Thoughts on Development

[Mycal]

Well, I'm really slow as is when it comes to working on this project, but when new concepts come my way or changes to core functionality, I tend to break down on programming and just think about ways to accomplish the task best, usually ending in me creating a whole new program to test my theories and ultimately getting nowhere. For example, at the time of this writing, the demo I have is so far more advanced than the client, that it may be more worthwhile to create an entire single player game than to finish work on the orpg.

So, rather than going for all these new and great ideas right at the beginning and neglecting finishing the simple stuff, I am no longer focusing on any of the ideas that I have been working on. In fact, all changes to the game in any form that I have made since we have switched to our new webhost (any changes since June) are being removed and I'm going back to simply working on getting something functional. After the game simply works, thats when changes will start.

For developers, please use the world editor as you see it now. Ignore uploading anything to the database for now and simply store maps locally. In the future, I'll fix the uploading of maps and I guarantee now, any changes I make to the world editor, any changes to the way maps are made or stored, I will always have a way to convert the maps so that we do not have to reinvent the wheel. So please just go head and work with what is available to you now.

When you are done with a batch of maps, please zip/rar the maps, name the file in an easy to understand way followed by your name (ie CastleTown_BigRed.zip). It doesn't matter what you name the individual maps, that is simply for your convenience. It also does not matter what you number the map as (the world editor will require it when you save) because I will automatically adjust that. In the future you will be assigned a range that you can work with and you should stay in that range, but for now, it doesn't matter at all. After doing the above, simply upload it to the usual place (you should all know what this is by now) and place them under the folder called gamemaps.

So long story short:
I will no longer work on preexisting things unless there is a valid bug in them and will no longer add new features that are not part of the core functionality which is listed below
- Drawing maps (done)
- Drawing players (done)
- Drawing nps (done)
- Walking/Running (done)
- Attacking (done/maybe)
- Leveling (done/maybe)
- Dieing (done/maybe)
- Items (in progress)
- Questing system (in progress)
- Spell/Skill system (in progress)

 

[Fledge]

Sounds decent here. It's hard to think about how to grapple all the issues, but we trust you.

Am I still allowed to act like a (wannabe?) idea whore?

And... YAY THE FORUMS WORKED JUST NOW! (I hope that's permanent...)

Also, I don't think I'll be doing much mapping until we have evolved. I just don't think it's practical to make a community for ourselves of playable content and players of content until we're evolved. I think there are better things we could all work on while you evolve the system. But if that's wrong, please persuade me otherwise.

I have lots to talk about and write about now. I'll get to it now that the forums are usable.

 

[Mycal]

Yes you are, anyone can still post ideas and we will still take them into consideration. They'll just be at the very bottom of the todo list. (One day I'm actually going to make one of these)

 

[Fledge]

This topic is giving me déjà vu. :?

 

[Mycal]

Haha, actually, I spent the entire day on Saturday working to get the client up to date. So now the client nearly matches the demo entirely. Of course, I didn't bother to update some of the other things that were incomplete from the demo, but otherwise it's nearly back up to date.