Difference between revisions of "Item"

Revision as of 08:33, 11 December 2009

An item is a game object that can be picked up or equipped by a creature. Dragon Age will have many items. As the player gains levels he or she will encounter progressively more powerful items. Through the use of material types (unique models and/or color variation) we will scale our items so that we have a greater range of item diversity than in our previous games.

Items are grouped into types called "Base Item Types". The item's base type determines how it can be used and what its basic properties are.

Some examples of base item types are:

• Sword
• Bow
• Arrows
• Helmet
• Potion

Weapon and armour items get their basic ratings from their base item type. This is further modified by the material type of the item (i.e., high steel sword vs. low steel sword) and other item properties on them.

Unlike in Neverwinter Nights, items can't be placed on the floor. They can only be stored in an inventory of some kind.

Item Attributes

Item's attributes are determined in part by their base type and can be customized further in the toolset. They can be further modified in the game by applying item properties.

Appearance

An item's appearance will be determined by their base type and an appearance field. A base item 2da and an item appearances 2da controls the different appearances for each base type. The number of appearance variations for each base type will vary. Visual effect item properties can be applied later to further modify the appearance of the item (flame effects, etc…)

Icons

Each item's icon has a width and height. This size corresponds roughly to the size of the item in the world, so small potions will have a small icon and large suits of armour will take up more space.

We don't track the weight of items because of the shared party inventory. Some items will have properties on them that will require the creature to have certain minimum attributes to equip them though. This will simulate particularly heavy armour or weapons.

Stacks

Each item can have a stack size on them. This means that the item actually represents a pile of identical items. Stacks can be split into new items or merged to destroy old ones. Only items that have identical types and properties can be merged into stacks.

Cost

An item's cost will be set in a field by either the toolset or the scripting language. There won't be any automatic cost calculation done.

Plot Items

Some items will be flagged as "plot" items. This means the item is important to some plot in the game and should be treated differently. When the player picks up one of these items they will appear on a special plot page in their inventory. Plot items can’t be sold in stores or destroyed through normal game-play.

Indestructible items

These are items that are needed for the plot, but can still be used or equipped by the player. The use of this flag is very restricted and it should be used only when no other solution will work. Items with this flag can not be destroyed, sold or given to another character to equip.

Item Scripts

Items will have AI scripts associated with them like any other game object (the script is attached to the item). They will receive and process events in much the same way (acquire, lose, equip, unequip, etc…)

Item Equipping

All base item types are limited by attribute Strength (except wands which are Magic limited). An item cannot be equipped unless its base item attribute requirements are met. The reasons why an item cannot be equipped will be clearly indicated by the GUI. Almost all items can be equipped and unequipped by a player during combat. The only exception is armor. Armor cannot be equipped or unequipped if the character is within sight of an enemy creature.

Dropping Items

• Players will not be allowed to drop items into the world or into containers by default. Specific containers can be set to accept items.
• If a creature dies the items are dropped into a bodybag

Item Scaling

The item system needs to be very robust, allowing for a wide diversity of item types, item appearances within a type, and rules scaling. Material types are the primary mechanism for item scaling... i.e., we won't randomize the type of item in many cases (flaming sword) but we will randomize its material type (low steel flaming sword vs. high steel flaming sword)

Activated Items

Each item can have a single default action. This is entered by picking an ability of type "Item Ability" from the abilities table which defines its icon, script, description and targetting behaviour. Items that can be used go into a special equip slot. All other item types (weapons, armor, et cetera) cannot have a custom item use. The number of uses for this ability will be decided by the script which will destroy the item when appropriate.

• there are no uses per day type items. All items only have "number of uses".

Descriptions

Item descriptions will be primarily autogenerated with stat information. There will also be a text description but few items will have descriptions written for them. A subset list of all the items (the really powerful ones, crafting items, and plot items) will be the only ones with descriptions.

Further Details

• Equippable Items
  • Melee Weapons
    • Some weapons are one handed, can be used with a shield
    • Some weapons are two handed
    • Daggers and Longswords can be dual wielded
  • Ranged Weapons
    • Can use special ammunition, if you have it. Otherwise they can fire a "default" ammo type.
  • Shields
  • Paperdoll items (i.e., helmets, gloves, et cetera)
• Unequipped items
  • There are a large variety of items that cannot be equipped on the ingame avatar. Some of these can be placed on the quickbar (i.e., potions) if they have activated item abilities
• Items can be upgraded (i.e., adding fire damage to a sword).
• Items can be crafted from other item parts
• Items can have Item properties

Tools

Items are created in the Designer Toolset using the Object Inspector Editor. Once created, item can be given as inventory to creatures and placeables. Once placed, both the creature/placeable and the item must be exported in order to be viewed in the game. Exporting happens automatically or can be done manually by the designer during testing.

Inventory slots

Item Properties

An item property is a modifier on an item similar to an effect. These modifiers affect either the item itself or the item's wielder.

Item properties (i.e., fire damage) are assignable in the toolset and via scripting

• Scripting functions to add properties
• Scripting functions to remove properties
• Toolset can add/remove properties
• Item Abilities are not item properties

MAKE is an item property. Because Dragon Age is a low magical world we cannot flood the player with magical items. However item progression is important to a RPG. We have decided to use an item progression system whereby items get better depending on the materials and processes used in their construction. In Dragon Age each weapon, armor, and shield progresses through several levels of quality. The highest quality items are more powerful and harder to obtain. These quality levels are called makes (they used to be called material types).

As MAKE improves, it:

• increases the base statistics for a particular item (attack rating, damage and armor penetration for weapons, armor rating for armor, defense rating for shields).
• changes the physical appearance of an item. Generally this change should be a model change though for expansion purposes we may also insert additional makes that are merely color changes.
• Determines the number of upgrade/enchantment slots that are available on the item

The values in the 2DA MaterialTypes.2da influence the initial damage, attack bonus, armor penetration, defense and armor of an item. There are several upgrade stages for each equipped item. All items follow the same progression, but the labels used to refer to this progression changes based on the item type. The item's progression dictates the number of enchantment rune upgrades it can support.

Each base item type has its own list of material types, with different numbers. However many base items do share material types, so we can group them into Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Wands, Armor, Shields, Helmets, etc.

The item properties allowed to be assigned to an item are based on the item's base types (i.e., a longsword has different properties allowable than a suit of armor)

When an item is equipped or un-equipped, a call-back function is run for each property on it. These usually apply or remove some package of effects with the duration type "Equipped". These are used to create items that grant bonuses when used.

Item Abilities

Item Abilities are activated abilities on items (for example, a potion with the activated ability Healing is a Potion of Healing). An item can only have one item ability. This item ability is assigned in the toolset. They are not item properties.

Detailed Description

Item abilities cannot be placed on equippable items.

Item abilities are activated by right-clicking or double-clicking the item or from using the item from the quickbar

Variables

Properties