> So, one possible issue with automatic advancement is if there are limited points, players need to carefully control their actions to be the most powerful.
Yep, but in some cases it actually makes a game more entertaining, You has to think what You are doing. And, it's more logical and real, if You are slashing monsters with sword and gained some expirience, it will not help You in casting magic better.
And You still has the full control over the development of hero - You do it by choosing its actions (instead of choosing buttons in the skill three).
But, I believe this is personal preferences, I personally quite satisfied with both systems.
> What makes you think that that game is open source?
You are right, I also noticed a little later (after posting this message) that there's no license. Sorry for this delusion.
But, the sources are there, and - the proof of concept. I personally had some doubts that there will be enough performance in HTML/JS to run such games, but as it turns out - it's enough.
> Load times and throughput requirements would be quite high. Who's going to foot the bill for a server for a game like this?
Yes, You are right, hadn't thought about it. But as far as I know asset-hosting has low requirements on the server + caching assets in browser may also lower bandwidth. So, maybe it would be possible to rent some small VPS (for example, linode is about 20$/month) with unlimited bandwidth option and it will be enough (but I don't know this for sure).
Maybe it's possible to implement Flare in Browser, it will give it advantage in user base (no install, runs everywhere with a single click away) and in developers community, because almost everyone knows JS.
I didn't mean to create 3d scene, W3 is just a sample, to illustrate the concept. I mean 2D scenes + maybe sound.
For example to illustrate this story element:
> And because the energy is limited it causes the border of world is shrinking and consequently there's death and cataclysm in borderlands.
Let's suppose that we already have 2 actual playable levels/maps in game:
- a village, and the Player must save an Alchemist who called him for help.
- evil boss level.
Here's how we can reuse it to create "live story":
- show part of willage map with purple light covering one side of map. There's people walking between their houses and trees. Hero (the knight) comes to the house of alchemist and asks "Why do You call for me?", the Alchemist says "I must tell You something - there's an evil boss under the ground".
- show part of boss map, the boss is walking around the crystal guarding it and commanding his undead minions.
- back to village, part of map with alchemist house, alchemist continues "because of lack of energy borders are shrinking"
- the same village map but another part of it, near the border - the light starts moving, covering more and more territory, people near border are running terrifying between their houses, when the moving light touches house or tree it dissapear, when it touches people they are falling dead. There's also "border-beasts" jumping out of light and killing people.
- back to alchemist house - alchemist says - "it's already began, we must leav right now, this place is not safe!"
- control returned to the Player, he must escape the moving wall of light, protect the alchemist from border-beast and come with him to the exit point of map.
The big advantage of this "live story" - we don't need to create new art, maps or monsters, just add some scenario-scripts to the existing maps.
I looked at the code of Flare and vas very impressed that it's clean and has small size (I don't know C++ and can't write it, but can read it).
And I didn't noticed there any usage of specs or tests.
It's a tools that save developer time spend on tests and allows developer to safely do code update and refactoring (without broke old functionality).
It's also usefull when there are multiple people working on the project and they need a way to be shure that their changes doesn't broke another people's code.
I'm not sure does the Flare need such a tools right now, but maybe it will be useful.
How many people did really read text screens during a game? it's boring and most of people just keep clicking the "next". But remember WarCraft 3, there are amazing stories told with actual heroes using game engine.
Every elemental has it's energy, but 99.99... of this energy is distributed and dispersed in the world.
But some shatters of energy sources still exists, in concrete form in form of crystals, and every boss possesses such crystal (fire shard, air shard, ...).
These crystal are very powerful and are the sources of bosses power.
# Hero & Saver
People live in closed world protected with elemental energy from aggressive outside chaos. Thus, the elemental energy is vital for live.
But evil bosses (actually old people kings/barons mutated with energy into something new evil things) possess energy crystals and using it to keep itself live and control his own army of undead / monsters.
And because the energy is limited it causes the border of world is shrinking and consequently there's death and cataclysm in borderlands.
Hero - some unknown knight with his castle located near border, with current speed of border shrinking soon there will be no castle anymore. So, he has to free crystals from bosses and use it's energy as supposed - to support borders against chaos.
# Adventurer & Wanderer
Everyone knows that there's legendary crystals of power, some are possessed and guarded by mighty bosses, others are lost centuries ago.
Even if someone has only one such crystal - he will became super human entity - but if someone will possess it all - he'll be a godlike. Who would not want this?
Hero - unknown wanderer / mage / warrior obsessed with his dream about crystals and his power. Seeking everywhere (catacombs, lost temples, abandoned places in forest) for it's trace.
> So, one possible issue with automatic advancement is if there are limited points, players need to carefully control their actions to be the most powerful.
Yep, but in some cases it actually makes a game more entertaining, You has to think what You are doing. And, it's more logical and real, if You are slashing monsters with sword and gained some expirience, it will not help You in casting magic better.
And You still has the full control over the development of hero - You do it by choosing its actions (instead of choosing buttons in the skill three).
But, I believe this is personal preferences, I personally quite satisfied with both systems.
> What makes you think that that game is open source?
You are right, I also noticed a little later (after posting this message) that there's no license. Sorry for this delusion.
But, the sources are there, and - the proof of concept. I personally had some doubts that there will be enough performance in HTML/JS to run such games, but as it turns out - it's enough.
> Load times and throughput requirements would be quite high. Who's going to foot the bill for a server for a game like this?
Yes, You are right, hadn't thought about it. But as far as I know asset-hosting has low requirements on the server + caching assets in browser may also lower bandwidth. So, maybe it would be possible to rent some small VPS (for example, linode is about 20$/month) with unlimited bandwidth option and it will be enough (but I don't know this for sure).
Take a look at this opensource html5 game (it's amazing, released today) http://operasoftware.github.com/Emberwind
Maybe it's possible to implement Flare in Browser, it will give it advantage in user base (no install, runs everywhere with a single click away) and in developers community, because almost everyone knows JS.
> Well my game engine is 2D
I didn't mean to create 3d scene, W3 is just a sample, to illustrate the concept. I mean 2D scenes + maybe sound.
For example to illustrate this story element:
> And because the energy is limited it causes the border of world is shrinking and consequently there's death and cataclysm in borderlands.
Let's suppose that we already have 2 actual playable levels/maps in game:
- a village, and the Player must save an Alchemist who called him for help.
- evil boss level.
Here's how we can reuse it to create "live story":
- show part of willage map with purple light covering one side of map. There's people walking between their houses and trees. Hero (the knight) comes to the house of alchemist and asks "Why do You call for me?", the Alchemist says "I must tell You something - there's an evil boss under the ground".
- show part of boss map, the boss is walking around the crystal guarding it and commanding his undead minions.
- back to village, part of map with alchemist house, alchemist continues "because of lack of energy borders are shrinking"
- the same village map but another part of it, near the border - the light starts moving, covering more and more territory, people near border are running terrifying between their houses, when the moving light touches house or tree it dissapear, when it touches people they are falling dead. There's also "border-beasts" jumping out of light and killing people.
- back to alchemist house - alchemist says - "it's already began, we must leav right now, this place is not safe!"
- control returned to the Player, he must escape the moving wall of light, protect the alchemist from border-beast and come with him to the exit point of map.
The big advantage of this "live story" - we don't need to create new art, maps or monsters, just add some scenario-scripts to the existing maps.
A little offtopic, but maybe it will be useful.
I looked at the code of Flare and vas very impressed that it's clean and has small size (I don't know C++ and can't write it, but can read it).
And I didn't noticed there any usage of specs or tests.
It's a tools that save developer time spend on tests and allows developer to safely do code update and refactoring (without broke old functionality).
It's also usefull when there are multiple people working on the project and they need a way to be shure that their changes doesn't broke another people's code.
I'm not sure does the Flare need such a tools right now, but maybe it will be useful.
What about the "live story" via scripting?
How many people did really read text screens during a game? it's boring and most of people just keep clicking the "next". But remember WarCraft 3, there are amazing stories told with actual heroes using game engine.
Look at this "story" (select 720, don't watch it in low res) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFuqLpI7ujc&feature=related - it's just unbelievable! And then imagine to read all this in half-screen text page, and compare the result.
What do You think?
# motivation for defeating all elemental bosses:
Every elemental has it's energy, but 99.99... of this energy is distributed and dispersed in the world.
But some shatters of energy sources still exists, in concrete form in form of crystals, and every boss possesses such crystal (fire shard, air shard, ...).
These crystal are very powerful and are the sources of bosses power.
# Hero & Saver
People live in closed world protected with elemental energy from aggressive outside chaos. Thus, the elemental energy is vital for live.
But evil bosses (actually old people kings/barons mutated with energy into something new evil things) possess energy crystals and using it to keep itself live and control his own army of undead / monsters.
And because the energy is limited it causes the border of world is shrinking and consequently there's death and cataclysm in borderlands.
Hero - some unknown knight with his castle located near border, with current speed of border shrinking soon there will be no castle anymore. So, he has to free crystals from bosses and use it's energy as supposed - to support borders against chaos.
# Adventurer & Wanderer
Everyone knows that there's legendary crystals of power, some are possessed and guarded by mighty bosses, others are lost centuries ago.
Even if someone has only one such crystal - he will became super human entity - but if someone will possess it all - he'll be a godlike. Who would not want this?
Hero - unknown wanderer / mage / warrior obsessed with his dream about crystals and his power. Seeking everywhere (catacombs, lost temples, abandoned places in forest) for it's trace.
Cool article composition vs inheritance http://cowboyprogramming.com/2007/01/05/evolve-your-heirachy/
There are also Tremulous Aliens http://tremulous.net/manual/#x1-40002.1
It seems they are GPL but I don't know anything about 3D modelling and needed formats.
Chronicles of Necropolis
Unknown Hero
Lost in Dungeons
Rise of Dark Mage
Astral Invasion
Dark Invaders
Fantasy Core ;)
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