All Posts by Barrikor

I had a building idea similar to this, and since I might never get around to making it... this is part of my idea for decreasing network traffic.

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As with anything created by the players, you can bet many of the buildings will be identical to another building somewhere else on the map. While there will be many combinations, we can assume that certain setup will be more popular than others. Storing identical building in the database is a waste of space.

Idea:
When a player finishes designing a building, the server will look through the database seeing if it matches any saved designs (server intensive, yes), if not it will save the new design and attach a "BuildingID" number to it.

When a player walks around the game world and enters a zone where there are buildings, the server will send an array of numbers, one BuildingID for each building, the client will look to see if Building[BuildingID] is stored on the player's computer, if not the client will open a new thread and requests the design for Building[BuildingID], then saves it to a file on the player's computer.

Thus instead of sending the variables for whole building every time a player walks into the zone, instead all you need to send usually is a "BuildingID" number.

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That's how I plan to do mine at least, if I ever get to it...

How does it look?

(double post, sorry)

@ Vagelisp

Now that's Impressive,
And it's Readable :) thanks for coloring the syntax for us too :)

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Originally posted by sepher
I've yet to try this, but there's OpenSim if you're looking for something like Second Life out the box: http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

I hear it's pretty extendable through additional development ontop of what's already there. It's also reassuring that both IBM and Linden Labs have millions of dollars of invested stake in OpenSim's future support.

There's a grid list on the site as well that might have some custom development examples akin to a direction you yourself would want to go.

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Wow, nice find, I didn't know about this yet.

Nice setup >>> C#, BSD License, and works on Mono.

I see that it's only alpha right now; but when it goes gold it might have enough potential become one of the most popular ones for C#...

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If you're a Python person you might want to take a look at Panda3D. That's the engine that Pirates of the Caribbean Online used.

>>>> Panda3D

I've tried it out, it renders all my sites perfectly, I kinda hate the interface though...

It's still just beta though, Google will fix it up more before they try to make it popular. If it does good and steals more people from IE I'll be happy (even though it'll be competing with Firefox, my favorite). Slowly but surly Internet Explorer is losing people, once it finally sinks below 50% I'll stop supporting it, doing extra work, fiddling around to make it display right on that piece of junk. Once it's at 50%, I could care less if half of them see the page wrong, the half still using IE won't be computer literate anyway.

Maybe I'll have an (IE only) pop-up window appear on every page telling them to switch :)

...Too bad I couldn't do it on customers web sites too... (charge a lower rate? It'd be less work after all)

BTW:
Firefox Rules

(Yes, I'm an IE hater, nothing personal of course, I know their dev team is brilliant, but the sooner Internet Explorer dies the better it'll be for everyone.)

CactusmanX was right about what I posted earlier not being inflation, my terms were a bit mixed up... So I searched for real definitions for the situations I put. It's too late for me to take the bad terms off but I added the real term in brackets next to it.

A "Pure" closed economy isn't very practical:

Ex:

1 Player total ----------- 1000 Gold total
2 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
3 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
4 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
5 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
6 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
...
999 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
1000 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
1001 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total
1002 Players total ----------- 1000 Gold total

- This would cause gold inflation [EDIT: actually a gold shortage / monetary deflation] because the gold per person drops, making gold's value rise.

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I think THIS is the most practical (IMHO):

1 player total ----------- 30 Gold total
2 players total ----------- 60 Gold total
3 players total ----------- 90 Gold total
4 players total ----------- 120 Gold total
5 players total ----------- 150 Gold total
6 players total ----------- 180 Gold total
7 players total ----------- 210 Gold total

This would keep the gold per person at a constant rate, the value of money stays constant even while new people join bringing 30 new gold coins into the game (assuming that all players are active and don't quit the game ever, that is,)(if rich players quit, the game need to restore the right amount of gold back into the playerbase, otherwise you'll have deflation [EDIT: monetary deflation again same as on top, but if a broke player quits and the extra gold isn't removed from circulation then there's monetary inflation / gold surplus])

The total gold per player ratio DOES need to go up a tiny bit as time goes by though, otherwise you end up with stagflation.
[EDIT: not stagflation, but it still lowers the player's incentives, I guess stagflation in an MMO would probably only come from a glitch... or a player run federal reserve...]

CactusmanX, thanks for pointing my mistakes out, otherwise I might have kept saying it backwards forever!

Cool, looks like you're all set then :)

What system will you use for revenue though? Even the best browser-based games always seem to take a loss for the first few months before they finally break even.

I don't have much spare time, but if you are going to use PayPal I could probably give you a little help in integrating it with your game. (If you need to do a custom integration using PayPal Website Payments Pro, that is) (If your game is able to use PayPal's Website Payments Standard instead, then it's easy and you could set up quickly on your own, but it's not as integratable and customizable as Website Payments Pro is though) PayPal is the only credit card processor I use, I'm biased of course though :)

Hey :)

First off, it will be hard to find anyone as skilled as yourself who will be willing to dedicate themselves to your project, but I'm sure you already know that, ...anyway if you want it done right you always have to do it yourself...

Also what is your preferred setup? What DB are you using? MySQL? Will you be using PHP 5 or a lower version? Apache? Linux? (Yes I'm a LAMP person)

ALSO: take a look at this site if you haven't seen it yet.
>>>> http://community.bbgamezone.com/

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Originally posted by ironore
Although it may go far to getting away from the meaningless/repetitive tasks/quests/missions that we see so much in MMORPGs, and perhaps with the combinations and branching potentials you mentioned it could even be quite entertaining, I still voted no.
The reason is, and I am beginning to feel like a broken record saying it, is that it seems like a lot of work to accomplish something that the genre already has the potential to produce all the time with out the use of any pre-programmed content, random or otherwise.
I am talking about letting the player interactions create things for them to do based on their own goals and how they align with or oppose the goals of others.
Now I am not talking about tools for players to create quests, but rather the actual development of events in a dynamic world.

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I think I agree with you for the most part, but I still think that a dynamic world run by the players could still have "quests", of course they wouldn't be one of the main focuses of the game, but in a sandbox-like game, "quests" could be a method of keeping the game world in balance.

If there are NPC MOBs infesting a low level player-city, there could be a "quest" that comes up the eliminate them.

If the forests are being chopped down faster than they can grow, there could be a "quest" to plant trees, or a quest to pk people cutting wood (with normal consequences of course)

A good read :)

I like how you were able to lay it out in the much detail. It's a cool idea. There's only three things that I can think of asking of at the moment,

1. Is there a order of succession? If the officer gets killed can someone else take over the battle line?

2. What are all the advantages a player gains by joining the shield wall instead of going it alone? I'd assume that it'd be harder to get a hit on him in the middle of the shield wall?

3. Would there be any special tactics that the officer could use if he found himself up against more than one enemy shield wall?

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Originally posted by Fariic

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Originally posted by Barrikor If you also gave your opinion of the womans actions then it's on-topic. It's possible to accidentally hijack the thread though if your post changed the direction that the conversation went afterwards.

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Didn't change the discussion a bit. Even got a compliment on the post as someone was able to actually see the humor in it. What worries me is that simply hitting the report button is all anyone needs to do. I don't feel as if anyone actually read what the discussion was about and gave a warning just because someone said it was hijacking. I actually find it rather funny. Not to mention it's given me further openings to inform people that Apple falsley advertises thier products. The new iPhone to be exact. Edit: BTW, I'm not saying this happened here. Just that it happend on a forum were a discussion about false advertising was a topic.

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Well, I suppose the real problem is having a report button... Does anyone here know what the mods do about people sending pointless reports?

As for the Darkfall people... It must be some sort of conspiracy

I think a dynamic quest system a good idea, I mentioned my own ideas about it a while back but didn't go into any detail.

One of my personal opinions though is that small "missions"/"tasks" should not be called quests. The word "quest" is overused and IMHO should be reserved only for something of epic proportions. (That's just my opinion though)

If you also gave your opinion of the womans actions then it's on-topic.

It's possible to accidentally hijack the thread though if your post changed the direction that the conversation went afterwards.

I've never used SMS myself, but it's basically just ordinary email with extra security flaws... I'm guessing you're using PHP? Your main choice is between using the mail() function or using CURL. IMHO mail() is easier, these links should get you moving in the right direction:

http://forums.site5.com/showthread.php?t=13146

http://www.ipipi.com/help/send_text_message_using_PHP.htm

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.mail.php

http://www.sms2email.com/site/developerinfo2.php

http://www.keyvan.net/code/sms-web-sender/

http://www.ericsson.com/mobilityworld/sub/open/technologies/parlay/forum_replies.html?TID=28442&Start=1&Step=25

http://www.astahost.com/info.php/how-send-sms-mobiles-through-site_t14773.html

http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=170285

http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/index.php?showtopic=27914&hl=texting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateways

http://www.ultrashock.com/forums/server-side/php-sms-sending-messages-to-a-cellphone-via-php-14560.html

Some phone companies do things differently then others, covering any non-major brands is a hassle, you wont be able to cover everyone.

There are a lot of people out there trying to get money for internet SMS, it's a rip off if you pay for what you can get for free.

hmm... probably a good idea, a lot of people might end up with better names that way...

Your ideas for the flying mounts sound original, imagine an mid-air battle on a dragon / roc / pegasus / griffin / ect.

I prefer sci-fi & historical over fantasy though, fantasy is too overdone, it still has a lot of untapped potential but unfortunately all fantasy MMO's are clones of each other... also even if there was an original one done by indies, no one will ever find it in the ocean of clones :(

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Originally posted by ianubisi
Can I have your stuff?

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LOL, He's not dying you know...

@ Kb4blu
Yeah, MMOs aren't that great at the moment... if you haven't tried Wurm you might want to take a look at it before you leave the genre. If you do give MMOs up, come back in a few years and see if any of the new ones will be up to par.

I agree with just about everything you said :)

There's a couple things that aren't quite clear to me...

What do you mean on #5 ? Just that the words of the name should be farther apart?

What do you have pictured for "flying mounts" on #4? Dragons? Pegasi? You'd probably need it be extremely hard to get a flying mount... if everyone has one it would significantly change the gameplay, unless that's what you want :)

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Originally posted by Sawtooth
Wow, never heard of this before. I'm reading up on it right now.

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Yeah, I hadn't heard of it before reading this thread either, it'll be nice to see how it plays once they finish it.

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Originally posted by Enigma

If you want my opinion, we should place all politcians in a great big boat and drive them off into the direction of a Glacier. all of em. Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, McCain, Bush. .... all of em.

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Now that's something that I'll vote for :)