New Antiquity Melee Combat System

[Silvanesti Silvera]

Greetings fellow Antiquitians,
I'm quite new to the community, so some of you may not know me just yet.
Foreword
As most members within the community know, Antiquity has been using the SPD melee system for melee combat for some time now, with the latest SPD meter being version 1.52.
I'm sure that many would agree that Antiquity is in need of a new melee solution as is evident in RP events, and from the mere operation of the SPD meter.
At first, my thoughts were that a combat system such as spell fire could be adopted and used instead of the current SPD system. However, as many would agree this presents a few problems. First most, many of the weapons already purchased by Antiquity members would be rendered useless. Furthermore, this option would confine them to use spell fire weapons, meaning more money spent, and builders as well as scripters of Antiquity would not be able to contribute from their expertise. Finally, using such a system would also not be very flexible and we would be confined to the options the actual combat system presents (such as irrelevant classes and roles – druids, elves etc…).
This and more lead me to write this post and layout my vision for the development of a combat system for Antiquity, one that we would build on our own, and one that we can fully customize to fit our special role-playing needs. In order to do this I propose a system that will be open source and I call on all the builders and scripters of the land to join this effort.
Another advantage of this system is the opportunities it brings forth for many members: building weapons (any mod sword will be able to be injected with the new scripts), building of other RP objects (canons, sharks etc.), new ideas, bug fixing, forming new RP methods etc.
The Vision:
What I propose is the development of a combat system custom made for Antiquity, yet general enough to allow for upgrades and future development. Of course the idea is to start small and develop a basic melee system that would include the following simple features:
1. Health and stamina stats and mechanism
2. Alignments/Roles – (pirates, navy etc.)
3. Custom Title Setting option
4. Team support
5. Close combat and ranged weapons support (bladed, gunpowder based)
6. Healing capability via Aid Kits.
7. Simple Control HUD
At this stage, I've decided to keep it at this level of detail in order to hear some feedback from members of the community.
I've already begun to characterize the different modules, and will begin scripting the framework in the coming weeks (depending on RL time constraints ).
I would love to hear feedback of any kind from anyone, and feel free to IM me or leave me a note card if you seek more info or would like to actively participate.
See you on the high seas,

Silv.

[Bridget Jennings]

I would encourage you to do this if this is your passion. Check wth the Senate ROE document for criteria and submit the finished product to the Senate Weapons comittee for evluation and a recommen dxation for approva (or not) to the Senate

[Bertram Merlin]

I like the healht.. stamina thing, What I think could be neat was that hits you get also slows
you down, Its a little strange a 25% person can fight and run for full power.
And the wounted aye, there are hospital and medical nurses and doctors in Anty, could be
great if they could come in action also, evt. they had the first aid kits, so they was needed.
And I think somekind of capture options could be fun also. We all die in anty and then its
over to next time.
Last I hope it keeps KISS, Keep It Simple and Stupidt, and not need 17 notecards of rules
and explains.


The Sea Baron

Bertram Merlin

[Calista Lexenstar]

I second the good points the Sea Baron Bertram has made on slowing down when hit, the doctors and nurses as wel as the a capture option adds more fun to roleplaying.
Indeed noone likes to many notecards to read with a load of explains and rules.

2 votes on those idea's!

[Oma Larnia]

Aye I was playing with a meter the other day where I got some unrecoverable damage from falling in the water too many times and had to go see the doctor. The healing option in the meter requried only someone that had that role assigned to them through the meter so the Doctor got some roleplay out of it as well as did I. It was a good incentive and stops those 'super hero' AV from constantly fighting when it would not be logical that they could given the amount of injuries they had.

[Oma Larnia]

Bertram, I will note here, we do not DIE in Antiquity combat we have it worded as FALLEN or DOWN. We left that described in the new ROE for the explicit purpose of having the chance to roleplay the aftermath of combat.

Unfortunately we still have people doing what Scurvy referred to the other day as 'hit and run' attacks. And it's really boring for me. But that is also the fault of the people who are supposedly arranging these attacks, the leaders of both factions need to agree that it can't simply be a hit and run. If they want to just fart around 'practicing' combat then maybe they should make use of the SEA or Port Royale land /docks??

[Chinitadoll Blaisdale]

This is a great suggestion Silvan, hope you get other scripters and builders in Antiquity join you with this proposal...

[Oma Larnia]

Well I know you are not the only one currently working o a new meter. Also we are not limited to spd or spd-j for combat but it is said during a conflict the meter needs to be the same for everyone.

Anyway good luck.

[Bridget Jennings]

Quite true Ona. The weapons cpmmittee has yet to receive or approve any weapons system yet. SPD-J seems likely to be grandfathered in (but we are a long way from having a single list of approved meters). Right now meters are approoved on a sim basis by the owner (the Grand Duchess is administering the SPD-J system for any who allow the configurator box to be placed on their sims)

[Burnman Bedlam]

An open sourced combat system is a bad idea. It will introduce cheating and exploitation on an even more grand scale than we have seen in the past.

[Silvanesti Silvera]

First, thank you all for you great feedback :).

Bert, I like the idea about injuries slowing you down. This should be easy to implement with the stamina feature. I will definitely look in to it and see how it plays out.
Regarding healing, I was thinking of 3 options that can each be implemented (any combination of them):
1. Disposable personal aid kits
2. Hospital beds that heal.
3. Medics that can give aid to others during battle.

Regarding the capture feature, I shall give this some thought...

I couldn't agree more regarding the simplicity needed for operation. Naturally there is a balance here between realism and playability. We do want it to be as real as possible but we must keep in mind that it has to be playable and fun.

Thank you Chini :), I agree, if we combine our forces we can come up with something much greater in a shorter period of time.
On that same note...Oma, you mentioned there were others working on a meter at this time, perhaps you may be be able to connect between us in the hope of a combined effort?
And of course you are right about other meters being allowed, but in all practicality, I have not seen anyone use anything else in anti then the spd-j meter up until now.
I do think it would be good to have a sim wide endorsed meter though (eventually), as that would go a long way in terms of encouraging sim wide RP throughout anti.

Burnman, thank you for your input. I must say the jury is still out on that one for me...it definitely has many advantages, but there are also some major disadvantages.
There are a few open source systems out there that are doing well...
In the end, it must be said, that ANY system can be cheated in SL. At the end of the day it all comes down to the reliability of our players, and I hope and believe that they all seek the same thing we do: fair, fun RP. That being said...of course the system does need to as robust as possible and not be built in a way that encourages cheating.


Thank you all for your replies!

[Burnman Bedlam]

Based on the activities and behavior seen IN Antiquity, open sourced combat scripts WILL be exploited here. Anyone would be able to adjust their meter to do, or negate, damage as they see fit. Any safeguard to prevent such cheating would be open to manipulation.

Open source is great for client/server applications where the server is under the control of a single entity and the client interacts with it through an established protocol, or end user software which doesn't rely on 3rd party data integrity from unknown sources. And melee combat requires much faster data processing than a LSL or HTTP server could provide, so those options are not viable for a meter system. Direct script to script interaction is required, and if open source, that means complete and total loss of enforceable fair play.

You don't have to encourage cheating. There are some that will cheat whenever it is possible simply because that is how they play the game. Advantage over fair play. Any system which does not specifically address that is doomed to suffer from it.

For the record, I am one of the developers Oma referred to that is working on a new meter system. I am focusing on ease of use, security, and fair play. That is why my code is closed source.

[Silvanesti Silvera]

In any case, the whole idea behind open source is having a contributing coding community which is obviously lacking here at the moment, so this is by no means on the agenda for now.
Furthermore, I do not see Antiquity easily excepting any kind of new system into its ranks as it seems there are quite a bit of divisions on that front.
I assumed you were one of the developers she mentioned.
At the end of the day no matter what you do, no system you build will ever be able to completely enforce fair play, nor will it ever be tightly secured (and even more so in LSL). Eventually, to some extent, you will have to rely on the quality of players, and rely on a common commitment to fair play and integrity. I do not accept the automatic acception that some people will always cheat as a way of life and we have to live with it. It greatly depends on the community you seek to build, the quality of its people, and the norms which you wish to bestow.