Crypt Cleanser
Posts: 700
Joined: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 15:51
Indepth development guides
As a long time poster/lurker on these forums, one thing that floods the game design forum are ideas for new Gods/Characters.
Unfortunately, as good as some of these suggestions are, they frankly don't really have any chance of being made (although certain aspects may do, and there is always the far off possibility that a developer may take up the mantle).
Although a lot of people aren't good at coding, and the simple suggestion would be 'learn coding/search through everything', I think it would be really helpful if we/people in the know could put together a quick tutorial (which could be expanded on) on how to make a new character (gods might be harder, although maybe a broad outline could be given).
This would stem the endless tide of 'here is my new character/god idea' threads, as it'd be much easier for someone to prototype their own idea and show it off, instead of just trying to convince a dev. to do it. Obviously it'd still take some technical know how, and coding in any specific/big changes would be a much bigger challenge, but it would at least be a good place to point people serious enough about their ideas without it being too daunting a task.
Unfortunately, I don't have the technical expertise to be able to do this with any degree of usefulness (I've tinkered but I haven't actually created a char or god), howeverI would be very available to help test/expand on it for newbies. I've got a list of some ideas that need covering, and I'd happily set up the wiki pages, edit and test any information given.
Char. dev.:
-Where the relevant files are
-adding to the char. list and choosing an avatar.
-Stats and skill attributes
-innate mutations
-innate resistances/weaknesses
-undead
-char. speed/size/restrictions
-Levelling changes (both in stats and in mutations)
-Breath/innate abilities (a difficult one, but focusing on an innate magic skill would be useful)
God dev(?):
-Adding an altar
-Piety gain/loss
-Gifting
-passive/active abilities and cost
-wrath
Both of these examples could be very simple and would probably benefit from being much more straightforward/basic than anything currently in crawl. Possibly like a naga (deformed body, slow, spit poison and levels up with armour being it's defining attributes) and possibly like makleb/Oku for a god.
(p.s, I have read the patching guide and I realise their is probably bits of info about, I'd just like to collate it into a proper tutorial)