The Future of Worms...

[dankybett]

We have all played and loved worms for years (except the 3D titles, why!?).
Its seems the tried and tested, proven formula cannot be further improved. So whats next for future incarnations of worms games, more weapons? Probably. More customisation options? I'd imagine. 4D? lets hope not.

What do the players want? Here are a few of my suggestions (Im sure you have thought of all these before, so post your own ideas aswell)

1. Individual worm types.
What I would love to see in the next worms game is individual worms to have specialist abilities. Heavy artillery worm - does more damage with Bazookas, Explosives expert worm, Ninja worm - longer ropes, Digger worm etc etc.. Create a truly unique team.

2. Levelling up.
Maybe an extension of the first suggestion. depending on worm type, there should be certain goals to improve your worm. For example, when the digger worm has dug a total of 1 mile of tunnel it will reach level 2. That skill will be further improved. There could be 3 levels for each ability. Worms should be able to level up in all catergories, but depending on what skill type they are, that skill will level up fastest. Eventually your team could be levelled up on skills.

3. Landscape.
The next reincarnation of worms should have a differentiation between materials. Mud should be easy to dig, rock should be a lot harder. If you hide under rock it should take alot longer to penetrate. Girders should dent before breaking?

4. Bridges.
When girders just wond do... Just like lemmings, have your worm build a bridge on the move.

5.Vehicles?
Maybe too far. There are lots of complications, but have you longed to use a boat to cross that ford? helicopter to that cliff? or pilot your own airstrike? post here, let us know.

Finally the future of worms weapons.

1. Dummy
Toss your own dummy worm into the fray. It looks like your worm and displays the same life/name. Which one does your opponent choose to attack?

2. Hang glider
Not a weapon I know. But never mind parachuting why not glide across the terrain to your opponent. Or better still drop a well timed dynamite on your foe as you glide by.

3. Flamethrower
You know what that does. Maybe it could leave the terrain burning for a few goes (or your enemy burning for a few goes).

4. Flood
Has this been done? not sure, but a water bomb could be dropped to drown opponents in small holes.

5. Why havent birds featured in worms games?
Birds eat worms. call in a bird, but be careful if your too close to your opponent then it may not discriminate which one of you it is meant to eat.

Well there you go... I'm getting tired of typing so add on what else you think should come next.

(Oh yeah and ninja ropes should hurt other worms/be used to drag opponents of cliffs.)

[Melon]

1. Individual worm types.
What I would love to see in the next worms game is individual worms to have specialist abilities. Heavy artillery worm - does more damage with Bazookas, Explosives expert worm, Ninja worm - longer ropes, Digger worm etc etc.. Create a truly unique team.
This was a wormpot mode in WWP and it was actually pretty cool. Certain worms could only use certain weapons. If you killed a particular worm, you could prevent your opponents from using certain weapons.
2. Levelling up.
Maybe an extension of the first suggestion. depending on worm type, there should be certain goals to improve your worm. For example, when the digger worm has dug a total of 1 mile of tunnel it will reach level 2. That skill will be further improved. There could be 3 levels for each ability. Worms should be able to level up in all catergories, but depending on what skill type they are, that skill will level up fastest. Eventually your team could be levelled up on skills.
This would completely unbalance gameplay. Players should be at an even footing when the play, so that skill is the major deciding factor of who wins a game, not who's been playing it more. Hogs of War did something similar offline too, but if you missed too many upgrades early on, you were screwed. Despite some benefits, this just doesn't work so well for this type of game.
3. Landscape.
The next reincarnation of worms should have a differentiation between materials. Mud should be easy to dig, rock should be a lot harder. If you hide under rock it should take alot longer to penetrate. Girders should dent before breaking?
Being able to make the landscape partially indestructable is planned for WA, but not any time soon. It may not allow different degrees of toughness for the landscape, instead just destructable/not destructable, but it's good enough for what most people want it for.
4. Bridges.
When girders just wond do... Just like lemmings, have your worm build a bridge on the move.
Unnecessary. Girders are fine.
5.Vehicles?
Maybe too far. There are lots of complications, but have you longed to use a boat to cross that ford? helicopter to that cliff? or pilot your own airstrike? post here, let us know.
What's wrong with jetpacks? Vehicles have been discussed many times, and they just won't work very well.
1. Dummy
Toss your own dummy worm into the fray. It looks like your worm and displays the same life/name. Which one does your opponent choose to attack?
Only the AI would fall for this. Unnecessary.
2. Hang glider
Not a weapon I know. But never mind parachuting why not glide across the terrain to your opponent. Or better still drop a well timed dynamite on your foe as you glide by.
Too similar to the parachute. Unnecessary.
3. Flamethrower
You know what that does. Maybe it could leave the terrain burning for a few goes (or your enemy burning for a few goes).
WA and WWP already have one, and the petrol bomb fire in those games already lasts over multiple turns.
4. Flood
Has this been done? not sure, but a water bomb could be dropped to drown opponents in small holes.
Dynamic fluid has also been discussed to death, and it won't work. Otherwise, it sounds too similar to the Nuclear Bomb.
5. Why havent birds featured in worms games?
Birds eat worms. call in a bird, but be careful if your too close to your opponent then it may not discriminate which one of you it is meant to eat.
Homing pigeon is in W2, WA, WWP, Worms 3D and Worms 4. Have you even PLAYED Worms before?

[Shadowmoon]

The gameplay just needs changing, and customization needs to be better. I quite like your leveling up idea though. And, its true-vehicles won't work very well. A helicopter- why would we need one when he have a jetpack? The game has ENOUGH weapons, new ones could be added, but there's nothing wrong with the weapons at all. And a pigeon eating worms? this sounds silly. It would make me laugh, but its really silly.

[dankybett]

Melon, I accept your point about the homing pigeon, but well seeing as I am a Team 17 researcher some of these things are likely to happen, particularly the levelling up idea which I am glad to see you like Shadowmoon

Melon, should you wish to help us develop some new aspects of the game which undoubtedly need to be refreshed inorder to attract new gamers and keep existing ones then please contact me on dankybett@team17.com

Or if you decide not to, please don't moan when the next game is finally released.

Actually Melon...just get a life!

[yakuza]

The gameplay just needs changing

What exactly is wrong with the gameplay? Just because you can't play it doesn't make a game have bad gameplay.

[thomasp]

This is currently under investigation, yakuza.

[_Kilburn]

Either you are a liar, either Team 17 is getting crazy for hiring researchers like you. I think the first option is more reasonable, because you obviously don't know anything about Worms.

Nice try with the fake e-mail address, though.

http://w4tweaking.ftp.free.fr/files/upload/ownd.jpg

[Luther]

Whats a researcher for anyway?

[Run]

Dynamic fluid has also been discussed to death, and it won't work.

Has it? I must have missed that, maybe it was in relation to the 3D series. I imagine dynamic water would be relatively simple to implement in 2D. Changes to the terrain brought about by explosions would make some interesting flows - washing down slopes, filling chambers and pits etc. I found a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0E6e7viXyc) of some 2d water.

Making the dynamic water interact with weapons and worms and everything else would be the hard part.

[Melon]

Melon, I accept your point about the homing pigeon, but well seeing as I am a Team 17 researcher some of these things are likely to happen, particularly the levelling up idea which I am glad to see you like Shadowmoon

Melon, should you wish to help us develop some new aspects of the game which undoubtedly need to be refreshed inorder to attract new gamers and keep existing ones then please contact me on dankybett@team17.com

Or if you decide not to, please don't moan when the next game is finally released.

Actually Melon...just get a life!
It appears to me you're feeling a bit grouchy because you think I don't like some of your ideas. On the contrary, I never said I didn't like them, and some of them I do like, particularly the first.

Worms doesn't need more weapons that act really similarly to previous ones, or radical departures from the current gameplay. Team17 try to work hard on making a balanced range of weapons, particularly for the newer games. A lot of your suggestions don't add anything with enough value to warrant it's inclusion.

Oh, and Team17 staff members have custom statuses. Nice try.

Has it? I must have missed that, maybe it was in relation to the 3D series. I imagine dynamic water would be relatively simple to implement in 2D. Changes to the terrain brought about by explosions would make some interesting flows - washing down slopes, filling chambers and pits etc. I found a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0E6e7viXyc) of some 2d water.

Making the dynamic water interact with weapons and worms and everything else would be the hard part.
Ah yes it was 3D discussion I believe, although I think there was some discussion with regards to it working in 2D. It was a long time ago, can't say I remember it too clearly now, but a lot of the same arguments for why it wouldn't work in 3D (technical ones aside) are the same for 2D too. Seeing as everything needs to come to rest before a new turn can begin, can you imagine how difficult it would be to stabalise the water quickly in some cases? How deep will the water need to be to drown a worm? Where does the drowned stuff go? etc.

[thomasp]

dankybett has a custom status, Melon - look a bit closer :p

[Run]

Ah yes it was 3D discussion I believe, although I think there was some discussion with regards to it working in 2D. It was a long time ago, can't say I remember it too clearly now, but a lot of the same arguments for why it wouldn't work in 3D (technical ones aside) are the same for 2D too. Seeing as everything needs to come to rest before a new turn can begin, can you imagine how difficult it would be to stabalise the water quickly in some cases?

I can't see why it wouldn't stablise quickly enough - just look at that video I linked. It doesn't take long for the water to find a new configuration, though it does take a while for it to stop jiggling about. I'm sure that jiggling can be damped enough to make the water stand still in Worms. Sadly it would mean no waves, though the waves could be kept for the water at the bottom of the screen I guess.

How deep will the water need to be to drown a worm? Where does the drowned stuff go? etc.

Well those are just details with lots of different answers. I would say the first is pretty straightforward - if a worm is submerged beyond a certain point of its collision mask for too long then it dies. The second isn't so easy, but the simplest solution would be totally opaque water with objects simply vanishing. A more aesthetic solution would be transparent water with objects fading away to nothing. A more interesting solution would be having them rest on the bottom.

[Run]

Mods can we split this into a dynamic water thread?

[Shadowmoon]

What exactly is wrong with the gameplay? Just because you can't play it doesn't make a game have bad gameplay.

Meh- i can't beleive you asked this yakuza.:eek: you fail to see whats wrong with the gameplay? weird.

[Melon]

dankybett has a custom status, Melon - look a bit closer :p
Hohoho. He get's his OWN status now. No fair. I want one too. Not a banned one though

Anyway, Run, my examples were poor examples, but I had a lecture to go to in 2 minutes when I worte that post. At least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

That video's pretty cool, but it only really deals with simple rectangular shapes. Worms has a pixel based landscape, and making the water react correctly to each individual pixel would be really difficult. It would probably be easier if the land was vector based, then the slope could be more easily defined. However, I'm going to ignore the fact that such a thing would require a super computer to model accurately considering the size and detail of the landscapes and the amount of water you would need to simulate.

I also fail to see what sort of gameplay benefit pools of dynamically modeled water will add to Worms anyway. OK, so it can create deadly areas above the water line, but it'll never be more than just a gimick. It's not actually useful to the gameplay at all. Besides, do we really want it to be easier to instant kill an enemy?

[yakuza]

Meh- i can't beleive you asked this yakuza.:eek: you fail to see whats wrong with the gameplay? weird.

Clearly I fail to see, hence I asked, and I also asked because you did not argument a thing.
There is nothing wrong with the gameplay, at least not to the extent to claim that the gameplay needs changing. Do you even realize what that means? It means changing something completely major, like making the game real time and a FPS, that would qualify as changing the gameplay, a gameplay that doesn't need changing, obviously, because it's great and unique the way it is.
So, I suggest you select your words more carefully from now on to avoid misunderstanding, specially when all you do is give your opinion without argument it or explaining your reasons.

And Melon, it would add tons to the gameplay, surely it will be easier to kill enemies instantly, but it will be easier to get killed instantly too. I can see loads of strategy involving dynamic fluids. For instance, shotgunning a little pond so the water goes down a slope stopping your enemy from getting to you. It would be interesting to both offense and defense as well as to mess with around. Not saying I would support such a major change.

[Shadowmoon]

Meh- i think you'll find that there actually is. Answer this: why would people post ideas if they felt nothing was wrong with the gameplay?:p


ha.:D now before you post, please please think about this question. I mean come on, every year, you get over 100 ideas threads created. Now why would people post suggestions, if they think nothings wrong with the game? Oh, by the way, gameplay doesn't mean changing it into an RPG or something. The leveling up idea suggested by dankybett is one of those that will change the gameplay. Meh. And dankybetts ideas are good. I like the vehicles one, i wish there were vehicles. Stop that i know everything about worms attitude. YOU DON'T. Nobody does- except Team 17.

[yakuza]

Meh- i think you'll find that there actually is. Answer this: why would people post ideas if they felt nothing was wrong with the gameplay?:p


ha.:D now before you post, please please think about this question. I mean come on, every year, you get over 100 ideas threads created. Now why would people post suggestions, if they think nothings wrong with the game? Oh, by the way, gameplay doesn't mean changing it into an RPG or something. The leveling up idea suggested by dankybett is one of those that will change the gameplay. Meh. And dankybetts ideas are good. I like the vehicles one, i wish there were vehicles. Stop that i know everything about worms attitude. YOU DON'T. Nobody does- except Team 17.

Because people are idiots.That's the short answer.
But just to state the obvious: people don't know crap about balance and just like to come up with the most bizarre and crap stuff because they can. Everyone thinks they're game designers. Further proof of this is that for every 10000 ideas posted in this forum about helicopters, different types of Uzis and a Shadowmoon grenade that destroys the whole map 0 are implemented. Some ideas are good, don't get me wrong, there's a website somewhere with quite a few great ones, but just because people can and do come up with them every day (repeating themselves over and over) doesn't mean the game is wrong. In fact, it can't be much wrong when after 10 years you still find 100 people on a lobby channel looking for a game. Please just don't post for the sake of "foruming".

And please look up the word gameplay in a dictionary that suits the context. Gameplay is the whole picture, and therefore in order to change the gameplay you'd need to change the way the game plays, see what I did here? Adding customization doesn't change the gameplay, it enhances it or tweaks it.

[Shadowmoon]

Because people are idiots. People don't know crap about balance and just like to come up with the most bizarre and crap stuff because they can. Everyone thinks they're game designers. Further proof of this is that for every 10000 ideas posted in this forum about helicopters, different types of Uzis and a Shadowmoon grenade that destroys the whole map 0 are implemented.
That's the short answer.

And please look up the word gameplay in a dictionary that suits the context. Gameplay is the whole picture, and therefore in order to change the gameplay you'd need to change the way the game plays, see what I did here? Adding customization doesn't change the gameplay, it enhances it or tweaks it.



Oh no no. They are not idiots, they are just people who are SUGGESTING an idea. Oh and you think you are a game designer as well- you said EVERYONE thinks. This includes you as well. And for the last time, already, changing gameplay does not mean change the genre of the game. And, hey, i'm not posting here for the sake of foruming at all. Meh.

[robowurmz]

Dynamic water could play a part in Singleplayer Campaigns, possibly, but I can't see much application in a turn-based game...

Oh, and by the way Shadowmoon; give up. Yakuza has a great point.

[Shadowmoon]

Dynamic water could play a part in Singleplayer Campaigns, possibly, but I can't see much application in a turn-based game...

There's a lot of things they can do to worms to make it better. Yakuza does not have a great point at all. He thinks he is so smart and knows more than anyone else.

[robowurmz]

There's a lot of things they can do to worms to make it better.

But not a lot of things with real-time fluid.

[shadowww]

the furtue of worms: simultanous realtime multiplayer!

xD

devs consider that! :p

[Timmyhawky]

I don't like the 3D parts very much. Why following the other games and go 3D?

[Muzer]

the furtue of worms: simultanous realtime multiplayer!

xD

devs consider that! :p
http://worms2d.info/Real_Time_Worms

[kikumbob]

I quite like the sound of water on land in a 2D game. It would give a bit of variation in the game, just like destructable/indestructable land. It makes room for so many more kinds of interactions and by no means is it not possible.

[Flavius]

How about keeping the basic 2D mechanics but evolving by, I don't know.... maybe not using worms? Maybe something NEW that uses the same basic gameplay ideas? Out of all the copycat games out there, I have rarely run into a Worms copycat. So why not copycat yourselves?

Speaking of copycats... how about a cat based game called "9 Lives" or something where instead of worms you have, I dunno... CATS and each one can be "killed" 9 times?!

[Run]

Out of all the copycat games out there, I have rarely run into a Worms copycat.

There are quite a few