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[Fayrik]

Oh boy. It's time.
This project has been brewing in my mind for a very, very long time.
Work began last year in a project that manifested itself as just a bunch of hashes and plus symbols in a standard console program.
I've done a lot of work since I began back then, but I've also learned a lot.

So what exactly is it?
Well, the whole project spawned from a simple idea I had for a sprawling single world multiplayer project. Which this, in essence, is. I've expanded the project substantially since then, into what can essentially be described as a real-time multiplayer RPG inspired quite heavily by... Of course, Dwarf Fortress.
At this point, I'd love to show a screenshot of what I've gotten so far, but I've unfortunately programmed myself into a corner by using some of StoneSense's tiles to learn how isometric sprite rendering works.
But, I'm going to do the next best thing and post a secretive screenshot of the source code/project files.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So, okay, I'd better move onto the important parts.

What am I hoping to achieve from this?
I'm hoping to be able to make a fun little game in which you can construct things like towns and fortresses and then go on to explore procedurally generated wildernesses.

What's with the name?
LORE is a "backronym" for Land Of Renowned Endeavour. I'm not making any secret of the fact it's a backronym, as I was going to go with just Lore at first, but that felt a little vague and misplaced on it's own.

What have I done so far?
Not much. Bearing in mind this has been second priority to a lot of other projects that I've been working on, this project hasn't had a very consistent amount of attention from me.
So far however, I have a solid Client/Server interaction, two very limited world generators and an actual representation of player characters within these basic world objects.

And finally...

Why are you even posting this here?
To tell the truth, I'm throwing this out here in the hopes I might be able to get some help from a pixel artist so I can finally get over my fear of screenshots of this program...
But that's a long shot, so more realistically I'd like to see some comments, criticisms and maybe some encouragement to boost this up on my priorities list.

Update (Stuff I forgot) [21/10/12]:
I thought I'd made this post too long, but looking back I seem to have missed out some of the more interesting details of my goal here so I'm going to make this longer if I like it or not.

What's the game really going to be like?
So lets build on what I've stated already. It's a world-building RPG, currently in progress using an isometric grid based display, using a grid system I've actually traced back as far as Tomb Raider. (The original one.) This makes the world out of four types of tile. Wall, floor, ramp and stair, using these and half tile variants I'm hoping to make this look less square based while retaining the square based logic. So building your house should hopefully look a bit like a house.
As a multiplayer RPG, your character(s) will be stored on a central authentication server, giving strong consistency, no matter who you visit, where-ever they may be.
I'm also hoping to add things like a basic combat system (based around hotkey abilities and hit points) and player/npc crafted items with value derived from the skill of the craftsmen.

Update [15/11/12]:
Land Of Renowned Endeavour... Sounds so much better than Land of Redound Endeavour.
Cheers jhxmt!

[Fayrik]

Whoops, nearly forgot the reserved post!
What? All the cool kids do it.

[Siquo]

Well, posting to watch.

[Thendash]

If you're worried about screenshoting your stonesense tiles due to copyright issues, then you could take a look at http://opengameart.org/ for some free tilesets. At the very least they could serve as placeholder art.

[Fayrik]

So I've updated the first post with a little more info about how the game should play. Hopefully it's enough now, but I can always revise/amend it as we go.

Today however, for the first time in awhile I've actually made a little bit of progress with this. First up before I talk about what I've done, I should explain that I've been working in C#.NET. (Yes, for those who know about C#.NET, on it's own it's not the easiest thing to make a game with. I just don't like Unity, and XNA is far too bulky for such a small program.)
The landscape data (which is just effectively a three dimensional array) was storing data about ores and rocks by their name, which as it happens, takes up a lot of room. So I changed that bit of code to store the data as a number instead, considerably cutting down on the amount of space it needs to store that data, but I felt that wasn't enough, so I replaced the Serialization code which is part of .NET with my own code, which has made the resulting information over 46 times smaller than it was previously, before compression.
So I feel like I've done some good optimization here.
I've also reworked the project files themselves a little. Now the multiple programs draw some of their files from a shared folder so that I no longer have to copy and paste code between programs. I really should have done that sooner.

*snip* you could take a look at http://opengameart.org/ for some free tilesets. *snip*

Ah, thank you!
As I said on steam: If I can't find anything on that site, I'll just use the geometries of the current tiles and put some depth shading on myself. It'll be really ugly, but ugly screenshots of content are  are better screenshots of source code at least!

[nomnum]

Im a half-decent pixel artist. If you want, i can help you get on your feet before you eventually get a better pixel artist.
If you want some sprites PM me plz

[Siquo]

I've checked for one of my own projects, and you can use the stonesense tiles if you don't go commercial with em. Just attribute. So for development purposes and  screenshots it's totally okay to use them.

[GoombaGeek]

Is "redound" a word?

[mendonca]

Is "redound" a word?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/redound

Apparently so! ...

Still can't figure out what it means though

Posting to watch.

[Fayrik]

Update today!
So, I put some work into the centralization system today.
I've managed to complete a simple user interface, which should do the trick for development.
I have also made progress in server listing, which should considerably help towards some of the more complex world design aspects further down the line.
I know it's not much, but here's a screenshot from the new section of interface, with the shiny new server listing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is "redound" a word?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/redound

Apparently so! ...

Still can't figure out what it means though

Posting to watch.

Okay, I'll admit I've never heard it in conversation, but I'm fairly sure it makes the full title translate to something similar to "Place to attempt good deeds."... That said, having never seen it in an actual sentence, it could be grossly out of context.

[McTraveller]

What's with the name?
LORE is a "backronym" for Land Of Redound Endeavors. I'm not making any secret of the fact it's a backronym, as I was going to go with just Lore at first, but that felt a little vague and misplaced on it's own.

I think part of the trouble with this name is that "redound" is a verb, and you're using it as an adjective in the title.  Perhaps "Land of Redounding Endeavors" would be better, but it's still a bit... cumbersome.

[jhxmt]

Or you could avoid the issue entirely and go with Land Of Renowned Endeavo(u)rs. 

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Or you could avoid the issue entirely and go with Land Of Renowned Endeavo(u)rs. 

Include the parentheses ;P

Keep your spirits up! Hope to see you succeed.

[Max White]

C#! <3
Also, have you thought about the pros and cons of using XNA? It makes some things very easy.

[Fayrik]

Sorry this update's taken so long! Unfortunately I've wound up spending a lot of time studying, so I've not been able to make much progress.
I have however, put together a character database today and re-established client -> server connections after a very long time... And if I wasn't hell bent on restructuring the rendering process then that could have lead to some screenshot-able material today.
If I can get a couple more days to work on it however, that should come around soon enough anyway.

What's with the name?
LORE is a "backronym" for Land Of Redound Endeavors. I'm not making any secret of the fact it's a backronym, as I was going to go with just Lore at first, but that felt a little vague and misplaced on it's own.

I think part of the trouble with this name is that "redound" is a verb, and you're using it as an adjective in the title.  Perhaps "Land of Redounding Endeavors" would be better, but it's still a bit... cumbersome.

Or you could avoid the issue entirely and go with Land Of Renowned Endeavo(u)rs. 

That's certainly an improvement, I might just use that if that's okay.

C#! <3
Also, have you thought about the pros and cons of using XNA? It makes some things very easy.

I've considered it, yes. Here's what I've got so far:
Pros:

• Probably higher FPS.
• Less object coding to do.
• xBox 360 compatibility.

Cons:

• Large install (for those who don't have it) to attach to an incredibly small executable.
• No Linux (or mac) compatibility.

So, it has been (and is still somewhat being) considered.
Though I'd much rather use openGL! (If I can ever work out how to use it.)