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Ultima Underworld 1 - The Stygian Abyss
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Horses... what's the problem?
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RPGDot Forums > CRPGs General

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Thorvar
Village Dweller
Village Dweller




Joined: 13 Jun 2002
Posts: 23
   

In EQ they are player controllable and purchased (for outrageous prices) from vendors. Extremely high level paladins and shadowknights can also summon a "holy steed" (or unholy for a shadowknight). They have no AI whatsoever, and are generally a symbol of status which provides increased movement rate in outdoor areas. They can not enter dungeons.
In DAoC, horses can be rented by players to speed up travel between preset destinations. You are also free to get off the horse anywhere along this preset route. DAoC plans to implement player controlled horses as well.
Both systems have their flaws. The horse can not be harmed physically. In EQ it is summoned via a magical bridle, in DAoC enemies can't hit you when on horseback. In EQ you can fight from horseback, and even cast spells, but the horse itself won't kick or rear or whatsoever.
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Post Wed Jun 19, 2002 4:12 pm
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Ekim
Eagle's Shadow
Eagle's Shadow




Joined: 27 May 2002
Posts: 2365
Location: Montreal, Canada
   

I think another reason you often don't see horses in an CRPG is the fact that it would speed up the traveling system. A lot of CRPGs rely on the fact that you will need to walk from points A to B to reach a certain area and (I'm almost ashamed to say it even if I'm not a developer) I'm sure that they rely on this to lengthen the theoretical total playing time to complete the game... It would speed up things so much that they would need to create larger worlds, which is more development. It's not only that the horse takes time and effort (and money) to create nowadays. It's the sheer impact that a ridable horse has on a game world that has to be taken into account.

If you forget about MMORPGs a second and look at those RPGs that had horses, you will realise that they had vast game worlds. Darklands and Daggerfall had such large maps that you could easily take hours to get from one end of the map to the other in a straight line EVEN if you were riding a horse.
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Post Wed Jun 19, 2002 9:08 pm
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TheRaven
Village Leader
Village Leader




Joined: 21 Jun 2002
Posts: 94
Location: Germany
   

It would be very cool to have horses in every RPG - just for overland travels that would be boring anyway, running is still too slow and may let you fall unconscious
Post Fri Jun 21, 2002 1:54 pm
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Gig
Southern Spirit
Southern Spirit




Joined: 20 Feb 2002
Posts: 3226
Location: NFG Headquarters
   

I was going to say the same thing Ekim said. Look how small Gothic's world suddenly became in the beginning of chapter 2 when the bloodfly scrolls appeared.
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Post Fri Jun 21, 2002 2:41 pm
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