Stage 1 of functional game: Tutorial Area

[action9000]

Hi!

In this topic, we can post detailed descriptions of tasks, maps, etc. of the tutorial area of the valley.  This tutorial area will be the first fully-functional region of our LBT game world and it will be getting all of our attention until it is complete.

[action9000]

Malte says (12:04 PM):
we might want to use the movie characters (as representatives of each species of similar age to the player characters) as tutors
Malte says (12:05 PM):
Ducky would be in the western part of the training section of the Valley

Malte says (12:05 PM):
and her task to the swimmer characters would be to dive and pick some plant or stone or the like from the bottom of the lake
Malte says (12:06 PM):
we should make it difficult, placing the stone or whatever so deep that the player will have to work carefull with the point where he or she is diving so he or she will be there in time to get that stone or whatever




Malte says (12:49 PM):
there are three tasks which I think might be interesting for the lake of Ducky
Malte says (12:49 PM):
one would be just a swimming race

Malte says (12:49 PM):
one would be diving to get something from teh bottom of the lake
Malte says (12:50 PM):

and as for the third idea I have in mind I'm not sure if you want to include it
Malte says (12:50 PM):
there is a small creek on that map
Malte says (12:50 PM):
which flows into the lake with some rapidity
Malte says (12:50 PM):
it would be difficult to swim against the current there
Malte says (12:50 PM):
while swimming with the current
Malte says (12:50 PM):
you would be just gushed forward  
Malte says (12:52 PM):
the creek comes down from the mountains
Malte says (12:52 PM):
the steeper the ground gets
Malte says (12:52 PM):
the faster the creek is

[Kor]

Littlefoot's could include the player learning to use their tail in some of the ways we've seen longnecks use their tails, something akin to the bowling game shown in one scene (I forgot where) where you roll a rock at a group of treeseeds (pinecones as I recall) hitting a small rock and having it go a certain distance.

Cera maybe pushing a certain distance.  Or using your head to smash a rock or to smash a target.  Hitting the right spot of a tree to get some treesweets or leaves down onto the ground.

Petrie could teach some flyers how to fly in certain ways, going through tree branches where there is an opening, flying through a large rock with a hole in it.  Getting an item from high up, like a certain tree sweet or seed from high up, or a certain colored rock from a ledge or some high place.

Chomper could, if sharpteeth are allowed, teach someone to find him by using their sniffer once he has gone off to hide, or under which leaf is there some crawlers.

[action9000]

Confirmed tutorial tasks:

Swimmer:
Task 1: Swimming race against Ducky.  Teaches basic swimming skills as well as using the increased swim speed ability.  Overhead map is as follows:
(thanks to Malte for the map!)


Task 2: Diving for sky colour stonses. within a time limit (basically, running out of oxygen and being forced to return to the suface)  Teaches swimming up and down in the water at a reasonable pace.   Overhead map is as follows:
(thanks to Malte for the map!)

[ingster]

You could have a series of small pillers scatterd across part of the map or stones
in the river to be used as a training area for the flyers, in this test, you would have to race Petrie to the other end of the river/area, the pillers/stones are needed for when your flight is running out.......At least this was my idea.

[Serris]

What if you could come back and compete against the "instructors" after the tutorial?

I would imagine you can get rewarded for this. I'm normally opposed to rewarding with EXP points, but I realize that combat will be rare so small EXP rewards might not be too unbalancing. I also considered the idea of rewards with inventory items.

[Serris]

I just had an idea for a flyer training course (air view):

I have some sketchs I will E-mail to Action9000.

Course #1 (Basic air race) Task is to beat Petrie in a simple air race

Course #2 (Obstacle course) Task is to navigate the obstacles in the shortest time possible. Later on, you can race against Petrie for rewards (items or EXP).

The obstacles are (in order from start to finish): fly through a narrow canyon hole, (there is a mesa after the canyon hole), fly through a twisting cave (you can land on the ground at anytime to regain energy), weave through a set of rock spires and finally fly through a a twisting canyon with a river at the bottom (there is a mesa in the middle to land on if you need to regain energy).

[Kor]

If there is something like that it should start of very very simple then go up to a basic hardness.  I'd suggest not very hard since the really hard and more harder then that ones could be as separate thing, some sort of Olympic event type of game.  and / or something someone doing a flyer can play at to increase their flying skills to a more advanced level.  

There can be something similar for swimmers, underwater fallen branches, roots, rock formations, ect.  

Some for non flyers and non swimmers also, though it's only the training level so that should be remembered to keep things very simple.

Some can be focused on the type, some tasks for only threehorns, longnecks, ect.  The type of flyers with long tails may have a few extra tasks, similar maybe to what longnecks may do with their tail stuff.  Some similar ones could be grouped, like thicknoses and other types doing the same stuff that threehorns do.  

[Chiletrek]

Hello:
 All about this game is simply fascinating. About the levels, I don't know if this may be possible, but a player may need to complete some tasks with better time (for example) than others, like if the player uses a Swimmer character it may be expected to complete maybe a bit harder swimming tasks than a player using a Longneck... and things like that.
 But I doagree with Kor, if the game starts too difficult it may become frustrating for some players and they'll stop playing it at all. There may be more than one task per "instructor", the first very easy and then increasing difficulty, but not by much, but still making the game fun enough for more expert gamers to enjoy the levels too.
 Good luck and the best of success with this project.

[kjeldo]

i like it,

[Vaan360]

In the toturial part, in each taks, it could be a difficult setting chose, like(easy;medium;hard) for each task(Probaly there is alredy) , first a player would complete the task in easy, unblock the next task and the difficult setting(medium or hard) from the previous task made.

And later the same instructors, could give new assignments, serve as "rank up" or teach new tecniques.

A map toturial could be made, to know the locations of things, places,information about the instructors and other things.
It could be leed by Petrie or a Petrie Icon.
And the map toturial could end in the instructor of your race chose, for example a swimer, the map toturial could end on Duckie.

Wish I could help, but I don¥t know much about this kink of stuff

[Kor]

Using the fc's for things like this does make sense and is nice instead of folks being upset they can't play Ducky since someone else got to the game first and claimed Ducky before them.

Maybe they can reappear for some of the early quests.  Though some of the other fc's can give quests also, maybe even some who are typical 1 liners like Mr. Clubtail.

I wonder if only the gang of 5 fc's will be used or the tv additions to the gang like Ruby and Chomper.  Also how about 1 movie characters who live in the Great Valley like Guido, Mr. Thicknose ect?

[Belmont2500]

these challeges would be good as long as you don't make them too difficult.

[action9000]

I'd just like to make another comment here:

You may have noticed that the section of the Great Valley we're in now is not very big: you can run across it in just a few minutes.

I will be playing with resizing the valley so that it's a more realistic size based on what we saw in the first film, as that is the section of the valley we are in right now in the game.  I may have to scale things a little bit differently and I really hope to talk with Malte about this, too, since he designed the map we're using in the game right now.

Basically I want to scale up the size of the map quite a bit so it's the size of the original great valley.  I will do this after our big multiplayer test so we don't break anything.

[Malte279]

The concept of the map so far is that it is but one small corner of the Great Valley which is to be supplemented by further parts including many more locations from the movies. I suppose it might not hurt to increase the scaling of the existing map anyway if that doesn't mean a dramatic increase of loading time and other possible problems. I need to do something about the hills to make them less step like (using more colors and softer color flows in the map the game map is based on.
My main concern about the map parts yet to come are caves. We don't have a satisfactory way to create caves so far, but they are to be an integral part of some sections of the Great Valley. I am still in Sweden and after that Jay will be with me until next Monday. From then on I expect to be on (MSN included) more regularly again.

[action9000]

Scaling up the size of the map won't cause any technical problems because we'll still be using the exact same amount of data, we'll just stretch everything out, like stretching a piece of fabric: the same amount of material is there, there is just more space between every stitch.

[raga]

An idea for using all gang of five in the tutorial has been brewing in my head for a little while.  You could start off next to Littlefoot who would teach you the very basics.  Moving around, what certain buttons do, how to talk to dinosaurs, ect.  He would then instruct you to go find Ducky down by the river and talk to her.

Ducky would teach about swimming and diving then, as suggest before, race you.  She tells you that the first one to swim down to her brother would be the winner.  Once you get there (insert corny joke about Spike being a spike tail and not a big mouth here) Spike and Ducky together would teach you about carrying items and the interaction between large dinosaurs and small ones.  This works out perfectly since spike is a large dinosaur and Ducky is a small one it doesn't matter which size the player is.  Afterwards they would tell you to go find Cera.

Cera would teach the player about more complicated issues, such as leveling up, dying, and going on adventures.  For all player types except for flyers she would then give you a simple adventure before telling to go out on your own and explore.  For flyers though, she wouldn't give an adventure but instead tell the player to go find Petrie.

Petrie would teach the player all about flying.  He would then do what Cera did with the non-flyers, give them a simple adventure and send them off to explore.

[Coyote_A]

Cera's tutorial for threehorns: ram through small destructable objects (Like trees and rocks) and collect 3 quest items that way(Who know what might be hidden inside a boulder?). I'm not being original, i know.

[Lilfut]

Chomper should probably teach combat basics.

[Serris]

Remember that combat will be exceedingly rare. I'm not sure if it is better to make combat something you learn on your own or have say, Hyp, Nod and Mutt give you a brief tutorial.

Chomper could in fact teach you how to use the "radar" system.

As for challenges by all the instructors:

Littlefoot: standard footrace (flyers can participate but flying is an immediate disqualification)

Cera: challenge to see who can break the most rocks/trees (Threehorn only)

Ducky: swimming race (open to all)

Petrie: flying race (flyers only)

Hyp, Nod, Mutt: sparring session (open to all)

Chomper: treasure hunt (open to all)