ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Ultimately ToME is quite linear. The non-linear element is about the order you take some dungeons, or if you wish to skip some altogether. Then there are some optional quests. But how about if some of these would be mutually exclusive? Or even more, how about some of the key dungeons - like Dreadfell - would be optional, and you could advance along some other storyline, even to some completely different ending? This way the "victory" would be only one of many possible "final" outcomes - or achievements. One Maj'Eyal, many tales.

For instance, say that the Dreadfell would not initially even be on the map. To find it's location you'd need to complete a quets, say bring the sandworm queens heart to an aspiring necromancer. But if and only if you did not do that, you could enter a pass behind Daikara and find your way to the top of the Elemental Peak (or something) and go on from there. On the other way, should you go to the Peak, the Heart quest would automatically be canceled and Dreadfell would simply not exist...

To make things more interesting, some of the following dungeons/quests could be shared, some mutually exclusive. This would of course take some planning - drawing diagrams which achievements are prerequisites to which and how the lore needs to be adjusted in various combinations - but it would certainly add more content to the game. Not just new dungeons, but combinatiorially more storylines...

The game is very near completion (next release will be the last content update before 1.0 is finally released) so this sort of sweeping change is unlikely to be implemented.

But in general I think the non-linear idea is poor, because it would just lead to people choosing the optimal route each game. It might be interesting the first few playthroughs but would quickly become stale.

Yeah if you let people choose they'll always min-max, but after 1.0 we may get more stuff that is randomly alternating, and you cant know it at birth. We'll see

Is reaching 1.0 - finally But I hope the development does not stop there.

Routes that alternate randomly - and you cannot know beforehand if the choices you make will this time lead to victory or dead end (even if you manage to stay alive).

BTW, any plans on how the development will continue? Savefiles will be future-proof, of course, but will there be a development branch that will be occasionally updated to stable trunk, or..?

I like the game the way it is now - one quite compact linear plot and huge amount of optional content. +1 to the idea of randomizing some of the optional zones, though - too often I find myself tempted to do all of the opt. zones, and making myself bored in the process. (I know, this is my problem, not the games, but that's the way it is. Humans are a weak race and gods need to guide us sometimes..)

Now, what would be really, REALLY cool is to play the game from the "other side of view"! Maybe as an unlock after beating the regular campaign. (But these kind of things must of course wait until the main game is polished.)

laru wrote: Now, what would be really, REALLY cool is to play the game from the "other side of view"!

Oh, you mean, playing as one of the good guys?

An argument could easily be made for the orcs as the good guys

Psh, forget that. I want the spider and Sher'tul campaigns.

XLambda wrote:

laru wrote: Now, what would be really, REALLY cool is to play the game from the "other side of view"!

Oh, you mean, playing as one of the good guys?

Hehe

Well next campaign will be Orcs

And next next is undecided but I have many ideas:
- Naga's Vargh Republic
- Spiderkin (on a different world)
- Fearscape invasion
- Tar'eyal (the southern continent)
- Troll Dominion of the Kar'Ha?b
- Others

darkgod wrote:

XLambda wrote:

laru wrote: Now, what would be really, REALLY cool is to play the game from the "other side of view"!

Oh, you mean, playing as one of the good guys?

Hehe

Well next campaign will be Orcs

And next next is undecided but I have many ideas:
- Naga's Vargh Republic
- Spiderkin (on a different world)
- Fearscape invasion
- Tar'eyal (the southern continent)
- Troll Dominion of the Kar'Ha?b
- Others

OMG dg I love them all!

darkgod wrote:

XLambda wrote:

laru wrote: Now, what would be really, REALLY cool is to play the game from the "other side of view"!

Oh, you mean, playing as one of the good guys?

Hehe

Well next campaign will be Orcs

And next next is undecided but I have many ideas:
- Naga's Vargh Republic
- Spiderkin (on a different world)
- Fearscape invasion
- Tar'eyal (the southern continent)
- Troll Dominion of the Kar'Ha?b
- Others

It pains me to wait for this, but wait patiently I shall. I will enjoy these Tales of Maj'Eyal as I hear them, that's for sure!

(You are awesome by the way darkgod, the moment I can donate, I will!)

if you really want to get antsy for these things, just check the DLC file in the "ideas" folder of SVN. Lots of really cool sounding stuff in there!

I take that these will share some content... Somehow.

I think that for inspiration, this game could very well look for the fabled lands adaptation...

Fabled lands is a gamebook series, but it is *very* unique in that it described geography - each book had a geographic region and a 'main' quest (you could move in and out of each region at will)

It's great! Try it:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/flapp/

Even if the format gives itself to a game book (lots of text, lots of fluff), the basic idea is very sound for a non-linear game.
There was supposed to be a overarching 'super' quest (to a underground 'death realm') that was accessible through 'epic' entrances around the world (that tested atributes, puzzles, and combat) - but you only get the *very epic* entrance quests, not the final book itself, because it was never written. The entrances are side-quests, first and foremost. The main quest will not lead you through the nose to a entrance quest, just reward you, solve the region, add a base to your char, etc. There was a region that gave you a mage school and sidequests relating to it (teachers want something dangerous, exploration, class rivaraly etc), there was one very exotic about a country where it is taboo to show your face, there was one about a revolution in progress where you can side with one side or the other, there was one that was essentially a maze with a trick, etc. There are also quests that don't have anything to do with the main or entrance ones obviously.

The key is that the game doesn't have 'campaigns' just country events. So the 'campaigns' can be added to the other games.

In a non-game book format this kind of thing would need lots of limitations of player capability... Make a hand made dungeon where the solution hinges on knowing the true name of a god (ala indiana jones?): player makes your solution irrelevant by teleporting... in text-quest format it is much easier - a whitelist, not blacklist approach to solutions. And balancing becomes basically impossible, you need to depend on level scaling, and of a adaptive kind.