does sound effects only if pushed). And in the midst of all this, CD-ROM drives have hit the big time; not many titles will be available on CD for another couple of years, but everyone knows this is the future. DOS version 4.01 is the favored operating system; the newly-released Microsoft Windows 3.0 is exciting, but it's not strictly an OS and it's still in that buggy early release stage. The 80386 processor is king, but the 286 still counts for something.

This is the day before Doom, and before even Wolfenstein 3D. Game companies have finally learned that password-protection schemes using booklets don't prevent piracy, and after a hard time in the 80s in which they enraged their customers, some of them buy a clue and start making games actually playable. Games at this stage are lucky to use simple layered 2D overlays, like making a game out of Colorforms, to do the job graphically. The really good ones use 256-color mode to its best advantage, and man do they look slick.

It was in summer of 1990 that my dad picked up a game in our local Software, Etc. (The store left that mall a few years later, and I still mourn it even though it's long gone.) This game was Interplay's Lord of the Rings, based on the well-known Tolkien book. It was a role-playing game, and my dad and I (both avid fans of the book) played it for hours on end. We never did explore all there was to see, but what we did see simply awed us. This game was so well crafted, so brilliantly designed, that to this day it remains my favorite game ever.

And you know what? BYOND could do it better today. What made this game great was its design, and everything else can be done in BYOND right now. The 8x8 tiles of the map could be replaced with BYOND's 32x32 icons; they were drawn in 256 colors but looked fantastic. Characters were larger animations, but could easily fit within a 32x32 icon or be done as a multi-tile mob in BYOND. Special events and effects were triggered by walking over areas. There were day/night cycles, which BYOND can do with ever-increasing ability. Sound effects and music were pretty basic, although I must say I was amazed how much it could squeeze out of an Adlib sound card. There was nothing in this brilliant game that can't be done now in BYOND.

I hope this article will encourage anyone designing an RPG to think along the
lines that Interplay did. There are gameplay elements to be considered that
any RPG could benefit from.

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The Story and Non-Linear Gameplay

Well, we all know the story of Lord of the Rings, and if you don't, shame on you. Go pick up the book now and don't come back till you've finished it. I'm watching.

Interplay knew the story too. The problem is, there's no way a living game can cover the exact path of a story. If you do that, there are no surprises, no difficult puzzles, no danger you can't handle... you get the picture. So, the designers decided to diverge from the story slightly--but not enough as to be obtrusive.

What I soon learned was that when they decided on this path, they also decided that no two people would want to play the same way, so in most cases there were two different courses to take. Many puzzles had multiple solutions, and some you might never encounter if you did things a little differently early in the game. Often you could push through a situation by fighting rather than agonizing over a puzzle. It was ingenious.

The game begins in the Shire, as Frodo, with Sam and Pippin, begins the quest by securing Bag End and setting off for Crickhollow. Of course Bag End isn't empty, and it helps to go in and search for supplies (money, food, torches) before moving on. The Shire, the player learns quickly, is full of lesser quests and puzzles--and dangerous wolves, so the party needs torches to defend itself. It actually took a long time for my dad and me just to get out of the Shire, there was so much to do there. And we found out that exploring is a good way to find hidden goodies like herbs or money.

This concept of non-linear gameplay went all through the game. My dad and I took the book's route out of the Shire--we went through the gate into the Old Forest, where we got incredibly lost and ultimately met up with Tom Bombadil. Yet had we known it, we could have gone to the Brandywine Bridge on the east side--maybe even crossed it if we'd hidden from the Nazgûl--and left by the Road, which was beset with perils of its own. In the Old Forest we actually never ran afoul of Old Man Willow (though he was there), and we avoided the trap of the Barrow Downs. Only later did we discover many of the things we'd bypassed, and it was a joy to go back to see what else was back there.

The game went on much like this. Bree could be played through in several ways, and beyond it in the wilds there is much to discover. Almost always there were two different ways to get somewhere. Knowing this, we actually tried the pass of Caradhras to see if we could make it (we couldn't), and in Moria we found that it's actually possible to fight the balrog instead of following the path laid out in the book.

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The Party and the NPCs

Lord of the Rings was a party quest game. You led a party of up to ten characters--which could change over time as you recruited or dismissed people--and used their skills to the best advantage. Each character had a list of skills and magic. (Magic was broken into spells (which used hit points) and "words of power" that were basically one-shot magic words learned throughout the game. These words of power were more often meant to solve puzzles than to be used in battle, but some, like !Elbereth, could make an enemy withdraw from battle.)

Characters had various skills. Some had skills in weapons, that gave them an advantage of a point or two when using those weapons. Some skills were lore, like Hobbit Lore or Ranger Lore, or Herb Lore; these were passive, but could be used to discover things that might otherwise go undiscovered. Other skills were active, like Read or Picklock or Perception. Many a puzzle was solved by using Perception. Skills could be taught, even magic learned, at some points within the game; these opportunities were rare and blessed, so we took advantage of them.

There were also chances to add people to the quest. In Eastmarch of the Shire, we found a woman named Athelwyn who was willing to join with us. (Signs of Saruman's growing influence were to be seen all over the Shire. It was downright creepy, I tell you.) She had a sword (hobbits were too small to wield them) and knew a little magic, so we needed her help pretty badly. Although the tavern owner thought she was a witch, and one of her spells was Winterchill (said by the guidebook to be common to evil things still lurking in the frozen north), we took her on. She was an invaluable help to our party with the dangers we faced. Eventually in a cavern east of Bree we found one of Saruman's storehouses, where we discovered a letter indicating that she was, in fact, a witch--the Witch of Cardolan. Immediately she turned on us and killed Frodo. Thank goodness for saved games!

NPCs added a lot to the game as well. You could talk to a character and ask them questions. If you said "News", some would have different things to tell you--maybe 2 or 3 different things. They would respond to other keywords as well. To some hobbits you could say "Baggins" or "Black Rider" to hear more, and some could direct you on quests. If you talked to some characters long enough you might discover something interesting, and some might even attack if they learned who you were by what you asked them.

Having to work with a party was interesting, because it was necessary to protect the characters. Each could only carry so much, so we found ponies incredibly useful. (Ponies could even fight; they just couldn't use weapons or armor or magic or skills.) Some characters had skills that were unique to the party, and couldn't afford to die.

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Battle

Battle would often start suddenly, and would go on until all the bad guys (or the good guys) were dead or everyone ran away. Characters in battle would take turns attacking. Members of the party could be knocked out cold; sometimes it was necessary to protect them by putting other players in front or killing an enemy within reach of them, so they wouldn't be killed off before they could come to (when the battle ended). You could also make characters walk away from some battles, to keep them safe.

Each character got their turn to attack; faster characters would get more turns, or might even have two in a row. If they didn't do anything within about 15 seconds or so, the next character would get a turn. Movement was possible, but only within a limited distance; anyone who walked off the screen (which was locked in place) could abandon the battle.

There were two ways to attack: The attack panel, and the magic panel. If you chose an attack, you had to choose a specific move (which might depend on your weapon) and then a target. Spells could work the same way. It was also possible to switch weapons or armor during battle.

Weapons and armor varied in strength. Torches were about the most pathetic weapons, managing 1 or 2 points if anything, sometimes 3 if you were lucky and your opponent (like a dog or a wolf) was weak. Hobbits could only carry certain weapons, which made things more difficult. Armor was rare but useful; depending on its type it would add to the weight being carried and deflect a certain amount of damage. Gimli's chain mail could take off 3 points of damage, whereas Frodo's mithril mail took 5.

A typical hit was 2 or 3 points at first. With better weapons, and skill, we could eventually, sometimes, get 10 or 12. The best weapons in the game were Andúril (reforged at Rivendell) and Durin's Axe (found in Moria), and they never did more than about a dozen points of damage. This was very unlike other RPGs where a hit can take out 45 points, although some of the baddies we faced were quite deadly. (Even Nazgûl could be "killed", just not without racking up a few deaths within the party.)

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Non-Linear Puzzles

Almost every puzzle in Lord of the Rings was non-linear. That is, most could be bypassed by taking another route and encountering a different puzzle, and almost all had more than one solution. The solutions included using a skill or magic, using an item, sometimes discarding an item, or fighting; usually two or three different things would work. A chasm, for example, might be crossed by using rope or the Jump skill (which sent the whole party across). A chest might be opened by using a key, or the Picklock skill.

Puzzles in this game did not include time trials, brain teasers, or anything else of the sort. It was all strictly a matter of resourcefulness. This avoided some of the more annoying situations found in other RPGs where you could get stuck for hours trying to figure out one simple thing. Action kept moving along as a result. Interactions with NPCs usually weren't (but sometimes were) "Give me a ___ and I'll give you a ___", but more along the lines of just helping people out. Sometimes you'd get a reward for helping an NPC, or maybe they'd become more talkative, and other times the effects of your good will might not be seen until much later when running across a different character.

This method of puzzle-making takes both brains and guts. Lord of the Rings acknowledged that, basically, puzzles make the game more interesting but they aren't the meat of it. So there are lots and lots of little things you can do, with small payoffs in loot or help from another character. Some were ultimately necessary of course, but the abundance of little ones made the big ones more fun.

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Exploring

Exploration was one of the best elements of the game. In any given area there were always things to discover--and sometimes you might find a hidden item like the healing herb athelas, or coins or a torch hidden away. If you managed manage to survive the Barrow Downs, the Downs were filled with interesting treasure items. Other items could be found in the wild, too, including weapons and occasionally armor. There were several cave systems to explore.

This was a key part of the game, yet I find many RPGs downplay the significance of exploring. Lord of the Rings was jam-packed with things to find, with wooded groves, places with lurking enemies, places with hidden puzzles, places with hidden quests. The Shire, as I've said, took a long time to leave, not least because it took so long to explore every part of it. (The game actually came with an overhead map of the Shire map and all the houses and holes that could be explored.) Every place we visited was full of surprises.

One of my fondest memories of the game was getting lost in Moria. Only by seeing a full overhead map of every map level in Moria can one truly think it has a straightforward layout. We knew going in that it had 7 levels and 7 deeps (13 stories, that is, because the 1st deep is the 1st level), but we had no idea that exploring around without getting lost could be so difficult. The cunning map could at times lead you in circles going up and downstairs, and there was always more to find. Durin's Tower could be explored, as could the upper chambers familiar to Tolkien's readers. As for the balrog, if you explored the very lowest deeps you might encounter him briefly--a very scary event--and down there we found Durin's Axe.

But that wasn't all, because east of Moria was Lothlorien, a very large place to explore. And leaving Lothlorien we went to Mirkwood. If you explore Mirkwood long enough, you can meet up with a ghost who first appears in the Shire and will, at this point, join your party. (Ghosts could be killed, but they were tough critters.)

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Going Back, and the Teleport Feature

Sometimes, going back was possible. If we had returned to Bree, we would have found things changed there, and one of the main villains from before, disillusioned with the way things were going, was even willing to join the party. Had we gone back from Lothlorien, we would have discovered that it was possible to go up the Redhorn Gate from the east and defeat the spirit of Caradhras, thereby opening the passage from the west that we had been unable to follow before. Was there a reason to do this? Not much of one, but it was a whole lot of fun.

We discovered, about halfway through the game, that someone had found a hidden debug feature left in by Interplay. If the game was started with "frodolives!" as a command-line argument, you could press T during gameplay to bring up a teleport window that could take you anywhere. Through this we discovered many a quest that had been skipped, or some that could only be found by going back. In fact the teleporter was crucial to us later, when our party took so many hits that the pools of healing in Moria were just the thing to keep all our characters alive.

Online communities were new things then, but we found that people were trading sets of teleporter coordinates left and right. It was amazing how much fun people had discovering new coordinates and sending them out; I found a lot myself, and even corrected some that had been in error. One of the greater disappointments of the game's sequel, The Two Towers, was that this teleport feature had been removed.

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How BYOND Can Do Better

Lord of the Rings used a much lower screen resolution than Windows, and only 256 colors. BYOND uses just 256 colors for its icons as well, but instead of 8x8 icons it can do a full 32x32. Having seen some graphically stunning games in BYOND already, I'd love to see an RPG of this magnitude brought to life here.

Interestingly, Lord of the Rings used maps no bigger than 4000x4000 pixels, and usually less (around 3000x3000). In terms of tiles, this meant it used only 500x500 tiles on its largest map. BYOND can do that! The entire game used no more than 13 maps; at the sizes involved, I think BYOND can easily do this too.

In fact the possibilities are utterly amazing today. Graphically, we can do better. In sound effects and music (even the appalling MIDI format supported by BYOND would sound better with today's sound cards than what came out of an Adlib), we have the capability to create a rich sound environment. Recent advances in screen displays mean the interface can be at least as good as that used by Lord of the Rings, but the text window and mini-browser in BYOND open intriguing new prospects. Memory limitations that forced Lord of the Rings to use a limited set of objects are gone in modern computers, and BYOND can support extensive, even exhaustive lists of items and spells to make a game more interesting.

All this is not to suggest, of course, that someone remake this glorious game in BYOND. The past is gone and it isn't coming back. But the things that made Interplay's game great can make a new game even greater. For all their success, modern MMORPGs are too close to the classic D&D concept of leveling and fighting to really capture the joy of a purer role-playing concept. Lord of the Rings featured exploration, and an abundance of things to do and ways to do them; battles happened, quite often in fact, but they were the gravy on the potatoes. Too many games forget the potatoes.

I for one would like to see some of the concepts that made Lord of the Rings what it was, make up some other multiplayer RPG. You'd probably need a quest and item generator running all the time to keep a world populated with things to do and find while other players explored, but it could be done. A game that great can be made again, but it can all be done better today.

The soul of an RPG is discovery. You don't need 3D graphics or a 500-monster bestiary, an ultra-realistic combat system, or even the coolest spells and effects. When there are new things to discover, the game has a life to it that even mediocre elements can't take away. This is why people played the original Adventure, or spent hours in Rogue and Hack; it's why I looked for teleport coordinates in Lord of the Rings; it's why people still go through to find the stats and figures no guidebook tells them. Most games that suffer from this form of curiosity suffer it because they don't feed their players' longing to find. Make discovery the center of your game and the hearts of your players will follow. Dress it in graphics and sounds and interfaces worthy of the game you made them for, and you will make history.