Sui Generis, physics-based sandbox RPG

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:23 pm

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/147 ... ui-generis

Note I am not proposing this as a replacement for NWN. The devs say they are not comfortable promising a complete modding solution, and aren't promising WAN-based multiplayer anyway (due to the trickiness of using this with physics-based combat). Its just an example of what might come out of Kickstarter to service our little niche. If my time frees up by this summer I may contact the devs and see if they would accept any help, I doubt the game would ever be a new-NWN.

Heero will love the procedurally generating outdoors areas. Actually, everyone will... Combat is amazing as well. Be sure to watch the PC get smacked around like a bitch at 10:40 of the main video. Yes, looks like the 'toolset' runs the same physics engine as the game. So you drop down benches and they, well, drop.

Anyway, replicating physics is one of the big time-consumers of NWN work, largely because D&D rules are not internally consistent. Need an explosion? In RL we could approximate an explosion with a few variables. Point of origin, energy, stuff around it (shrapnel), that sort of thing. One explosion function could create explosions for a variety of spells, traps, etc. In D&D every explosion is unique; some might allow saving throws, some might knock people down, some might only effect mackerel. Combine this with nwscript's lack of support for basic polymorphism (i.e. techniques for code re-use) and you have lots and lots of code which essentially describes the same thing differently. Then add PrCs with their slightly-different-takes on everything, needing to support spells, items and monsters for characters who vary in power by at least two orders of magnitude... You get the idea.

D&D is designed to sell books, to provide more MORE content which must be unique in some way. Its also designed to be run by humans without the use of even a calculator. It is precisely what you do not want to use to create a world. A physics-based approach would solve a great many issues.