Well, I suggest this kind of screen design: Upper part consists of 10 slots (could be drawn using inventory boxes) with weapon icons in them. These are weapons on the belt: [img:5syagrgs]http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/crimson/krpg/design/arsenal_design_belt.png[/img:5syagrgs] Rest of screen is a selection menu. We can use one layout for all kinds with different background pic, or different layouts. I may suggest 2 sorts of layout that seem good to me. 1) Each weapon in stash has a box for icon and a box for textual info (name/stats/etc) positioned to the right: [img:5syagrgs]http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/crimson/krpg/design/arsenal_design_layout1.png[/img:5syagrgs] 2) Weapons are presented as icons, while desciption is displayed in a large separate box on the right side of the screen: [img:5syagrgs]http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/crimson/krpg/design/arsenal_design_layout2.png[/img:5syagrgs] In both layouts user moves cursor by arrow keys/mouse and selects weapon to place on the belt by pressing enter/double-click LMB. Slot is selected by either pressing correspondent number key (1-0) or by clicking on it. For each slot a separate page of weapons is displayed (possibly with a scrollbar).

Chars out of alignment I think? I wish you would use at least Windows Paint with squares and straight lines. <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->

Done.

I think 1) would work better, especially at the base resolution we are working with (640x480 I think?).

I agree, I like the first one better too, I'll get to work on it, but I'll make a custom graphic for belts of both fighter and cleric, it shouldn't be too difficult, as for weapon icons, how about the weapons pickup sprites scaled down to fit on the smaller slots? <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

[quote="Firebrand":39rldmtw]as for weapon icons, how about the weapons pickup sprites scaled down to fit on the smaller slots? <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) --> exactly what I was thinking.

Actually, only the fighter needs the belt with 10 weapon slots, the cleric and the mage use different systems.

[quote="RambOrc":f0li3e1y]Actually, only the fighter needs the belt with 10 weapon slots, the cleric and the mage use different systems. Huh. It would be extremely helpful to have full concept at hand.

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[quote="RambOrc":3ialwpzd]Actually, only the fighter needs the belt with 10 weapon slots, the cleric and the mage use different systems. I'll take this for example: [quote="koraxrpgconcept_2009-02-19.pdf":3ialwpzd] Forms in which weapons and spells are presented to the player - turning pages in a spellbook and deciding which spell(s) to memorize (M) - looking through a number of spells in your spellbook to decide which one to charge your staff with (M) - deciding which kind of magical energy to charge your wand with (M) The Mage still can memorize one spell for corresponding slot, right? So the belt may still be present, but be the metaphoric belt. It may be divided on weapons section/staff charge section/wand section/spells section, where slots look a bit different to emphasise difference in meaning. Also, for example, when mage explores its spellbook, those slots that do not have anything to do with the sb are shadowed/grayed.

Yes for us the 3 classes are the same, they all have 10 weapons.

I'm slowly working on the artwork for the arsenal screens, I'll be posting something when I feel it's good enough <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->. EDIT: BTW, just to be sure, the mage and the cleric will use a similar system to the one we defined for the fighter's belt, right?

Visually, the three systems vary. Technically, they should be the same, i.e. each class has 10 different weapons (or maybe only 9 or 8 to leave the keys 0 and maybe 9 free for other purposes, but in that case it will still apply to all classes the same), and each weapon number has a very definite type of spell attached to it (e.g. weapon nr. 2 for the fighter is always a one-handed axe, weapon nr. 6 for the mage is always a fireball type of spell etc). For example, if the fighter finds or buys a new, better axe and equips it, it modifies the attributes of the nr. 2 weapon and maybe replaces the sprites too (depending on the type of difference it may or may not differ, or if we are short on resources it may always stay the same), but technically it's the same weapon, i.e. a one handed axe. In the case of the mage, his spellbook has an ever growing number of spells, but they are automatically organized into main categories (offensive, non-offensive, wands, staff enchants) and into subcategories (fireball, arcane projectiles etc). If the mage decides to memorize an offensive spell, its subcategory/type automatically determines the attributes of which weapon slot are getting overwritten. Whichever spell of a subcategory/type the mage memorized last is the one that is active on that key, if he wants any other spell to be castable he needs to "forget" the one he learned and memorize the desired new one. For the cleric, the system is once again different (scrolls in a scrollcase), and there is also the issue of weapon upgrades (e.g. adding stronger sinew to a crossbow so it does more damage or fires faster), but I'd leave those things out for the first beta, just let's implement the weapon replacement scenario for the fighter and the spell category system for the mage, both with only 2-3 weapon slots.

OK, this is good to know, I'll draw something from the descriptions and detail it, and when it's ready, I'll post a preview here <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->.

For the fighter, I would start with a very simple system, where simply picking up a new weapon replaces the already existing weapon in the same slot (if there was any), there are some shooters that did something similar (e.g. Call of Duty). The real interesting part would be the mage's spellbook I guess, as outlined in the Milestone 3 Scope thread, if it proves a lot of work we can skip it for the moment, leaving only the most simple of the three class system active in the first game.

OK, I've got some work on the fighter's belt done, it's not final yet, it's a WIP version, there's still a lot to do. My idea is to divide the screen vertically in halfs, the lower half would show the fighter's belt and 5 slots on the left of the skull and 5 to the right, which would be the 'active' weapons, the top half would list the available weapons to choose to become 'active' <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->. Here you go: [url:1xk9egvu]http://downloads.orcishweb.com/koraxdev/firebrand/previews/belt_preview1.bmp Let me know what you think of it, also, what would be a good background for the belt and the rest of the screen?

You don't need 10 slots, only 8 at most since weapon nr. 1 is bare fists and I'd leave at least the 0 key free for other purposes.

OK then, I'll take that into account, do you think it's coming along fine? What about the background? So many questions... LOL <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->

Remember it doesn't need the final look, the very idea of such an alpha/beta is to be able to test half-finished things. More interesting is the functionality, i.e. how it will look and feel when you exchange a weapon in a slot.

I'm still working on this, time is reduced until Wednesday because of finals, but I'll be done that day and work on this the rest of the week <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->, I'm almost off on vacations, so free time will be much more after that <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc9.gif" alt=";)" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->.

I was thinking that for depicting the changes for the cleric (between scrolls and weapons) and for the mage (spell book, runes, etc.), multiple background pictures could be made and simply change the backgrounds for the different stuff depending which slot the player is viewing, this code-wise would be a matter of selecting what to draw depending on the slot used, what do you think of this?

Sounds good.

I need to bump this one, so it doesn't gets lost <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/orc2.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->.