Official Trailer for MnemonicRL, the multiplayer roguelike
Da-Breegster
Higher quality avi: http://rapidshare.com/files/240104738/mnemonicrl_trailer.avi
The fruit of all my work so far is now here in trailer form.
MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
scripting. The project is developed in Perl and uses curses; I am
currently hard at work producing an initial release for all platforms.
So what does everybody think? My plan for the multiplayer gameplay is
not clear yet; I'm still deciding about permadeath, levelling,
singleplayer mode, etc. This trailer was intentionally eye candy; many
of my friends weren't convinced that a MMORPG could exist without
graphics.
elig
This is the best looking roguelike I've seen in years.
George Oliver
sound great. Steamware...I'm in love.
Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
although that is great; the neon outlines of all the buildings remind
me of the city of Moonside from the old SNES game 'Earthbound'.)
Two related gameplay details that could be very important: Will you
have bump-to-interact, and will multiple players be allowed to occupy
the same tile? Since there's likely to be lag, I'd worry that players
might accidentally, say, attack something accidentally by trying to
move into what looked to them to be an empty tile but on the server
side was already filled with a monster or player. (I don't know if you
plan PvP or not.) With regards to players in the same tile, especially
at places like the starting train station there were several
bottlenecks that a griefing player / group of players could abuse.
Just some things to think about, I'm sure you'll try plenty of things
and go with what feels right.
Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing more!
dabre...@gmail.com
On Jun 2, 8:52 pm, Gelatinous Mutant Coconut
<GelatinousMutantCoco...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This looks really, really cool. (And I don't just mean the appearance,
> although that is great; the neon outlines of all the buildings remind
> me of the city of Moonside from the old SNES game 'Earthbound'.)
>
The isometric view of the buildings was directly inspired by Fourside
from the very same game. ;)
> Two related gameplay details that could be very important: Will you
> have bump-to-interact, and will multiple players be allowed to occupy
> the same tile? Since there's likely to be lag, I'd worry that players
> might accidentally, say, attack something accidentally by trying to
> move into what looked to them to be an empty tile but on the server
> side was already filled with a monster or player. (I don't know if you
> plan PvP or not.) With regards to players in the same tile, especially
> at places like the starting train station there were several
> bottlenecks that a griefing player / group of players could abuse.
> Just some things to think about, I'm sure you'll try plenty of things
> and go with what feels right.
>
> Good luck, I'm looking forward to seeing more!
Multiple agents may not occupy the same tile, no. When you attempt to
move into an agent, 4 things may happen:
1) You push them, possibly causing a chain reaction if it's a line
2) You swap places with them
3) You attack them
4) You initiate some sort of conversation or trade or interaction
I will allow PvP, but only in restricted areas, so that I can control
high-level people hassling newer players. I also have thought about
people blocking spawn points, but I think swapping places or
restricting access to the spawn areas will help. I haven't had an
opportunity to test the multiplayer aspect of the game yet over
anything but my LAN, but I'm confident that, if I can find a host with
decent upstream, lag will not be a big issue. (My home box is capped
at 30KB/s upstream)
Darren Grey
Very nicely done trailer - the game looks tantalising. I look forward
to seeing something playable from this.
There are a lot of gameplay concerns... permadeath especially in a RL
game. You might want to check out TwilightMMORL for some ideas on
implementation. Some key things it uses:
-turn every 0.25 seconds
-very low keyboard footprint
-auto-attack and auto-explore options
-no permadeath - dying restores player to nearest inn, with a loss of
all unequipped items
-shops have the dual use of lockers that players can keep their stuff
in (as well as the traditional use of players selling items to each
other)
Personally I'd like to see death become a more serious thing - say a
loss of 25% of max hp. Otherwise players can engage in scummy
behaviour, putting themselves at high risk for rewards they're not
normally powerful enough to get.
Getting multiplayer working well would be difficult too. How would
people group up to take a dungeon together?
I suppose an important point would be to have a working prototype that
you can play around with easily, experimenting with different things
and getting feedback from other users.
Anyway, best of luck - look forward to seeing more of this.
--
Darren Grey
dabre...@gmail.com
Since my upstream will be limited at first, I like the idea of
limiting keypresses. The current implementation of 'speed' is based on
queuing keypresses until the delay has passed, so after a hefty spell,
you may have to sit there a few seconds. I haven't implemented the
same for movement yet, but that might work.
I like the way Zelda Majora's Mask implemented saving. You could pay a
shop to stash your stuff, and you would lose non-unique ammunition/
collectibles. Death will certainly be accompanied by a significant
loss in stats. I'm planning for several different modes of play:
traditional singleplayer (the client-server code is flexible enough to
where you can choose what groups of event hooks are simulated for an
action), a set of random dungeons for a party to collab (or rebell and
betray) with a max of, say, 4, a larger free-for-all dungeon allowing
PvP (enter at your risk, it might segregate players by level), and
later, a special scripted role-play area where a DM can write a small
"game", creating monsters/items/static or random areas. More
importantly, this area would have dungeon events like flooding, parts
of the dungeon caving in, organized ambushes, etc that would let me
have a testbed for integrating this stuff into the main game.
karmarogue
I think it looks awesome and you've got me very excited for the
release!
Numeron
[snip]> [snip]
> > Personally I'd like to see death become a more serious thing - say a
> > loss of 25% of max hp. Otherwise players can engage in scummy
> > behaviour, putting themselves at high risk for rewards they're not
> > normally powerful enough to get.
[snip]
> I like the way Zelda Majora's Mask implemented saving. You could pay a
> shop to stash your stuff, and you would lose non-unique ammunition/
> collectibles. Death will certainly be accompanied by a significant
> loss in stats.
major losses in stats or max health i think are bad because after just
a couple of deaths (the later ones caused by not being as strong as
you used to be) would ruin that character and it would be better just
to start from the beginning again. As a result, any penalty for non-
permanent death has to be regainable in some form (even if its hard,
it has to be possible to do without dying or you will lose players
very quickly), but if, for example you can regain your max health
easily, well thats jsut might become abusable...
I think the best solution would be to drop a the character a level on
death (along with loss/damage of non-equipped equipment if you think
this is too soft), with permanent death if you drop to level 0. This
kind of scales the penalty for dying through the levels too, assuming
that it takes around 50-100% longer to achieve a new level with each
level gained.
Numeron
wrote:
> I think the best solution would be to drop a the character a level on
> death (along with loss/damage of non-equipped equipment if you think
> this is too soft), with permanent death if you drop to level 0.
actually make that return to the starting location with starting
equipment if you die at level 1. Its important people keep the same
characters because otherwise you hinder their ability to socialise, it
being an MMO.
-Numeron
dabre...@gmail.com
wrote:
I like this idea best, I think I'll go with it. Thanks! Working it
into the plotline is easy, too, given Cyphen's design as a purgatory
that's not supposed to exist
Jeff Lait
wrote:
Bah, I couldn't disagree more. MMORPGs have a few important
differences. First, you can die due to network issues. Second, your
character is going to live much longer than 8-12 hours of most
roguelike games. Third, being a multiplayer game, hopefully you want
people to play with each other. Playing with each other in a fun
manner means that I shouldn't have huge consequences to mistakes. If
my mistake wipes the group, we want it be a "ha, ha, try again!"
rather than "WE WILL NEVER PLAY WITH YOU AGAIN!"
Charaters should thus be permanent to provide lasting ids.
Equipment and levels, however, should likely not last more than 24
hours.
I mean, it is a roguelike, right? The most fun in roguelikes is the
first few levels. So why not have every adventure the character goes
on restart at level 1 and starting inventory? We then, as a party,
descend the dungeon together. During that dungeon crawl, we can find
items (randomized id, even), level up, and progress until we get wiped/
complete the dungeon. Ideally some of the items you find/skills you
gain are "resurrect" type abilities for use in the dungeon. For early
levels, being "killed" knocks you out, still reviveable by any passer
by, but an option for you to just give up and end up back at Cyphen.
Some dungeons may start you off with pre-built abilities of higher
levels, perhaps these even have to be unlocked. But there is no
persistence of equipment/levels to get in the way. No "cost" to
death.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
karmarogue
> I mean, it is a roguelike, right? The most fun in roguelikes is the
> first few levels. So why not have every adventure the character goes
> on restart at level 1 and starting inventory? We then, as a party,
> descend the dungeon together. During that dungeon crawl, we can find
> items (randomized id, even), level up, and progress until we get wiped/
> complete the dungeon. Ideally some of the items you find/skills you
> gain are "resurrect" type abilities for use in the dungeon. For early
> levels, being "killed" knocks you out, still reviveable by any passer
> by, but an option for you to just give up and end up back at Cyphen.
>
> Some dungeons may start you off with pre-built abilities of higher
> levels, perhaps these even have to be unlocked. But there is no
> persistence of equipment/levels to get in the way. No "cost" to
> death.
> --
> Jeff Lait
> (POWDER:http://www.zincland.com/powder)
I agree with this. I was excited about the game after watching the
trailer but hearing talk about removing permadeath has me worried. :
( Please do not listen to previous posters arguing in favor of some
sort of persistence system or you will remove arguably the most
important aspect of roguelikes from your game and become nothing more
than an MMORPG yawn-fest
Martin Read
>I agree with this. I was excited about the game after watching the
>trailer but hearing talk about removing permadeath has me worried. :
>( Please do not listen to previous posters arguing in favor of some
>sort of persistence system or you will remove arguably the most
>important aspect of roguelikes from your game and become nothing more
>than an MMORPG yawn-fest
In an MMO, you can die to network dropouts/lag. That is _utterly_
incompatible with permadeath, unless you want to impose a ludicrous
burden on your GMs (including having them try to distinguish between
genuine network failure and people pulling their ethernet cable to be
netfail-killed so they can submit a petition for character restoration).
Even EVE Online, one of the harshest MMOs in the world, doesn't wipe your
character when you get your life pod blown up.
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"
Darren Grey
> On Jun 3, 7:53 pm, Numeron <irunsofastineedafinonmyh...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On Jun 4, 8:41 am, Numeron <irunsofastineedafinonmyh...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > I think the best solution would be to drop a the character a level on
> > > death (along with loss/damage of non-equipped equipment if you think
> > > this is too soft), with permanent death if you drop to level 0.
>
> > actually make that return to the starting location with starting
> > equipment if you die at level 1. Its important people keep the same
> > characters because otherwise you hinder their ability to socialise, it
> > being an MMO.
>
> Bah, I couldn't disagree more. MMORPGs have a few important
> differences. First, you can die due to network issues. Second, your
> character is going to live much longer than 8-12 hours of most
> roguelike games. Third, being a multiplayer game, hopefully you want
> people to play with each other. Playing with each other in a fun
> manner means that I shouldn't have huge consequences to mistakes. If
> my mistake wipes the group, we want it be a "ha, ha, try again!"
> rather than "WE WILL NEVER PLAY WITH YOU AGAIN!"
>
> Charaters should thus be permanent to provide lasting ids.
>
> Equipment and levels, however, should likely not last more than 24
> hours.
Hmm, but that takes away from the general MMO enjoyment of building up
a character, and gradually taking on harder and harder enemies. The
old grindfest that makes the likes of WOW so popular... Haha, but
hopefully Mnemonic could be done a little better.
Another consideration might be a temporary penalty after death - a
recovery time if you will. This could be done in a few different ways
- half max hp, lose ten levels, unable to use certain powers, etc. As
the cooldown time progresses the abilities could gradually come back.
The cooldown time could be a real-life 3 days, spending 8 hours in-
game, or perhaps some gameplay related target (a certain amount of xp
for instance) to encourage them to keep playing after death.
--
Darren Grey
Jeff Lait
> karmarogue <karmaro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >I agree with this. I was excited about the game after watching the
> >trailer but hearing talk about removing permadeath has me worried. :
> >( Please do not listen to previous posters arguing in favor of some
> >sort of persistence system or you will remove arguably the most
> >important aspect of roguelikes from your game and become nothing more
> >than an MMORPG yawn-fest
>
> In an MMO, you can die to network dropouts/lag. That is _utterly_
> incompatible with permadeath, unless you want to impose a ludicrous
> burden on your GMs (including having them try to distinguish between
> genuine network failure and people pulling their ethernet cable to be
> netfail-killed so they can submit a petition for character restoration).
If permadeath is restricted to the dungeon you are adventuring in, the
problem changes entirely.
This is exactly why there shouldn't be persistence of gameplay
equipment from dungeon to dungeon.
> Even EVE Online, one of the harshest MMOs in the world, doesn't wipe your
> character when you get your life pod blown up.
Your avatar, your "name", must be persistent for obvious reasons.
Question is whether you have to amass wealth in-game or not. The
standard RPG model is that your name will gather new levels, skills,
equipment. But this is very different from the roguelike model. The
roguelike model is one of always starting back at level 1. The great
achievement of the roguelike genre is that it makes this fun.
A MMORPG roguelike should thus, IMHO, consist of your "profile"
character/avatar being able to pick up friends in the overworld. You
then enter the dungeons, either instanced or persistent, but on
entering create/select your starting character. Adventuring in the
dungeon can then be as harsh or soft as you like, and even vary
dungeon to dungeon. Link deaths are inevitable, but they aren't the
loss of 2 years of effort, they can never be more than the loss of
that single dungeon crawl of effort.
Persistent dungeons would be particularly interesting as players could
cache equipment at the entrance for new players to pick up on their
way down.
Felix
Looks pretty awesome and the music is an A+, but I have to admit I'm
skeptical. No multiplayer roguelike seems to have really worked out in
the past, but who knows? maybe this will be the one
George Oliver
> Hmm, but that takes away from the general MMO enjoyment of building up
> a character, and gradually taking on harder and harder enemies. The
> old grindfest that makes the likes of WOW so popular... Haha, but
> hopefully Mnemonic could be done a little better.
I think by keeping track of levels descended, bosses killed, and so on
you can build a system to award players for achieving. Then allow them
to upgrade characters at level 1 of the dungeon based on that. Turning
a MMORL into a MMO doesn't sound that appealing to me really. A
multiplayer -roguelike- is something I would play for sure.
karmarogue
> In an MMO, you can die to network dropouts/lag. That is _utterly_
> incompatible with permadeath, unless you want to impose a ludicrous
> burden on your GMs (including having them try to distinguish between
> genuine network failure and people pulling their ethernet cable to be
> netfail-killed so they can submit a petition for character restoration).
You are talking about an MMORPG. This thread is about a multiplayer
roguelike. In the future, please read the thread in question prior to
responding. Thanks.
David Damerell
>On Jun 4, 1:02=A0am, Martin Read <mpr...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
>>In an MMO, you can die to network dropouts/lag. That is _utterly_
>>incompatible with permadeath, unless you want to impose a ludicrous
>>burden on your GMs (including having them try to distinguish between
>>genuine network failure and people pulling their ethernet cable to be
>>netfail-killed so they can submit a petition for character restoration).
>You are talking about an MMORPG. This thread is about a multiplayer
>roguelike.
... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
> In the future, please read the thread in question prior to
>responding. Thanks.
The proctologist called. He found your head.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is Saturday, June - a weekend.
karmarogue
wrote:
> ... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
> author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
"MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
scripting."
...is how the game is defined. "MMORPG" was in the context of some
proof-of-concept for his buddies using a trailer.
Jeff Lait
That is the typical RPG enjoyment. Not the typical Roguelike
enjoyment.
Roguelikes aren't RPGs (by which I refer to computer RPGs like Ultima,
Morrowind, or Final Fantasy, not to pen and paper style RPGs).
Jeff Lait
I'd rather just have separate dungeons for different character
levels. Ie, you unlock more complicated dungeons which have higher
starting-level characters.
This way when you go to play with a friend you don't get to re-run the
level 1 dungeon with a level 20 character, you instead get to actually
play the level 1 dungeon again as it was intended. If it is properly
designed as a roguelike, this should be fun even for the experienced
player.
David Damerell
>On Jun 4, 9:32=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
>>author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
>"MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
>effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
>scripting."
Yes, I can read, thanks.
>...is how the game is defined. "MMORPG" was in the context of some
>proof-of-concept for his buddies using a trailer.
But why would the OP need to prove that if he was insistent (in the way
you are) that it's not any kind of MMO?
I notice you are carefully ignoring the fact that Martin's point is just
as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
karmarogue
wrote:
> Quoting karmarogue <karmaro...@gmail.com>:
>
> >On Jun 4, 9:32=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> >>... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
> >>author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
> >"MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
> >effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
> >scripting."
>
> Yes, I can read, thanks.
>
> >...is how the game is defined. "MMORPG" was in the context of some
> >proof-of-concept for his buddies using a trailer.
>
> But why would the OP need to prove that if he was insistent (in the way
> you are) that it's not any kind of MMO?
>
> I notice you are carefully ignoring the fact that Martin's point is just
> as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
> multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
> --
> Today is Saturday, June - a weekend.
The first M in MMO stands for Massively. Unless I'm way off in left
field somewhere, I'm assuming this game will be MO, not an MMO
karmarogue
wrote:
> Quoting karmarogue <karmaro...@gmail.com>:
>
> >On Jun 4, 9:32=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> >>... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
> >>author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
> >"MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
> >effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
> >scripting."
>
> Yes, I can read, thanks.
>
> >...is how the game is defined. "MMORPG" was in the context of some
> >proof-of-concept for his buddies using a trailer.
>
> But why would the OP need to prove that if he was insistent (in the way
> you are) that it's not any kind of MMO?
>
> I notice you are carefully ignoring the fact that Martin's point is just
> as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
> multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
> --
> Today is Saturday, June - a weekend.
Martin's point is bad connections. Why should games be developed
around people with bad connections? It should be the responsibility of
the player to ensure they have a stable connection to the internet and
the responsibility of the server to maintain a steady connection
Ido Yehieli
>
> The first M in MMO stands for Massively. Unless I'm way off in left
> field somewhere, I'm assuming this game will be MO, not an MMO
That's what the acronym is, but I assume the original poster meant the
distinction (when compared to just plain ol' multi-player games like
Diabo & Starcraft) of having a single persistent game world where all
players participate, rather than each group of players and each game
session being assigned their own temporary game world that is not
retained afterwards.
-Ido.
dabre...@gmail.com
Thanks, I was about to point that out. My friends don't know what a
roguelike is, but they'd still play it. I'm a bit concerned about how
this thread is starting to turn into a flamewar over permadeath. I
have not decided how MnemonicRL will use it, but rest assured you will
never lose the character/identity you create. This is the "RP" aspect
of it. At the same time, I want to encourage trying out the different
classes -- there will be 8, all very different. Roguelikes master
replayability; this is my goal as well.
dabre...@gmail.com
Not with my upstream, no. When I call it a MMORPG to friends, that's
because they're the main chunk of my intended audience, and they're
casual gamers; they'd be confused be MORPG with the other M.
karmarogue
If I were to describe a roguelike in one paragraph, I would not even
bring up ASCII. Hell, even two or three paragraphs. If the only
thing your game will have in common with the original rogue is ASCII
graphics I do not believe that it should be called "roguelike".
Roguelikes are defined by their gameplay and there may not be any more
defining aspect than perma-death.
David Ploog
> If I were to describe a roguelike in one paragraph, I would not even
> bring up ASCII. Hell, even two or three paragraphs. If the only
> thing your game will have in common with the original rogue is ASCII
> graphics I do not believe that it should be called "roguelike".
> Roguelikes are defined by their gameplay and there may not be any more
> defining aspect than perma-death.
I fully agree: ASCII is of secondary importance; heck, even less than
that. Apart from permadeath I see one other defining, crucial property:
random content. These two are responsible for lasting enjoyment.
David
Jotaf
The idea of not amassing wealth as has become the staple of MMORPGs
today seems pretty awesome to me. You sidestep the entire issue of
economies and all the other meta-stuff that's a huge headache to
people running those games.
Ok, so if I understand it correctly it's like this: your character has
a level and experience, but no gear. Achievements are recorded though.
And you can play any dungeon with a level less than or equal to yours;
except you play at the dungeon's level, not your own. Experience you
gain allows you to advance in level. Gear is local to the dungeon.
What's there not to like? :)
Oh and concerning skills and abilities, since each one is presumably
gained at a certain level, when playing in a lower-level dungeon it
should be easy to roll back to the set of abilities you had when you
"were" of that level.
The biggest benefit IMO is how it ends the segregation of player
levels. You didn't grind for a whole week, too bad: now your party has
moved on and you have to find yourself new friends. Sweet. </sarcasm>
Jotaf
dabre...@gmail.com
I humbly apologize if I have offended you by referring to the project
as a roguelike when it breaks from tradition, but I merely though this
group would have interest in a project firm in randomly-generated
content and ASCII display. In other words, I don't care what anyone
calls the game -- multipler RL, MORPG, whatever -- it doesn't matter
to me, I'm just striving to make something fun, not make my game fit a
genre.
In regards to permadeath, this is what I have decided:
You create one identity in Cyphen. From that point, there are three
modes of play:
1) Singleplayer - a coffeebreak game with the same content, always
start with a new character, traditional permadeath. The only effect in
multiplayer-world is maybe a highscore board. I like the idea of being
able to jump in and play without committing to creating, developing,
and getting attached to a character.
2) Party play. The character you make is one class, and stays this
way. Find some pals and head to a dungeon. They will be ranked by
difficulty, and may be pursued in succession. Once you finish a
dungeon, you can join another party. Permadeath -- if you "die" in a
party game, a severe penalty occurs -- you lose a level or two, some
items, enough to where dying is a hassle. Your party can either choose
to keep you alone and help you catch up, or ditch you. If you're
ditched, you can't farm on lower levels within that party dungeon
since very little respawning will occur; your best bet is to quit the
dungeon (you can't return, nor can any players be added to a party
once it is created). Since the dungeons are ranked, you can find
another group (or go solo) and build back up.
This style allows for some interesting dynamics -- if you have feuding
groups in Cyphen, they can recruit people to go sabotage a party. You
can't kick out anybody in your party; they must choose to leave.
If you want to join multiple parties or have different characters,
then create multiple identities. It doesn't fit the plot to
"reincarnate" as a completely different person, and it ruins the RP
aspect of the game. If you want a traditional roguelike or haven't
decided on what type of character you'd like to develop, then hey --
go play the singleplayer mode.
3) Free-for-all. When you create a party game, the dungeons are
persistent and the same for everyone in your party, but nobody else
can join in. However, there will be a universal world, both static and
randomly generated. PvP/PK will be allowed in segregated areas;
specific arenas will exist for people to bet and for teams/individuals
to square off for items. Additionally, a human or AI DM will trigger
events in the arena such as environmental effects and monster
spawning. The same death rules apply, you can lose levels -- since PvP
exists, level 20's are segregated from level 5's, and you enter at
your own risk.
This is what I have decided. If you don't like it, feel free to debate
it or fork the code and run your own server -- I will be releasing
under the GPL (Delayed because Perl Curses + pdcurses isn't playing
well for the Windows release). Again, I am not trying to fit anybody's
standards but my own, and I just hope this can be fun for others too.
So take the flamewar on permadeath to another thread, please.
Billy Bissette
news:ad6a48a6-303d-4f37...@q16g2000yqg.googlegroups.com:
Moving from arguing over permadeaths to arguing over "What defines
a Roguelike" isn't going to be an improvement.
ben...@gmail.com
through reality for hidden messages," "reality is hidden between the
lines," and the Glowing Greenish Circle.
>°< !
What *is* between the lines of an ASCII game? You've set some high
standards for yourself! I'll definitely keep an eye on this.
Do you have a permanent URL for it yet? -- Ben
dabre...@gmail.com
Some of the lines were taken from bits of poetry and other creative
writing; I think the entire idea of an ASCII interface is mind-
boggling. Instead of trying to mimic reality, where symbols are
usually not as obvious, make the symbols the reality -- @ is your
character.. no, eventually YOU. It's about representation.
The glowing greenish circle was supposed to be my pocketwatch; it's a
nifty little toy from ebay and it glows quite nicely, but I couldn't
get the lighting right on my camera.
No permanent URL yet, I plan to put up a devblog eventually. I'm going
to host on my home server at first, which isn't necessarily up 24/7
and has horrible upstream, but it'll do for the time being.
David Damerell
>On Jun 4, 10:44=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>I notice you are carefully ignoring the fact that Martin's point is just
>>as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
>>multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
>around people with bad connections?
In the same way that games tend to be developed around people who blink,
make mistakes, need to sleep, etc.; once you discard the straw man of
"bad" connections, the point is that getting the kiss of permadeath if
your connection drops ever is going to affect approximately everyone.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Today is Sunday, June - a weekend.
Martin Read
>Martin's point is bad connections. Why should games be developed
>around people with bad connections? It should be the responsibility of
>the player to ensure they have a stable connection to the internet and
>the responsibility of the server to maintain a steady connection
It's not about me having a bad connection, or the game server having a
bad connection.
It's about a drunk driver's SUV plowing into my telco's roadside
wiring cabinet.
It's about zinc whiskers in my ISP's computer rooms finally breaking
free and getting blown into the guts of the router my connection is
plugged into. (Do _you_ audit your ISP's machine rooms to be sure they
have no galvanized steel components anywhere on the same air
conditioning feed?)
It's about a freighter dragging its anchor across an undersea cable and
breaking it.
It's about a router somewhere between my ISP and the game server's ISP
randomly malfunctioning and deciding to route all my packets to a
machine in Vladivostok that was turned off six years ago.
konijn_
> It's about a router somewhere between my ISP and the game server's ISP
> randomly malfunctioning and deciding to route all my packets to a
> machine in Vladivostok that was turned off six years ago.
> --
Its the cleaning lady pulling out the electricity of your router
because she doesnt know what wireless routers do..
T.
karmarogue
You just don't get it, do you? Help Da Breeg ruin his game. I'm done
here.
dabre...@gmail.com
Eh it doesn't matter, I'm having fun with the project. Got the Linux
standalones built today -- you don't need Perl or any modules to run
them. Working on the same with Windows; it's a bit tough, but I may
have to distribute part of Cygwin, since Curses.pm doesnt built with
native strawberry perl and pdcurses
Darren Grey
> This is what I have decided. If you don't like it, feel free to debate
> it or fork the code and run your own server -- I will be releasing
> under the GPL (Delayed because Perl Curses + pdcurses isn't playing
> well for the Windows release). Again, I am not trying to fit anybody's
> standards but my own, and I just hope this can be fun for others too.
> So take the flamewar on permadeath to another thread, please.
Sounds good, and I like your attitude :) If you haven't got a site
or anything yet then I suggest making yourself a RogueBasin page at
least with a link to the Youtube video. Then you can update it with
any bits of news and people can keep an eye on things. The project
looks like it could be amazing... but obviously it's some way off from
completion. You should definitely post here and on RGRM when you need
some playtesters.
--
Darren Grey
dabre...@gmail.com
Great suggestion, thanks. As the page explains, I'm having some
problems with the Windows port. The development is going steadily; I'm
having lots of fun implementing the monsters. Of the list of about 50
that I've drawn up, about 30 so far have individual traits, behavior,
or attacks that are completely unique and noticeable by the player. I
don't want to simply grind out a list of monsters with different
stats.
David Damerell
>You just don't get it, do you? Help Da Breeg ruin his game. I'm done
>here.
"No-one else understands what I write! What can be wrong with them?"
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Today is First Brieday, June.
Timofei Shatrov
<dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> tried to confuse everyone with this message:
>Quoting karmarogue <karma...@gmail.com>:
>>On Jun 4, 9:32=A0am, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>>... of which the term "MMORPG" is used in the initial posting by the
>>>author, and to which the issue Martin mentions is equally applicable.
>>"MnemonicRL will be a real-time multiplayer roguelike with ASCII
>>effects, immersive static towns, random dungeons, 8 classes, and easy
>>scripting."
>
>Yes, I can read, thanks.
>
>>...is how the game is defined. "MMORPG" was in the context of some
>>proof-of-concept for his buddies using a trailer.
>
>But why would the OP need to prove that if he was insistent (in the way
>you are) that it's not any kind of MMO?
>
>I notice you are carefully ignoring the fact that Martin's point is just
>as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
>multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
Quake Live is MMO and it has "permadeath" on disconnects (you lose all your
frags and get a match loss). Martin's point applies specifically to MMORPGs and
we all know well that they are boring to play. A multiplayer roguelike should
absolutely have permadeath, otherwise it would be boring and I won't play it.
--
|Don't believe this - you're not worthless ,gr---------.ru
|It's us against millions and we can't take them all... | ue il |
|But we can take them on! | @ma |
| (A Wilhelm Scream - The Rip) |______________|
David Damerell
><dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> tried to confuse everyone with this message:
>>as applicable whether you call it an MMO, an MMO"RPG", a real-time
>>multiplayer roguelike, or a spotted eel.
>Quake Live is MMO and it has "permadeath" on disconnects (you lose all your
>frags and get a match loss).
But that ignores the fact that your "character" wasn't going to last
longer than the match anyway. There's nothing _else_ to do.
>Martin's point applies specifically to MMORPGs
No. It applies to any game where the character lifespan is relatively long
- if you can lose it to a single network hiccup you're going to get irked.
Look at how death is recoverable from in Mangband.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Today is Second Chedday, June - a weekend.