Avernum 6 Inventory Redesign 2: Next Generation

[Mattias]

Hi again.

This is a new version of the inventory redesign suggestions i started here . Jeff have replied that Avernum 5 will not change now but for the next game engine redesign will be probable. So this is now purely an design exercise. I do hope that this will lead to discussions and improvements in future games though.

 

Avernum 6 inventory redesign 2 with equipment stats off

 

Avernum 6 inventory redesign 2 with equipment stats on

 

Major Changes

1 Added equipment stats toggle that switch on and off the display of numbers for all equipped items armor and weight (Top priority info for items in most cases)

 

2 Added permanent display of names for equipped items.

 

3 Added info about Armor, Resistances and To hit. Absolute must when testing equipment variations for easy of use.

 

4 Loot got an own area. Its not inventory, nuff said.

 

5 New layout of areas, more air, less cramped feeling

 

6 Redesigned and optimized the hover info box. The old one was cluttered. The info must be presented right.

 

Nice changes

7 Empty item slots now look like slots in stone.

 

8 Item graphics got a slight bevel.

 

9 The coin icon got silver and bronze coins also.

 

10 Buttons got embossed, looks more part of the stone background

 

11 Added back the usage info about items. In my personal opinion unnecessary but could help noobs.

 

Motivated likes and dislikes and criticism is welcome as before!

 

Regards / Mattias

[fractalnavel]

Well, ok, now that "the gloves are off", so to speak -

 

- Why "slots" at all ? Why not drag/drop anywhere in the "pack" ? With optional "auto-arrange" button, fer sure.

 

- Also applies to "loot". And label that "ground", "barrel", "table", "body" or whatever the currently viewed container is. And have graphics for the container.

 

- If I have items equipped, I want to see them equipped ! As in, the character displayed should be wearing / wielding the items, and not generic ones, either.

 

- Equipment stat displays: oh, there's a lot of different ways to view that. Probably want to allow the user to have flexibility in terms of what to show, in what order (columns, rows), etc.

 

- Speaking of drag/drop, each "area" (pack/inventory, "loot"/container, equipped items, stats) should allow user (or auto) placement as well. Everyone gets their own favorite layout.

 

- Items: the real pain is having things scattered among the PCs. An aggregate inventory view would be very useful, with all the stat display widgetry as well. In fact, how about a view with all inventory and all characters (one per corner, or down the side, or user arrangeable, ...), so as to readily swap equipment around ? Not available during battle, of course. This is the "campfire" or "halloween" mode, as in, everyone has dumped their goodies into a pile.

 

- Speaking of piles, in the drag/drop pack/container displays, allow multi-select, by individual item (shift)clicked, and/or "lassooed" (oh, geez - spell that), and "select all".

 

- Outfits: I could have piles in my (aggregate) pack that contain complete (or partial) outfits of equipment so I could select the entire pile and drag it onto a character, whose old equipment would all go into one pile as well. Or - how about explicit outfit definition ? In which case, certain items could be referenced by more than one outfit, if needed. Outfits with an item in use somewhere already could be greyed out (or other handling could be managed, with alternatives being a setting or selection).

 

- Pre-defined outfits: bonus stats for having all items. Bonus character graphics as well (a glow, an aura, whatever).

 

 

Sorry - I do go on, don't I ? ;-)

[Mattias]

Haha! Alright that was lots of really good points. I was thinking totally inside the Avernum 6 box still with known limitations. But as you said "the gloves are off" in a way

 

Ok, comments:

 

- Slots will still be needed whether you go with all items same size or different size. Somewhere in the GUI you need to show what you have in an organized way. Slots may not be seen as a graphic boundary but they will still be there.

For the auto arrange there are several schools of thought, with sub filters. But it can be really useful if game have tons of lot

 

- Dynamically labeling is good but limits looting to one area/ground/container/body. Even better would be a search all area or something like.

 

- Showing items equipped is a given, all would like that. But the resources needed to create that for Spiderweb softwares games...hmm. Would be great though.

 

- Equipment stat display is a must. The minimum is names and most prioritized stat. But you could probably make up different stat display rules for different categories of items.

 

- Auto placement is great concept

 

- Aggregate party items/equip could be done quickly by dividing the pack/quick item area and the Equipped area and then have some arrow next/previous to be able to shift around between party members. Was toying with the idea.

Having one party item inventory would be unwieldy me thinks. As it is now you organize stuff on characters. Would need to do some testing to decide on the merit of that.

But seeing all characters Equipped at the same time would be a godsend when you min/max item deployment.

 

- Multi select is a god point.

 

- Predefined Outfits is great when you have games with lots of parameters to fiddle. In the Avernum series you mainly switch around rings, amulets and shields for resistance bonuses. Fiddly but not that critical.

 

- Swanky graphics and bonuses...well that's more a matter of personal taste.

 

It would be fantastic to do a next generation Avernum but what future Spiderweb games will contain is not in my crystal ball...and then its reeeally hard to do design.

 

Great comments though. What do you think of the design in terms of what we have to live with then?

[fractalnavel]

In terms of what I have to live with ? Oh, shoot - I "grew up" on text adventures & muds. 'Nuff said.

 

Or maybe not I'm of the philosophy that whatever I can get away with is part of the game, and the same goes for limitations. So, whether it's hacking the code or dealing with less than optimal interfaces, it's all part of the package.

 

Funny, though - I don't exactly behave like that in RL ... or do I ?

[Earth]

both look great but w/o item stats is bit better.

[Callie]

I for one, really like the new edit to coins. The second picture looks a bit too cluttered for my taste, but overall, it looks nice. Great work!

[Omlette]

Just out of interest, have you talked to Jeff yet? I'm not sure how close the game is to production, but some of these might take a while to implement and if you come to him too late, he won't be able to do them even if he likes them.

 

With regard to the shuffling thing, something that would be nice maybe is a button to redistribute the inventories (in the minimum number of moves) in order to un-encumber all characters, when that's possible.

 

-E-

[Mattias]

Quote:

Jeff have replied that Avernum 5 will not change now but for the next game engine redesign will be probable. So this is now purely an design exercise. I do hope that this will lead to discussions and improvements in future games though.

Auto unencumber would be nice but theres alot of problems with that. It would change around equipment without your knowledge and how should it prioritize? Tough nut to crack and probably not worth the effort in terms of time investment.

[Omlette]

I was thinking just in terms of 'loose' inventory items - unequipped ones in other words. And if it prioritised the reshuffle with the minimum number of moves?

 

-E-

[Dikiyoba]

Avernum 4 was the last game to have unequipped items count towards encumbrance, so that problem has already been solved.

 

Dikiyoba.

[The Mystic]

Yes. In combat mode, you just drop your pack somewhere, and when you pick it up afterward, it leaves behind a small crater.

[Carranzero]

this is best inventary

 

 

wat game is that?

[Lilith]

It's Castle of the Winds, but how did you find that image without knowing what game it was from?

[Sss-Chah]

hmmm...that game looks very familiar. do you play this kid who goes into this temple or something and you fight these wolves and then when you come out, you find your home on fire? i played that game like 10 years ago, so i might be a bit off. i kind of remember something about a spell where you can change monsters into other monsters, too

[Erebus the Black]

Yeah, I still have it.

First you come back one day to find your grandparent's house burned to the ground so then.

It's a mine first then you move on to a fortress and then a castle.

When you reach the bottom of the mine there's a letter there guarded by kobolds and hobgoblins/goblin-fighters with orders to destroy the town you came from and when you leave the mine you find your town destroyed.

So you move on to this fortress where you think the giant that was in charge of destroying your town.

It's got story telling almost as good as jeff's with an advantage of each swing having a flare text so you could better envision the fight

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

Originally Posted By: Sss-Chah

hmmm...that game looks very familiar. do you play this kid who goes into this temple or something and you fight these wolves and then when you come out, you find your home on fire? i played that game like 10 years ago, so i might be a bit off. i kind of remember something about a spell where you can change monsters into other monsters, too

Yep, that's it. CotW parts I and II have both been released as freeware by the company that made them, I believe, so if you want it you just have to go find it (I don't know where).

[Toby-Linn]

Rick Saada's home page: http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/

 

He created the games in the 80's and has a zip file available with both parts. Downloading as I type!

 

 

[The Mystic]

Originally Posted By: avatar42

It's got story telling almost as good as jeff's with an advantage of each swing having a flare text so you could better envision the fight

Plus you can save any time, anywhere, since there's no "combat mode" to prevent it. And, amazingly, it's almost totally vista-compatible; all you need to do is download a patch from Microsoft to read the help file.

[tyrtix]

I think one of the best things you need to add to objects is a "role" description of 'em, it gives the player the right sensation of being part of the ambient and history.. A clear description of the effects of the items it's necessary.

[ĐªгŦĦ Єяŋϊε]

especially the more exotic items that are picked up.

i dont think that every stick or rock needs it, but when you kill some powerfull boss and get his item it should say something of its history

[Earth]

giant queen has killed 1001 enemies with this club?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I'd much rather there be something like someone telling you about the weapon's legend, or a book nearby describing it, than just magically knowing the item's history when you pick it up.

 

Of course, I'd also like E3-style item descriptions. I don't know if those have returned already or not, having not played any Spidweb game later than Geneforge 1, but if they haven't, they should.

[Acky]

What was special about them?

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

What, E3 item descriptions? In E3, not only did you have the stats and abilities an item had, but you had a little textual description of the item, which was sometimes quite funny. It didn't go into detail on the history though, as anything with a history had its history described more or less in the way I described in my previous post. It disappeared in BoE, and I thought it never came back, but checking A3 now, I see that the item descriptions are present there as well.

 

I thought I heard that they disappeared and never came back at some point, but I could be wrong. Oh well.

[Acky]

No, they've been in pretty much every A/G game.

[Callie]

There are no E3-like item descriptions in the Avernum series, just a generic description of the item's stats.

[Acky]

Since I don't have E3, I can't argue your wrong, but there is a description of the item and its stats.

[Callie]

Quote:

This is a small object. While someone might pay you for it, it has no useful abilities on its own.

Quality materials such as this can be worked into quality armor and weapons. Craftsmen in some of the towns may take metal, leather, and so on, and convert it into gear for you.

This is the description of a focusing crystal, but it's also the description for fine leather, fine steel, etc (the first paragraph is used for a lot of different items in A5). Though it's an improvement upon the first trilogy, it's still more generic, and lacks the humor that E3 had in its item descriptions.


The first trilogy (and BoA) is even worse, as its item descriptions are like this:

Quote:

This is a two-handed weapon. It weighs 20.0 pounds. It's worth 150 coins.

This weapon does 2-14 points of damage plus 1-7 points per level of Strength and Pole Weapons skill.

Abilities:
None.

[Celtic Minstrel]

I seem to recall A3 having item descriptions a little like E3, though shorter.

[Dikiyoba]

BoA lacks item descriptions but A1, A2, and A3 all have them. G1 also has some fairly good item descriptions.

 

Dikiyoba believes item descriptions become generic and bland in games after that, which is definitely a shame.

[Sleeping Dragon]

Well, Jeff had to quit while he was ahead after writing the strigil description in Nethergate. That was the best. I love being able to say: "And guess where I learned that? Computer games."

[CobaltDragoon]

I noticed the lack of textual background as well. I was a bit disappointed when I picked up a stick and a rock in Avernum 3 and found that they were no longer "the ultimate in low tech weaponry".

 

It wasn't a huge, game-breaking features, but it was a nice touch.