The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

What would you want "Ur-quan masters 2" engine to be like?
Would you want it to be a carbon copy of sc2?
Would you want to be a boarding marine in a first person shooter?
Would you want to be a fighter for the Ur-Quan in a 3d space fighter game?
Would you want to control a huge number earthling cruisers in a 3d RTS like homeworld?
Would you want to fight against other players in a massively multiplayer melee engine where you can upgrade your ship?
Would you want to wage war in a game similar to master of Orion?
Or do you want something else?

One thing for sure.. It shouldn't be ruined with 3D stuff. Maybe some for the melee, but still, keep it "2D". One thing I like in SC are the graphics. It is very rare to see games with hand drawn graphics.. everything is 3D this and 3D that..

Hmm it would be kindof cool fighting your way onto an Ur-Quan dreadnaught as a Earth Spacemarine as an FPS.

I imagine a Quan jumping out at you would be fairly scary :)

What would you want "Ur-quan masters 2" engine to be like?
UQM 2? I didn't think we were done #1...
Would you want it to be a carbon copy of sc2?
Well, SC2 seems to be fairly well represented in UQM. I don't think we need another one exactly the same...
Would you want to be a boarding marine in a first person shooter?
A neat idea, but, when were there ever marines (except, of course, for the Orz) in SC2?
Would you want to be a fighter for the Ur-Quan in a 3d space fighter game?
Like a Freespace 2-type engine? That might be fun.
Would you want to control a huge number earthling cruisers in a 3d RTS like homeworld?
Yechh... Sorry, I have this thing against RTSs
Would you want to fight against other players in a massively multiplayer melee engine where you can upgrade your ship?
See above, replacing RTSs with MMORPGs.
Would you want to wage war in a game similar to master of Orion?
Erm, like Star Control 1? Never having played MoO (though I'd like to). I think that's what you mean.
Or do you want something else?
Meh. I don't really care. It would be nice to have a proper remake of SC3, but I don't think it's going to happen.

What about a reverse of the current game? For example, being able to play the Ur-quan in a last-ditch effort to win the battle against the Kor-ah...all the while dealing with rebellion amoung the slave races. The Ur-quan empire is being slowly pulled apart in SC2, why not play them in their struggle?

This way most of the code and graphics are in place, the dialog and plot would have to be changed, but this would be a great comletion to the current story.

Would you want to control a huge number earthling cruisers in a 3d RTS like homeworld?

i think commanding a fleet of ships gives a more realistic feel of melee combat. it would open up doors for statagy, with luck and skill thrown in for good measure. the one on one combat of lore doesnt portray a real combat situation. i mean what captain is going to wait for his buddy to get blown up before he jumps in to kick space but. im just not sure wich i like better, a real time combat, (like c&c), or a chess like game, where you move and group ships like, (reach for the stars).

Would you want to wage war in a game similar to master of Orion?

i agree, t think that we stick with the 2d map, (and yes i do much like the 3d map of sc1, but im going for a more, star trek - birth of the federation, feel. and yes i know that game kinda sucked, im just talking about keeping it simple. plus it would be easier to code, would it not?

and for my own piont of view:

ive got this idea about about using scientific exploration for experiance points, for what ever race you are controlling. kind of like a 4x game, but more than that. ill give you an example: you take a ship, (now i dont want to get to comlicated, but different ships will yeild different sci points), to a star system. there you can scan planets, moons, asteriods, star or stars(binary), and any strange things located within said system. like in the real world, you would gain knowledge (sci points), that would gain you experiance to expnad your race, and allies you have, should you choose to do so. you can also explore in deep space by getting random encounters (fallout or any rpg) or by being directed to specific point in space. and like i said before, using a ship designed for exploreation, will get you more than a battleship designed for war. i think this would balance out what you build as far as limiting "tank rush" or "out build the ai". should you come across a something good with your cruiser, you could redirect a reserch vessel to check it out or gain what you can and move on. because "knowlage is power", and it would also be kind of a learnig game. like for instance, you find a black hole and want to study it, when you learn stuff about it, boxes will come up syaing what you learned, both real knowlage about black holes and imaginary. this would work for all things in this universe: planets and all ther types, stars and all there types, well you get the idea.

now for thoes 3-d people out there, i think the star systems themselves, could be rendered in 3-d. id love to see earth, with its blue and white and brown in 3-d. with my ship(s) in orbit. you would still move on a 2-d plane(like starfleet command) but everthing would be 3-d.

well thats my thoughts on it.

~DEFIANT

The engine i would love to see is a Master of orion interface where  the space battle interface would be the homeworld engine.

the problem with this is that it would reduce the rpg element to zero.

I would like to see something using the Freelancer engine, which is 3D, but your entire flagship is also rendered in full 3D inside and out, and you can walk around inside the ship and look at 2D computer terminals on the bridge monitors that actually work, so those who like 2D wont be left out. :)
     

Why ruin a perfectly good engine ?

UQM2 if it was ever to be made, should preserve exactly the same engine, with a new story... longer, even more compeling (if this is possible), and with few new features...

I love SC2 engine... 3D suxx big time !

I'd like to keep the top-down perspective, but with 3d-rendered models.

I'd like to see some new stuff, but it should still feel like Star Control. The tricky thing about sequels to good games is that if you don't add enough new stuff everyone says it's rehash, but adding too much new stuff makes it just not be like its predecessors.

Of course, this is purely theoretical, because I seriously doubt there will be a UQM 2.

I agree that UQM2 is a fanciful idea at best, but it's a fun one.

On the 3-d issue I bounce between. The majority of people here seem to be of the "NO" opinion, but lately I've been thinking that as long as the games played on a flat playing plane, a bit of 3-d may enhanse the gameplay. Considering that TFB's latest stuff has all been 3-d, sorry guys but that's probably what you'll get. However, I'd be very pleased to see fully animated 2-d character's.

The agree that the main thing is that it's doesn't disgard the original. Think of Super Mario Bros. Numer 3 was a good sequel because it, basicly, had everything that the original had, plus a little bit more. You could, with a little effort, basdicly play every level of SMB1 using the SMB3 "engine" if you cared to make the levels. SMB2 was a bad sequel because you couldn't do this. It just wouldn't work. UQM2 should have this same mentality. If you want 3-d graphics, fine, but it'd better feel like UQM or no dice.

What about 4 button controls? Not all ships need to use 4 buttons, but some might. The orz would defonately benifit. So would the Suppox. Maybe a few ships could add an ability.

And my personal fantisy is make the whole game SC1 type stragety strategy maps with a complex storyline interweaving various missions. FFTA did a good job of making you in control of which missions you get while progressing a storyline at the same time.

I've always dreamed of starting out immediately after SC2 ends, using Earthling cruisers to secure space from the Ilwrath, Vux, etc..., expanding human territory to its rightful size as foreshadowed in the victory cutscene. Then some new threat or whatever comes up and you have to build newer and better cruisers, build a precursor ship like in SC2, and get plans for the kickass MK II. All of this can be done with fleets like you travel around in in SC2 with an improved SC2 engine. You trade tech with other species to get their weapons for your ships. Like an Earthling Cruiser hull with a VUX laser or whatever. Imagine Earthling Destroyers or Battlecruisers! You can do stuff to the engine like multi-ship engagements, but keep the whole top-down ships flying around with the arrow-key fun that the whole series has been built around. Oh, also the humans should find a few Androsynth who got cut off during the whole Orz thing and are drifting around. And then you can destroy them or make friends with them and take on the Orz once you have the proper defenses! A cross between the best elements of SC1 and SC2 [quick and no-nonsense colonization, combat, fortification, mining, fleets, starbases, combat, alliances, dialog, taking your ship/fleet and going wherever you damn well please, combat, and combat.] So many storylines to follow, so many kickass possibilities! Screw all that 3D (except top-down view prerendering) - I want Star Control! If I wanted something else, I'd buy something else.

Oh yeah, if you really, really do want to walk around and stuff, visiting alien planets would admittedly be really cool. But ground combat isn't highly developed in SC2 aside from some tantalizing hints in manuals and dialog. Howabout some orbital bombardment though?

Also, that whole bonus game feature on Timewarp or whatever, the one where you start out with a medium sized ship and fight other ships for resources and collect stuff and get new ships and upgrades from the starbase - that's AWESOME! It should be a bonus feature on any new game. It's like a cross between asteroids, freelancer, privateer and all those great old NES games where you built up a plane/spaceship/car.

Mix-and-match ships seems to be a pretty bad idea to me. I do agree about the basic idea, starting ASAP and working within the climate.

OK, no mix-and-match. But I'd like to see some new Earth ships, maybe some upgrades and different construction options. For production reasons I can see why all races have usually 1 class of ship only [maybe only 1 type is long-ranged], but at least for Earth we should have more selection.

Certainly, in other threads people have brought up all the things going on at the end of SC2 and I've always wanted to see the Chmrr sphere of influence, the conflicts between the old Alliance starmap and the new SC2 races, etc...

As for the Androsynth, I know they are gone. But what if some Androsynth in realspace were on a mission and had unusual esper ratings that allowed them to survive or maybe they got caught in statis in hyperspace or something. Meeting them again and trying to reconcile differences would be a great plot option. All you need is 1 Blazer to start remanufacturing the entire race. Alternately, given the whole "they are gone because the Orz are so scary" thing, why not find them in another dimension, a small number still suffering torments and stuff. Yeah, I think they'd be a little more receptive to humanity after that. Also, I wonder what the results of the Syreen/Human crew co-operation will bring now that both sides have more experience. Human cruisers with limited Syreen abilities? The two races are very compatible and would make a good alliance to contain the Vux and the Mycon. Maybe it's time to patch things up with them too. There are probably bigger fish to fry.

I like this idea.  So much can be done with lighting effects, and all that other spiffy goodness.  In addition, there wouldn't be much problem rendering the graphics, as there will typically be two models on screen, and each one will only be so complex.

Alternatively, you can keep it 2-dimensional sprites and scale the graphics down from 1600x1200 to whatever resolution you select.  This way, higher resolution = better quality, NOT smaller viewable area.

On a related note, I wondered to myself earlier today how much work would be required to convert the graphics in Super Melee! to true 640x480, possibly in add-on form.

I agree with Antoine's comments, but happen to have 2 cents on my pocket on the subject.

I really want to see the "cartoony" style of ship graphics remain. This can be done in 3-d, however, there's a few things I'd mention to any graphics programmer who wanted to do this (hypothetically).

First, "cel" shading is an okay way to do the trick, but let's get some anti-aliasiang in there, it would help so much.

Second, let's do some shadow casting, whether it be volume shadows (intensive) or some bastardized version of stencil shadows (maybe faster), I don't care. However, if the body of the spathi ship does not cast a subtle shadow on the poles coming out of it's body, if the cockpit of the Arlou ship does not cast a shadow on it's body, if the body if the Syreen, Chmmr, and every other ship does not make a shadow on it's wings, the graphics will lack and many people will complain that they thought the 2-d were better because they looked more "real." I will be one of them.

[stepping down. Taking soapbox. Nodding. Walking off]

id like to c races having more than 1 ship. im not that big on that many new races. keep the dead races dead. no more thraddash, no more ilwrath or so on. they were excelent races, but they can stay excelent in uqm1.

the game needs something new. sc2 was great cus it was something new.

Put new threat to the alliance, maybe like sc3 did. Honestly it was a great idea, but the preformance was bad. The thing I hated the most was that they closed business! You can't do a sequence for it and you know about everything( beside the Orz). But lets not talk about sc3 anymore.
You can add something like the Crux, or maybe the search for the Precruser truth. There are so many options, all are good if they will be done right. Sc3 wasn't done right. Oops, here I go again...

Well, one thing to do would be to have you go on a scouting mission backtracking along the paths of the two Ur-Quan races, freeing slaves and trying to find survivors of the Kohr-Ah (clever hiders, cloakers, people who sank *below*, etc.) On the kzer-za side, many of these might well have no spacefaring technology, so we can have additional races but fewer new ships.

How about some plot ideas, these are just a few jotted from my head so it may not make perfect cohesion yet.  I basically took some plot points from Babylon 5, Star Wars, MGS, FFX and a few other stuff.  There will be a few gaps to fill as well.

The story is now that the Alliance has won, it becomes corrupt and tries to take over the races that have lost.

Seeing this, the Arilou have left the galaxy and closed off all entrances to Quasi Space.

The hero from SC2 is has basically become a figure head for the corrupted organization.

We would have were rebel groups that try to use "terrorism" against the alliance.  Just like the rebels in Star Wars.

There would be a new set of androsynth created, only they are based on the sc2 hero mixed with other DNA to create a powerful race.  However, they are programmed to obey the corrupted alliance and any deviation from that programming automatically causes them to self destruct.  Of course this is not known to the SC2 hero.

The hero can be a young <whatever race> that just wants to have fun, oblivious to the life.  Whatever race that has fun that is, so Shofixti, Thraddash, Human, Syreen, Suppox.

One day his/her friend (which is one of the races that was not selected) tells him/her that they better leave the planet.  He has found out that the planet is going to be destroyed.

Eventually he convinces the hero and they leave the planet, unfortunately it was too late for his friend and he gets killed and the hero is left alone riding on a personal transport.

"How did he know?"

But not having any idea where to go nor how to pilot a personal transport, the hero tries to learn the controls through the manual (good thing things were quite user friendly... this will be a tutorial session integrated within the game)

Apparently the transport comes with a crew complement of 2 out of 10 robots which is used take hits from enemy ships which are starting to attack him.

After a fierce battle when there is only one crew left in the ship (the hero) the battle stops.

The main character who is the second in command of the vessel meets the hero who is captured and taken prisoner.

The hero escapes and tries to take the main character hostage the best he can.  He tries to escape again to an vessel which is coincidentally the same class of ship his race is used to.

Once he has escaped the main character breaks free and commandeers the vessel.  The main character was not as feeble as the hero thought.

The main character is a hybrid between human and Syreen, she is a spy for the alliance that has infiltrated the rebel group.  And the hostage attempt was a good way for her to send intelligence back to the alliance without blowing her cover.

In the game, the player's hero does not really take the major role (like FFX), the role of the main character is a the daughter of the hero of SC2 though she finds that out during the game.

When she finds out her relationship to the hero of SC2, the hero of SC2 was stored in a cryo unit, for further experiments to generate people with inate Precursor skills, as the skill was not passed on who was abducted as a child, probed and left for dead when, while her parents thought they just had two miscarriages, which they thought were inter racial incompatabilities.

Her mom was assassinated by the rebels (or so the Alliance claimed, but it was another third party that actually killed the Syreen queen, the Alliance merely blamed the rebels because they were a convenient scapegoat.

There is a rescue mission to rescue the SC2 hero.  (Exploration to find out where the hero is happens here)

We would have a blackhole bomb go off in the middle of the story that started eating up star systems.

The blackhole bomb was triggered by the main character's brother who apparently survived but was twisted and wanted the destruction of the alliance and the rebels.  He headed up another faction.  He didn't like the Alliance for experimenting on him.  He went to look for and join the rebels.  However on one mission he encountered the dynarri from SC2 and it took over control of his mind.  However, his will was stronger than others, from the experiments done on him and he was able to regain control over most of his actions.  Except the Dynarri's hatred of all other sentient life has sunk into him.

His detonation of the blackhole bomb was not part of the Dynarri's plan.  In fact the Dynarri wanted to preserve himself, but he wanted to destroy the entire universe.  The last Dynarri was killed when the bomb went out because of his proximity to it.

The Kor-Ah rebel faction was the one that tried to destroy him because of the Dynarri which they wanted to get rid of.  They too were absorbed in the initial blast.

The "veil of space" which made people loop around in SC2 is broken as well.  The Rainbow worlds have led a path that would break through and expand the galaxy even further.

Among the races beyond the veil is apparently melnorme who have traversed through the veil ages ago in their pursuit of knowledge.

The Orz is also from across the veil.  Once the Orz had determined the Alliance was creating new Androsynth they had left the galaxy end entered the veil.

The Orz were actually the cause of the chaos in the alliance.  They just didn't expect the creation of new Androsynth, they wanted natural growth of races not something artificial.  They basically clean up artificial life.

The Arilou wanted to create and lead their own version of the Sentient Milleu to prepare for an on-coming war between them and the Orz.  However, realizing that they have lost the Alliance to the Orz in the beginning of the game, they have left.

The Orz does not want anyone to fight in their battles, and wants the Arilou to do the same.  Which of course the Arilou was not willing to do or take the risk as there are so few of them left.

Though the space is larger now, it is actually shrinking because of the blackhole bomb which caused an imbalance in the universe causing it to shrink.

Also during this time, the Orz and the Arilou decide to have their war.  The Arilou is joined by the Utwig who have had contact with the Arilou though not said anything to anyone else about it, some of the new Androsynth and the Melnorme.

Apparently the Arilou was the one who concerted the effort to create the new androsynth in the Alliance.

Large Arilou ships also began star systems of places that were not loyal to them, meaning they would not side with them against the Orz or they deemed them useless.

They were stopped by the main character when they were able to enter Quasi space and blow up the Arilou home world and trap the Orz in Quasi-Space with them.  With the destruction of the Arilou race no one knew how to enter or leave quasi space and the entire Orz fleet was trapped there.

The precursor device that is shown in the end of sc2 was actually a device which was used to balance out the universe.  This is what was used to destroy the black hole.  The only price was the player's life where someone had to use it and get pulled by the black hole.

But that's not really the end of the story for the player who apparently survived, but ended up some where, some time.  The end.

how about:
after many years of happy alliance (the main character has died by now) the mycon turn agaisnt everyone (because juffa wup told them to) wiht a large armada of biological ships. The first thing they do is destroy the melnorm, and convince the druuge to help them. The also have called for 2 or 3 new races that we have not heard of before.

On your side you have the spathi, the yehat (how have kinda crossbreaded with the pkunk, yet they are still called the yehat), the utwig, the zoq fot pik,  the slylandro (who ahve made ships which they can survive in) and the syreen.

The orz have destroyed the chmmr, and are threatening to destroy everyone else.

UQM2 plots will always outnumber engine ideas for UQM2.  Let's give them some threads of their own instead of using this one. ;)

what does engine mean?

In this context, the program code as opposed to the game data (roughly). In other words, the parts of the game's code that it would make sense to reuse in another, similar, game. For example, several other games are based on the engines from Doom or the various Quake games.

I suppose the topic of this thread could be rephrased as "What type of game do you want UQM2 to be?"

Gah, Novus!  There should be a 5 minute lock on replying to a thread when someone already has started a reply.  :P

The way it's used in this thread means "how the game plays; what you can and can't do".  In a more technical terminology:  It's a way for a programmer to have a world at his disposal in which he only has to say when and where something happens instead of how it happens; it generally includes the game's physics...  Many computer games today use the underlying mechinisms (engines) of other games, and just by changing the cosmetics, a new game is created which plays like the old one, but has new content.

The intent of this thread was to determine how a new game should play, irrespective of content like plot and images.  Of course, plot sometimes decides how the engine will be if the plot is the focus of the game.  If it's not, then the engine shapes the plot.

"The code doesn't support finger-removal, but it's the only way that Isildur can get the Ring!  Time to re-write the engine..."

Truly a situation where hacking is necessary.

i get it

Bad pun.  Bad Novus.   ;D

This is the crusader from Timewarp, right?


In any case, where is this planet? Far south of the Gorno constellation? Any closer and we have fairly solid evidence that these folk don't exist, or they've also mastered cloaking technology.

Anyway, this isn't an engine issue. See the posts by Novus and Culture20. Try the plot thread.

Hiya
I think that the current engine would be perfect for continuing the story.  I have serious doubts that the game would be improved if it was turned into something else, we all love it and the chief reasons are the playability and the immersive story.

We already know that the story isn't a problem, as Culture20 says, there are so many people with ideas for a plot, a group could easily be created to manage the story.

If the current engine is used there are obvious benefits; there is little investment needed (a new engine is going to cost) it will also take less time to create the next installment.

I think a "donation" system should also be put in place, this may be open source but the people involved with the project could do with some thanks!

Dave

Since I don't have a credit card or anything I can pay with him but for cash, I will donate first an "imaginary" money! Who is next?

Using UQM as an engine for a sequel to SC2/UQM is an interesting idea.

However, as a programmer, I would like to point some things out.

I haven't looked at the UQM codebase, so I can't say anything for certain. That being said, I do not imagine that the UQM codebase is anything approaching what modern C/C++ programmers would consider "good code". Back when it was written, writing good code was far less important than performance or code size. As such, code was not written with the level of extensibility that modern code would expect.

The point I'm trying to make is that bending the UQM engine to fit a new game design, even if it is quite similar to UQM in gameplay, is a potentially difficult prospect.

Indeed, it is precisely that prospect that would lead me away from relying on the UQM codebase and instead turn to the Timewarp codebase. I know a lot of you do not like the state of TW, but it does have one significantly redeeming quality that UQM doesn't have: good coding practices. I'm not terribly familiar with TW's codebase, but I am aware of the ease of adding new ship types, or even game types.

Sure, there are some negatives with TW, primarily centering around the fact that it doesn't emulate SC2 well enough. However, now that we have the UQM codebase, we can study the physics system and port that code into TW. Since TW is a well-designed system, it is much easier to modify this physics code than it is to bend UQM into something else. Other discrepencies between TW and UQM can likewise be repaired.

Note that relying on the TW codebase does not require the use of any of their non-SC2 ships or game types. They can be removed just as easily as added.

I'm just suggesting that, given the avaliability of the UQM source, it would be easier to fix the problems in TW's code than it would to fix the programming difficulties of the UQM code.

As to questions of what ideas would be good for the UQM-2 engine, here are a few. Note that these mostly stem from gameplay ideas I had for a sequel.

One of the fundamental problems with a sequel to an adventure game is the potential lack of adventure. We've seen this part of the galaxy before; exploring it just isn't that interesting. As such, I would propose starting the game in an unknown region of space. This could be due to some Hyperspace malfunction with new Precurser-tech engines, or because the player is an alien that lives in this new region or whatever. Regardless of how it happens, the player starts in a new region of space.

Eventually, perhaps the player can traverse the distance to the UQM region of space, and start interacting with more familiar elements using new knowledge from the new region of space. This clearly requires imcreasing the map range.

Another gameplay enhancement would be to enhance the meaning of resource gathering. This also helps with plots. If the player is part of a government that isn't under a slave shield, resources for building his/her fleet should be quite plentiful. The idea of having RU doesn't make sense in this case.

However, what does make sense is for this government to not have a small fleet that is almost completely independent of the rest of the military. As such, your mission of exploration/diplomacy/etc must be "funded". That is, you must provide your government with a useful service. So, when you go out and explore systems, you collect valuable data on mineral-rich worlds, or possible worlds for colonization (life worlds with non-dangerous inhabitants). You "sell" this data back at your starbase(s), and by doing so, your CO can allocate additional resources to your venture. Essentially, you're providing an service to your government and getting a reward.

Also, as you tell your government about mineral-rich worlds, and as they begin to exploit them, your government/alliance's area of influence (AoI) begins to increase. So, the better you do, the more powerful your people become.

SC2 had a definate shift in focus as you played the game. At some point, you had "enough" minerals. Enough that you weren't concerned with adding modules to your ship. At which time, the impetus of exploration is now inter-species intercourse (in more ways than one ;) ) and finding life-words/rainbow worlds for Melnorme Credits. I found the later issue to be a problem. If you don't know where the rainbow worlds are, or what the pattern is, then you have no choice but to contine mining worlds, only this time for Biodata instead of minerals. If you do know where the rainbow worlds are, then this isn't a concern, as you can easily get all the credits you can handle.

Mining credits is much more annoying than mining minerals. That's because virtually every world has minerals; not every world has credits.

So, here's how I intend to correct this. Even with the ability to sell planet locations back to HQ in exchange for resources/goodwill/expanding the empire, the player should still be able to descend to a planet and gather minerals (I'm not sure if the whole biodata thing is a good idea in any case, but maybe it is. Maybe it can now be used to determine the suitability for colonization of a world). Gathering minerals himself helps add much needed funds to the player's coffers, even without finding a mineral-rich planet.

However, by the time the player has "enough" minerals, the player may still need to expand the empire or fund a war or two. So, I would like to institute a "system scan" that can be performed anywhere in-system.

A system scan can determine the following about each planet:

* Whether or not life is there.
* Whether or not some energy reading is there.
* What kind of world (Treasure, Pelucid, etc) it is.
* A "threat assessment". The likelyhood of losing crew down on the surface. Not an average of the temperature, weather and tectonics. As the player gets better drop pods, the threat assessment takes this into account.

This is enough to sell mineral world locations back to HQ, but not enough for colony world locations (must make sure that life is relatively tame). This lets the player get an overview of the system to make sure that there is even something worth his or her time there. Also, if the player just wants to beef up his government, then he doesn't need to actually go to each planet; a simple system scan is enough to deal with mineral worlds. So, when the player has reached the point where mineral gathering is a non-issue (or a mineral-shy sitation can be taken care of by dropping in on a super-giant star or two), he can use system scans to search for particular types of things (biodata, potential mines or colony worlds, etc) without wasting too much time. Also, energy readings can alert a player to a pre-space flight civilization that might be passed over.

It would be interesting for your people to go to war without moving their entire AoI. That is, they can split their AoI and send large fleets (represented by AoI's of their own) against an adversary. The difficulty, of course, is supply lines. How to make supply lines work... I have no idea. But a fleet AoI should be limitted in how far it can go.

As such, I think that combat simulation AI needs to be beefed up. For example, a fleet of 50 Androsynth can take on maybe 200 Earthlings. These kinds of stats should be representative of how these matchups work together. Since your government may be an alliance of worlds (and/or going up against an alliance), this battle simulation may need to take into account how heterogenous fleets could work together.

I also want to, somehow, bring the idea of "fortresses" or reinforced defenses back from SC1. I don't want the player building them, but I like the idea that fighting in a fortified enemy system puts you at a disadvantage. Maybe asteroids have point-defense lasers or something when you fight in an enemy fortified system. Fortresses should automatically exist in important systems in a species's main AoI (as opposed to fleet AoI's, which don't get fortresses). Say, important mining and possibly colony systems.

Note that all of this additional gameplay is exactly that: additional. It is not a replacement for exploration/diplomacy/etc. It is an augmentation. It lets you solve problems in different ways. Instead of convincing the Ilwrath to kill of the Thraddash, you can instead make an appeal to your government to send a task force to do it. It gives the player more choices. It, also, gives you something interesting to do in the mid-game (getting involved in wars, building up your government, etc) as you're starting to switch from resource collecting to other persuits.

Personally as far as anything goes with this...

I think that a UQM 2 should entail something regarding a plot for a Star Control IV to continue the story after the captain outsmarted the all omnipotent eternal ones.

Something with a good and gripping plot such as was existant in Star Control II, and at least a bit better than the at least acceptable story of Star Control III.  

I found that the greatest aspects of SC2 was its story line, that it was so profound and well written.   The gameplay was flawless which only added icing to the cake.   It was a game that i was never bored with playing.

My suggestion would be to for gameplay to combine the best aspects that made Star Control II.  Navigating between countless stars, and planets.    But this time since you are not a renegade surrounded with enemies, make it something as well along the lines with SC3, where you can instead of using planet landers also place installations and command more fleets than just your command ships fleet.

An interface with a cross comination of SC2 and SC3 as well.. with expertly flowing and enjoyable music... Star Maps that not only display stars, but what is on them, provided they have been explored.   The game could begin with the home systems of the New Alliance Races already established.


As far as a story could go... Imagine this hypothesis.

It has been 20 years since the climactic battle for survival at the galactic core.   The League of Sentient Races now spanned both the Alpha Quadrant and the Kessari Quadrant.

Aside from occasional strife or criminal agents rising the known galaxy was at peace.   Hyperspace was restored by the cleansed rainbow worlds and once again ships of all kinds careened through knwon space for all sorts of business.

The troubles began on unzervault the home world of "your father - The legendary captain"  the ortogs living there began to be restless.  even violent.   Soon and strangely enough on many other worlds around the galaxy reports of these creatures becoming increasingly territorial and even violent towards the inhabitants of the worlds they inhabited.  

There was no explanation for their behavior, (premise being, is that - the father that being the human captain had just died, perhaps a clip of a funeral service would be shown in the games introduction)  until one day.  

A league initiative was instated across its worlds that ortogs be exterminated as they had killed several people on several of their worlds.   A division of League Troops was out hunting them on unzervault, their squad leader brought his weapon to bear, aimed...   and the Ortog let out a whail...   Mooo....ai... I.. am a precursor..


General Storyline Premise is that The Precursors have awaken from their long slumber as mindless cows.   They had expected everyone else in the galaxy to be long dead from the eternal ones, however instead discovering that had not happened that a human discovered what eluded even them.   It no longer meant that they were the masters of their home galaxy any longer.  But more importantly their fear of anihilation was no abated forever.

To wind it up short, which i could elaborate on alot, in fact i could write the whole plot to this game which is entirely theoretical right now i believe.

The precursors return, in time they came to the conclusion that they must remaster their galaxy.  The more they regained the memories of their ancestors, the more powerful they would become.  The game would become a race against time to bring the precursors to their six knees, and humble them to function in this new galaxy.   This game would entail prospects on a much wider scale than has been in any previous SC game.  As the whole galaxy would become involved in this..

The remnants of the Hegemonic Crux, still upset from their dramatic defeat fighting the precursors on one end of the galaxy.  The League fighting them on the other.  The crux seek to beat them into being their subordinates, and are making headway to it.   The league seek only to show them that there is another way. But the unfortunate part is, the first "empire" that first unlocks the secret location of the precursors ancient homeworld..   Victory will have been achieved by them..  It is a race to beat the crux there.  If they beat you there...  You cant stand against them and the precursors... together they would make a fleet so powerful none could stand against them.  Winning the game = beating the precursors at their homeworld and when their leader speaks to you.  If the right things are said...  you win.  


And no, the chmrr would not be bifurcated again,   but you may have to deal with kohr-ah mauraders again..  and cowardly spathi blowing in whatever direction the wind goes..

This game would include ALL races of every game.

That means Every one of those Juicy Ships duking it out.

Now whats everyones Opinion about that???

Email me at Ancient_Hawk@msn.com  if you seriously think it is a good idea.





Just an idea,  i have written three novellas over the last 4 years.  Sadly none of them were published =(  

You might try posting your plot ideas in the "plot ideas for a sequal" thread:http://uqm.stack.nl/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=Gendiscuss;action=display;num=1072856834, but I bet it will meet resistance there; many people here are not too appreciative of SC3 (I personally consider it heresy).  One change I'd make before posting it there though: The Captain appears as an old man (well past the time you place as his death) at the end of SC2.

Plot should only rear its ugly head in this thread if it affects the nature of the engine.

As far as the engine ideas you posted: How would the player control multiple fleets?  Would he give orders over via hyperspace broadcast, and not visibly see the results, or would it be more of a RTS type format?

Here are my humble ideas...

Keep the melee engine, but have cartoony 3-d models... cel shading is a good idea.

This might be a bit of a stretch, but you know what would be REALLY COOL? Multi-team melee battles! Maybe it would be Risk-style with 2 dice, like, if you had at least two ships you could use two, otherwise you might face 2-on-1...  in mission mode, you could battle the computer with a friend or with a computer drone.  If you limit the total number of ships to 4, you don't run into any rendering problems, you can actually control your whole team with one friend, you get to fight side-by-side, and people will get into figuring out kick-ass teams!

Phew. Ok, I'm really into that idea.  I don't know anything about the AI, but it probably wouldn't be TOO bad to go to 2v2.

Onto something else: mouse support.  Do we really need to wait for UQM2?  Other than smoothing out the turning so you're not limited to 16 angles, melee should stay very similar to its current form.

I also think that there should be a bigger economic market system, black markets, special items that you can only buy in certain areas, and MORE SHIP UPGRADES!  I think the key to having a good game that's so simple, engine-wise, is to have a really really good story and lots of deep details.

I think a few more ships would be good, too, but not a ton.  OTOH, there could be lots of races interacting in different ways.  I like the idea of having to start a rebel faction against an Alliance that's out of control.

2d maps should stay, basically.  A constant-zoom thing would be good for traversing solar systems, or even a manual zoom.

Comments?

the ship upgrades should be made by the race to which the ship applies. Not by the precursers.

Then that race would apply those upgrades to every ship like in SC3 (a bad idea in my opinion).  Having the upgrades be of Precursor origin (as in SC1) makes them 1-use items that seem special.

maybe you have to do special mining quests to get them or something. I dont like the idea of being able to impletement technology from god knows how far back.

You're not implementing it; you're ripping off a working instance.

I think that if you are " you're ripping off a working instance." then it should apply for all ships. For instance in SC3 you could get a upgrade for spathi ships. To me it seems like the precursors were to busy trying to save themselves to make a arifact for a race that will come much later in time. If the game were to have upgrades, my personal .02 is that you should have two kinds. One for the precursor vessel. One for all axiliary ships. To me it makes more sense. anyway just my .02

something kinda strange is that human technology, can link directly with the vindicater.

Maybe the Vinacator is made up of two separte systems (with the exception of the power plant) one precursor and one human? - I don't know - but that is my best guess.

Falcon, "ripping off a working instance" does not mean copying as in "ripping a CD".  He means you literall remove the unique, non-reproducable tech from a mostly destroyed ship's hull (or in most cases, find it in a Precursor Storage Cubby) and install it in your ship.  This sounds strange until you realize that Precursor Tech was all designed with this modularity in mind.

Examples:
* All of the precursor modules from SC1 which would bond with any races' ships.  The artifacts themselves did the merging with the (in their view) outdated technology (backwards compatability).
* The Precursor tech that was merged with the starbases' fabricator systems.  (I suspect that the Starbase staff did very little; the tech merged itself)
* Earthling, Arilou, and Melnorme/other technologies  (emergency warp escape device, portal spawner, many modules - none of which the melnorme said were of precursor origin) which worked perfectly with the Mark I.  In this case, the Mark I did the actual merging.

So what you and Death_999 are saying is that the precursor tech adapted to the human/Arilou/Melnorme tech. Also that the Precursors did that so their OWN tech would work, however it proved a added benifit to us. Ok - I think I see what you mean.

OT:
KarmaComa: Nice. I figured I was the only one on here that listened to Massive Attack.  ;D

Heh. I've been using this nick for, god, about 6 years or something.

All this business about ship upgrades and mining missions kind of makes me think of Final Fantasy Tactics... the subquests (Treasure Hunt?) were pretty stupid.  When I see something stupid in an awesome game like FFT, it strikes me that it's a premise with potential.

So consider this: you can find artifacts (Precursor, or "lost techs" from other races) on some planets.  Some of these work on all ships, say, but others are only compatible with one or more races' ships.

Maybe you could even have a merchant race that deals in black markets for such one-off artifacts.


Another thing is, the lander engine in SC2/UQM fucking blows (not to mention the fact that it's super-chunky on my P2/64M, but the point isn't to have a game compatible with 5-year old computers).  I think it would be fun to have this as a 3D part of the game -- it's not really that fun to begin with.  Lander missions could be really fun with a very basic 3D engine.  Impossible?  I dunno.  Either way, I really hate the scrolling bitmap and the cheesy organisms (except for the clapping trees) :)

That's right, don't you dare disrespect the Whackin' Bush.
(The other W. Bush you can diss all you want :P)

Man, all this talk of UQM2 is giving me a major hard-on.  I wish someone would just pay me to make this game.  Then I could justify taking 3 years to write my thesis.  ;D

Imagine how cool it would be to play a Starcon game with an awesome FPS lander engine, and having some 80-foot tree smash you with a giant limb!

You know, the game has potential for commercial success, too.  If people made it really really well and stayed true to the spirit of SC2, I think it would do really well.  Too bad that'll never happen.  :(

Its still nice to dream.

what i want in it is 2 words:

Random encounters.

like in the fallout series.

meet a arilou ship piloted by elvis.
meet khan in the botiny bay.
find a derelict death star.
find the meaning of life on stone slabs and somehow destroy it.
find the voyager space probe.

can you guys think of any more?

Finding the makers of  the Ur-quan masters on Groombridge would have been cool. Thinking about it - that would have been a great place to put the cloaking device. Yeah! - What you could do is talk to the Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III and at the end they "assist you on your journeys" with a cloaking device. ok - maybe that needs more
thought  :P - but is still a cool idea!   :)

OT
Arilou:  "There is a *higher* *level*, one to which you can not *ascend*.  In this *level*, the creators of this world live their lives, and their competitors prevent them from creating more through *legal* means.  It seems the enemy owns the *name* of the universe."

Captain: So, can I wrest the *name* of the universe from our evil enemy?

Arilou:  "No, you can not; your money is not solid enough."
/OT
sorry, just popped into my head (I now chastise myself for posting possible plot in the engine thread).  :)

 :o That is just.... Brilliant. Thank you C20, you just made my evening.

That was great.

(nitpick -- I'd just put 'solid' between asterisks, as they do elsewhere, IIRC)

That was very good Culture 20 - I think you have a career ahead of you with translating Arlou and Orz lanquages.

That was good C20. that was good.

for more ideas:

find a group of dancing astriods.
find a used spaceship salesman.
find the legacy of the androsyth.. a female androsyth!
find the black spathi squadren.
find the last of the illwrath and thradish. still duking it out on some planet.

So Far for the engine it seems everyone wants to keep the 2d melee engine but add stuff.
You guys also seem to want to keep the interface for navigation, but add stuff.

Changes to the melee engine:
Allow the user to decide on the perspective while using 3d models for the ships. (1st, 3rd or birds eye.)
I would make it so all the ships in the fleet would warp in unless told not to do so.
There would be a mode where the game play is paused so you can give orders to your AI allies. Like attack target, avoid combat, warp out, Support me, heal me, move to location, and ect.
I would have it so your ships still in hyperspace can be order to warp in at a certain location for ambushes and other stuff.
And have it so you can have your friends control your extra ships on another computer.
I would have the battle fields much larger with stars and planets of the system you’re near.
Also have AI that matches the race. Spathi will try to run at first sign of trouble, and the Thradish will fight to the last man.
Also use a captain system.


Changes to the navigation engine:
I would like mouse support added.
Information about a star system will be displayed if it was visited and currently selected.
Keep it in 2d.
Auto pilot will use quasi portals automatically.
After a battle you may be able to salvage parts and hulls. It will cost RU to get hulls in working order.
Add Random encounters.
Allow player to commit acts of piracy for bad karma and easy RU.

Changes to the star base and ship yard engine.
All ships are upgradeable.
Primary ship can accept modules from all other ships.
Option #1 Primary ship can upgrade in hull types
                All ships have a modules system for weapons and specials
Option #2 Primary ship has a static hull type.
                All ships weapons and specials that can increase in power but cannot be swapped.
Each ship must have a captain that you can level up. (luck, intelligence, bravery, endurance)  then have special abilities that are achieved like +10 crew and so on.
Add repairing and equipping salvaged hulls and parts.

General changes:
Multiple endings based on karma and key events.
Built in MP3 player

I believe the best approach to make this engine is to make it from scratch.

I would also like it if you could take any upgrade and put it on ANY axuiliary ship. That way if you wanted you could have a earthling ship with upgraded firepower, recharge rate, thrust, turning etc. Is that what you were trying to say in your previous post? BioSlayer?  

I was tryint to say there are 2 options for Aux ships.
1. all the ships can be upgraded like the mothership in sc2 can.
or
2. their only upgrades for Aux would be increasing in speed and power.

why i dont like the first system is that it makes each ship lose its personality.

and why i dont like the second is the upgrade options are too limited.

does this help or do you want me to explain more?

That's why you get the Mark II, modular out the wazoo.

well of coarse but I was saying for the AUX ships whether or not to have them to be modular or have stat upgrades.

I think that if there is the capacity for an upgrade, it should be expensive compared to the ship itself. Otherwise no one would build ships without upgrading them...

Do you want a yehat for 2300 RU, or a Yehat with 6 extra battery for 3800? Hrm, that isn't so easy.

Stepping out of combat and into the realm of character interaction...

I like the idea of having a roster of playable characters, e.g. Zelnick, Talana, Fwiffo, Hayes, Tanaka, and other characters who are not playable. Starship captains would be characters randomly generated in a manner similar to the planets -- so if you meet the same ship, the captain will be the same person.
You can take over being any one of them, and send the others away on missions, or have them stick around to help out close by (provide some bonus). Your control over them is not unlimited. Fwiffo won't go on a suicide mission, and Talana may fly off the handle if you manage to convince Zelnick to have dinner with the daughter of the Utwig Proctor.

Also, each of the characters (playable or not) knows things, and you can tell them things and ask them arbitrary questions. Conversation would be sort of a cross between Exile's format, Blood-speak, the negotiation palette in Spaceward Ho!, and the classic SC2 conversation-options type. So, you choose a subject to talk about, then the character relations and the character's skill in diplomacy determines how it comes out of their mouth. Then that factors in to how positive a response you get. The statement and response are determined ALGORITHMICALLY, using conversational templates with pluggable information. This would require far far more text than static conversations, but then again you could spend hours talking to the ZFP about Frungy, if that information was in the game's data.

And just because someone is on your side doesn't mean that you can't talk to them or ask them questions. This is a major flaw in every multiple-character CRPG I've ever seen with the sole exception of Cythera.


How the heck are we going to handle this? Well, it is a fairly tall order, especially if it's to be done in real time. I think there could be something done with knowledge matrices multiplied by opinion matrices.
The knowledge matrix handles what the character knows about. The opinion matrix handles what the character cares about. Both of these matrices will be very large very sparse matrices, so straightforward implementations would fail immediately.

The model for knowledge I am thinking of right now is that each bit of knowledge has a subject, a predicate, and a relation. For example, the Dnyarri enslaved the Ur-Quan.

Characters would have different reactions to this fact if they are aware of it. Most characters find slavery distasteful and would be less sympathetic to the Dnyarri and more sympathetic to the Ur-Quan.

Other examples could be Zelnick loves Talana; Zelnick betrayed the Mycon; The Mycon know that Zelnick betrayed the Mycon.

It's with that last one where you get knowledge as a predicate that things get messy. When AI-controlled characters have to think about what other people know, that causes a massive explosion in the amount of knowledge out there to be known that is hard to limit.
But then again, how are AI characters really going to react based on the knowledge of what other people know? Are they going to scheme and plan algorithmically, or are their REACTIONS done algorithmically, but their ACTIONS done by static plot?
If we have the characters' actual ACTIONS handled by hard-coding, then we can drop all track of knowledge about other peoples' knowledge.

</pie-in-the-sky>

Ouch - That was a long post D_999, but here is what I have to say about it:

I like that you can "switch" characters at the beginning of the game. For instace being Talana would result in you planing attacks on the mycon etc.

That is a lot of work though - especially if a player first time through will just go through 1/8 of it. But if were ever to be implemiented - I would buy it.

Don't Fred Ford And PRIII come to this forum? Don't they have something to say about it?

I think their last post was over a month ago....

but wasnt that last post not without a month of silence before it

I don't understand....  ???

He means that they don't post much. Am I right? ???

Well - Considing what a great job they did with Star Control 2 other people are begging them to do their games so they are very busy.   :D

i ment that they dont come to this forum that much, and they rarely post.

Death_999 your idea is a interesting one, but you ould have to make sure it was done right. if you want to see dynamic dialogs done utterly wrong look at Master of Orion 3.

I think it would be better to have a huge database of static conversations.

Arcanum, Torment, and Ultimas 5-7 allowed you to ask things of your followers, and you'd have very indepth conversations in Torment.



What you're looking for is an AI that can win the Turing-test. :)
If I were trying to make this a reality, I would definitely make knowledge similar to C++ classes, maybe using something similar to prolog syntax:
What X knows can be labeled public, protected, or private.
An AI can inherit the knowledge of another, but only naturally obtains the public knowledge, protected knowledge is granted only if the "parent" AI is listed as a friend AI.  Special syntax might be used to define specific knowledge (the mycon might learn that the Captain tricked them, but they wouldn't know everything else his friend AIs know).  Some sort of special syntax also might be able to override private knowledge so that it can be shared with just one AI, and not all friend AIs.
fact(betrayed "The Captain" Mycon protected) - the captain betrayed the mycon (only the captain and his knowledge-inheriting friends know)
fact(betrayed "The Captain" Thraddash public) - the captain betrayed the Thraddash (everyone who inherits the captain's knowledge knows)
fact(defeated "The Captain" Sa-Matra public) - the captain destroyed the sa-matra (everyone who inherits the captain's knowledge knows)
fact("died from a plasmoid leak" Floosh private) - floosh died from a plasma leak; only he knows that, no matter how many people inherit his knowledge.  Special syntax can grant others this knowledge (I suppose it would be added to their data as a private symbolic link?) if floosh tells them in conversation.
fact("experienced problems implanting deep child in organon" Mycon public) - Anyone who inherits the general-mycon race's knowledge knows that they are having trouble implanting deep children in organon.

The biggest problem I see with this approach is how much data needs to be processed every time a question is asked.  The inheritance and symlinks reduce storage costs, but if you're talking to an all-knowing race like the Melnorme or arilou, everytime you ask something, the entire DB needs to be accessed.  Maybe in the future when we're all using multi-processor machines or the computers stiched into our clothing operate in tandem like beowulf clusters we could get this to work, but right now conversations would take a little time inbetween sentences.

Edit:  maybe instead of public, private, protected, there could be a % scale of privacy, allowing for a little more fluidity?  and oops, forgot that you mentioned partitioning the subjects into a tree structure, everything wouldn't have to be accessed for every sentence when talking to the Melnorme.

good.




No, just not repeat identically and have fixed converation options, like in SC2.



How much do you actually know about C++ classes? Because publicity of an item in terms of a programming API has little to do with the kind of privateness or publicity you're talking about...



I see what you're getting at here.
Here is my model for this:
Characters have information sources and then specific tidbits. Most bits of information about the world are labelled statically, not described dynamically. This should save tons of space.
For example, Yehat all share a Yehat information base. Yehat captains all share a yehat captain information base. Yehat scientists share a Leage scientist information base.
Then if you have told a specific named Yehat scientist about mycon egg cases, that will be noted and recorded for later.
If on the other hand, the scientist said he would share this info with his colleagues, then the league scientist knowledge base would get the info instead. The propagation speed might be unrealistic, but that could be accounted-for with time delays and such.



Note that most opinions are fixed over time and can be looked up. When changes occur, relatively little needs to be done. We can manually program in all moments of enlightenment (e.g. explaining the probes' behavior), so no inference work needs to be done in the AI.

Remember, it is mainly their reactions to you which is determined here. That can be handled pretty quickly by grabbing the RELEVANT bits of info talked about in your statement and handling them. And you can grab them the moment you go into that category rather than waiting until you finalize the statement.

Also, if there is a character voice, you have until your character has delivered the statement to calculate the response.

So basically you are saying that there would be whole lot of conversation databases and that depending on the NPC it would have access to a list of possible conversations. And in each conversation would be requirements to be met before it appears to the player.

I believe this is how RPG are done right now or am I missing something?

For talking characters we could use a program that I have heard of. It turns text into believable voices. I could be wrong but I think it costs about $3,000.

now all we need is funding....... and alot more planing

I know, I stated it poorly; I meant that the publicity would be used in terms of inheritence, not in terms of the knowledge being "publicly known".  It was a concept generated in 1-2 minutes; give me a break.  :P


As you can see, my understanding of AI's is full of holes.

Almost every RPG I've seen uses a very rigid, scripted format since that's the easiest way to control a story.  Every once in a while, unimportant NPCs will say something random that seems to have meaning, but it very rarely deals with the main plot that you want to enforce.  Hey Death_999, do you think your idea would work with parsed input strings like the old text adventure games?  Maybe a combo of the two: We've seen that the Captain has a quick wit and always has a few quips on the tip of his tongue.  Maybe there could be 3 easy, ready made responses from the Captain, and a text input box to ask more in-depth or off-topic questions.
(e.g.)
Commander Hayes:
Great Haul!  I'm glad you're still prospecting mines for us, Captain.  Is there anything I could do for you?

Choices:
1)Give me a report.
2)No, just passing through.
3) (manually typed in) Where is breakfast being served?
3 is chosen

Comander Hayes:  Breakfast?  It's evening by Station-time.  Maybe the Pkunk Ambassador has some poot-worms in his quarters...

I have actualy seen this in a game and it was worthless.
you would have to have the spelling and grammar correct and it would have to be phrased right.
Computers are SO STUPID that if there is not a line of code writen for the sitiation it wont work.

Which is why you will note that I did not call for typing English. The last thing we want is to write a program aware of grammar.

I was thinking that there would be a few classes of questions, e.g.

What do you know about X?
What do you think about X?
Where is X?
Who can do X?

and a few classes of statements, e.g.

There is an X.
X is Y (Y is an adjective)

Beyond the standard static questions like "How are you? Where are you going? Who are you?"

This would be beyond any of the witty repartee which was manually generated by the designers.

In general, you can gather background info and intel via the specialized questions, or ask where the gas station is, but all of the plot-related questions and statements are hard-coded. This avoids the really annoying problem of guessing the word the designers wanted you to say.

Most of the older parsers would focus in on keywords like Eliza (the virtual psychiatrist).  Believe it or not, they didn't need correct grammer.  I've generally found parser games to be superior to any of the point-and-click adventures you youngsters are used to.  Gimme Zork or Kings Quest 1-5 any day.  True, there were so many things that weren't obvious, but that actually lent to the charm; it wasn't "hold your mouse over everything until something glows".  Any attempt to add a parser to an RPG is okay in my book.  

Ultima 6 had an extremely unsophistcated parser.  It took the first 4 letters of any word you said and compared them to a DB of what each character would respond to.  Keywords would be highlighted red in their text that you could ask them about (like hypertext in a web document today).  There were always 3 words any character would respond to: name, job, bye.

::cough:: ripoff from exile...

Other way around actually (or they borrowed from a mutual source).  "Exile: Escape ftom the pit" was produced in 1995, "Ultima 6: The False Prophet" was produced in 1990.  Considering that web browsers and HTML really became popular around the early 1990's that seems the likely source of inspiration for Exile.  Ultima was in development before Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first web browser, so Origin must have had some other source; gopher maybe?

Oh, I guess I got Ultima 6 confused with Ultima 16, which is due to come out next week
;P