Random Starting Location

[PoeSalesman]

[quote=“Dzlan, post:6, topic:5596”]Mind, starting in a house in the middle of a large city doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, you can always just run into the forest and come back when things have calmed down, right?
And rather then spawning in safety, spawning in a situation where you must get to safety would be nice. : )
Anyway, like this idea, a lot. Always have.[/quote]
That could end up fair, or you could spawn next to a pack of zombie dogs you plain can’t run from and can’t hit. In general though I like the idea well enough, though I don’t think the evac shelter should be removed entirely. Either it’s one of many random possibilities in addition to a house basement or somewhere else you’d wait out a cataclysm (since the game seems to rely on the idea of you hiding away for a few days waiting for things to settle at the moment) or based on the start you select.

[KA101]

[quote=“PoeSalesman, post:8, topic:5596”][quote=“Dzlan, post:6, topic:5596”]Mind, starting in a house in the middle of a large city doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, you can always just run into the forest and come back when things have calmed down, right?
And rather then spawning in safety, spawning in a situation where you must get to safety would be nice. : )
Anyway, like this idea, a lot. Always have.[/quote]
That could end up fair, or you could spawn next to a pack of zombie dogs you plain can’t run from and can’t hit. In general though I like the idea well enough, though I don’t think the evac shelter should be removed entirely. Either it’s one of many random possibilities in addition to a house basement or somewhere else you’d wait out a cataclysm (since the game seems to rely on the idea of you hiding away for a few days waiting for things to settle at the moment) or based on the start you select.[/quote]

Another issue is the horde mechanic: once they’re worked out, starting around or in their spawn area may be very painful. So I’d recommend that not be the default.

And yeah, DDA starts 5 days after the Cataclysm, so you need to be in a place where you could believably have been for a few days. (IIRC the Cata took place on a Saturday, and you start on Thursday: calendar.cpp)

[Dzlan]

Ah okay. Only 5 days.
I guess being in a house with closed curtains is believable.
Maybe when this gets implemented if it does. Have a profession called Newbie or something, that spawns the player in an evac shelter?
For those who want to learn the game, and start with the general equipment.
I know this isn’t true for many people out there, but I personally love being forced into difficult scenarios and trying to get out of them or overcome them. Starting the game in the middle of town is a fun example of one such thing. Death is the best part of this game for me.
Although using the debug to teleport into the center of town is a good idea for now. I think I might try that with my next character.

[KA101]

[quote=“Dzlan, post:10, topic:5596”]Ah okay. Only 5 days.
I guess being in a house with closed curtains is believable.
Maybe when this gets implemented if it does. Have a profession called Newbie or something, that spawns the player in an evac shelter?
For those who want to learn the game, and start with the general equipment.
I know this isn’t true for many people out there, but I personally love being forced into difficult scenarios and trying to get out of them or overcome them. Starting the game in the middle of town is a fun example of one such thing. Death is the best part of this game for me.
Although using the debug to teleport into the center of town is a good idea for now. I think I might try that with my next character.[/quote]

Closed curtains still raises sound questions, though.

I won’t mock someone for wanting to start at the evac shelter. You wanna die a lot, that’s your decision. That’s why “starting location” would be a separate option: default it to special locations for professions, sure, but make it changeable.

[Binky]

That could end up fair, or you could spawn next to a pack of zombie dogs you plain can’t run from and can’t hit. In general though I like the idea well enough, though I don’t think the evac shelter should be removed entirely.

Yeah, I just meant not having guaranteed starting shelters everywhere - they’d be fine as a special building somewhere.

I’d also suggest that it’s optional (at least to start with) as I know many players would take issue with it being forced upon you, but I do think it’d give a lot more natural play than starting in the middle of nowhere and doing the same bashing of lockers with rocks and so on.

Being in a boarded up house for 5 days makes sense, you could have been in an out of a bad fever or something if you need further lore justification. Similarly, if you’re in a small village with only 5-10 zombies, you’d probably be ok (with some in their own houses and whatever).

[kevin.granade]

this is my bad, I apologise. a prototype version of this (optionally spawn you in a random house) was ready to go for 0.A, but I let my perfectionism get out of hand because I wanted some more features with it. Additional features include closed blinds and/or boarded up windows, configurable distance from a town center, starting in various shops, etc.
I think I’ll put out a minimal version soon that just lets you chose a building to spawn in, and worry about the other stuff later.

[Dzlan]

[quote=“KA101, post:11, topic:5596”]Closed curtains still raises sound questions, though.

I won’t mock someone for wanting to start at the evac shelter. You wanna die a lot, that’s your decision. That’s why “starting location” would be a separate option: default it to special locations for professions, sure, but make it changeable.[/quote]

Thats fine. Dieing a lot as a “separate option” is just as good. : )
This is gunnnnaaaa be awesome.

[Sean_Mirrsen]

Why not just start you out in a random house’s basement? I think that’s an entirely plausible way to survive five days.

[KA101]

Why not just start you out in a random house’s basement? I think that’s an entirely plausible way to survive five days.

Depending on the profession, it could be. In general, though, if you’re going to change it an option would likely be better, if for no other reason than some folks prefer to avoid cities altogether.

[Sean_Mirrsen]

Hmm, something like “enable custom starting locations”, and let profession define where you start?

[Binky]

I think random is fine, making it by profession would include a heck of a lot of work, and although it would be nice in some cases, I think a random start adds more excitement in most.

If there is a minimal version then please push it if available!!

[vache]

Making it by profession wouldn’t make sense for a lot of professions. Is your football player going to be expected to have been holed up in a gym for the past 5 days? Your handyman in a hardware store? That said, it would be pretty neat to have stuff like the survivalist profession starting in a tent in the woods, but I think for the (large) majority of professions, the only starting locations that really make sense are homes, basements, and shelters. Starting in the middle of a FEMA camp could be the new “black road” option.

[Binky]

Making it by profession wouldn’t make sense for a lot of professions. Is your football player going to be expected to have been holed up in a gym for the past 5 days? Your handyman in a hardware store? That said, it would be pretty neat to have stuff like the survivalist profession starting in a tent in the woods, but I think for the (large) majority of professions, the only starting locations that really make sense are homes, basements, and shelters. Starting in the middle of a FEMA camp could be the new “black road” option.

Agreed, houses and basements are the only thing that make much sense, other than a very few professions, and the amount of coding that would probably need to go into that would be huge for the payout, especially considering that most wouldn’t be even remotely balanced.

I feel making sure that the house is boarded up would be the only criteria that I can see being important (to stop you getting instantly spotted for instance) but making sure you’re right on the edge or in a small city would also be very useful/fairer.

[Sean_Mirrsen]

It wouldn’t be for all professions, and it wouldn’t be necessarily guaranteed. But if a system like that is made, it’s worth generalizing it into a system that can allow a profession to spawn inside not a general house with a basement, but a specific house, i.e. specific structure. For instance, a woodsman of some kind could have had a reinforced forest shack of some kind. It will default to houses, but I think it’s not unreasonable to say that at least for some professions, it could be possible to start elsewhere.

[Binky]

It wouldn’t be for all professions, and it wouldn’t be necessarily guaranteed. But if a system like that is made, it’s worth generalizing it into a system that can allow a profession to spawn inside not a general house with a basement, but a specific house, i.e. specific structure. For instance, a woodsman of some kind could have had a reinforced forest shack of some kind. It will default to houses, but I think it’s not unreasonable to say that at least for some professions, it could be possible to start elsewhere.

Definitely, but it’s the quantity of work that would need to be done to sort that out that makes me not so keen. I’m sure it’s possible, but I’d rather just have a fully working ‘house’ model before going on to different structures/placement.

I know DDA isn’t all about balance, but I also feel that a random house gives you more of a plain start, whereas some professions may start in much more advantageous places than others. Again, I don’t think that’s a problem or that we shouldn’t at some point aim for that, but I think houses first would be fine.

[KA101]

Hey, just for baseline: what Kevin had working was an option on the last page of chargen: start in an evac shelter, or a house?

That sort of option works fine, IMO. Rigging professions to add locations to that list (so a cop or a soldier might start at a police station, FEMA camp, etc) might work, or we could just leave the list open. For me at least, it’s important to not force professions to start at a particular location. Default 'em wherever, sure, but if someone wants to change it, let 'em.

(Firefighter could’ve taken smoke inhalation, fainted, and been left at an evac shelter–with the rest of the evacuees, who then abandoned the shelter per standard DDA protocol --to recover, for example.)

[Goombah]

I am always amused when my shower victim characters wind up starting in the middle of a wilderness with no towns in view.

[Sanarr]

I’ve experienced random start option with transferring my chatacter sav. file to new world version (not the whole world folder, but only char file), so it made me start in the mddle of road (near nuclear silo ), in army camp, near some swamp… (I’ve re made new world a few times to give myself interesting place to start continue journey of my char).

Not sure if it helps, especially if Kevin works on proper implementation of that otion.

[Zireael]

KA101: I like that option A LOT!

Sanarr: Yeah, I know

[Dominae]

I was hoping we’d get to the point where the more custom, per-profession start locations could be put in. Medical professions spawn in Hospitals; or inside a broken/crashed ambulance. Priests in church, etc etc. It’d just add another layer and difference to picking certain professions. A new level of varied difficulty.

If we go a more “choose your own adventure” system where you pick your location, that’d be cool too/instead.
Anyone ever play Skyrim with “Alternative Start - Live Another Life”? It’d just ask you a “who are you” or “what were you doing” type question and plop you in the world based on it. That’d work really well for Cata, I’d imagine.

If we just another page at character creation with a list of choices and maybe rank their general difficulty/challenge level too (these are obviously just examples, discuss the merit of the system not my arbitrary assignment of words ) ->

• I was evacuated with everyone else. (Starts in shelter like always. Default start.)
• I was working/helping out in the local hospital. (Hospital. Challenging Start.)
• I was camping/hunting in the wild. (Tent or cabin in woods. Less Challenging Start.)
• I was huddled in prayer. (Church/Cathedral start.)
• I woke up in a ditch. (Side of road, etc. Difficulty Varies.)
• My car broke down. (Side of road, but next to busted vehicle.)
• I was unconscious and taken to a FEMA Camp. (OMG you masochist don’t pick this.)
• Surprise Me. (Randomness ensues.)