Thanks a lot for the welcome back <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />. Draghermosran I quite like your first idea:

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Here what I've got in mind.

Mouse navigation (isometric camera standard)
moving: point & click
attacking/selecting: right-click
camera: screen edge tracking / arrow keys


I'd be very happy with this method. I hope you'll all forgive me for any suggestions that I made about keyboard controls, as I said, I don't play games that use the keyboard, so I really know nothing about it (I was just trying to give an example of what might be possible <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />).

However, the subject of mouse controls is another matter. Have any of you ever played a game called Summoner? It's a 3D game that has the best mouse controls of any game I've ever played.

It's not exactly what I'd call an isometric view. The camera is slightly above the character, but not quite looking over their shoulder. Here's a screenshot:

[Linked Image]

To move your character, you click a spot on the ground and the character moves there. You can also hold down the left mouse button to enable continous movement (in this state, the camera gently swings behind the character and the character follows the mouse pointer until the mouse button is released).

To rotate the camera, you use screen edge tracking. The game also uses a marvellous feature called 'ghosting'. Whenever the camera collides with a solid object such as a wall or tree, the object 'ghosts' out. Here's an excerpt from the 'Summoner Designer Documents' on how it works:

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When creating 3rd person 3D games, one of the biggest challenges the design team faces is: How do we treat the camera? In many games, the camera often becomes a source of annoyance to the player rather than an extension of his/her playing experience. With Summoner, one of our goals was to make sure the camera became an intuitive and easy to use system in the game. When we first implemented it we decided to go with an isometric view, with a freely rotating camera that the player could control. If the main character ever got caught behind a building then you could swing the camera around (using the character as the pivot point) so that you had a clear line of sight to your character/party. We also implemented a ghosting system, so that if there were meshes in between the camera and the main character, we would ghost out those meshes. The basic shape of these meshes could still be seen by the player, but you could also see where the character was and what he/she was doing. This was one of the first rendering systems that we put in and it turned out to be very nice. Because of the ghosting system the player doesn’t necessarily have to constantly be controlling both the character and the camera.


And a screenshot of it in action:

[Linked Image]

Summoner's camera has another very subtle and terrific feature, the camera is normally at a fixed height from the character, but when going up or down hills, the camera very gently and subtlety changes its angle, so that you look 'up' the hill when going up and look 'down' the hill when going down. It's a tiny little feature that most people probably don't even notice, but it makes an enormous difference to the gameplay.

I know that I'm going on and on about this, but I can't stress enough how important I believe this subject is. I think that the controls a game uses are one of the most important aspects of any game. For me at least, if the controls are messed up and awkward to use, then I simply won't play that game, no matter how wonderful it otherwise is (Gothic is a perfect example of this).

I want Divine Divinity 2 to be the best single player game ever made, so I hope you'll all bear with me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />.

Cheers