The perennial difficulty of walking by people

[Mah Al Ibara]

A problem easily overcome by the vast majority of animate creatures--How to walk (swim, fly, crawl) by other animate beings without bumping into them and stopping dead in one's tracks--remains an insurmountable one for the inhabitants of Spiderweb Software games. Click a spot to walk to, and odds are even that your player character will bump into some friendly townsperson and everything will come to a halt until you, the player, nudge your character on. Jeff even seems to enjoy this feature of his games, because in every fort he will place a squad of soldiers marching back and forth, for no other reason than to trip up your player character who just wants to walk to the damned apothecary in peace.

 

Surely this could be solved with one or two lines of code, since I have never seen another game since 1988 where this has been a problem. Is Jeff really attached to this aspect of his games?

Edited February 17, 2023 by Mah Al Ibara

[Slawbug]

6 hours ago, Mah Al Ibara said:

I have never seen another game since 1988 where this has been a problem

Really?  This is such a classic and widespread CRPG foible.  Seriously, google any variation of "NPC blocking your path", "NPC get out of my way", "NPC blocking door", "RPG pathfinding failure", "drone jam"... etc.  You'll find tons of games, often really big-name games.  Endless random threads on gamefaqs.  Etc.

 

It's been less common in the last 20-25 years because RPGs aren't all tile-based by default, anymore.  That's the big reason.  Truly not specific to Spiderweb games.

[Mah Al Ibara]

1 hour ago, le retour des marmottes météorologues said:

Really?  This is such a classic and widespread CRPG foible.  Seriously, google any variation of "NPC blocking your path", "NPC get out of my way", "NPC blocking door", "RPG pathfinding failure", "drone jam"... etc.  You'll find tons of games, often really big-name games.  Endless random threads on gamefaqs.  Etc.

 

It's been less common in the last 20-25 years because RPGs aren't all tile-based by default, anymore.  That's the big reason.  Truly not specific to Spiderweb games.

I did not know that. (Or I did a long time ago and forgot it.) Come to think of it, the only tile-based games I've played in the last 25 years are probably all Spiderweb games!