Hehe, I do so love neat tricks. And I have recently added a very neat trick to Scars.

Check it out. The difference is best seen on a full size image so I didn’t bother including thumbnails. Don’t be lazy, click the links, witness my pretties in all their glory.

1)

Before

After

2)

Before

After

Nice eh? It’s a subtle effect, but notice how much more depth it gives the scene, how much more a part of the 3D scene the objects seem to be. Without the shadows the objects almost seem to “float” in the image.

It’s a technique known as “Screen Space Ambient Occlusion". If you are so inclined, more information about the technique can be found on wiki :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Space_Ambient_Occlusion

Interesting points to note :

- It works in screen space, ie on the 2D render buffers created after you render the 3D geometry. Which means it is divorced from scene complexity. No matter how many polygons I’m rendering the cost is the same for this effect. On my machine, about 3 frames per second difference.

- No pre-calculation. You can toggle it on and off in real time, no delays. It does however require pixel shader 3 support. For those without the gfx horsepower, never fear, it’s a toggle like I said, you can just leave it off.

- First used in Crysis. Aw yeah, playing with the big boys now. That’s right, SoW and the CryEngine, we’re tight now, best buddies, we’ve got, like, a special club with special handshakes and you aren’t invited up to our secret tree-house HQ.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. Gareth, weren’t you supposed to be working on the gameplay? I am. This upgrade comes courtesy of a 3rd party Torque developer, Ubiq Visuals. All it cost me was $30 and 20 minutes install time on Saturday. *Glee*

I love neat tricks, but I love neat tricks I can add effortlessly/on the cheap even more! Hooray for 3rd party tech!

The previous post generated a few comments and questions, one of which I thought would be best answered by a post, so as not to get lost amongst the comments.

I talked about how most of the race options available to players in SoW are actually just different types of humans, different cultures and bloodlines. And the question I got was “What kind of war calls together such a diverse array of cultures at one time?”

To answer that, I need to clarify one aspect of my design. In SoW I’m doing something a bit different to most fantasy RPGs. In SoW, race is not equivalent to nationality.

In most fantasy, you have the Kingdom of the Humans, the Kingdom of the Elves, the Orc Lands, etc etc. I find this…very boring.

In real life, humanity is rather fond of playing musical chairs, culturally. While sure, there are places where you can find most people being of a certain race and cultural group, much of the time you will find different cultural groups within countries, even if people all look the same. War, religion, emigration…people move around. Sometimes they integrate into the whole but often there are small, tight-knit communities of said cultural groups in amidst the greater society, groups who maintain that culture’s traditions.

SA, for example, is a melting pot. We have 12 official languages because we have so many different African cultures. Then there are the white immigrants. 2 main flavors there, the Dutch descendants and the British descendants (Or you can be like me and have both white bloodlines running in your veins). Then there are the Indians, Muslims and Chinese who were brought over to work, and the sub-groups of each of those. And all the colored people, all those of mixed heritage. And then there are the recent immigrants, the Canadians and North Africans and and and…

The list goes on.

Now, generally there are historical drivers for this type of diversity, where those drivers don’t exist people aren’t so diverse. In SA and America it is due to the whole colonial aspect. In SoW there are similarly some countries which are diverse and some which are less so.

Koeth, for example, is a mountainous, pretty isolationist place. It is 55% one race group (Venthir), 30% another (Mulran), 10% Mixed Blood and the other 5% are the small number of other races.

Rhythikos is incredibly isolationist, tales of that land are more rumor and myth than fact. It is 95% Rhyth.

Athar, the players home nation, is the most cosmopolitan in the region. For much of it’s history the Imarathi God-Sorcerers ruled it and their rule was extremely isolationist, few people got in or out. Then the Talurian Empire came and broke the Imarathi, destroyed the God-Sorcerers and wiped out their places of power. The Atharans had new masters, the Talurians. The Talurians brought other races with them, servant races who helped them conquer and rule. Some of these, like the Talurians, settled there. When the Talurian Empire fell and Athar regained independence, many of those settlers remained, just as some of the Talurians did (although as second class citizens). The newly independent Athar, tired of the isolationist, controlling policies imposed by their former rulers, went completely the other way, opened their borders and encouraged foreign trade and cultural exchange. Members of other race groups, following those trade opportunities, would end up settling in Athar, forming their own communities withinin Atharan cities.

Modern Athar is about 35% Mulran, 20% Venthir, 10% Ontaran, 25% Mixed Blood and 10% other, more exotic races (like the Lazar and Rhyth).

So, in answer to “What kind of war calls together such a diverse array of cultures at one time?", the answer is simple : One which involved Athar. Many of Athar’s citizens are of other races and cultures but, so long as you were born in Athar, you are Atharan. And you are expected to fight when the conscription call comes, regardless of your racial homeland’s stance. In the same way that Irish-Americans would fight in America’s wars even though Ireland itself doesn’t give a damn. Rhythikos wasn’t part of the war, but Atharan Rhyth did fight.

Hope that clarifies things.

Over time, a lot has changed from my original design for SoW. Some changes are small, some large. Character creation is one of the larger parts.

I come from a Dungeons and Dragons background, you see. While I’ve read about other systems and even played some of them in video games, the overwhelming majority of my pen and paper experience is with DnD. But this created a bit of a mental box around my thinking. My initial design was VERY similar to standard D20. Not necessarily a bad thing, D20 is a good system for what it’s designed for IMO, but not necessarily great either. There were issues I wasn’t totally satisfied with and it wasn’t until I read up on Shadowrun (out of curiosity, yes, I read RPG rulebooks for fun ) that I saw solutions to those problems.

I feel a little silly that I didn’t think of them myself in the first place but I guess that illustrates the mental box nicely.

The fundamental change to character creation was the move to Build Points, a concept I ripped directly from Shadowrun, although I’m sure a number of other systems use the concept as well. The basic idea is that you have a number of points with which to build your character and a pool of character options to choose from. Each option costs points, and you can spend on these features until your points are depleted.

Sounds fairly familiar to normal stat buy systems, right? Not quite. The fundamental difference is that your build point pool is shared across ALL character creation options. In a standard point buy system you might have 10 points to distribute on attributes and 100 points to spend on skills. All characters within that system will have the same number of attribute points to spend, 10.

In a build point system you would have say 120 points, which you choose to distribute across attributes AND skills as you see fit. You can spend more on attributes if you want, but that in turn leaves less points left over to spend on skills. Characters aren’t guaranteed to have the same amount of distributed attribute points.

And then you add in Traits. Traits in SoW are kind of similar to Fallout’s perks or DnD’s Feats. Basically, little special modifiers or powers you can acquire, like “Strong Back : +30% carry weight capacity". These also cost build points from the same pool during character creation. So you have to choose, do I want to pick up more special Traits at the cost of fewer skills? Or vice versa? Additionally, there are special negative Traits you can purchase at character creation (only) which give you extra BP to spend. So again, an interesting choice. Perhaps you can afford that extra point of Strength if you take the “Susceptible to Magic” negative Trait.

Build points also solve one of the issues which was most annoying to me. You see, balancing character races is bit of a pain. In DnD you simply pick a race from a list and since all are supposed to be balanced that means that you have to add negatives to a race for each positive you add. You have to “balance the equation". This means that more exotic races carry around a laundry list of weaknesses as well. (DnD does introduce the concept of Effective Levels for more advanced races, but that always felt a little hacky to me.)

Well, Build Points solves that problem. Like Shadowrun, each Race in SoW has a BP cost. The more exotic and powerful the Race, the more BP it costs. For example, your basic “Mixed Blood Human” costs 0 BP whereas a “Lazar” (a race which I introduced in previous blog posts) is the most expensive race, costing 60 BP. This solves my problem, even though character races are no longer balanced against each other directly they are still balanced within the overall character creation system. If you take a costly race that means you have less BP to spend on skills, attributes and traits. Or you may need to take more negative traits to balance it out.

This change allows me to be more creative with the races I think. The way I look at it, more exotic races represent not only additional bonuses to the player but more interesting roleplaying opportunities. As I said, the Lazar is at the very end of the race scale. It is the most costly, exotic race. It also has the most interesting extra roleplaying opportunities. Bear in mind that these aren’t necessarily positive, being a Lazar will result in a fair amount of prejudice and persecution, but it also results in a different experience of the game, certain extra options open up on top of the special bonuses Lazar receive. This is part of what you’re buying when you choose to spend BP on an expensive race, roleplaying, not just stat modifiers.

A similar concept applies AFTER character creation, ie when you earn experience. Exp acts almost identically to BP. You can choose to spend it on increasing skills OR on purchasing new traits, as you choose. The main difference is that you cannot change your race or pick up any of the special “character creation only” Traits, which include all the negative Traits.

Personally I think this makes character creation that much more interesting. The best thing about this change is that it was easy to implement; since there was already a standard point buy system in place all I had to do was make it so that attributes, skills etc all purchased from the same point pool. And balancing, of course. Still, I think it makes the game funner.

Halloween isn’t really a huge deal here in SA. It’s one of those American imports that didn’t quite catch on. It’s an odd thing, really, the influence of the American media. South Africans have a kind of third hand experience of these type of things, we’ve seen it on TV and in the movies but, barring a few exceptions, we don’t really experience it first hand. Kind of like Thanksgiving.

For example : Trick or Treating. I did this once as a kid, when I lived in a walled-in complex. No one was really prepared for Halloween so we kids just threw bags of foul smelling stuff (we’d raided the kitchen for every conceivable ingredient) at a neighbor’s front door. No treat = trick, right? Later, we were rounded up, made to apologize and clean the mess up. Not a great success, by any measure.

And, of course, sending your kids out on the actual streets at night to go door-to-door trick or treating, even with adult supervision, is just terribly foolish in SA. Hollywood psychopaths have nothing on the real thing, kind of ironic, really, in a grim way, that a holiday about being scared pales to insignificance when there is genuine reason to fear the things going bump in the night.

Ah well, enough with those depressing thoughts. Where was I? Ah, yes, Halloween. So it’s not very popular here, mostly. But there are some exceptions. No matter where you live, you probably have a rock/goth/alternate scene of some sort, a place where all the kids who feel “different” can go and express how different they are by all dressing in the same black leather get-up.

Like this fellow. He is, quite clearly, bucking the conventions of conformist society here :

Halloween is, of course, the perfect excuse for that type (and anyone who occasionally moonlights as being that type ) to get together, dance and get trashed out of their bracket. Which sounded like a most splendid idea. So Dembs and I organized ourselves some costumes (ok, hats actually) and joined the night’s festivities at Durban’s best (and only) alternate nightclub, Burn.

(apologies for the crap camera phone quality)

Dembs looking bewitching (oh, hah-hah Gareth ) :

Ok, time to come clean. I have to admit, I am, in fact, the Great Pumpkin (Charlie Brown reference):

Many people, those less lazy than myself, went all out on their costumes. Mario Brothers, Zombie Nurses, Grim Reapers and Space Aliens all crowded the dance floor, rocking out to the likes of Korn, AC/DC, The Narrow and Marilyn Manson. And the aforementioned brackets were appropriately trashed.

Batman themed characters were popular :

Facebook. Even out clubbing you cannot escape bloody “new friend requests” :

Ninjas, they have an aggro radius :

The best dressed contestants. Personally, I thought the Hitman 47 guy should have won, he even had the barcode on the back of his head. But, sadly, it was not to be. The Spongebob Squarepants character took first place. I think it would help ease the minds of those parents who worry about their kids going to that “scary goth club” if they knew that, despite all the gory costumes on display, every fancy dress contest I’ve seen there has been won by a Spongebob character.

A great night. I woke up Saturday morning starving, neck stiff as hell from all the headbanging and my voice raspy from screaming with the music.

So totally worth it.

Background

The Black Tower is the name of the Atharan Secret Service, a group whose agents act as the hidden hands and eyes of the Royal Court, both within Athar’s borders and without. The organization takes it’s name from it’s central headquarters in the capital city of Tyver, a building which, for much of it’s history, was known as an infamous prison.

Built during the reign of King Thengyn the Second, a tyrant who sought to claim absolute authority over Athar, the Tower was home to politicians, noblemen, wealthy merchants, anyone who Thengyn considered a threat to his rule. Including his younger brother, Bharin.

Growing increasingly paranoid as the years passed (perhaps justifiably so, he’d survived two assassinations by this point), Thengyn feared that rebellious factions within his court might rally around Bharin, attempt to overthrow his rule and put his brother on the throne. Taking preemptive action against this threat, Thengyn arranged for his brother to be kidnapped and imprisoned in that grim Tower.

As legend has it, only a small number of the prisoners of the Tower were there for reasons other than political expediency. Amongst that number was one Egin et’Vir, a con-artist, smuggler and consummate cat burglar whose daring crimes and growing fame had earned him a special ire.

Egin and Bharin, though from completely different worlds, would find common cause, even friendship in that bleak place. When Egin later escaped during a prison riot he did not abandon Bharin to his fate. No, he worked to establish communication back into the prison via his underworld sources, coordinating the exchange of information and brokering alliances with interested political figures, establishing a network of rebellion with the imprisoned Bharin at its center.

Ironically, the very action that Thengyn had taken to prevent a coup would give rise to the rebellion he feared.

When the insurgency came to a head and Thengyn was finally overthrown, King Bhenin would make Egin his head of royal intelligence. The newly formed Agents of the Crown took the Black Tower for their headquarters, a symbolic gesture designed to send a message to Thengyn’s political supporters.

Recent History

Although the doings of the Tower are generally a matter of highest secrecy, word has it that the organization is in disarray.

It is common knowledge on the street that the High Council, extremely displeased that Koethe was able to muster an army and launch an attack on on Athar’s northern border without any forewarning from Tower agents, has launched a series of official inquiries into the internal operation of the Tower. There is talk of a traitor in the Tower’s ranks, an entire conspiracy of traitors even.

Rumor has it that agents have been called in from the field and questioned, that the Tower’s records are being scrutinized, that even the Master of the Tower himself has had suspicion cast on him (or her)! With tensions between Koethe and Athar running high, internal unrest in Athar rising, the civil war in Ondil and the still significant threat presented by Lethan, this is a precarious time for the Tower and Athar itself.

Faction Gameplay Style

Heavy focus on spying and information gathering, political intrigue and counter-espionage.

Agents of the Tower will find themselves thrust into contact (and possibly conflict) with most of the other factions, as Athar seeks to counter any potential threat to itself before it arises. Key to this goal is knowing what the other power groups are doing and thwarting any potentially hostile actions.

Black Tower Agents favor manipulating events subtly rather than outright displays of force.