Week 23: Wanna have a picnic? Alpaca lunch
Posted On: Jun 9, 2014 0:15:55 GMT
Archangel, joppelarius, and 5 more like this
Post by Bamboozle on Jun 9, 2014 0:15:55 GMT
Sorry for the name, it was my poor attempt at some semblance of humor
Ari's Corner
Not too much going on with me.. My minecraft server is updated to 1.7.9 now. We have more, harder mobs. (Expect to die) Fabbly (MonsterA) is now Staff on my minecraft server!! (Congrats!).
As the school season comes to an end, I want to tell you all to have a fun and safe summer.
Birthdays this week
June 8
narcx
June 9
pennk
statick
June 10
cryptontears
fo12
Qwerty
Roxas4522
sausageboy
June 11
atacker49
drake
drakelord12
foli
kiki
kingstersam
kingstersam1
nuffyman
willabear
yuuuki
June 13
Bard
ibengold
June 14
mote
raidentaboo
rottochan
runbob4
The Code
So this last week I added pathfinding to the game. But there is a problem. I've said before (and it can be seen in the videos) that the map loads in chunks. The chunks are 25x25 tiles in size. As you walk along, on each frame, it calculates what chunks should be within roughly 1.5x the game resolution. Any chunk within that box, if it hasn't been drawn already, it draws it. Any chunks outside of that range, it removes them. The problem I'm having is that when the chunks are drawn there is a stutter in framerate. I'm still tracking it down a little, but here is where I am. The map files. So for each 25x25 tile chunk, there is a separate JSON file. When it draws a chunk, it reads the file, builds an object from the JSON (parses) and iterates over the layers to draw the tiles in the right position. Previously I didn't have a problem, but I just added a new layer. The collision layer. I didn't have a problem before, simply because there was only 1 layer (it supports multiple, but for my demo there was only 1 in the JSON file). Now there is a second layer in the JSON, collision. Doing some simple profiling, I'm seeing roughly 50-80ms per chunk loaded. At any time there are around 12 chunks loaded (4x3 chunks). As you walk in a direction, it can draw 3-4 chunks at a time. So 80ms * 4 chunks is 320ms. Not much, but it is noticeable when it all has to happen in the time of a single frame. So to fix it I can think of 3 ways that Unity will support. 1) Find a way to load the JSON faster (unlikely). 2) Pre-load all the json (uses more memory, but maybe not bad) . Or 3) find a way to split the loading up over a few frames to prevent the stutter (possible, but a little more complicated). So trying to get this down to a reasonable level is my goal for the next week in addition to below.
Also this last week, I created a script to spider the FOLegacy forums to collect username/email data. No I'm not selling anything and I'm not going to spam everyone again and again. I need it for the new website. ProBoards doesn't have an accounts export feature so I had to make one. Sometime this next week or two, I'll probably be sending an email to each user with a custom link to the new forums that will let you create an account with the same name as on this forum. This is the easiest way to ensure that names aren't stolen. Be sure your email address is correct for FOLegacy. I'll run the spider again before the email goes out so you still have time to fix it if needed, but do it soon. No one will be able to register your name. At least for a limited time. There will probably be something like a week or two where registrations will be disabled and the only way to register is to use the emailed link. This ensures that no one will be able to register your name until registrations are turned back on. If you don't use the link during that time, registrations will be turned on and your name is up for grabs.
Pear Talk
Hey all, Bam here to talk about how atmosphere, plotline and world development will function in LlamaQuest. I would like to point out that there are no solid guarantees in any of this, merely what we hope to implement.
One of the first things I examine when playing any sort of game is the setting and how the character is affected by it. It's not necessarily a core component of a game, but a well-crafted world rich with lively characters and immersive experiences will definitely draw a player in more than a bleak world with a dull storyline and poorly-designed characters. Fantasy Online was meant to model the classics, and the classics often had these types of worlds that submerged the player in the story and kept them interested in it throughout the game; while this is a lot harder to pull off in an MMORPG, it is still possible, and FO didn't really fulfill that. A player would grind through an area and complete quests with barely any interaction apart from accepting and finishing those quests; the NPCs weren't really given unique personalities; the mobs were frankly generic and the map felt like an actual literal map rather than an explorable world. Similarly, there was little motivation for going through the storyline apart from collecting EXP - if anything, the motivation was more about material stats than the actual story. Is this a healthy way for players to advance through a game? Personally, I don't think so. Our goals for addressing this in LQ are as follows:
The Art
Pic of the Week
This picture was submitted by noobgod
Donation
Thank you all once again for donating and Supporting us. We wouldn't be as far as we are now if it weren't for you all
For those that need help to get to the page you can click the title of this section or click on the donation tab at the top right.
Ari's Corner
Not too much going on with me.. My minecraft server is updated to 1.7.9 now. We have more, harder mobs. (Expect to die) Fabbly (MonsterA) is now Staff on my minecraft server!! (Congrats!).
As the school season comes to an end, I want to tell you all to have a fun and safe summer.
Birthdays this week
June 8
narcx
June 9
pennk
statick
June 10
cryptontears
fo12
Qwerty
Roxas4522
sausageboy
June 11
atacker49
drake
drakelord12
foli
kiki
kingstersam
kingstersam1
nuffyman
willabear
yuuuki
June 13
Bard
ibengold
June 14
mote
raidentaboo
rottochan
runbob4
The Code
iamallama said:
So this last week I added pathfinding to the game. But there is a problem. I've said before (and it can be seen in the videos) that the map loads in chunks. The chunks are 25x25 tiles in size. As you walk along, on each frame, it calculates what chunks should be within roughly 1.5x the game resolution. Any chunk within that box, if it hasn't been drawn already, it draws it. Any chunks outside of that range, it removes them. The problem I'm having is that when the chunks are drawn there is a stutter in framerate. I'm still tracking it down a little, but here is where I am. The map files. So for each 25x25 tile chunk, there is a separate JSON file. When it draws a chunk, it reads the file, builds an object from the JSON (parses) and iterates over the layers to draw the tiles in the right position. Previously I didn't have a problem, but I just added a new layer. The collision layer. I didn't have a problem before, simply because there was only 1 layer (it supports multiple, but for my demo there was only 1 in the JSON file). Now there is a second layer in the JSON, collision. Doing some simple profiling, I'm seeing roughly 50-80ms per chunk loaded. At any time there are around 12 chunks loaded (4x3 chunks). As you walk in a direction, it can draw 3-4 chunks at a time. So 80ms * 4 chunks is 320ms. Not much, but it is noticeable when it all has to happen in the time of a single frame. So to fix it I can think of 3 ways that Unity will support. 1) Find a way to load the JSON faster (unlikely). 2) Pre-load all the json (uses more memory, but maybe not bad) . Or 3) find a way to split the loading up over a few frames to prevent the stutter (possible, but a little more complicated). So trying to get this down to a reasonable level is my goal for the next week in addition to below.
Also this last week, I created a script to spider the FOLegacy forums to collect username/email data. No I'm not selling anything and I'm not going to spam everyone again and again. I need it for the new website. ProBoards doesn't have an accounts export feature so I had to make one. Sometime this next week or two, I'll probably be sending an email to each user with a custom link to the new forums that will let you create an account with the same name as on this forum. This is the easiest way to ensure that names aren't stolen. Be sure your email address is correct for FOLegacy. I'll run the spider again before the email goes out so you still have time to fix it if needed, but do it soon. No one will be able to register your name. At least for a limited time. There will probably be something like a week or two where registrations will be disabled and the only way to register is to use the emailed link. This ensures that no one will be able to register your name until registrations are turned back on. If you don't use the link during that time, registrations will be turned on and your name is up for grabs.
Pear Talk
Bamboozle said:
Hey all, Bam here to talk about how atmosphere, plotline and world development will function in LlamaQuest. I would like to point out that there are no solid guarantees in any of this, merely what we hope to implement.
One of the first things I examine when playing any sort of game is the setting and how the character is affected by it. It's not necessarily a core component of a game, but a well-crafted world rich with lively characters and immersive experiences will definitely draw a player in more than a bleak world with a dull storyline and poorly-designed characters. Fantasy Online was meant to model the classics, and the classics often had these types of worlds that submerged the player in the story and kept them interested in it throughout the game; while this is a lot harder to pull off in an MMORPG, it is still possible, and FO didn't really fulfill that. A player would grind through an area and complete quests with barely any interaction apart from accepting and finishing those quests; the NPCs weren't really given unique personalities; the mobs were frankly generic and the map felt like an actual literal map rather than an explorable world. Similarly, there was little motivation for going through the storyline apart from collecting EXP - if anything, the motivation was more about material stats than the actual story. Is this a healthy way for players to advance through a game? Personally, I don't think so. Our goals for addressing this in LQ are as follows:
- Creating an immersive world: NPCs, while mostly remaining the same as they did in FO, will have dialogue that sheds light on the setting, atmosphere, story and how it relates to the player character instead of just having the dialogue be "kill 600 of these lol ty". This, together with a lot of smaller nuance changes (a more zoomed-in camera and higher-quality pixel art to name a few) should be able to give the player a sense of actually playing as the character they created. Preferably there will be more interaction in combat instead of just right-clicking, and more immersive exploration and map movement: nothing on those topics has been completely set in stone, however.
- Having a well-written storyline and lore system: I felt this was very, very lacking in FO. While it was more of a humorous game, the storyline could've been so much more rewarding and only by the 14th or 15th area were we actually starting to plan out the storyline in advance. In part this was caused by interface constraints: having a small text box limited how much we could write, and little development had been on systems pertaining to storyline progress or lore. Luckily for LQ we have planned out a substantial amount of background information and a good chunk of the story as of this writing. Nowhere near finished, but we're proud of what we have so far
- Letting players craft their characters: While I'm not guaranteeing you can have a duel-wielding scimitar shaman warrior supermodel baker lizard-demon sun knight, we are hoping to expand how players can create their characters and a variety of character paths will probably be implemented. Your character can be customized not just mechanically (gameplay-wise), nor just aesthetically, but also in terms of story standing - or at the very least we will try to make the character's part in the story much more pronounced. We really want to focus on having sidequests that enrich the game world instead of advancing the main plotline - that'll give players more interaction with NPCs, towns, villages, monsters, bosses, easter eggs... the little things that really give a game life.
That's all I have for this week. Remember, none of this is 100% guaranteed, and our course of action can change depending on the circumstances, but this is what I felt would really make the game much better in terms of immersiveness and flexibility.
The Art
Lighterthief said:
No art update this week.Pic of the Week
This picture was submitted by noobgod
Donation
Thank you all once again for donating and Supporting us. We wouldn't be as far as we are now if it weren't for you all
For those that need help to get to the page you can click the title of this section or click on the donation tab at the top right.