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[Vactor]

Those look great Davion I'll be sure to get in touch with you once I get far enough to warrant proper art development.

Here's the latest stage:


I've got 3D models loading and rendering properly.  Was having trouble with some conflicting effects files, but the worst of that should be behind me for now as I have what I need done to allow me to bring in whatever 3D assets that I need.  (for textures right now i'm just scribbling out 128x128 sized images in paint) Eventually I'll want to make the tile edges look nicer with beveled corners and things like the grass and sod hanging down over the edges.

[Asehujiko]

This is the first ffa pvp mmo i'm even remotely interested in. I like the "slowly become invincible when logged out" mechanic. Keep us posted.

[Virex]

I don't know if you've got anything planned for textures, but it might be worthwile to look into stochastic fractals for the textures (think perlin noise here, though you cvould also use Voronoi's for roads or something). They're harder to control then custom textures, but they make sure textures don't get repetetive, while still keeping the same overall feel. I think Toady also uses perlins for the maps.

[Aqizzar]

Here's the latest stage:

When you add new hexes of land to the island, will you change the shape of the hanging earth underneath it, or just leave it with all the gaps and spaces?  Or do you plan to just avoid this with prerendered islands of different sizes? 

The former would be the coolest of course, but I think a very simple workaround could be made with a modular-template system - Prerendered islands of every size and configuration, which the engine then matches to the island layout the player makes.  Would take a bit of work, but it would save the engine load of rendering on the fly.

Also, I just got an old game about battling flying islands - Stratosphere.  I'll relay any cool ideas.

[PTTG??]

Hippie Jesus on a hanglider, this is some amazing work. Nice looking engine. So, how big will a "small" airland be? Will there be "wild" airlands? Will you simply build a "city" tile, or build sectors, like a area of homes, a tile of workshops and forges, a farm, a magical university, and so on? Or, will you build tiles consisting of "a home" and "a workshop"?

How will Airlands Link together? Will players decide what orientation to dock in? will there be ways of building walls along the edge to prevent docking there?

And of course, need a professional software tester?

[Vactor]

Multiple model test went off without a hitch:



I'll likely be working on making a hex grid next.

I don't know if you've got anything planned for textures, but it might be worthwile to look into stochastic fractals for the textures (think perlin noise here, though you cvould also use Voronoi's for roads or something). They're harder to control then custom textures, but they make sure textures don't get repetetive, while still keeping the same overall feel. I think Toady also uses perlins for the maps.

I don't know a whole lot about using fractals at the moment, and as far as texture repetition goes it will be some time before i'm going to put too much time into it, but it something i'll be sure to be considering.

When you add new hexes of land to the island, will you change the shape of the hanging earth underneath it, or just leave it with all the gaps and spaces?  Or do you plan to just avoid this with prerendered islands of different sizes? 

I will most likely have just a handful of individual tile models, models for a tile that is connected on all sides, one side, 2 side, 3 sides, 2 opposite side, etc...  To prerender all of the different tile combinations of entire islands would quickly become way more work than to just get all the different iterations of how one tile can look and rotate it as needed.

Hippie Jesus on a hanglider, this is some amazing work. Nice looking engine. So, how big will a "small" airland be? Will there be "wild" airlands? Will you simply build a "city" tile, or build sectors, like a area of homes, a tile of workshops and forges, a farm, a magical university, and so on? Or, will you build tiles consisting of "a home" and "a workshop"?

How will Airlands Link together? Will players decide what orientation to dock in? will there be ways of building walls along the edge to prevent docking there?

And of course, need a professional software tester?

Right now i'm looking at the smaller airlands to consist of around 10-15 tiles, a new player would start off with their tower plus 5-7 tiles.   This will also be dependent on how the economic system works and how much area is needed to create the simplest of working systems.

The management of a city will be somewhat abstracted, where you have a tile that is a "city" tile, the focus will be on logistics and route planning. My intent for villages/cities is that they function as a population node, with other things like farms, forges, quarries, drill squares, mines being developed on tiles nearby.  This is going to likely exist on the subtile grid.

Ultimately i'd like for players to be able to spin their airlands as they wish for docking, but for now it will be docking north side to south side/ ne to sw..etc.

Right now i'm thinking that walls will only be buildable on the face of a tile that is attached to another tile, so that there is at the very least a 1 tile buffer around the edge of an airland.  This may change, but for now, it is too dangerous to try to build a wall on the edge of an airland as the ground under it may crumble and fall off.

[Aqizzar]

I will most likely have just a handful of individual tile models, models for a tile that is connected on all sides, one side, 2 side, 3 sides, 2 opposite side, etc...  To prerender all of the different tile combinations of entire islands would quickly become way more work than to just get all the different iterations of how one tile can look and rotate it as needed.

I was mainly thinking about the "root" hanging under the island getting longer as the island grows, but your idea makes more sense if new hexes will be connected over time anyway.

The management of a city will be somewhat abstracted, where you have a tile that is a "city" tile, the focus will be on logistics and route planning. My intent for villages/cities is that they function as a population node, with other things like farms, forges, quarries, drill squares, mines being developed on tiles nearby.  This is going to likely exist on the subtile grid.

Mines?  I would hope that for logic's sake, they would only produce a finite amount of material, being mines on flying islands after all.  Maybe the mining rate should reduce the hex's structural integrity?

[qwertyuiopas]

While offline a spell could regenerate the structural resources?(more depletion=more lost magic source(if any) overnight)

Brings up the concept of siege weaponry and ranged tile destruction, or at least damage.

[Vactor]

Mines?  I would hope that for logic's sake, they would only produce a finite amount of material, being mines on flying islands after all.  Maybe the mining rate should reduce the hex's structural integrity?

finite mines are definite, and will play into the resource/crafting/equipment aspect of the game.  I'm planning on drawing a lot from the SWG crafting system, which I personally think is one of the best resource/crafting systems i've played.

The concept is that there are every resource type (ie. iron, gold, leather) has a set of stats that can vary within certain bounds which are relative to other materials of its same class, (ie iron can range from 200-600 in a certain stat, when copper can range from 300-1000 on the same stat.)  Each of these stats affects one or many parts of the crafting process, or the quality of the end product.

In the SWG system a planet would have a certain randomly generated type of lets say wooly hide available for a random amount of time.  At any time you could go out and get wooly hide from whatever planet, and craft your item, but the people who spent the time to collect the high quality resources when available were able to either use it for their own crafting to make better items, or sell for a very good price to the crafters who are gathering all the best resources required for a particular item to make the best item possible.



**edit**
I thought you were talking about the sod and stuff hanging off the edge, my idea is that at some point the root parts will be less rooty when 2 tiles are together they will both be rendered using the model with a root part attaching to 1 adjacent tile, rotated so they are attached to eachother


Also I forgot who asked, but yes, i'm planning on having wild and/or npc airlands, with the eventual possibility of powerful NPC armies guarding legendary artifacts, scripted encounters, and a fleshed out PVE aspect of the game.

[wallish]

This all looks and sounds great.  Count me in amongst the masses for any testing you'd like.

Some ideas:

1. You stated that the larger an Airland gets the lower it floats due to weight.  So, how about after an airland gets large enough it actually settles to a permanent location on the ground.  This allows the player to access the near-infinite ground resources but leaves them open to ground-based barbarian attacks.

2.  A player should be forced to choose to have a super-strong military to survive as their airland gets larger.  Why not thrown in the economic incentive to not wipe out another player?  Allow players to specialize their airland by setting up goods production.  A player that gets the aforementioned demon tile would have a hot-item for export.  Or maybe a player could focus their research (there's going to be research, right?) into improved blacksmithing.  They then get better refined materials.  The could then sell those materials at a high values. 

Now, for a military player, wiping out your wimpy blacksmith neighbor wouldn't be in your best interest as you'd just gain his crappy mine but not all of his blacksmithing skill.  So instead that military player would team up with the blacksmither and trade protection/money for high quality metal/goods.  This encourages competition and vastly increases the types of gameplay.  Do you want to be a Spartan military powerhouse?  Do you want to be an advanced miner/refiner?  A blacksmith?  A spell-researcher that sells off one time use spell scrolls of high level?

3.  Not sure if it was mentioned before, but it's be great if players could trade tiles instead of having to fight for them.

4. Finally, what if the player could start a separate airland by choosing a group of tiles to break away after building a "minor tower" amongst them.  This second airland's tower could be destroyed, but the risk would be worth it as the player could gather up more tiles by covering more area.  The minor tower would have to be limited though, not nearly as powerful as your first.  The player wouldn't be in it but instead have a generic "mage".

Keep up the kickass work!

[Vactor]

I had some friends stop by the house, so didn't get a lot of time to code, but here's the last update for today:

[beorn080]

4. Finally, what if the player could start a separate airland by choosing a group of tiles to break away after building a "minor tower" amongst them.  This second airland's tower could be destroyed, but the risk would be worth it as the player could gather up more tiles by covering more area.  The minor tower would have to be limited though, not nearly as powerful as your first.  The player wouldn't be in it but instead have a generic "mage".

Keep up the kickass work!

Taking that further and using SWG as a base, perhaps it could allow experince beyond a limit at the cost not having the main bases automatic defenses when logged out. For example, in SWG you had a maximum experince total you could reach but you could distribute that experince however you wanted. In this lets say you've raised smithing to an art form and now wish to start raising a military. Rather then lose your smithing skills to get military skills, you could start a second tower as a sort of "secondary" character whom you would play with your main but would have separate resources and experince and such. That way you would need to protect your supply lines between the two bases.

[Callagan111]

Hey man, just want to say you have my support. I can't do much of anything, but I can try and beta test it heavily once you get a working version of it done.

[EchoP]

Are you against open source? Because I would not mind taking a look at what you are doing with the engine. Feel free to say no, I realize people sometimes don't want to let out what they are creating

[Neonivek]

Whoa... I am feeling lifeless today... I think I am having Fake Depression (It FEELS like depression but I know I am fine... You know what I mean?)

Here is my suggestion

Can there be a slider that is for Order and Chaos?

Now don't get me wrong it isn't for "Good and Evil" but rather differences between reality and fantasy.

Very Ordered locations have rather realistic tendencies with earth-like creatures and can even become lifeless if it absorbs too much element (Pure Order prefers non-element)

Max Chaos calls upon clearly impossible creatures of voidant blobs, fissures of unreality, and stuff?

Slider example:

-Max Order: Humans, Wolves, Lions, Tigers, Bears
-Ordered: Demi-humans, Speaking Animals, Giant animals
-Fantasy: Demons, Unicorns, Angels
-Chaotic: Elementals, Floating masks of insanity,
-Chaos: Insanity creatures

Hmm... Nevermind... I don't know what I am thinking right now. I think I inexplicably borrowed from Exalted.