(08-27-2023, 08:21 PM)Wookie Panz Wrote: [ -> ]How about a whole new idea for Alamaze development?
This one would likely be a programing nightmare.
Build your new kingdom using the current traits and buying your choice of traits with a point system as is currently done for kingdom customization.
How many of us remember building characters for Dungeons and Dragons? Would build your own kingdom inspire enough interest to warrant the development?
Is this a new idea, or something that has been discussed before and ruled out?
I'm not a programmer, so take what I say about this with a grain of salt, Wookie Panz.
I don't see why it would be a programming nightmare. After all, the ESO system
already contains a points-based rewards system, and a set turn in which your kingdom can "claim" the ESO rewards in question, if you have achieved your ESO goals/objectives by a certain time frame.
Here, the time frame would be Turn #1, instead of Turn #5 or Turn #10, etc.. Just add to/expand the list of options/rewards, and in conjunction with changing the turn of their arrival to Turn #1, this should be achievable. Now, how much interest there there would be in it, I really couldn't say.
Of course, if you also combine it with different maps, or different
layers of maps, the the Alamaze game system could conceivably support a D&D/RPG type of game. That would require substantially more programming, but you could basically supplant groups with characters, or use Groups as a Party of Adventurers. Just expand the maximum number of characters that a Group party "carries." Maps could be of interior dungeons, or wilderness areas, or cities, or pretty much whatever. Some map areas could be impassable (movement cost set too high to achieve, and the gray fog of war that exists, now, could be black and bloocked out, completely, so that your party of adventurers couldn't see beyond the room/area that they are in. If your party enters certain areas, it could portal/transport them to a new map. This isn't what you're proposing, but there's actually quite a LOT that's possible, but some things would be more feasible than others. No doubt about that. But something like what I'm describing could conceivably end up sidetracking Alamaze, as it is now.
To me, though, it all goes back to what you perceive Alamaze to be. Get the program right, and make it easy (standardized with some degree of flexibility) from module to module, and pre-made content could possibly be purchased or leased from countless different independent (Indie) RPG creators, such as you can find on DriveThruRPG and other similar sites. Of course, you could design your own modules, it just might take longer to do everything in-house with limited personnel.
One of the advantages that the current Alamaze system confers is that the Alamaze game engine already knows how to handle and allow for battles by armies, and it also already knows how to handle spell-casting. Assuming that there are base data files of some sort which contain all of the spells and such, it would be a matter of populating those data files with more information. The same programming could be used, in some instances, for more than one spell of a similar nature, but change the name of the spells. Alamaze could possibly attract RPG players, that way, but simultaneously support wargaming activities.
If adventuring parties of characters moved together as a re-named or different category of Group, then you could also combine the RPG part with the wargaming party. That's how you could have something similar to the Fellowship of the Ring be endangered by orc armies or what not.
Of course, if you're the poor Sad Sack that has to do the programming for such, it might all seem a bridge too far. It costs nothing, however, to ponder and discuss such possibilities.
Some older forum postings that might be of interest:
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...5#pid36075
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...8#pid36078
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...02#pid9202
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...08#pid9208
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...8#pid20398
https://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/show...8#pid32408