Best orginization of classes in an RPG?

[Alpo]

Over the past 2-3 weeks or so I've been learning SDL, and have gotten a pretty good framework for image loading, and manipulating based on various input.

Originally I was only wanting to write GUI's, but I've had so much fun creating and animating little sprites (my main sprite class even has a "spell" class embedded so it can shoot off fireballs :P) that I began to put more thought into making a game.

Anyway, to cut it short I've been brainstorming what a good class hierarchy chart for an RPG type game should look like. I did find some good basic examples online, still I thought I would ask here and see if anyone knew of any good examples of a UML type chart for an RPG?

I'm specifically interested in if most people use a root abstract type base class for game objects, and what should be done with composition, and what with inheritance.

Thanks for any information,
Alpo.

Edit: Also, if anyone has references for good books that discuss this sort of thing, please let me know.

[phantomotap]

O_o

If you just want existing references, a simple search yielded dozens of examples.

If you want opinion on your designs, you'll have to post what you have for now.

Soma

[MutantJohn]

Oh man, this topic is so much lamer than I thought it was going to be. I was going to suggest making sure there's always a Dark Knight and like a Dragoon and stuff XD

[Alpo]

There is a dragon. It doesn't even look to much like a pokemon if you squint just right. :P.

[Poline]

Several years ago I worked at games & software development company and there we used a root abstract type base class for game objects. At that time it was the best class hierarchy chart for an RPG type game.

[Matticus]

@Poline - Spamming your site again?

Announcements - Game Programming
See #7, if you didn't get the clue the first time.

[Alpo]

Several years ago I worked at games & software development company and there we used a root abstract type base class for game objects. At that time it was the best class hierarchy chart for an RPG type game.

This is basically what I'm doing, at least for most renderable things (a few exceptions like dialogue boxes, and fonts).

I ran into a problem a while back when I realized I couldn't use the virtual mechanism to load all the derivative-unique variables with the same function (like for instance a an enemy mage needs different loading variables than an npc ect).

I got around it by creating a class called LoadingValues. That way I can create a LoadingValue in the XML parser with all the values from the file, and just pass that to the array of base Objects.

That along with an enum bitmask to identify object types has been working pretty well.

[Sebastiani]

Over the past 2-3 weeks or so I've been learning SDL, and have gotten a pretty good framework for image loading, and manipulating based on various input.

Originally I was only wanting to write GUI's, but I've had so much fun creating and animating little sprites (my main sprite class even has a "spell" class embedded so it can shoot off fireballs :P) that I began to put more thought into making a game.

Anyway, to cut it short I've been brainstorming what a good class hierarchy chart for an RPG type game should look like. I did find some good basic examples online, still I thought I would ask here and see if anyone knew of any good examples of a UML type chart for an RPG?

I'm specifically interested in if most people use a root abstract type base class for game objects, and what should be done with composition, and what with inheritance.

Thanks for any information,
Alpo.

Edit: Also, if anyone has references for good books that discuss this sort of thing, please let me know.

I would highly recommend against any sort of formal hierarchy. Build your components "from the bottom up" and just allow everything to come together naturally. And be mindful of just how much exposure and interconnection each component may or may not need along the way - otherwise you might be facing one of those messy refactoring projects!