Hi Damien, Ah, I see. Well, I’m no expert with guns etc either, but at least I’ve seen them up close and have fired a few so have that much experience. That said, it never hurts to do a little research on a topic, because only by doing research will you be able to make the game act more realistically and provide an overall better experience. Plus I’m something of a jack of all trades, as they say here in the states, and know a little bit about lots of different subjects. For that reason I tend to judge a game on its realism or accuracy according to the real world, and a game that doesn’t behave properly I tend to score lower than one that is more detailed.
For example, let’s take our shotgun example for a moment. Let’s assume I pick up a game and the developer doesn’t know beans about shotguns and the game allows me to shoot a target from 100 meters away. Well, since I do know something about shotguns, and have personally fired a few in my day, I know that is definitely unrealistic. A shotgun is only really good for at least 20 meters or so. Although, you might be able to pull off an extremely long range shot from around 30 meters. Plus you need a minimum of a meter between you and the target. So if either one of those distances were misrepresented in the game I’d decide that the game was poorly written, buggy, and would feel compelled to inform the developer of his/her mistakes. Something no game developer likes including myself. So my advice to you and anyone else is try and do your homework. I’ve had to do it several times when writing Mysteries of the Ancients. I have never seen a Uzi up close much less fired one, but I managed to get the specs an various Uzis and took what I learned and added it to the game. The Uzi found in Mysteries of the Ancients is based on a military grade Uzi carried by the Israeli military and allied forces. I simply took those specs such as maximum distance, size of the ammo clips, rate of fire, etc and entered those values into the weapon description and voila. The game now does a decent job of simulating firing a Uzi. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t checked places like Wikipedia etc though. Cheers! On 3/17/11, Damien Pendleton <dam...@x-sight-interactive.net> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > To be honest I didn't. As pretty much a beginner in audio games, only seeing > the basics in them, that is the only thing I know. True, I could have > perhaps thought better about what other in-game characters might do, but > since I have only seen a search and destroy tactic, that's all I have ever > attempted programming. Again, perhaps with different weaponry, I could have > tried my imagination at, but in all honesty I don't know anything about > weapons except they are used for fighting. Different lengths, mechanics and > attack strategies would have never crossed my mind. For all I knew, guns > were something you fired by pulling a trigger. I wouldn't have known if a > gun was pocket size or the size of, say, a javelin. > Regards, > Damien. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
