Afar MV

[Ellie]

Now in beta release: www.afar.ws

Afar is a free to play MMORPG created in RPG Maker MV.

Afar has been officially launched in a very early Beta form. Please take this into consideration. There is not yet a lot to do: there is no battle system, no trading, no shops and no enemies.

What there is is the very basic early game and various multiplayer enemies built into a solid base from which to build from. This includes a built-in chat system, in-game forums, and various server-side saving of data systems.

Everything for the MMORPG functionality has been created by myself. Community resources and scripts are used for other aspects, but the core system is of my own design and creation. as such, if you would like help in planning your own MMORPG, while I do not have time to do your work for you, I am happy to answer any questions and offer my thoughts on your systems and their design.

Afar is intended to be what I call a Cooperatively Created World Game. What that means is that the actions of players affect all players. If you beat up a merchant, that merchant will be unavailable to other players, unless they heal them. This expands to an entire world level, and if players are on average losing to vampires, vampires take over more of the world. This is not yet implemented, but keep in mind that this is the end goal.



Afar has a lengthy history starting with my first RPG Maker projects back in 2004. I won't bore you with the details, but it is the spiritual successor of relatively successful games Vengeance Online RPG and Afar, the latter of which I have continued the name of (and which I will now call Old Afar). Old Afar was online for five solid years and amassed 1,500 players, being created in JavaScript and PHP. It was not a fully graphical game and while complex had various issues that meant people didn't stick around for long.

 

[Ellie]

Some off the hat thoughts:

- Javascript IRC scripts exist. I can implement IRC quite easily within RPG Maker.
- iPhone and other platform capabilities from the word go.
- Slightly larger resolution.
- Wiki guide implemented within the game.
- The database from Afar can be used, so this can be an extension of the original Afar. Or could. Maybe.

From a sneaky quick graphics point of view, as they're 16x16, REFMAP graphics can immediately be used, just a case of 3-upping them instead of 2-up.

 

[Ellie]

I have thought about perhaps having the game partially open to modding - mainly graphical, certainly not anything that would affect public profiles. But allowing the curious to have a play around with certain aspects. Any thoughts on this? It would also make some things simpler, such as not encrypting graphics folders, but that's certainly no reason to do it or not to. I know that a lot of games have substantial modding communities... but it's somewhat different for a little RPG Maker game.

 

[Ellie]

Graphics options:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

 

[ZenVirZan]

I vote 2 or 3.
Preferably 2.

Modding is an interesting idea. If there's no reason not to, I'd say go ahead.

 

[Ellie]

3 or 5 would be the easiest as they're native to RPG Maker MV. The rest would require importing maps made in Tiled.

 

[Jason]

I'd say 3 or 5, something about how zoomed in they are really appeals to me for some reason...

 

[Ellie]

Have just seen Despain's graphics so I am probably going to use those instead. They're beautiful.

http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/a/graphics/time-fantasy

Will edit them somewhat to tailor them to my game of course.

 

[Ellie]

Playing around with said graphics.

 

[Juan J. Sánchez]

That looks awesome. I liked 3 by the way.

 

[Ellie]

Des's graphics are 16x16 doubled up, so I could use these as 48x48 and replicate #3 but with these new graphics. At that point the menu becomes a little out of place though as it's 1 pixel compared to 3.

 

[Juan J. Sánchez]

I think the closer and bigger the tiles make the world more expansive. When you can see everything that's near you, it takes away the surprise element and you can't appreciate the small details.

 

[Ellie]

MV comes out this year, not next, now. And I have been doing some, er, editing, using firebug, of the online rpg maker demo: everything I want to do is immediately doable. This is gonna happen!

 

[Ellie]

RPG Maker MV comes out tomorrow, so production of this will start. I am thuper exthited.

The question is: should data transfer over from the original Afar?

There is a lot of data. Player levels and EXP, merchant skill EXP, items owned, the items themselves, etc.

Some of it will be unusable - where players have got to in quests, for example. But many things, such as owning a super rare Christmas release item... is it worth keeping these things and transferring them across?

If I do this, I will duplicate the database today, and keep the original Afar online. So anything earned in future in the original will not transfer across, but anything earned up until this point will.

 

[coyotecraft]

Probably more trouble than it's worth. You could just provide compensation like an exp bonus item or something.

 

[Ellie]

So I was a little too hasty. I'm lost in plugins. I expected a script editor like RPG Maker XP.

I'll work it out but it'll take a little longer.

 

[Jason]

... There's no script editor in MV? o.O

 

[coyotecraft]

I know, I've got all these notepads open trying to find the functions I want to modify.

 

[Juan J. Sánchez]

More info!

 

[Ellie]

Just realised testing the game locally is going to be annoying. You can't Ajax to a different domain. I'd have to set up a web server too (easy enough, but annoying) if I want to test anything locally (which I do).

But, providing this uploads successfully, I've at least created the basis of the online system. Just a script that handles Ajax, so I can communicate between JS and PHP, so can use a mysql database. I can use Afar's old database: instant content!