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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
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| Horses... what's the problem? |
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Not sure if this is the right board for it, but this is a "general" CRPG topic. Horses and other mounts are a staple of the fantasy genre in books and traditional tapletop RPGs. Very few CRPGs have included mounts of any kind which were controllable by the player (I realize that there have been a couple of exceptions... but these are rare indeed). My question is.. Why? I see the topic come up on forums for many games. Mounts seem to be a feature many people want. In my opinion, a knight without his trusty steed is well... only half the package (that's just one example). My question to game devs and anyone else who might have an opinion is this... Why no mounts in the vast majority of CRPGs? With gaming technology progressing in leaps and bounds, why does this feature present such a large barrier?
(mods are fast... thanks!) 
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"Hammer of the Gods... We drive our ships to new lands... Fight the hordes, singing cry, Valhalla I am coming..."
Last edited by Thorvar on Tue Jun 18, 2002 6:50 pm; edited 2 times in total |
Tue Jun 18, 2002 6:46 pm |
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Warmaster-Horus
Most Exalted Highlord
Joined: 28 Apr 2002
Posts: 421
Location: Eye of Terror, Washington |
Game balance maybe?
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Ater deus praevalo
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 6:58 pm |
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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
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Elaborate please. I don't see how, if properly implemented, mounts would pose a "game balance" issue. Not sure what you mean.
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"Hammer of the Gods... We drive our ships to new lands... Fight the hordes, singing cry, Valhalla I am coming..." |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 7:03 pm |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
Many RPGs are dungeon crawls. Horses are, generally speaking, going to be too big to deal with in dungeons. However, I don't see why they should not be generally available, and I like what the Dungeon Siege crew did with the mule. Battle Realms, although an RTS, had a neat feature where you could mount nearly every kind of unit on a horse. It was prolly my favorite feature of that pretty good game.
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"It has been a grand journey- well-worth making once."
-Winston Churchill, 1965, on Life
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
-Homer Simpson
=Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 7:13 pm |
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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
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I agree, no horses in dungeons of course (common sense there, but mules as in DS make sense), but most games nowadays also have huge outdoor areas to explore. In many cases the outdoor/wilderness areas are larger than the dungeons/caves/indoor areas.
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"Hammer of the Gods... We drive our ships to new lands... Fight the hordes, singing cry, Valhalla I am coming..." |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 7:30 pm |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
This was the coolest thing about Ocarina of Time for the N64- you could ride a horse to get around.
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"It has been a grand journey- well-worth making once."
-Winston Churchill, 1965, on Life
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
-Homer Simpson
=Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Member of The Sixth House=
::Captain of the Black Company:: |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 8:04 pm |
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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
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Yes, and also in many of the Ultima games.
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"Hammer of the Gods... We drive our ships to new lands... Fight the hordes, singing cry, Valhalla I am coming..." |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 8:52 pm |
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Val
Risen From Ashes
Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 14724
Location: Utah, USA |
Why a horse? You could ride a saurus in QG2!
I think the biggest problem today though is money and time. Can game devs really spare the time, money and resources to create all the pretty graphics, animation and AI for a believable mount? If they have a large company with expendable capital backing them, then yes. If not, well it probably won't be included because it isn't considered a requirement for a great game.
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What do I have to show for my hard work? A piece of paper! Wee!
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 9:24 pm |
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TheLonePaladin
Mighty Warrior
Joined: 27 Feb 2002
Posts: 1808
Location: San Francisco, CA |
quote:
Originally posted by Val
I think the biggest problem today though is money and time. Can game devs really spare the time, money and resources to create all the pretty graphics, animation and AI for a believable mount? If they have a large company with expendable capital backing them, then yes. If not, well it probably won't be included because it isn't considered a requirement for a great game.
exactly what i was going to say
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=Follower of Righteousness=
"Though the gates that stand between the mortal world and the immortal Realm of Chaos are now closed to me, still I would rather die having glimpsed eternity than never to have stirred the cold furrow of mortal life.
I embrace death without regret as I embraced life without fear." |
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Tue Jun 18, 2002 11:38 pm |
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SuperCowMan24
Blademaster of the Moo
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 1194
Location: Texas, USA |
if you have morrowind you could make a plugin for a horse, or a guar! YA! ride a guar!
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Moo. Just do it, purse your lips and let out a MIGHTY MOO!
Don't you feel better now? |
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 12:39 am |
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ButtOfMalmsey
Village Idiot
Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 785
Location: Mississippi |
GWAR!
_________________
"It has been a grand journey- well-worth making once."
-Winston Churchill, 1965, on Life
I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode. I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
-Homer Simpson
=Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Member of The Sixth House=
::Captain of the Black Company:: |
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 12:49 am |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
Daggerfall had horses and carts, and they weren't usable in a dungeon... but nowadays when pretty graphics are paramount including horses would just be too expensive in terms of development I guess. But I may be wrong.
GWAR are great by the way! 
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Jaz |
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 1:55 am |
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Yog Sothoth
The All in One
Joined: 01 May 2002
Posts: 1086
Location: Between Space and Time |
I think the developers gone frightened by the 3D... if you think, in the past games there were already horses: Darklands had them but they were "invisible"... if you was walking in the wilderness without them you walked slower, if you had them you walked faster... and also in the games like Ishar (game serie like Eye of the Beholder) there was a great external part to explore but the visual was first person so there wasn't the necessity of thinking of horses... DaggerFall is the last game in which you can ride a horse... then nothing... gone too complicated?
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 7:16 am |
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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
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Hmmm, well EQ has them now (though not a perfect implementation by any means), DAoC has them (horse railroad hehe), and many of the next gen MMORPGS will have them (mounts of some kind, not necessarily horses). I would like to see them in games like NWN, etc... here's hoping anyway!
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"Hammer of the Gods... We drive our ships to new lands... Fight the hordes, singing cry, Valhalla I am coming..." |
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 2:46 pm |
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Yog Sothoth
The All in One
Joined: 01 May 2002
Posts: 1086
Location: Between Space and Time |
quote:
Originally posted by Thorvar
Hmmm, well EQ has them now (though not a perfect implementation by any means), DAoC has them (horse railroad hehe), and many of the next gen MMORPGS will have them (mounts of some kind, not necessarily horses). I would like to see them in games like NWN, etc... here's hoping anyway!
oh! (never played that games...) but are they only objects used by the player or are they also part of the game? (so that you can look at them walking and they have a AI) Maybe Val is right telling that the possible problem is a believable AI...
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Wed Jun 19, 2002 4:05 pm |
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