Afar MV

[Ellie]

I want to show off the epic scale of towns such as Tiben that I failed to get across in the original Afar.

Afar MV will start off within Tiben Castle, in the Great Hall, which will act as a lobby for the Beta. From this hall various corridors spawn off leading you around a fully functional castle, which will have a dozen or so quests, hundreds of NPCs, four dungeons and a large outdoor courtyard within the castle walls, themselves explorable.

Some progress: have converted Despain's Time Fantasy tileset for use in RPG Maker MV. If anybody wants the tilesets, PM me with a proof of purchase and I will send them you, although it's easy enough to do it, just hit up IrfanView and do a batch conversion, advanced options, 150% resize.

 

[Ellie]

Progress

- Implemented login using text boxes
- Implemented character creation (hair style, hair colour, skin colour)
- - which includes server side saving of user variables.

We're getting there.

 

[Ellie]

Chat is now implemented, however I am having trouble with input keys. Will get there.

In short, RPG Maker MV uses space key as an additional enter key, and I can't manage to disable it. It also disables the backspace key for seemingly no reason (and I can't enable it). I'll work it out eventually.

Chat works though.

Edit:

All done.

 

[Ellie]

Sadly my laptop is broken, so there isn't going to be any development for a while. I know that's a low blow given the promises I made of a quick release.

It's giving me some time to think about the direction of the game though. One major thing I need to decide is whether it's worth... Leaving work to work on Afar full time. *gulp*

If I did do that I would have to monetise it, and quite early on. It would still be largely a free game.

I have time to think about planning now, because I can't do any development. That can be a bad thing - it's easy to create a vapourware that way.

But as far as making money from the game, here are my thoughts:

- I want to be as unobtrusive as possible. Rather than barriers saying give us your fecking money, instead the events just won't show, and there'll be a little symbol in the bottom right of the screen just to show there is premium content in this area hidden from you.

- The main game would be Pay As You Like, with a free edition too. Choose your price from £1 and you become a Knight.

- Pay £10 and get a Sorcership, which is a sort of one up on a Knighthood and gets a few perks.

- Pay £25 and get a Deityship, which is a one up again and has a few perks.

There would be boxed editions of the game:

- Game in a box: £15, includes Knighthood and Sorcership
- Collector's Edition: £50, includes Deityhood, plus some collectors items such as inspirational art book, certificate, game guide, badges, poster, and various other items
- God edition: £100, for people who really want to support the game. Includes a t-shirt.

This is all conjecture at this point of course. There's no game yet. I'd absolutely only feel charging money if the game was "finished", and was getting daily updates.

Which is the other thing. If I was working on the game full time, there would be a guaranteed update schedule.

- Daily update: new items, new enemies, new areas to explore: every day something new.
- Weekly updates: more substantial - a complex quest, big feature, etc.
- Monthly updates: major expansions or quest arcs.

Hmmmmn.

Sorry, I'm just dreaming again.

 

[Xilef]

Get some solid planning done. Take a look at other similar projects (Runescape is probably the most successful one - mostly because it was the only browser MMO at the time and was the most advanced with 3D graphics).

Get done what needs to be done, don't focus on time-frame until you have everything you need to do written down and break each thing down into steps. You should be aiming to complete each goal within half a day, so that should give you an idea on how fine you should break down your planning.

How much experience do you have with project planning?


Also for quick releases this is what you should be looking at; https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bya3nBvCQAASBGi.png

Separate features into development sprints and try to capture the features that will encourage growth (social aspects).

 

[Ellie]

Having another of those existential crises game making wise where I'm not sure I'm going in the right direction - graphics wise.

Maybe parallax mapping with high res would be better?

I don't even know.

 

[ZenVirZan]

Having another of those existential crises game making wise where I'm not sure I'm going in the right direction - graphics wise.

Maybe parallax mapping with high res would be better?

I don't even know.

they dont have to be super high quality, they just need to be consistent.

 

[Ellie]

This is the kind of thing...

Basically this:

vs This:

Could reuse a lot of old Afar's assets then...

 

[ZenVirZan]

This is the kind of thing...
Basically this:
vs This:
Could reuse a lot of old Afar's assets then...

I vote whatever is easiest for you to make, and most convenient to source assets for.
People won't know what it could have been; they'll only know what it is, and I don't think it makes a big enough difference either way to make mapping more difficult for yourself.
I personally really liked that example of how you made towns seem alive, and the whole aesthetic of it.

 

[Ellie]

Well, this would be the easiest:

As it's what I've been using for the past five years in old Afar.

I have tons of assets for it.

Issue is it's very large at 48x48. Wonder if there's a simple script to make it 32x32. Think 16x16 would be a bit small.

 

[ZenVirZan]

I should have mentioned that it'll only work if everything matches the resolution as well. It'd probably work best if you write a little function to generate the text smaller and upscale it nearest-neighbourly.

 

[Ellie]

That rules out 48x48 then - the screen's too small for 3x text (essentially a 270x200-ish screen resized). In fact only really leaves me with option A, because a lot of the widgets I use are rendered by the web browser not the game engine, DOM elements etc, and I'm not sure how well I'd be able to change them.

It does leave more space for macro events though. Could be interesting to play with all the room.

 

[Ellie]

Ditched the silly and wasteful torn paper effect.

 

[ZenVirZan]

Why don't you just make versions of the widget within the engine, rather than using the surrounding browser? It'd be a bit more work, sure, but I think that'd be better than having a mixed artistic style. You could pull of some sweet effects that way as well.

Also what about if the chat window was a transparent black, and the text was white? I think it'd fit the other graphics a bit better. Either that, or make the background texture the same resolution.

Looking good though, I can't wait for a playable version :biggrin:

 

[Ellie]

The issue is I essentially have things like MediaWiki, forums, etc, opening above the game in iFrames, so it's not really feasible. Although I could use google fonts and make a font myself that is upscaled properly. I'm not a fan of that though: we're living in the present, where fonts can be rounded and readable. I know it would match the graphics more, but it seems better practice (to me, just my opinion) to make things as readable as possible.

Still haven't matched up the time and level of untiredness to work on the actual game, but I have been tinkering with this. Got a bit more space by moving the frame outside the game window and moving the chat window into the gap.

ITT: Amy makes a vaporware (again)

 

[ZenVirZan]

You can read strings from a webpage right?
Why don't you make the windows and stuff game objects instead of relying on the browser? That way you can completely intertwine the game and information received. Not to mention it'd probably be faster for people on shiternet like me :lol:
EDIT: Nevermind, I need to learn to read.

Perhaps changing graphic style would be the best option, if you're not going to match the font to the rest of the game?

 

[Ellie]

Brings me back to the high res ones.

But that's just a quick map thrown together in five minutes using premade things, not an actual attempt at making a nice and detailed scene.

 

[Xilef]

I'm starting to think the high resolution option is the better option here.

I'm still not a fan of your high frequency window backgrounds for the text or the detailed border around everything, but I am a fan of modern minimalistic design with floating elements so it may be my personal taste.

 

[Ellie]

Oh aye. I'm just a fan of the old Runescape II style of doing things, I know it's not to everyone's taste. I like RPGs where a lot of the screen is taken up by data or lore, and where GUIs are designed to look arty rather than simplistic. It goes against modern, fluid design, but I think it has a place.

DEFINITELY GOING TO CHANGE THE backgrounds though, but they will be similar. Just nicer and easier to read from.

 

[Ellie]

OK. I am finally biting down and getting on with this.

Things I did yesterday

- Completely refreshed my server.
- Upgraded said server (for free; I hadn't looked at my upgrades for four years and have been paying the same rate!)
- Installed a fresh version of phpBB, the backbone of the game's databasey sections, including user registration and communication (basically it provides us with a stable base for many of the MMO elements of the game)

Things I did today

- Started building the game's windows

These windows pop up when you press various action keys (not decided on yet).

- "Created" some features

Repurposed, rather. Every time I nab a bit of phpBB for my own purposes I will call it a feature and claim to have heralded a new era in game making.

Current features:

- In-game forums!
- Rudimentary guilds!
- Online users list!