Agent Griff
Master Knight
Ok, so in this topic I would like to discuss heavily idealized games that you would find as being ideal for its genre. Thus, you could detail what features you think would make up an ideal FPS game or an ideal RPG. In my case, I won't detail a clear-cut genre like an FPS or RTS game but my ideal notion of a pseudo-realistic medieval game.
Warning, long post ahead!
So, first of all I begin my dissertation with the setting of the game. What is "medieval"? This term is probably changeable according to personal preferences but for me, the best medieval setting is from the late 14th Century to the middle-to-late 15th Century, when plate armour was reaching its apex. Thus, my ideal medieval game would be set during the Hundred Years War between France and England, taking place between the years 1383 and 1453 so as to encompass the rise of plate armour and the image that most people associate when hearing about the Middle Ages (i.e. imposing knights armoured in plate armour). The setting should also include intermissions between fighting that happened during the period, periods of peace when the player could engage in tournaments or hunting.
The player's character should be a fictional knight of the period but not actually a French or English knight, rather a foreign knight from lands close-by that were involved in the conflict one way or another. A knight of the Holy Roman Empire would do well and it could also provide the player with some antagonism from "friendly" and hostile knights. In my vision, the game should be split into two stages: the Early Period set between 1383 and 1415 and the Late Period set between 1429 and 1453.
In the first stage the player would play a middle-aged German knight fighting for the English side, with this "campaign" culminating with the battle of Agincourt. Peaceful intermissions should also be included to account for tournaments during the period, and to give the player the opportunity to participate in the Nicopolis Crusade (Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicopolis_crusade) which would feature a battle pitting the player's forces against the Ottoman Empire. Historically, a coalition of forces from almost all of Christendom assembled under the banner of the King of Hungary Sigismund of Luxembourg to expel the Ottomans back into Asia Minor but the expedition failed after the Christians were defeated in battle at Nicopolis. This all happened in the year 1396, during an intermission in the Hundred Years War.
The second stage would feature the initial knight's young son, yet fighting on the French side this time. This would allow the player to witness the French renewal and eventual triumph under the leadership of Joan of Arc and Charles the VII-th, King of France. The campaign should feature battles like the Siege of Orleans and the battle of Patay or the final battle of the war, the battle of Castillon where cannons would be used decisively for the first time, thus symbolizing the downfall of the knight. The player would also be granted the opportunity to fight in the Varna Crusade of 1444, where yet another Christian coalition was defeated by the Ottomans.
Now, for the actual gameplay elements.
Much like Mount & Blade, the game would have two parts. One part would be like a strategy map, but the player wouldn't have the options to move about, rather to recruit mercenaries, recruit ancillaries (like a master of horse to improve your riding), join tournaments, train, buy and sell stuff and receive briefings for the next battle. Compare this, if you would, to the fairly fun and interesting Xbox game Kingdom under Fire: the Crusaders and its sequel.
To detail the certain options the player would have, now. Recruiting mercenaries pretty much speaks for itself and it allows you to have troops of your own that will try to actively follow and defend you in battle, since you are their master after all. Troops that aren't your own won't try to look after you in battle, but rather mind their own business and try to kill enemies without being killed themselves. The player could have a dread or chivalry rating which could change the behaviour of his troops towards him. Henchmen that are pretty scared of you will fight and help you, but they will also generally try to stay out of the way of your wrath. Henchmen that respect and admire your chivalry will put themselves in the way of danger, not only protecting you but also trying to stop any enemies that might try to attack you from behind and tackle you. Ancillaries also speak for themselves, and they could range from masters-at-arms to squires that could help you mount your horse if you are forcefully dismounted. For extra good relations with noblemen of the same faction, you could ask them to give their sons to you as squires. If they do good and become knights themselves (levelling up as it were) then their parents will be proud and they will try to help you in battle if you are in dire straits. If they get killed under your service, then they will be pretty pissed. The consequences are understandable. Surgeon ancillaries could prevent fallen troops from actually dying but being wounded instead, kind of like in Mount & Blade. Joining tournaments also speaks for itself, with options catering for jousts, general melees and individual combat with swords, pollaxes or maces. Training would feature your character fighting training bouts with either your squire, your master-at-arms or simply some of your men who are willing to try you in combat with wooden weapons or practice weapons. Training could work like in San Andreas, the more you train, the more moves you can try in actual battle, since the moves will get ingrained in your subconscious and it will be easier for you to implement them in the heat of battle. I will expand on moves later. Buying and selling is explanatory, but it also helps to increase your respect and renown among your fellow nobles. The more flamboyant your armour is, the more people will turn their heads and ask "who is that stranger?". Pre-battle briefings would consist interactive cutscenes placed in a camp-like area where your lord and master (or you commander) will brief you for battle, telling you of general objectives. I'm speaking of general objectives because the player character is a knight, so he is allowed some lee-way when it comes to orders he receives before battle. And I'm saying interactive cutscenes because these cutscenes would be like dialogues where the player gets to better know his commander.
Now for the combat! Mounted combat should prove to be a very important part of this game, equally important to foot combat and should feature realistic impact physics for both horses and weapons, especially lances which should have limited use and breakability, depending on the force of impact. Generally handling mounted combat as it is in Mount & Blade would be alright in my book, since I'm not out to reinvent the wheel. Now comes foot combat, which should see a few changes, according to the setting of my ideal game.
In foot combat, a number of factors should come into play like for example the ground you are fighting on and the weather. I will explain how these would affect the battle. Now, the foes you will be facing are made up of low-born footmen and higher born knights either on foot or mounted. The common footmen with their poorer quality equipment and sparser armour should be dispatched with mere sword/mace/pollaxe swings as in Mount & Blade. The knights, however, would be much harder to defeat. Instead of a health-bar as commonly seen in most games, the way you could track their strength would be through a stamina-bar. The reason I'm using stamina as a pseudo-health meter for both enemy knights and the player is that they will both the using plate armour, which is virtually sword proof. Thus, instead of a swing from a sword actually damaging your health, it would knock the wind out of you, damaging your stamina and denting your armour. Using this stylized process, you would have to bludgeon an enemy knight with your weapon a few times until his stamina was low enough for you to grapple with him.
Grappling would be handled like in those games where you have to initiate a sequence in which you need to press a number of buttons in the right order. This shouldn't be button-mashing, but the rate at which you need to press the buttons, and the speed at which you have to do so, would be raised according to the enemy you're fighting. Thus, if you're fighting Sir Nobody of Someville, you should have little difficulty in pressing the right sequence of buttons. If you're grappling with the Dauphine of France, however, then things will go much harder for you. According to the time you spend learning moves in training, you should have a wider array of possible finishers to pull of after pressing the right button, and these would range from moves like forcing your sword through your foe's open visor or forcing him to yield by wounding and incapacitating him.
If you make an opponent yield, you can then take him prisoner and sell him for a ransom later, thus earning you renown, money and chivalry points. If you kill your prisoner, you receive renown, dread points and a hefty dose of hate from members of the opposing side, especially relatives of the guy you just killed. In some battles, one of the objectives could be to capture a certain enemy, clearly visible from his heraldry. Of course, as I said, all of the objectives are treated pretty much as bonus objectives since you are knight and thus are above to being simply bossed around. But fulfilling said bonus objectives, such as capturing Marshal Bouccicaut at Agincourt could reap great rewards.
Regarding heraldry, the player could have his own set of heraldic tabard for himself and heraldic barding for his horse. This would make you easier to spot by allies if you are unhorsed and need help but also make you easy to spot by enemies who might be eager to challenge you out of chivalry or simple glory-seeking. As for the actual arms of the player, he could choose them at the beginning of the game and the player in the second campaign could either inherit the same arms from his father or make his own.
So...this is my vision of the ideal medieval game. What do you think?
Warning, long post ahead!
So, first of all I begin my dissertation with the setting of the game. What is "medieval"? This term is probably changeable according to personal preferences but for me, the best medieval setting is from the late 14th Century to the middle-to-late 15th Century, when plate armour was reaching its apex. Thus, my ideal medieval game would be set during the Hundred Years War between France and England, taking place between the years 1383 and 1453 so as to encompass the rise of plate armour and the image that most people associate when hearing about the Middle Ages (i.e. imposing knights armoured in plate armour). The setting should also include intermissions between fighting that happened during the period, periods of peace when the player could engage in tournaments or hunting.
The player's character should be a fictional knight of the period but not actually a French or English knight, rather a foreign knight from lands close-by that were involved in the conflict one way or another. A knight of the Holy Roman Empire would do well and it could also provide the player with some antagonism from "friendly" and hostile knights. In my vision, the game should be split into two stages: the Early Period set between 1383 and 1415 and the Late Period set between 1429 and 1453.
In the first stage the player would play a middle-aged German knight fighting for the English side, with this "campaign" culminating with the battle of Agincourt. Peaceful intermissions should also be included to account for tournaments during the period, and to give the player the opportunity to participate in the Nicopolis Crusade (Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicopolis_crusade) which would feature a battle pitting the player's forces against the Ottoman Empire. Historically, a coalition of forces from almost all of Christendom assembled under the banner of the King of Hungary Sigismund of Luxembourg to expel the Ottomans back into Asia Minor but the expedition failed after the Christians were defeated in battle at Nicopolis. This all happened in the year 1396, during an intermission in the Hundred Years War.
The second stage would feature the initial knight's young son, yet fighting on the French side this time. This would allow the player to witness the French renewal and eventual triumph under the leadership of Joan of Arc and Charles the VII-th, King of France. The campaign should feature battles like the Siege of Orleans and the battle of Patay or the final battle of the war, the battle of Castillon where cannons would be used decisively for the first time, thus symbolizing the downfall of the knight. The player would also be granted the opportunity to fight in the Varna Crusade of 1444, where yet another Christian coalition was defeated by the Ottomans.
Now, for the actual gameplay elements.
Much like Mount & Blade, the game would have two parts. One part would be like a strategy map, but the player wouldn't have the options to move about, rather to recruit mercenaries, recruit ancillaries (like a master of horse to improve your riding), join tournaments, train, buy and sell stuff and receive briefings for the next battle. Compare this, if you would, to the fairly fun and interesting Xbox game Kingdom under Fire: the Crusaders and its sequel.
To detail the certain options the player would have, now. Recruiting mercenaries pretty much speaks for itself and it allows you to have troops of your own that will try to actively follow and defend you in battle, since you are their master after all. Troops that aren't your own won't try to look after you in battle, but rather mind their own business and try to kill enemies without being killed themselves. The player could have a dread or chivalry rating which could change the behaviour of his troops towards him. Henchmen that are pretty scared of you will fight and help you, but they will also generally try to stay out of the way of your wrath. Henchmen that respect and admire your chivalry will put themselves in the way of danger, not only protecting you but also trying to stop any enemies that might try to attack you from behind and tackle you. Ancillaries also speak for themselves, and they could range from masters-at-arms to squires that could help you mount your horse if you are forcefully dismounted. For extra good relations with noblemen of the same faction, you could ask them to give their sons to you as squires. If they do good and become knights themselves (levelling up as it were) then their parents will be proud and they will try to help you in battle if you are in dire straits. If they get killed under your service, then they will be pretty pissed. The consequences are understandable. Surgeon ancillaries could prevent fallen troops from actually dying but being wounded instead, kind of like in Mount & Blade. Joining tournaments also speaks for itself, with options catering for jousts, general melees and individual combat with swords, pollaxes or maces. Training would feature your character fighting training bouts with either your squire, your master-at-arms or simply some of your men who are willing to try you in combat with wooden weapons or practice weapons. Training could work like in San Andreas, the more you train, the more moves you can try in actual battle, since the moves will get ingrained in your subconscious and it will be easier for you to implement them in the heat of battle. I will expand on moves later. Buying and selling is explanatory, but it also helps to increase your respect and renown among your fellow nobles. The more flamboyant your armour is, the more people will turn their heads and ask "who is that stranger?". Pre-battle briefings would consist interactive cutscenes placed in a camp-like area where your lord and master (or you commander) will brief you for battle, telling you of general objectives. I'm speaking of general objectives because the player character is a knight, so he is allowed some lee-way when it comes to orders he receives before battle. And I'm saying interactive cutscenes because these cutscenes would be like dialogues where the player gets to better know his commander.
Now for the combat! Mounted combat should prove to be a very important part of this game, equally important to foot combat and should feature realistic impact physics for both horses and weapons, especially lances which should have limited use and breakability, depending on the force of impact. Generally handling mounted combat as it is in Mount & Blade would be alright in my book, since I'm not out to reinvent the wheel. Now comes foot combat, which should see a few changes, according to the setting of my ideal game.
In foot combat, a number of factors should come into play like for example the ground you are fighting on and the weather. I will explain how these would affect the battle. Now, the foes you will be facing are made up of low-born footmen and higher born knights either on foot or mounted. The common footmen with their poorer quality equipment and sparser armour should be dispatched with mere sword/mace/pollaxe swings as in Mount & Blade. The knights, however, would be much harder to defeat. Instead of a health-bar as commonly seen in most games, the way you could track their strength would be through a stamina-bar. The reason I'm using stamina as a pseudo-health meter for both enemy knights and the player is that they will both the using plate armour, which is virtually sword proof. Thus, instead of a swing from a sword actually damaging your health, it would knock the wind out of you, damaging your stamina and denting your armour. Using this stylized process, you would have to bludgeon an enemy knight with your weapon a few times until his stamina was low enough for you to grapple with him.
Grappling would be handled like in those games where you have to initiate a sequence in which you need to press a number of buttons in the right order. This shouldn't be button-mashing, but the rate at which you need to press the buttons, and the speed at which you have to do so, would be raised according to the enemy you're fighting. Thus, if you're fighting Sir Nobody of Someville, you should have little difficulty in pressing the right sequence of buttons. If you're grappling with the Dauphine of France, however, then things will go much harder for you. According to the time you spend learning moves in training, you should have a wider array of possible finishers to pull of after pressing the right button, and these would range from moves like forcing your sword through your foe's open visor or forcing him to yield by wounding and incapacitating him.
If you make an opponent yield, you can then take him prisoner and sell him for a ransom later, thus earning you renown, money and chivalry points. If you kill your prisoner, you receive renown, dread points and a hefty dose of hate from members of the opposing side, especially relatives of the guy you just killed. In some battles, one of the objectives could be to capture a certain enemy, clearly visible from his heraldry. Of course, as I said, all of the objectives are treated pretty much as bonus objectives since you are knight and thus are above to being simply bossed around. But fulfilling said bonus objectives, such as capturing Marshal Bouccicaut at Agincourt could reap great rewards.
Regarding heraldry, the player could have his own set of heraldic tabard for himself and heraldic barding for his horse. This would make you easier to spot by allies if you are unhorsed and need help but also make you easy to spot by enemies who might be eager to challenge you out of chivalry or simple glory-seeking. As for the actual arms of the player, he could choose them at the beginning of the game and the player in the second campaign could either inherit the same arms from his father or make his own.
So...this is my vision of the ideal medieval game. What do you think?