Wind's Nocturne

[RobinP]

[Removed outdated information - New stuff coming up soon]

Basic Information:
Custom engine.
Online RPG.
Story-driven game.

Screenshots:

 

[friend]

This game looks promising, you put ALOT of work into it it seems.

Anyways, I prefer the full screenshots of the game than the partial ones.

Anyways, 10 MB only? Thats nice!

Also, looks like you've put alot of effort into the "lag" part of the game, the #1 killer of Online Games.

Anyways good luck with this project!

 

[RobinP]

This game looks promising, you put ALOT of work into it it seems.

Anyways, I prefer the full screenshots of the game than the partial ones.

Anyways, 10 MB only? Thats nice!

Also, looks like you've put alot of effort into the "lag" part of the game, the #1 killer of Online Games.

Anyways good luck with this project!

Click the thumbnails for the full screenshots.

I did some early tests and got a few people to log on. With a full FSM tileset, a few items and a hand full of character sprites all loaded, people were averaging 11mB of memory usage and 00 - 01 CPU usage.

This might change in the future, but as long as I can keep the tilesets down to a nice size, it should be okay. Oh, and here's a new screenshot. I've done a lot of programming work to make the engine recognise different graphics sets and handle them correctly, so I loaded in some FSM RMVX sprites and Inquisitor's tileset.

The ingame actually matches my GUI now xD

 

[jacob]

This looks like fun. I used to play Graal online (back in like... 2000??) and haven't done any sort of 2D MMORPG since then. Is this pixel-based movement or tile based?

 

[RobinP]

This looks like fun. I used to play Graal online (back in like... 2000??) and haven't done any sort of 2D MMORPG since then. Is this pixel-based movement or tile based?

Tile based at the moment, but I have been doing some early work on a movement buffer which could be used for pixel based.

 

[jacob]

Personally I think having the game in pixel-based movement would make or break it for me. It makes the world seem much more "real" and the player has a lot more freedom.

 

[Sgt. Cookie]

Nice but one thing though if this is online what about price and the like? Who runs the server? and if you have to pay will that be for like a members thing like runescape (I actually shuddered when typing that) but there is a free mode too? All these questions that should have been pre answered. But if you literally can't answer them well answer when you can so bye. PS looks great.

 

[RobinP]

Nice but one thing though if this is online what about price and the like? Who runs the server? and if you have to pay will that be for like a members thing like runescape (I actually shuddered when typing that) but there is a free mode too? All these questions that should have been pre answered. But if you literally can't answer them well answer when you can so bye. PS looks great.

It'll be free and always free. I run the server and pay all costs.

 

[Sgt. Cookie]

Oh well that'll do just nicely so what game maker is that any way?

 

[Lazer Kirby]

It'll be free and always free. I run the server and pay all costs.

So what happens if you run out of money? Isn't a server $100+ a month or something?

This looks sexy, btw.

 

[mawk]

you're assuming he'd be paying someone else for hosting. since the guy owns a server of his own and hosts the game on it, misc costs are significantly less steep.

 

[RobinP]

Oh well that'll do just nicely so what game maker is that any way?

It's programmed in VB6 by me.

So what happens if you run out of money? Isn't a server $100+ a month or something?

This looks sexy, btw.

I have my own server. The only costs are my usual internet bill and webhosting + domain costs.

 

[friend]

You should include premium items for sale, that way, you can cover up your costs and barely hurt anyone.

And by premium items I mean cosmetic.

 

[mawk]

if he'd rather not be like all the shitty korean mmos on the market that's entirely his business

besides, cosmetic bonuses don't have so much appeal when your character is only a few pixels tall

 

[friend]

Yeah Korean MMOs are quite shitty, but their monetary system works well.

And people will strangely still pay for pixelated stuff.

BTW: Do you use VBGORE for your maker? Or is it from scratch? I'm interested, looks like alot of effort has been put here.

 

[RobinP]

vbGORE? I'm surprised Tyler's engine is known around here, I didn't think it'd be so widely known. But no, I don't use that engine and I haven't spoken to Tyler in quite a while.

The original source code I started on was Mirage Source, which has some basic map, npc + item capabilities.

You can get a copy here if you're interested... and see a sexy picture of myself. :3

http://www.planetsourcecode.com/vb/scripts/ShowCode.asp?txtCodeId=72302&lngWId=1

I then re-wrote the graphics engine, the UDTs and the packet system. I also converted everything to be handled dynamically and I'm in the middle of re-writing all the systems which handle item usage, spell usage & combat... so it's fairly unrecognisable now.

EDIT: Oh, and I said I could handle all costs. People shouldn't be able to gloat about items or achievements they have in game which they've simply got through throwing a few £££s towards the server costs. Everyone should be on an equal footing, even if it is vanity items.

 

[friend]

Ah I see, so you even want people who don't shell out their money to get everything the same.

Ignore if I'm against your interests or I am too moneyfaced, but Puzzle Pirates got a good solution here. People can trade "premium tokens" for money and money for premium tokens, and premium tokens only buy cosmetic stuff.

Then again, it takes more effort to be a player without shelling out $$$ so it may/may not be a good idea.

You should go to BYOND and check out FFO, they got a COOL spell, combat, and equipment system there.

Oh and I don't think vbGORE is known around here, you know the creator well?

To break down the FFO equipment system, here's the stuff:
There will be levels of equipment like:
Flawed
(normal)
Standard
Quality
Grand
Masterwork.

And so on.

Their skill system is like:

Player can either spend his EXP on skills or level up, skills will be like spells and other stuff and leveling up brings more HP and MP capacity.

Oh and VB6 is hard to get nowadays, how do you get it? I'm interested.

Because I want to make a game like this in the future, just curious if I can achieve this with the newer VBs.

Or I'll just learn my C++ and finish up my "C++ for dummies" book after all.

Good luck anyways

 

[RobinP]

Ah I see, so you even want people who don't shell out their money to get everything the same.

Pretty much. :P

Oh and I don't think vbGORE is known around here, you know the creator well?

I used to do.

Oh and VB6 is hard to get nowadays, how do you get it? I'm interested.

I really can't say. I found mine at a carboot.

Because I want to make a game like this in the future, just curious if I can achieve this with the newer VBs.

You can do the same with .NET. I use VB6 simply because I've used it for so long and I can do whatever I want with it. The amount of languages that are out there now, it's all down to personal preference.

 

[KillDeer]

Joined the forum simply because of this project. Looks very interesting.

 

[RobinP]

I'm flattered.

Still going through various different systems for the game to run on, so there hasn't been much graphical change. I'm working with a close friend on the possibility of z buffering in DX8, although this cuts off the ability for us to use graphics with alpha channels. (on the lower levels of rendering, we could still alpha blend a user interface over the top.)

This would cut off the ability to use the new VX tilesets which are coming out, for example.

Latest screenshot: