Roguelikes - Singleplayer or Multi? in Design Philosophy

ID:153689
 
May 2 2003, 9:03 pm
For a while now I've been bugging myself to create a decent text-mode BYOND game, and I feel that a roguelike is the best way to do it (and show off BYOND's awesome text features! :).

However, I'm currently stuck in this particular design problem: singleplayer, or multiplayer? By far, the majority of roguelikes are singleplayer. This has its benefits, as does the multiplayer route. I'll try to outline some of the pros and cons of both.

The traditional roguelike is singleplayer, although is this tradition worth following? One of my biggest concerns is how the time will be controlled. The turn-based system of the traditional roguelike fits in perfectly in the singleplayer environment; it gives players as much time as they need to think about their actions. This would not be practical in a multiplayer roguelike.

Having a multiplayer roguelike would obviously be the first thing to expect, seeing as BYOND's focus is on multiplayer games. One advantage I see is that the interaction with other people will definitely add to the enjoyment factor (as long as people remain civil, of course). Working together to push your way through The Tower of Evil with a few of your friends can be much more fun than bashing those goblins by yourself. This means the sacrafice of a turn-based system, though. The game would have to run in real-time, hence giving the roguelike more of a focus on action and limited reaction time. Not to say that this is a bad thing, of course. My biggest concern about multiplayer is that players will clean out areas, leaving other people unable to find a place to hunt. One solution is a larger world, but that would make locating other people more difficult.

I'd like to hear any/all opinions on the topic, so that I can form my roguelike around the most appealing ideas. Thanks!
#1 May 2 2003, 9:48 pm
Golden Stool
http://games.byond.com/hub/Dan/GoldenStool

Here is an oldie created by none other than Dan himself, one of the creators of BYOND. I played it a few times and reminds me alot of the game rogue.

LJR
#2 May 2 2003, 10:01 pm
You missed a few very important cons for Multiplayer.
Having friends to play with is fun, but they can also ruin the game completely. People logging in and asking 'Where is the graphics?' would get annoying for everyone involved.
You have to have a server, player hosted servers are good, but they go up and down and you end up restarting your character all the time.

What you might want to have is a mixture, it would technically be a multiplayer game, but not intended to be 'massive'. You just put a limit to the amount of people who can play on a player hosted server too 4 or 5.
This could be rather sweet since it would encourage people to play with there friends and work either against each other in a race or with each other as a team.
#3 May 2 2003, 11:15 pm
Hrm.... Why not create a combination of the two? Allow people to play single player, but also allow them to host their own games and invite a few friends to play along as a group. Have a small maximum amount of players for these games, such as 4 or 8. It may be able to be turn-based if you were to use this system, too. I'd say that would be the best idea. Either that, or simply single player.
#4 May 3 2003, 3:53 am
In response to WizDragon (#3)
Having a massive world doesn't mean that people will be unable to find eachother, as long as you have focal points of attention. Limiting the world to one single 'starting' city that has a lot of newbie-related information that can be read, items that can be bought and making the city the biggest one would almost guarantee people will do business there, etc.

This means that you have a massive world that can be explored by groups, while retaining one single area or city that people gather in.

Basically, you need to have something in that city that forces or encourages players to stick around there for whatever reason. On my MUD, its a lot of different things, including quests, a traders bazaar, and other stuff.
#5 May 3 2003, 5:17 pm
Why not both? o.o Allow people to host a small number of people in a game or choose to disable it completely? That way you dont get hordes of n00bs, you get people having fun games with friends.. the n00bs can try out the game on thier own and complain about not having graphics to themselves o.o

As for the turn system, I actually remember an old dungeon type game that was around months ago.. it was graphical, and most of it wasnt there, but it had a timed turn system o.o a turn would start, and you could choose what action youd like to make, and then a set time later that action would be carried out and you'd be able to choose another one.. long times would be pretty borring, but still ^^

El
#6 May 4 2003, 2:30 pm
It would make sense to have areas on the map with monsters simply respawn monsters when the area population is low. (and when there are no players in the area, perhaps?) Unless you're going for one of those silly untra-realistic games where slaying too many goblins will diminish the goblin population, its a simple enough things to do. (Besides, you can always go play Reality if you want realistic.)

As for realtime vs turn-based, you might compromise by having a time-per-turn based system. Perhaps every 5 or 10 seconds, a turn goes by. That gives players a few seconds to think about their next action, and prevents lag from hurting as much. You could use an action point system where every turn the player gets a few action points, and certain actions cost a certain amount of action points. For example, taking a step usually costs 1 action point, attacking something takes 5 action points, throwing a fireball takes 10? You could either make action point costs spill over into the next turn or you could just make anything above the provided action points take the whole turn. Something like that would probably work, so long as players aren't waiting around too much simply to move.
#7 May 4 2003, 4:38 pm
One of main problems I have with text games is that i get totally lost. Maybe its the lack of my imagination :-) but if you do make a RPG text game, it would be cool to have a little map on say the top right corner that has where you are and where the rest of the places are. But it would only show the places you have already been to like some of zelda games do. Then you would totally get lost in the maze of text :-). I like the idea though and think that it should be multiplayer. If someone wants to play singlwe player, they can just download and play the games by themselves:-).


~STARWARSPOWER~
#8 May 4 2003, 5:05 pm
In response to Starwarspower (#7)
You are mistaken, I believe. It is not a text-game, it is a game made specifically for Dream Seeker's text-mode, which displays all icons on the map as characters (letters, numbers, symbols).
#9 May 4 2003, 5:37 pm
In response to Starwarspower (#7)
I haven't tried it myself, but the zmud mud client supposedly has a mapping feature built into it. You can click on a room, and the client will walk you back to it.

Personally, I like to meander a bit more than that probably allows.

*EDIT* None of which really applies to a rougelike, since that would already have a map, and wouldn't run in zmud. :)
#10 May 4 2003, 8:24 pm
In response to Foomer (#6)
Foomer wrote:
It would make sense to have areas on the map with monsters simply respawn monsters when the area population is low. (and when there are no players in the area, perhaps?) Unless you're going for one of those silly untra-realistic games where slaying too many goblins will diminish the goblin population, its a simple enough things to do. (Besides, you can always go play Reality if you want realistic.)

Yes, but if you're slaying goblins in reality, they're going to lock you in a padded room and give you medication.
#11 May 4 2003, 8:27 pm
In response to Spuzzum (#10)
Spuzzum wrote:
Foomer wrote:
It would make sense to have areas on the map with monsters simply respawn monsters when the area population is low. (and when there are no players in the area, perhaps?) Unless you're going for one of those silly untra-realistic games where slaying too many goblins will diminish the goblin population, its a simple enough things to do. (Besides, you can always go play Reality if you want realistic.)

Yes, but if you're slaying goblins in reality, they're going to lock you in a padded room and give you medication.

Depends on which country you live in.
#12 May 5 2003, 1:27 am
In response to Flick (#9)
Flick wrote:
*EDIT* None of which really applies to a rougelike

Why does EVERYONE misspell that? =P
#13 May 5 2003, 1:59 pm
In response to Crispy (#12)
Heh, some people are such idiots... oh, wait. That was me. :P

Oh course, the statement is correct as is :)