About the latest version of the game

Malte279 · **Reply #560 on:** August 17, 2009, 11:06:16 AM

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looking great, but are you still going to keep the portrait and health/ level of target? (like in WoW)?

Remember that fighting is meant to be kept at a very limited level in this game so level of target display may not be a permanent necessity in the game. As for portraits I am not really sure. Would they serve a purpose in the game?

Mumbling · **Reply #561 on:** August 17, 2009, 11:15:36 AM

Quote from: Malte279,Aug 17 2009 on 05:06 PM

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looking great, but are you still going to keep the portrait and health/ level of target? (like in WoW)?
Remember that fighting is meant to be kept at a very limited level in this game so level of target display may not be a permanent necessity in the game. As for portraits I am not really sure. Would they serve a purpose in the game?

Not really since we won't be wearing helmets or anything so you can clearly see what dinosaur type it is(unless you gotta figure that out by doing an adventure of course).

I guess the only time we'd need HP above one's head is when they're really in battle. As malte mentioned, fights won't be too common.

Coyote_A · **Reply #562 on:** August 17, 2009, 06:00:15 PM

I like the GUI layout. I'd recommend to add a clock that will show the real life time in case someone will get too obsessed with the game.

action9000 · **Reply #563 on:** August 17, 2009, 06:01:30 PM

When you left-click an NPC creature, a display will pop up in the top-center of the screen like WoW. I don't know exactly what it will look like yet but I'd like to have the following information on it:

It's name and species (if known. Will show up as unknown if your character doesn't know).

It's relative level to you (based on probably a colour code or brief text describing how you feel about this creature's strength, as opposed to it's "level" per se).

It's relationship to you: Friendly/Foe (or unknown): how friendly or aggressive it is (or whether that's unknown). We might do this in a colour code.

It's relative health and stamina (not actual numbers but information such as injured, heavily injured, healthy, etc.)

That's a great idea, Coyote_A! We could put a clock around the minimap or something like that

action9000 · **Reply #564 on:** August 17, 2009, 09:25:36 PM

Okay, since we've been developing so slowly, I'm changing my development plan a little:

Instead of trying to perfect multiplayer, which is causing nothing but problems so far and slowing me down, I am going to jump away from all the multiplayer work for now and power through getting some single player game content into the RPG.

I'll get the interface as finished as possible until we get the final graphics and I'll work on expanding the game itself with new adventures, abilities, NPCs and all the stuff the game will need to be played single-player.

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #565 on:** August 17, 2009, 09:56:28 PM

Cool. It's always good to differentiate yourself rather than tear your hair out over some specific thing that isn't working.

Kor · **Reply #566 on:** August 17, 2009, 10:16:39 PM

Sounds like a good idea to me, focusing on one thing at a time rather then several at once. Good luck.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #567 on:** August 17, 2009, 10:17:28 PM

sounds good.

Mumbling · **Reply #568 on:** August 18, 2009, 12:59:14 AM

Sure! Go for it!

I'll be there to help you on the interface thingy.

Coyote_A · **Reply #569 on:** August 18, 2009, 04:08:31 AM

Just don't forget about original MMORPG project completely.

action9000 · **Reply #570 on:** August 18, 2009, 06:41:58 PM

Oh no, I won't forget about it.

As a matter of fact, Mumbling and I agreed that it might be worth a shot to try running my laptop as a 24/7 server for the game.

Because it is my laptop, I will be hauling it with me sometimes for whatever, but I could leave it running most of the time (I do anyway).

One thing though, I will have to recode the entire *server* part of the game because right now, running the game on any computer uses up 100% of one of the computer's CPUs (so 100% on a single core machine, 50% on a dual core, 25% on a quad core, etc.) and I can't leave my laptop like that all the time (gets hot, noisy and eats up power). I'll just need to recode the server stuff and put it into a tiny little program that runs on a very little amount of CPU power with no graphics.
In theory though..this just might work..!

The difficult part will be figuring out what to do when I do need to shut down the server for awhile: what will happen to the state of the game world, connected players, etc.

For anyone who cares, the specs of that laptop are
AMD Turion x2 (1.66GHz)
2GB DDR2 RAM
120GB hard drive
GeForce6150 Go (so I won't want the server program to have graphics because this video card is slooow

)
Wired internet (100Mb/s on LAN, 15-20Mbps peak Internet speed, 7.5Mbps typical) so the connection should be stable

If I run just a few lines of code necessary to run a sever and send/receive data, the program should be fast, simple, not eat up any RAM to speak of and use almost no CPU power.

raga · **Reply #571 on:** August 18, 2009, 06:56:14 PM

I don't know much on how this all works but I think that it might be necessary to use your computer as a sever Tim. If there isn't one central computer then wouldn't the data that keeps track of experience, levels and everything else for an account have to be stored on a persons individual computer? Not only would this cause problems for anyone who tries to play their account on another computer but then couldn't someone get into the file storing the data and alter it? Bumping themselves up 20 levels in a stat for example. But I don't know how that information is stored so I don't know if thats an actual problem.

Alex · **Reply #572 on:** August 18, 2009, 08:14:14 PM

That sounds awesome. Glad we might actually be able to have a 24/7 server. Best way to go.

action9000 · **Reply #573 on:** August 18, 2009, 09:43:08 PM

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Not only would this cause problems for anyone who tries to play their account on another computer but then couldn't someone get into the file storing the data and alter it? Bumping themselves up 20 levels in a stat for example.

I've thought about that; I do actually have a way to protect save game files from player edits (turning them into files that look like nothing more than random blocks of nothingness, kind of like trying to open an EXE file with notepad) so that won't be a problem.

Either way, while it would be possible to store everything on an individual player's computer, I agree that a server would definitely be nicer for a game like this. I'll do everything I can to make it possible.

Kor · **Reply #574 on:** August 18, 2009, 09:56:26 PM

Just take it 1 day at a time and 1 thing at a time. Don't try to do to much at once.

Belmont2500 · **Reply #575 on:** August 20, 2009, 02:46:12 PM

heh,impressive

action9000 · **Reply #576 on:** August 26, 2009, 11:17:47 PM

After a little bit of trying to figure out how the bloody thing works, I have our first screenshot of our new tree software!

I was playing with the shading of the trees a bit, trying to give them a little brighter, slightly more cartoony look. Eventually I think the land ought to be a little bit more cartoony as well but I have to figure out just how to do that.

Anywho, this is a very simple example of what a tree looks like in-game, all coded in. It does also sway and drift in the wind too, which is very cool!

Kor · **Reply #577 on:** August 26, 2009, 11:27:41 PM

Looks like a good looking tree, and you do have to start somewhere. Was it hard to put in that 1 tree & get it to the look you liked?

action9000 · **Reply #578 on:** August 27, 2009, 12:15:50 AM

It was hard to figure out how to actually get everything working but now that I see how it works, adding more trees won't be very difficult.

I am having quite a few problems with collision though: Seems my code that detects when the player runs into something isn't working on this tree...I'm fighting with this at the moment and I sincerely hope there's a workaround. <_<

Kor · **Reply #579 on:** August 27, 2009, 01:09:50 AM

So you can't drag and drop trees like I saw in the making of Oblivion video somewhere?

I guess with no collision the characters can walk through trees like they are phantom girl or Shadowcat?