Afar ~ 1,000 Players

[Ellie]

Forum Moderators

I could do with one or two forum moderators to help out on the forums. They aren't very active, and what I need is a couple of friends to just take part in conversations, welcome new members, comment on updates (legitimately), and so on.

Abilities:
Posts display with a green background, and your username is bold and silver
Access to a moderator's lounge
Ability to hide posts from display by clicking a button (basically removing them from public view)
Ability to move posts between discussion boards

Expectations:
To be reasonably active. If you aren't on for a couple of weeks without warning expect your status to be revoked.
To be positive about the game and about new people who join.
Not to get into arguments on the forums.

Additional:
Forum moderators who've been there for at least a month will probably be added to the game as NPCs. Because of this, please pick a character name (and, if possible, username, although not so important) - that is befitting a role play and that you expect to keep for a while. This should be a reasonable name. No numbers, etc. It can be Name - Surname. It should not imply any important role (i.e. don't call yourself Administrator Javert).

When the game goes commercial there may be a small amount of money to come your way, but I can't promise to pay you. At the moment not even I am making money.

I understand that the role of forum moderator is actually a pretty big ask, but for some reason everyone wants to be one.

If you wish to apply please understand that:

- You might not get picked. I mean absolutely nothing personal by this. I am after very few people and obviously expect far more applications than actual roles.
- If somebody does get picked over you it doesn't mean I don't like you or that I like them more. Different people are better at different things.

How to apply

Please post an application here in this thread, explain why you want to be a moderator, your former experience (although the system is far simpler than most forums), and anything else you want to add that you feel will help your application.

Things that would help your application

If you have never posted on the forums before, or indeed don't know how to access them or how they work, it is highly unlikely you will be picked.

Posting around on the forums will definately help. Being an active player of the game moreso, as you will have something to talk about!

Statistics

The in-game forums basically represent a small forum in normal terms. 930 posts in 291 threads by 754 users, and an average post per day of only 2.

 

[Ellie]

Also known as: stop Wyatt having to go out into the big world and get a real job

What is BIG Afar?

BIG Afar is just a corny name I've given to a massive planned expansion to Afar. It's less an expansion, more a change in ideology and work pace. The idea is that I would work on Afar as if it were a full time job - the end product would be something fantastic and far beyond Afar at the present - the catch would be I need user participation to make it work (and most of that will be down to advertising and marketting by me to make it happen).

To live comfortably, I need to sell something like 2,000 "copies" of the game a year, I think. Will that happen? Not sure, but it's something to find out. 2,000 isn't that many. We're not talking a huge game like RuneScape here.

What's the BIG idea?

To take everything BIGger.

Most of this comes down to a MASSIVE MINDMAP which I'll try to summarise the main points of here.

The most important parts

DAILY UPDATES

You can expect at least one update per British working day. Any days when there are no updates will have to have a good explanation. I might change the working pattern depending on circumstances, I'm not sure.

NO PERIODS OF STAGNATION

There shouldn't be big periods of no activity, such as University or whatever else.


The rest

__________________________________________________

Daily backups
Full backups will be taken daily and stored somewhere secure.

Active development log
A dev log will be filled in daily explaining everything that's been done and what's being worked on.

iOS and Android Apps
The apps will be finished to make Afar playable quite nicely on mobile devices.

Graphics
The graphics will be "improved" and replaced where needed.

Visual Equipment
Visual equipment will be active in battle. It's done, but there are no actual graphics for it at the moment.

Music
I will steal one of my HBfriends and force them to make music for me. For payment of course.

Paid Accounts
There will be special accounts which have some kind of perk to be decided. There will be many alternative ways of paying for this account because I don't personally like the idea of buying an account like this. Some ideas:

Yearly Annual
Like you'd get for a comic book, or like a Warhammer army book, the yearly Afar annual would cost £12 and would be 200 pages of guides, stories, behind the scenes pages, and artwork.

Novels
Something to think about for the far future.

Trading Card Game
Again, something to think about.

Other Merchandise
T-shirts, mugs, badges.

Soundtrack CD
I'd pair up with whoever makes the soundtrack music and offer a professionally made CD, of which we would share the profits 50/50.

Boxes Games
Something for the distant future.

All of these would be worth a certain amount of points, based on how much profit they actually yield to me. If you have enough points to cover the cost of the paid account, you're in. This basically amounts to buying the annual, most likely, which is the point of the annual.

Staff
More staff members will be recruited (although nobody wants the job at the moment). I'd have to think about paying them. Staff would have an active role in the game itself as:

Characters
To enhance the storyline and game world there would be characters taking part in quests and such with the player.

Role Playing
There would be a role playing forum which staff's character accounts would take part in alongside players.

Other Accounts
Other characters such as gods, Death, and other personifications would exist and post around the forums. Which leads us to:

An active forums
A proper forum theme (but a nice looking one, something retro) would be created so that the forums can easily be accessed as a standalone thing outside of the game, for people who want to.

Community Points
Will be spendable, with a store.

In-Game Chat
There will be a chat window inside the game, once I can find a nicely looking way to do it (it's actually implemented... but not active).

Map Commands
Furthering interactive mapping, there would also be buttons for dig, search, mine, fish, etc.

Random Events
Things will happen at random to aid the player or distract them with a quest, etc.

Merchant Skills
Would play a more important role with things such as fishing, mining, archaeology.

Personal Leaderboards
Websites, people, clans, would be able to make their own leaderboards and specify who is in them.

More Item Combinations
Just more things to make, with:

Recipe Books
Which tell you what you can make.

Proper Error Message Handling
More for me and so you don't get whitescreens.

Cutscenes
Animated scenes with more detailed graphics for quests and such, using:

HTML5 Minigames
Using construct 2. These would buff up merchant skills and cutscenes.

Interiors
You'd be able to go inside buildings and see what they look like.

Trading
Pretty important, the ability to trade items and gold between players.

An actual economy
Using auction houses, dynamic stores where the prices match stock, etc.

Elements
Elements, height, flying, etc will affect how weapons work in battle.

Bounty
ala Final Fantasy XII. You hunt monsters, basically.

Bosses
More bosses between maps, some of them random.

Rare Drops
Useful rare drops from bosses that people would actually want to buy.

Clans
A proper, automated clan system.

MORE MORE MORE
Just generally more of everything.

MORE QUESTS - which you'd actually want to play
MORE STORY - as it isn't there much at the moment
MORE ITEMS, SPELLS, ENEMIES, NPCs, AREAS

But When?

If people are actually interested then I will start this as soon as I finish University, which should be five weeks time.

I want to build as much hype up over this as possible. I want Afar to be all it can be, and that is BIG.

As for when the above would actually happen, remember I said daily updates. So, as soon as possible. I'd go through the list until they're done. The order they appear will be chosen by you the player, somehow. There are some high priority areas of course.

 

[Jason]

Should've called it Afar Away...

Sounds good though, also if you're gonna' be changing so much, I could redo the graphics for you if you want, especially on the player, free of charge ofcourse :wink:

 

[Ellie]

Thank you but I don't think I'd be happy not paying you.

For now I actually give... an update!

Chat

Chat is in the game and working, please feel free to try it out. It should work and should be secure. To access it at the moment hover over the bottom right of the game screen.

 

[Jason]

Paying me would be cool too, lol :P

Also yay chat! :thumb: I'll try it out now

 

[Ellie]

The big plan doodah thingy

Here's how it's going to work.

In... five weeks, I finish University, in theory, depending on if I pass or fail or whatnot.

From then I will be seeking a job.

In the time between ending University, and getting a job, Afar will be my full time job.

What happens after that is depends on you. If Afar becomes big, and earns decent money at the same time (I won't lie, that's the clincher) then I will get a part time job instead of a full time job and Afar will take up the rest of my time (if Afar then becomes self sustainable I will focus on it as my main job).

If Afar doesn't take off then the job is my backup plan.


Some opinions needed

I don't like the idea of people buying an Afar account, because I wouldn't want to myself. Instead what I want to do is set up various different merchandises and other things you can buy which give you an Afar account.

The main thing will be a yearly annual, which will cost around £12, printed in A4, at around 200 pages in length. This will include a behind the scenes section, game walkthrough, guides to various in-game things, character profiles, etc. It will also come with a game account.

What I want to know is, would you consider buying this?

It's a bit of a gamble, because I'd need to sell something like 4,000 copies for it to be self sustainable, or say 1,000 copies for it to work as a part time job. I really don't know how popular Afar will/can be.


Clans

I'd like it if people set up fan sites for Afar. It probably sounds egotistical or whatever, but I think it would be a great way to spread word of the game, and I want to really encourage fan sites. I will be creating guides to creating fan sites in Proboards or other free things, releasing graphics packs, premade forum themes, etc. If anybody wants help setting up a Proboards forum or simple website for their in-game clan, please let me know.

I think that clans, friendship groups, and fan sites are a really big way of spreading popularity for the game.

I am also open to any suggestions for how to improve clans and what the clan system should contain when it is automated in the future.

So let me reiterate, fan websites are completely fine and I will actively support them.

 

[Ellie]

Outposts and Towns

Some areas have now been remade, in fitting with those that came beforehand.

Damascar

Straupuft

Faygrin's Fayre

Previously recreated areas:

Tiben Town

Tiben Port

Base Camp

West Gate

Port Glade

Ivan Camp

Frozen Well

Towns and outposts yet to be remade

- The Myre (crash zone)
- Sea Fortress
- Oasis
- Docks
- Vampire Clan

Edit: a bit rushed, I just want to get them all done quickly to a reasonable standard.

The Myre (crash site)

Edit 2: the Vampire Clan.

Edit 3: Next outpost: the Docks in the Eastern Desert.

Edit... 4?: First of the two left to do, the oasis:

Edit 5!: The final area has been remade, the sea fortress to the south of Tiben.

 

[Ellie]

Summary of this week's updates:

New Homepage

Check it: http://afar.ws/v/homepage.php

I think it's pretty nice but please feel free to C&C. Any comments welcome.


850 Players: new rare set

To celebrate reaching 850 players a new rare set is available, given once per person when you enter the game. It consists of three items and will be available

for a limited period. The next rare drop will be at 1,000!

Autospam Protection

Somebody is testing an autospam application to see if they can use it on the site (the answer was yes). I have created some things to protect against it, and it should no longer work. I would appreciate it if you didn't use Afar as a testbed for your dodgy spam. We will never spam other websites with our links, so don't spam ours. Thank you.


Standalone Forums

The "Afar Discussion Boards" are now online, and you can access them via a button on the game homepage. (Alternatively, bookmark http://afar.ws/v/?style=4)

Please let me know if you find any bugs (or indeed security issues! Hidden things that are not hidden, etc.)

The in-game forums are exactly the same, just the standalone forums are perhaps more accessible (and more search-engine friendly).

They aren't finished, and there is a lot of style work to be done, but they're here.


Reward for community participation

Community points will be used in a future store to buy things - including the chance to buy money off coupons for the paid game when it comes out (limited availability, first come first serve) as well as in-game items to boost your character.

To earn community points, post around on the forums! However there are also some additional ways of earning... or losing... points.


Create or join a clan

Creating or joining a clan gets you 20 points. You can only get this once (i.e. for creating OR joining one clan).

Create a fan website

Creating a website devoted to Afar will get you 50 points. You can only claim this once.

Being banned

Banned forum members will have their community points frozen until the end of their ban. Warned members may have their community points frozen for a set period of time.

-

Community points cannot be transferred between members. Trades between members which involve community point items will be looked at carefully to make sure duplicate accounts aren't being used. Trading community point items between duplicate accounts will not be allowed when trading is implemented.

If you want to claim your points please post here; points for general forum participation are automatic however.


Donations

A button has been added should anybody wish to donate money. You don't have to, but if you do it would be useful to put your User ID or Account Name in the "Notes to the game admin" field when you donate. That way if we ever have paid accounts you can use the money you've already donated towards that.

Thank you to Icedmetal and Megaflare who have donated in the past.


Google Web Fonts

We have switched to using Google Web Fonts for the in game text. This move means that the game will look the same to everybody regardless of what fonts they have installed on their computer. The fonts we are using have not been decided yet so looks may change in the future, we are open to any thoughts and comments (please use the suggestions board).


Other Things

Progress has been made on the background music system - we just don't have any music yet. But I am confident that the system will work.

 

[Ellie]

New Quests

The Bloody Vampires quest has been completed, but it seems Herbs is broken. Sorry, I'll get on it.

The Elemental Caves quest has almost been completed but not quite yet.


Sarah's Quest Guides

Sarah on the forums has made some quest guides which aren't too bad (well, they work as guides, anyway!) Not sure who you are on hb (or if you're from hb?) I thought it was Holder because of the 'Who reference but Holder has an account.

The guides are in here. Contain spoilers / plot twists:

http://afar.ws/v/viewforum.php?f=19&style=4


Portals

In more news the portals to the four elemental dungeons are complete.

 

[Xilef]

How do you design your quests? Come up with a story first, come up with tasks first or come up with location first?

 

[Ellie]

It depends on the quest. The current quests aren't really very thought provoking (they're basic errand running things).

I have a massive map planned for Afar, most of it from Vengeance (which was pretty big and has a lot of content to draw from). Generally I have an A and a B in my mind, create them, then in a notebook write out a scenario for how I could get from A to B. Then I do the high school exam method, taking nouns, verbs, and adjectives from it, to create some variables (not quite that uh technical, makes sense in my head) and end up with a list of NPCs, a list of conversation pieces, and a list of areas.

Any maps between areas I slot into a grid to make sure the distances make sense, and then I colour code them in my file for whether they're completed, added but not finished, or not added yet, and further code them for the type of map they are and highlight any bosses and such.

But the current quests are too basic to portray any of this planning really. That was more in Vengeance.

 

[Ellie]

Today's Update

Quite a big change today, but it's one for the better.

In the past users have been given a landing page when they log in to the game, even for the first time. This has prompted almost every player coming and asking what they're supposed to do; how to actually "play the game", and what all the things on this page do.

Rather than clarify every item on the page and explain what it does, I have decided to rid of the landing page entirely.

Now when players log in they are thrown straight into the game - the base camp, specifically, or whatever area they were in when they closed the game last time.

In a short coming update new players will arrive in a tutorial area to further clarify how to play the game and what is going on.

The features of the former landing page have been turned into a side menu. This is on the left hand edge of the screen, and hovering the mouse over "menu" will open it. You can close this menu by clicking "close" on the right hand edge of this menu.

Clicking the face in this menu now leads straight to the face changing screen, handily.

Any opinions or thoughts please let me know.


Other stuff since I last posted

20 new faces have been added, raising the options available to a nice round 100. You can change your face in the settings menu (top right). Added an extra four because I realised numbers 44-48 were missing.


World Expansion

In order to fit in some new updates, the world has grown a bit.

Ten new "maps" have been added (but not given graphics or descriptions yet) around the world. Most of these are shoved-in between two existing areas, to provide space for some new graphical maps.

These graphical maps will be detailed like towns, but will represent the entrance to a dungeon.

A further 13 maps have been created to accomodate the earth dungeon, although this isn't finished yet.

So in all, a pretty good expansion!

A new NPC has been added to begin the Elemental Caves quest, which has been added to the Journal, although this quest is not finished yet. You can complete a good two thirds of it - by starting the quest and then taking the fire and ice dungeons.

The entrance to the air cave where the NPC stands is a loose secret (not that hard to find if you explore a bit).

Cave portals now complete:

The path to the Earth cave is now open to anyone who has completed the Bloody Vampires quest.

Earth Caves

Update on the earth caves:

Graphics done.
Descriptions done.

Still to do:

- Enemy graphics
- Ending graphic
- Earth orb item (with some combinations)
- Finish to elemental caves quest with reward
- Earth cave portal graphics (and fire, ice)
- Link path to earth cave from dark forest (requires Bloody Vampires to be completed)

The most intensive are the portal graphics, which will be like the towns'.

Test it here:
http://afar.ws/v/page.php?p=area-earthc ... al&style=2

Bloody Vampires

The Bloody Vampires quest has been completed and now has a full journal log.


Weasel's Bugs

BUGS: FIXED

2. Siding with the Vampires just leads me to a blank screen with a continue button that does nothing.

3. Siding with the Humans takes me to a screen with a Bear Hunter asking for me to go kill a bear in the sewers. I had no idea how I got there(mismatched conversation id?) but I'm assuming this is some sort of quest or event that isn't finished, as there's no bear in the Tiben sewers.

4. When you talk with the guard at the gate, there's a 'Next' button and then a continue button appears above it, also if you click after the continue button pops up, another one will appear.

10. The preloader is only loading to 99% for me.

11. You can enter East Tiben first by entering through the sewers but then if you try to go to the west it says you can't access that area yet.

13. Bloody Vampires and Herbs gave me no Gold for completing them.

16. When you talk to the guard you say there's a strange man in the marsh but the house is right outside the guard's tent and in perfect view of him.

19. Going to airship after this: Player says 'I wonder' 'If I could somehow steal this heap of junk blah blah' Then it says 'You'll need something sharp' but the text for the 'you'll need something sharp' is to the left of the chat bubble. The return for this conversation is also white and blends in with the speech bubble.

21. Going to south Tiben and talking to the man in the southeast house will take you back to central(west) tiben


BUGS: TO FIX

1. The click box on the 'Fort' on the map is HUGE, I have click on 'Gate' a few times and sometimes it just takes me to Fort because it takes up so much space (The actual circle is in the middle and the box expands outwards by like 100+pixels).

22. The Port and Camp collition boxes overlap.

I'll work on fixing these two but I think it might need the world map system being completely remade.

5. The area between Damascus and the Port is missing a bunch of descriptions and Area names.

There are a few more areas like this. I will add them to my todo list.

8. Also some I just noticed while typing this post: There's a weird gray bar(that looks like the default gray background for areas) that contains the preview and submit buttons, while the rest of the background is green. Also on the post screen the chatbox is behind the 'Options' and 'Disable BBCode' buttons.

9. If you hit 'preview' the chatbox will appear in the middle of the preview, not the bottom of the screen, and the 'Preview Post' at the top of the screen is in blue text which really clashes with the green background. When you scroll the entire preview screen, the background at the top remains black while the body is green( I think the black is where the 'Main Menu, Map, Inventory, Journal, etc.' bar is supposed to be)

I'll add these two to my todo list, just a bit of theming.

12. Horse outside Tiben you can stare at has no image (it just says: IMAGE in text)

Have lost the image from my hard drive unfortunately, will remake it in the future.

They should... I will have a look at this. Are you sure?

14. page.php?p=npc&npc=13 (house in straupuft) Woman image is like the man's, and also hitting return takes you to the Straupuft Marsh right outside of Straupuft not the camp itself.

15. Herbs - You can start the quest by talking to the woman in the house, who will say she doesn't like talking when her husband is away. This seems like perfectly reasonable behavior, but you can go and report the man for being suspicious to the guard.

17. The strange women with a man graphic appears and says: Please leave, I don't like others being in the house while my husband is away, then it starts the real conversation with the woman calling me a bastard for being in there before the guy got taken away.

18. Hitting 'watch a hanging' after talking to the prison guard will just bring you to a blank screen

The above four are... I don't know why they broke. But they're all the same quest, so I assume uh, something's happened... I will look into it. Probably them pesky vampires.

20. Buying something (old sword) from Tiben weapon store, it brings me to the 'BOUGHT' screen and then brings me back to the store, but the gold on the store screen still shows as what is was before the purchase (refreshing fixes this)

No easy fix for this without remaking the entire shop system (which is in the works).


NOT BUGS (feel free to disagree with me on this one)

6. The slimes in the sewers are named 'Water Animation'?

"Animations" are supposed to be a class of enemy made up of animations of the elements in the game. There is a fire animation and water animation currently.

23. In order to cut the rope for the airship I can use a basic bow, but not an old sword?

You must have an Old Sword. I need to edit the code to make sure it checks whether it's owned OR equipped. I think what is happening is equipping the item makes the code think you don't even own it. I will work on fixing this.

24. In the darkforest west the girl's box says 'They look lonely', is that because of the dolls or just a typo?

"They" is a legitimate singular pronoun in English. I'll explain my choice later.

7. You can go to the conversation at the end of 'Herbs' and complete the quest multiple times although it doesn't give you the reward more than once.

This was intentional but I can see how it could be confusing.

 

[coyotecraft]

I've tried playing this but its so glitchy. Especially the battle system. I tried doing the bear hunt quest. I was in the sewers fighting a giant bat, but instead it was a Ram in the snow field. Damage points seem to be inconsistent. A few battles later got stuck because I couldn't enter the area? so I click "go back" and it just showed the winnings of the previous battle. The only way to escape was to open the world map.

From the character screen I entered a battle against myself and won a lamp.

Seems to be a lot of redundent messages, like when a conversation is over you should just have to "click to continue" but instead you have to click "next" and then "click to continue". Or the inventory popup "You equiped XXX item" "click to close", seeing the item in the slot is confirmation enough don't you think?

Navigation is a little confusing. The arrows aren't always consistent, like I go UP but the new area only has left and right arrows, how am I suppose to know which way I came from? It doesn't help that most of the areas look the same. In the sewers or the Ice cave I click one direction then enter a battle, when it's over I'm not sure if I'm in the same area or a different area.

 

[Ellie]

Cheers Coyote, missed your post, will read shortly, sorry.

BIG AFAR has begun

We had a few months' setback because I unexpectedly had to return to University but that is over and I have a very large update planned for tonight that will start off Big Afar.

I have a smaller update planned in case I can't get it done for tonight.

Big Afar starts today

That means there will be a new game update every single day from now on - ranging from a new item to a new quest or an entire new feature like trading or Facebook integration. I can't promise the works every single day, but can promise that there will be at least one improvement every day, and will create a forum in the game for this shortly.

In any event that I miss a day (for reasons good or improper) I will make every effort to make it up to you.


New Thread

I will be rewriting the game's thread here and elsewhere shortly. I am not sure whether to start a new thread (this is 14 pages after all) but will probably just replace the first post.

Happy gaming -

Wyatt

 

[Ellie]

I've tried playing this but its so glitchy. Especially the battle system.

Apologies, I will try and fix if i have something specific to fix.

I tried doing the bear hunt quest. I was in the sewers fighting a giant bat, but instead it was a Ram in the snow field.

Will add to the list, sorry.

Damage points seem to be inconsistent.

There is an explanation of damage points in game but I won't post it as it's changing soon anyway to be more strategic.

A few battles later got stuck because I couldn't enter the area? so I click "go back" and it just showed the winnings of the previous battle. The only way to escape was to open the world map.

This sounds like I have my map marker switches in the wrong places, sorry. I will add this to the list and try and fix it. It's a tossup between letting people URL hack anywhere or extreme security and obviously the extreme security idea isn't working well.

From the character screen I entered a battle against myself and won a lamp.

This is normal; you shouldn't be able to battle yourself though. I will fix that. When you battle other players you get a random item from a set depending on the level difference (higher level difference = better items to draw from).

Seems to be a lot of redundent messages, like when a conversation is over you should just have to "click to continue" but instead you have to click "next" and then "click to continue".

I thought I had fixed this but will have a go again.

Or the inventory popup "You equiped XXX item" "click to close", seeing the item in the slot is confirmation enough don't you think?

I did this because a significant number of people said the opposite (that they didn't know when an item had been equipped or whatnot).

Navigation is a little confusing. The arrows aren't always consistent, like I go UP but the new area only has left and right arrows, how am I suppose to know which way I came from?

Hmm, that is a problem; I can't think of any areas that should be like that but I will search around, sorry about that. They should all match up.

It doesn't help that most of the areas look the same. In the sewers or the Ice cave I click one direction then enter a battle, when it's over I'm not sure if I'm in the same area or a different area.

I think I need to add dungeon maps as a new update.

In short, fighting on-map takes you to the same area, whereas fighting in a dungeon (i.e. the battles come from arrows) takes you to a new area. I will try and simplify this.

Thanks for the comments.

 

[Ellie]

DAILY UPDATES: Week One

SUMMARY:

• New interior map system
• Long list of bug fixes
• NEW QUEST: Rats
• New shop system
• Work been done to the tutorial
• Several new game mechanics for future use

August 9th: Interior Maps

Today's update is a new game mechanic which has been demonstrated in two demo maps at the moment. This is the beginning of a new quest which I hope to complete over the next few days.

The mechanic? The first ever interior maps, with animated elements for navigation. An extension of the Town system.

http://afar.ws/v/page.php?p=area-hh-entrance

It's not much but it kicks off our daily updates - from now on there will be an update every single day of any size. It depends how long they take of course; you might get a small update or a massive quest depending on the day. But it's all cool.

August 10th

I have been stuck on trains / rail replacement buses all day so today's update is quite small unfortunately. A new map has been added as I whittle away at the new interior maps, some code has been tweaked on interactive objects, and a couple of typos fixed. Hopefully tomorrow's update is more substantial.

Updated with a 4th room.

August 11th

More substantial update tomorrow.

For now,

The dreaded "the world is quiet here" page is now gone, replaced with a simple message box telling you you've wiped out all the monsters in the area.

The tutorial I've been working on has advanced a bit but it's not ready for release yet.

A load of code changes fixing things which weren't broken before, such is life.

August 12th - More Substantial Updates

More work on the tutorial - will get more done later today, for now here's some new bits:

New look for shops

This only affects the tutorial currently. Utilising the message system, you now don't leave the map you're in to view the shop. All shops are going to have interiors eventually.

August 13th - Quest

A new quest is planned for tonight; for now though:

Unfortunately as is sometimes the case today's update fixes something broken in yesterday's update. Battles should now work without always telling you you've scared everything away. Apologies for any inconvenience.

And now, back to working on the quest.

New Quest!

A new quest has been added to the game, designed to get people moving around in the starter areas. It's in the journal. Short quest, small reward.

Sometimes the simplest of quests/updates require the most work, and this is no exception; importantly though the functions created for this quest will be useful elsewhere so consider it more of a functionality update than a content boost.

This brings us to... five!

August 14th: Bug Fixes

New content:

New NPC and new graphics in the farm.

Spoiler: Bug Fixes

Dealt with most of Injury's bugs now.

11. You can enter East Tiben first by entering through the sewers but then if you try to go to the west it says you can't access that area yet.
FIXED

12. Horse outside Tiben you can stare at has no image (it just says: IMAGE in text)
FIXED (new NPC created, new graphics, etc)

13. Bloody Vampires and Herbs gave me no Gold for completing them.
FIXED

14. page.php?p=npc&npc=13 (house in straupuft) Woman image is like the man's, and also hitting return takes you to the Straupuft Marsh right outside of Straupuft not the camp itself.
FIXED (should be)

15. Herbs - You can start the quest by talking to the woman in the house, who will say she doesn't like talking when her husband is away. This seems like perfectly reasonable behavior, but you can go and report the man for being suspicious to the guard.
FIXED

16. When you talk to the guard you say there's a strange man in the marsh but the house is right outside the guard's tent and in perfect view of him.
FIXED

17. The strange women with a man graphic appears and says: Please leave, I don't like others being in the house while my husband is away, then it starts the real conversation with the woman calling me a bastard for being in there before the guy got taken away.
FIXED

18. Hitting 'watch a hanging' after talking to the prison guard will just bring you to a blank screen
FIXED

19. Going to airship after this: Player says 'I wonder' 'If I could somehow steal this heap of junk blah blah' Then it says 'You'll need something sharp' but the text for the 'you'll need something sharp' is to the left of the chat bubble. The return for this conversation is also white and blends in with the speech bubble.
FIXED

20. Buying something (old sword) from Tiben weapon store, it brings me to the 'BOUGHT' screen and then brings me back to the store, but the gold on the store screen still shows as what is was before the purchase (refreshing fixes this)
FIXED

21. Going to south Tiben and talking to the man in the southeast house will take you back to central(west) tiben
FIXED


Others left to deal with:

22. The Port and Camp collition boxes overlap.
1. The click box on the 'Fort' on the map is HUGE, I have click on 'Gate' a few times and sometimes it just takes me to Fort because it takes up so much space (The actual circle is in the middle and the box expands outwards by like 100+pixels).
4. When you talk with the guard at the gate, there's a 'Next' button and then a continue button appears above it, also if you click after the continue button pops up, another one will appear.
5. The area between Damascus and the Port is missing a bunch of descriptions and Area names.

Click boxes: will require the world map to be remade. I will do it eventually but it's a lot of work.
Next buttons: due to how I made the conversation system. I will look into a fix eventually but again, it is a lot of work relatively.
Area descriptions: will be dealt with when interactive maps reach the desert, sorry.

--------

Alright. Coyote's are mainly conceptual (bugs with how things are done, rather than bugs that can be immediately fixed) so just the one for now.

1. I tried doing the bear hunt quest. I was in the sewers fighting a giant bat, but instead it was a Ram in the snow field.
FIXED (partially - I need to create some system for dungeons to have battle backgrounds though.)

Tiben Port

New Tiben Port

Tiben Port has been remade!

• Uses the new interior map system
• New building: Inn (setting up a future quest)
• New message when trying to travel to Port Glade
• New graphics around the place

UPDATE: Desert

The Eastern Desert is now fully interactive and area descriptioned. (19 maps)

WOODS (14 maps): fully interactive, including the deeper woods past the plains.

MARSH (7 maps): fully interactive.

COAST (18 maps): fully interactive.

DESERT (19 maps): fully interactive.

SNOW FIELDS (15 maps): 12 interactive, 3 left to do.

FIELDS (14 maps): none interactive.

DARK FOREST / MYRE (14 maps): none interactive.


- 31 left to do. Sorry I know I said I'd do the Dark Forest next - but the Desert seemed far more of a desolation.

 

[Ellie]

DAILY UPDATES: another 4 days

I've kept this up for 11 days now.

Some cool updates.


August 15th

The login page has been reformed making it clearer how to skip the loading bar. All the silly branding has been removed as to get to the login page you'd have been to the homepage anyway.

Snow Fields Expansion

The Snow Fields have been expanded with seven new interactive maps leading from Port Glade to Ivan Camp. This makes it a bit more of a trek and more worth visiting. New graphics and six new interactive objects, with a building which will be used shortly.

If I have time and my Internet stops cutting out tonight I will work on adding new NPCs to these areas and the Port and Camp themselves, introducing storyline elements which have been in my head since making the areas but I haven't been able to get into words. Hmm.

August 16th

Amongst other minor updates:

Tiben Castle now has an interior.
A new quest has begun, which is 50% complete and will be finished either tonight or tomorrow.
Ivan Camp has been removed from the world map for now, and will be unlockable through the quest. It will have NPCs and interiors by tomorrow.


August 17th

New shop: the Quartermaster (Ivan Camp)
New interiors: two tents in the Ivan Camp

Buttons around the game have been replaced with nicer ones.

New updates regarding the new quest:

New item
Several new NPC conversations
The Frozen Well has been removed from the world map; it can be unlocked through doing the quest
The first part of the quest is open for curious people, you can get as far as the Frozen Well

A new book has been added to the game.
Another new NPC for the quest and another interior.


August 18th

Juliet's journal has been written and added to the game. Apologies, I missed that out yesterday.

Three new NPCs added to Tiben Town, one of which will be the start of tonight's quest.

Six new faces added.

A new quest has been aded (has it's own news thread).

The journal has been remade. Links are now visible instead of being white. Quests are now arranged, for now, into "short" and "medium"; there will be other categories when more quests are made.

One of the (closed) shops in Tiben, Castle Row has been replaced with the Damascan Embassy for use in a future quest. It has a basic interior.

Another face added.

Two New Quests

Map Maker

A short quest that introduces some new background mechanics which I am using to make a future quest. A bit boring the technical details but it makes the game much more flexible.

Introduces a new NPC in Tiben.

Crystals

The most important quest in the game, and medium lengthed. Introduces lots of important things:

- Storyline characters
- Two new World Map locations
- Two new books
- Important storyline elements that will be expanded on in future
- Several NPCs


Statistics

We passed:
200 items
300 scenes

Also we have:
48 NPC conversations
7 quests
108 faces

 

[Ellie]

Some Updates

The game continues to be updated daily. Missed one day unfortunately! But other than that continuous new content has been added.

Not as much as could be though, mainly because I lack other people's input/feedback/suggestions and don't really know what people want from the game, but I think it's going ok.

Looking at it the updates aren't great. My family are "on holiday" so I don't have as much time as I usually do. I promise that if people actually play the content will improve significantly.

August
19th: Two new interior maps; background work
20th: Tiben expanded with a new area. Graphical improvements around Tiben. Interiors done graphically ready for adding.

August 21st

Sarah's suggestions have been implemented:

1. Click-menu in inventory
The menu is now fixed (i.e. doesn't change when you hover the mouse) and clicking another item closes the menu to stop conflicts.

2. Discard
Discard gets rid of an item. To preserve the economy, if an item is sellable it will go to the second hand store (with the player getting 25% of it's value).

3. Discard all
Discard all gets rid of all of an item, as with discard.


Fixed lead and gold crafting, missed a couple of breaks.

NEW MERCHANT SKILL: EXPLORATION is a special skill which is increased while you explore the world. It is a count of how many unique areas you have been to. A leaderboard will be made soon.

There are now leaderboards for Lumberjack, Woodwork, Metalwork and Exploration.


August 22nd

Small world expansion: the path through the desert now continues past the Oasis, with five new maps and one graphical dungeon entrance for a future dungeon.

Have tried to fix the scrollbar issue caused by a Firefox update. Should be sorted but please post if you have any problems with scrollbars appearing / disappearing at the wrong moments.

15 areas created with doorways formed creating interior maps that can be entered and exited. Not yet linked to their areas and nothing inside them.

Next stage: populating them with the currently existing NPCs
After that: linking them to their areas
Final step: creating new NPCs


August 23rd

Merthyr items have been given a new look.

The merchant skills page has been updated with space for some guides which will go up soon. You can view this page from your CHARACTER page until I find a better place to link it.

Shiny Set

A new set of items, all only obtainable from fighting monsters. Level 2 rarity. The shiny set is a 2 damage armour/weapons set with eight items (several different weapons).

Merthyr Set

Two new items have been added to the Merthyr set (an axe and a shield).

Merthyr has had it's price halved to 200 gold. It has also been bumped down one in the rarity chart. This is not as significant as it sounds, level 5 is still pretty rare.

Darck Set

Do you see where I'm going with this..?

A new set of 8 items has been added, a black armour 4 damage set. It is level 6 rarity.

Greenite Set

A new... you get the idea.

8 items, made of Greenite (displayed as "Green"), 5 damage set, level 6 rarity for now.

Brimstone Set

Ok, this is the final set for today.

The Brimstone set represents the highest level of armour currently available. 8 pieces again, this is a 6 damage set and is red in colour. It is currently level 6 rarity.


August 24th: Apologies, no meaningful update today. Had a hack scare when I went to add it (turned out to be a negative, we're safe).
August 25th: The first part of the Metalwork guide is now online (which is more conceptual than contentual).
August 26th: Today's work is largely on paper. For now though, added ten more faces to choose from.

August 27th
Dwarvern Mines

New large area. The basic structure of the Dwarvern Mines - an underground world - has been created. There is nothing to do yet but you can explore the place and see where things are going to be.

See design notes: http://afar.ws/v/page.php?p=area-mines-1

August 28th: Four new interior maps have been added to Tiben (three in Central) and three shops reformatted in the new system.
August 29th: Tiben Central, South and East now have all of their interiors done and with the new shop system.
August 30th: TIBEN NORTH is now fully remade with interiors and the new shop system, with a completely new shop added too. Four interiors here. This just leaves the new South East map to do and then Tiben will be complete.


Design Notes
Some (maybe) interesting design notes to read:

Expanding the world: http://afar.ws/v/viewtopic.php?style=4&f=23&t=643
Equipment requirements: http://afar.ws/v/viewtopic.php?style=4&f=23&t=645
Subterrania: http://afar.ws/v/viewtopic.php?style=4&f=23&t=650

 

[Xilef]

Your homepage is missing the favicon that's on all the other pages.

I made a list of some of the things I'd change:

*****HOMEPAGE - Could use a few less buttons and more concise text.
Update news updates to be shown through twitter-style blurbs.
Pixel art would look better replaced with large character drawings.
Site background is a bit hard on the eyes, would look better with a simpler image.
Log In, Register, and Play Now could just be replaced with: Play Now -> Log In/Register.
The create account link is a bit redundant since there is already a Register link.
The Privacy Policy, Message Boards and About links would look better as a horizontal row of buttons with image graphics rather than text.

*****In Game - Noisy backgrounds can be a bit hard on the eyes (mostly the grass and snow textures)
The brick frame is used a bit too much, maybe have some more alternate frames?
Gameplay - I found that the dead ends are a bit annoying.
Page load times could be a bit faster: This can be fixed by replacing page changes with Javascript (Even iframes!) and reducing the number of large images.
It would be better if the background was dark with white text.
The maps are a bit complex. More clickable/roll-over elements would help the player navigate the map better.
Instead of a line of text explaining features of interest, why not have a rollover effect?

*****Fight Monsters - All of the clicking makes it seem a bit simple.
Player should be a bit more involved - This is where I would use HTML5 canvas for animations and real-time effects. I'd make a fast-paced ATB for this to hurry things along.
More feedback would be nice - text before a move and after a move.
Perhaps even a first-person perspective so player animations aren't a worry and the player's icon can be used?
Support for multiple enemies on the field would be an interesting and complex concept for dungeon boss fights (Target a limb, etc)
A one-click battle report would be a little less jarring.

*****Some fun things - Interactive fishing mini game is great! Do stuff like this
Player owned houses that they can decorate and show off.
Monetary bonuses and premium content, you should be trying to make money from this directly, if the content gained is lovely I'm sure people would go for it, the adventure quest tower comes to mind.

 

[Ellie]

Thanks bro. I'll try and work through them.

For now: the homepage news now comes from the forums (any post made by an account called News Imp). I've also added screenshots to the home page.

Monetary bonuses and premium content, you should be trying to make money from this directly, if the content gained is lovely I'm sure people would go for it, the adventure quest tower comes to mind.

I do have an IndieGogo: http://www.indiegogo.com/afar?c=home&a=783615

I'm a bit stuck for making a premium account option. There isn't enough premium content to sell it, but I don't feel happy making premium content with nobody to play it either as that gimps the free game... not sure what to do there.