PnC vs WASD Options

[Hawkins]

I would like to talk about how PnC affects game world design.

WASD here means the way how you control your char's movement in games like EQII and WoW, while PnC i am talking about is that employed by Lineage II.

The advantage of PnC is that you can have a third-person full camera view to see how everything happening around your char, you wont get backstabed like in WoW. While WASD is just an extended 1st person view where you can normally only see the *back* of your char (like in WoW that is), the shortcoming is that you dont know what's happening at your back, i think open pvp will be affected the most as you dont know what's happening at your back, which becomes your weakest postition for an ambush/backstab.

As the main advantage of PnC is that it allows you to have broader camera view, so if PnC is to be adapted, the UI must be so designed that you can freely and smoothly move your camera view, LineageII is an awesome design in this aspect.

On the other hand, the freely adjustable camera view will become a shortcoming in a narrow environment such as in dungeons and small houses. This is because you can hardly obtain the best camera view for the human eyes perception. WASD doesn't have the same problem because it's an extended 1st person view where your camera's viewing angle is limited (ie. you can only see your back when you move).

In Lineage II, the problem is "fixed" by designing all the dungeons as *big halls* and no *small* houses are present. All the shopes are with a certain *size* to allow you to get the acceptable camera view suitable for the human eye perception.

Wish tries to use the path-finding feature to partly cover the shortcoming up. That is, whenever you are in a narrow tower or house, you can make use of the path-finding to move your char instead of adjusting the camera view to get a proper viewing angle to see and control your char's movement.

What's been affected that most is house decoration, no matter it's PnC or WASD you cant have a proper camera view for house decoration, unless you have a *big enough* house in the case of PnC. You can hardly get it right in case of WASD. I think this is one of the reaon why housing is simply ignored in 3D MMORPGs (i dont have a chance to see how good the camera works in SWG yet).

A workaround I can think of for house decoration is that there will be a button "decorate" which can be accessed by a player when he's inside his own house, when the button is pressed, his house contents are moved to an instance where the camera is locked with a view exactly like in UO (the isometric view? i forgot the name), and the player can only view one floor at a time (this affects how a 3D house is modeled, i dont know how easy or difficult this is done). While the house with its contents can rotate along the y-axis (z-axis in UO).

Personally I think if PnC is used in PW, I prefer to see the UI and movement control exactly like LineageII instead of Wish.

[Pashta]

I noticed myself when playing WISH that I only used PnC to move where I had to go to play the game. I never explored inside of buildings or up stairways as PnC was just to tiring to use when compared to the ease and control of WASD movement.



Were we playing the same Wish? It had the BEST EVER PnC controls.. I went up stairs and inside buildings with no problems at all. I was very impressed by it and still would prefer it to crappy WASD.

Anyway, as I keep saying, just let the PEOPLE choose, have BOTH options available. Stop trying for one or the other... would it really bother you folks that much that I prefer PnC and can use it if I want to? If so then that's pretty selfish, not to mention mean.

[StaticGrazer]

More options is probley going to be best.