Zelda III Online

[Zaei]

Originally posted by Fox
Well about the body, we should probably allow people to select from 2 (male/female) or more models..

I would do this, with perhaps 3 models per gender, but also allow several dozen (if your artists are up to it) model skins, to allow some real customization

Z.

[Gaming_World]

I would say that that would be a neat idea.

[flame_211]

Same here...

[DaoK]

I like the idea to have many choice of heros and maybe with some different abilities.

[Fox]

Hm we coul make several races to split up the ability groups.. for example Orks may have special war attacks while elves may have special magics

[Gaming_World]

I would have to agree there too. Although you would need more then 2 classes, and a bunch of differnt skins for each.

Possibly have 5 or 6 classes, each with the choice between male and female, and each of those with a bunch of differnt skins. Although this would take a lot of graphics, and time.

[stickman373]

Originally posted by DaoK
We should start to have a "paper" who will contain all idea.

i would agree with this!

who wants this task.. we need to get this all on paper organized.

i would try, but i'm not sure of the most logical way to organize this stuff

[DaoK]

That paper can be a Word document who will contain all stuff we will add to the project, like that we will be more organized.

[Gaming_World]

I can/will do it. I can only do it between around 4:30 to 10:00 or 11:00 PM my time, beacuse of school. My time is PST (GMT -8).

[DaoK]

It's enought time lol It's not a full time job

[Cander]

Ideas/Dislikes

First off I have to say this doing some levels and when finsih the last one, game over, is not a good idea. This is not something that belongs in soemthing of this scope. It should be a persistant world.

Here is how I envision it. It should be a world open enough where the players have plenty of leway for role playing and it to have an impact on the world. As administrators we could introduce story lines(quests) into the game beyond those that are always there that can have an impact on everything. Perhaps it is in the form of finding a lost artifact..or even a giant dragon so powerful, it may take half the server to get together and kill it. It should all in all be a very role playing orientated world with enough to do for those not into the role playing aspect. Players can take on the position of emperor, or pehaps have jobs running a shop. Things like this would make an interesting game. I have tried many online rpgs, and have found they only cater to adventurer or just the role player..not both. For the adventurer, have plenty of places to find baddies to kill and level up. For the role player, there is the stuff I outlined above.

Items:
I hve found players love items. Magical/unique/whatever.. The game should have lots of items such as weapons, armor, etc. Perhaps unique ones like Diabo(except in the fact there can only really be 1 in this game). You need to have a wide variety of items to chooe from and find. This is a good motive for adventurers and the role player alike as there could be quests that admins can introduce to find some unique weapon. Of course there could be fighting over it, but that just gives more to do for the role players as they can role play it out.

General ideas:
Players can get married.
Players can become kings/mayor/police/queen/ etc.
Have zones called outlaw zones. These areas can have bigger and badder enemies with better treasures and rewards but since these areas are not controlled by the 'king' they are a free zone to player killers. This eliminates the problem of high level players roaming towns and spawn points waiting for low levels and newbies to kill. Make it quite clear to players that if you cant take it , dont enter those areas. But of course still leave them the option of going in.

Handling experience points from killing baddies:
This is a big quirk of mine. I have found it a problem in many online rpgs that it is often that a high level character will take a friend to high level enemies, weaken that enemy down to one more hit, then let his friend kill it getting high amounts of exp and leveling real fast..I as do many other beleive this to be unfair to others. As an idea of handling this, let xp be awarded only based on percentage of damage done. Like whoemwver did 10% of the damage, will only 10% of the xp while the guy that did 90% will receive 90% of the exp payout.

these are all just ideas I have put together from my own personal quirks about the many online rpgs I have tried.

[Cander]

A question that needs to be raised. What sould we write this in? If VB(which is the only thing I know well enough) should we do it in .NET or just stick to 6? DirectX 8 or wait for 9?

Or should we do it in another language perhaps one that was made specifically for games like DarkBasic?

I figured a good way to structure levels/the map. The world will be split up into chunks called levels. You will have the main world file which can be just a simple text file(XML would be good) and each level can be a binary/bit representatino of the graphics or whatever. In the world file, each 'level' can be presented as a node in an xml document. And for each level, give a norh, south, east, and west node or attribute. In each of those, you give the name of the level that will load when the reach the end of the current level they are on in that direction..for an example of how this would look

<World>
    <Level id="ZeldaCity01" north="ZeldaCity02" south="ZeldaCity03" east="ZeldaCity04" west="ZeldaCity05"/>
</World>

i think the above would be an easy and efficient way to handle level changing

As far as what a level file would look like..It could be something this

NNNNNNNNNNNN
WgggggggggggE
WgggggtgggggE
WgggggttgggggE
WggggghhhgggE
SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

NSWE would be the map edge direction, while g would mean a grass tile, t a tree tile, and h a house tile.

just spewing forth ideas as they come to me.

[Cander]

Even more innovative ideas. Players when they create a character can choose a kingdom to be a part of. Ther can be multiple kingdoms. This could lead to interesting things like wars between kingdoms, land disputes/trading between kingdoms. I personally think this would be something playes would absolutly love. This could go along with bounderies of where it is safe to be or go if you don not want to be player killed. Perhaps, along with lawless zones, you are safe in you own kingdoms owned land. But if you enter another kingdoms territory, you can and can be player killed.

And as stated about the land wars/disputes/trades thee kingdom territories can change. Going along with my pevious post, you could add another attribute to that XML file to say what kingdom owns that level.

This adds a new and exciting level of play that I dont think has ever really been done before.

Yet even more brainstorming.

[Fox]

May I leave this project to you guys?

I'm sorry all my free time is gone now since I'm working on a big project *sigh* ... well, I can still try to help you coding so if there's any question just ask.

A good idea to develop this thing would be a Code thread. For example the thread starter posts this:

'Sound module
Public Sub PlaySound( iFileName as String, iLoop as Boolean )
   '?
End Sub

And the next one replaces the ? up by code:

'Sound module
Public Sub PlaySound( iFileName as String, iLoop as Boolean )
    SetChannelFile SoundPath & iFileName, 0

    PlayChannel iChannel, IIf(iLoop = True, 1, 0)
End Sub

Another guy sees a mistake or has a better idea and posts:

'Sound module
Public Sub PlaySound( iFileName as String, iLoop as Boolean )
    Static Channel as Long

    Channel = Channel + 1
    If Channel > MaxChannels Then: Channel = 0

    SetChannelFile SoundPath & iFileName, Channel

    PlayChannel Channel, IIf(iLoop = True, 1, 0)
End Sub

and so on..

(of course you'd post the whole module there)


Like this everyone sees all code of the project and can give his ideas to the group ..

[Zaei]

DX 9 wont be released until November, if MS continues to follow their schedule. Darkbasic probably wouldnt be able to handle something of this magnitude.

Z.

[Gaming_World]

I don't have acess to VB.net. I could also do some of the programming in C, as I have limited knowladge of that (this would be to quicken up the drawing). As I said before, I have good knowladge in VB.

[stickman373]

I would think we could accomplish it with VB6 and DX8 right? I think we all have a somewhat good knowledge of VB since were at a VB forum

Anyone taking the leader role, assuming Fox is taking a less active role?

[Gaming_World]

What kind of system will we be using for any skills that are advalible in the game?

What will be the healing system? Eating food, drinking potions, ect.?

[Gaming_World]

I wouldn't mind taking a leading role. As I stated before, I can only be reading the formuals in the late afternoon and evening (GMT-8) weekdays. On weekends, for the most part, I will be able to check commonly.

I would tend to agree that it can be done in VB and DX8, although it will be slow. I did a game, Planet Wars, in VB and bitblt that runs at 2 FPS at 1280x1024. I am working on converting the drawing to C++, which I exatimate, will bring it up to 12 FPS. This is also on a P3 1GHZ. And the game is VERY simple, download it if you like.

[Gaming_World]

I have also began the paper, and heres what I have found in this thread:

Customize clothing (buy?)
Multiple Classes
Multiple Skins
Multiple Genders (M/F)
Many different Items and Item Types and Item Classes
Truly unique items (1/server)
Most areas closed to PVP combat
Areas with harder enemies and better drops open to PVP
EXP amount based on damage done (if one player does 90% damage, that player gets 90% of the exp, and the like)
Different Kingdoms (may cause wars between players, and the like)
May be part of different kingdoms

If you know of anything I missed, let me know.

[flame_211]

Sad to see you go fox...

Maybe when your other project is done we can enjoy your return...

But anyways, I think whoever was here first to join after fox or whoever has the most knowledge of VB and DX should be leader... (Well, both those rule me out lol, I dont have a problem with you haveing the leader role Gaming_World)


-Andrew

P.S. I was wondering how well VB5 and VB6 work together, Cause I only got VB5, and it seems everyone else has VB6

[Gaming_World]

I know almost all the code is the same (you just need to change a tag in the project file). I belive that MS added new functions and the such to VB6 (such as split).

[stickman373]

Gaming_World as leader is fine with me. I think healing should be by potions and food. Possibly a sleep or nap at an Inn in the game would also boost Health?

As for skills system I am unsure of what you mean by that?

[Gaming_World]

I've never played a game with 3 ways to heal, now 2 yes, but never 3. Oh well, that will just make the game more unquie.

As for the skill system, that would be stuff like fire balls, ice balls, lighting, skills to heal, and that short of stuff. Will we even have stuff like that? If we will, how will we regulate how much of it you can do? Will we have a mana sort of thing, and each skill takes differnt amonuts of mana, or another system, such as the skills are given by items, and only items. If it is mana, then we need some short of potions to regenerate the mana much quicker then if you just left it alone. If it is given by items, then how will the players recharge the items to give more usage?

[DaoK]

Fox is leaving the project???

And why should heros married each others??? Links is not a ***!

[Zaei]

You could have some fun, and give nothing but the most basic information to the player. His strength is determined by how much he can lift, while the amount of magic he can use is determined by the number of spells he can cast. Make the player remember these things, or at least write them down. It would make the players a bit more attached to thier characters.

Z.

[Gaming_World]

So what, you must type in a squence of characters to cast a spell? If this is the case, then you would never bother with spells.

[Zaei]

Nah, have a book open up on screen (as a model, in the view of the character) from which the player can cast.

Z.

[Gaming_World]

Zaei,
I'm not understanding what you are suggesting. You may wish to create a quick demo.
Are you suggesting that you move the character in a certin way, then you can select a target and cast the spell?


No matter how we do it though, we will need to have a limit (such as by level or by a stat point). The example below has an idea.

Also, what kind of stats will we have. These would be such as: strength (damage), dexterity (chance to hit, and other such stuff), knowladge (a way to limit skills). Anyone have an idea?

[Fox]

Uhm.. I will still monitor your progress


Well DX8 in VB5/6 is definitely fast enough. Of course DX can be way slower in C than in VB if you're a bad programmer (and the other way around).

Why marriages? Because we may have female players ... and remember that we'll have a tile map? We can make anything with it, for example players can buy houses and 'live' there. Like in UO, but I wouldn't let the players build the houses, I'd rather just sell them the existing ones from the world we made..

[Gaming_World]

Dang, talk about going into role playing. Once again, I've never seen a game this detailed (although I heard about one where you could kill your characters with food poisioning, read about it at: http://diabloii.net/garwulfs/garwulfs-no29.shtml).

[flame_211]

Originally posted by Zaei
Nah, have a book open up on screen (as a model, in the view of the character) from which the player can cast.

I understand... Maybe not even a book, but maybe something
can pop up on the side(so it doesnt interrupt battle) and they can have a list of
potions, or spells they have aquired through out their life time in the game...

[Gaming_World]

OK, now I understand. What was confuising me was that he said that the players would need to memorize the spells. If we are going to have real-time battles then this wouldn't work, as it would take too much time to find the correct spell. We would need to have shortcut keys to the main ones the player uses (basicly let the player select which key does which spell).

If were going to have turn-based battles (you move, the enemy moves, ect), then this would work great.

[flame_211]

I never thought of turn based fights, I guess that is how it would
have to be... (Since I have a bad connection, Some one with a DSL
would be able to hurt me badly w/out turn based fights)

[Gaming_World]

Thats what a lot of people were talking about before with the scripts.

I think we should go back to that idea. Have some pre-set scripts (and not allow the user to program their own). These would have stuff to run if under X% health. This would allow us to have real-time fights and also to have it balanced for bad connections. Unless, of course, we are going to slow everything down to the speed of the slowest connection.

This is going to be a problem, there is no really good solution. No matter what we do, we will turn away some people.

Some ideas:
1) We could also set the minium connection speed high (such as 56K or a low-end DSL.).
2) Go with turn-based fighting (yuck)
3) Have simple scripts such as to run, or move in.
4) Slow everything down to the slowest person in the game (yuck)
5) Just don't bother doing anything
6) Find a way to make it not matter what the connection speed is, as long as it is resanible (such as not 14.4)
7) Find another solution

If we can find an easy way, #6 would be the best. Otherwise, we will probably want to do #1, or #7 (if we can).

[Gaming_World]

Also, we we move to the communitation formual, or leave it here?

[stickman373]

u mean move to communications forum?

I say we stay here during planning and when we start programming and other more detailed planning we move?

1 thread for:

storyline, rules, art, etc

programming code


?

[Gaming_World]

OK

[DaoK]

hummm connection speed should not be a problem ?.. that database will be very big if we buy static stuff like house... and what will be the goal to married Links with an other person that Zelda!

[flame_211]

I think we should try really hard to get number 6 to work
Cause, number one would not work for me, I usually only connect
at around 312000 bps, Damn AOL...

I I dont see why we dont just go for 6, or if that too hard, go with
turn based...