H-World, Roguelike Graveyard, Undertaker?
Hansjoerg Malthaner
I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
I don't know if I'll continue some day. Even going open source means
work at the current state (need to change all file headers, because of
the license), and the MMORPG idea may be a nice idea, but I don't seem
to have the power to try it.
Somewhere the is a roguelike graveyard. I forgot the URL.
Untertaker, you can dig a grave for H-World. I think the project is
dead. Put a nice tombstone on it.
Copx, you win.
--
c.u. Hajo
ABCGi
Bummer - see my comments on forum...
Still it is a great achievement in itself I think, especially the
encapsulation of so much functionality in script - almost like a runtime
instant language. That's a pretty good model, I've seen a lot of really
bad attempts at the "generic engine", maybe it would of been easier to
finish if the goals weren't so high?
--
ABCGi ---- (ab...@yahoo.com) ---- http://codemonkey.sunsite.dk
"Good ideas make good things better.
Great ideas make better things simple." - Ray 'Bear' Dillinger
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
>>
>> http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
>>
>> I don't know if I'll continue some day.
[...]
> Still it is a great achievement in itself I think, especially the
> encapsulation of so much functionality in script - almost like a runtime
> instant language. That's a pretty good model, I've seen a lot of really
> bad attempts at the "generic engine", maybe it would of been easier to
> finish if the goals weren't so high?
Yes, more than often I trapped myself. The most prominent example is the
body structure, a tree of limbs. Trees are not really hard to handle,
that's true, but compared to a flat object, they require some overhead -
and it's a constant overhead all throughout the code.
While not so apparent, the UI classes are very complex, too. Event
handling turned into a horror. Memory management once again turned into
a annoying source of hard to find problems.
If I recover, I'll see if I can simplify H-World. Currently I suffer
from some kind of burn-out, I just lost all interest in my projects.
So H-World shall rest in the grave for now.
There are good things, the data driven architecture and the scripting
work very well. Maybe H-World can be revived as an open source community
project or maybe at a later point of time in a simplified version by
myself if I find some motivation again. I still have this MMORPG idea in
mind, but definitely the current H-World core is too complex to be
useable for it.
--
c.u. Hajo
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
>>>
>>> http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
>>>
>>> I don't know if I'll continue some day.
>
> [...]
>
>> Still it is a great achievement in itself I think, especially the
>> encapsulation of so much functionality in script - almost like a
>> runtime instant language. That's a pretty good model, I've seen a lot
>> of really bad attempts at the "generic engine", maybe it would of been
>> easier to finish if the goals weren't so high?
>
> Yes, more than often I trapped myself. The most prominent example is the
> body structure, a tree of limbs. Trees are not really hard to handle,
> that's true, but compared to a flat object, they require some overhead -
> and it's a constant overhead all throughout the code.
>
> While not so apparent, the UI classes are very complex, too. Event
> handling turned into a horror. Memory management once again turned into
> a annoying source of hard to find problems.
This actually sounds like it would make a very interesting wiki article,
the pitfalls of generic architecture. Lots of lessons on more precisely
being able to evaluate the true cost in complexity of certain features
and so on.
> If I recover, I'll see if I can simplify H-World. Currently I suffer
> from some kind of burn-out, I just lost all interest in my projects.
You have sounded a little down lately...
> So H-World shall rest in the grave for now.
>
> There are good things, the data driven architecture and the scripting
> work very well. Maybe H-World can be revived as an open source community
> project or maybe at a later point of time in a simplified version by
> myself if I find some motivation again. I still have this MMORPG idea in
> mind, but definitely the current H-World core is too complex to be
> useable for it.
As I was saying on your forum I would of loved to of had time to
contribute to coding as I really believe in the concept. An ideal way to
keep it going would of been to be able to hand it over to a small
private trusted team of programmers till you got fired up again :)
I would be proud of what you have done to date. Is the current release
pretty stable for a usable version of H-World?
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>> If I recover, I'll see if I can simplify H-World. Currently I suffer
>> from some kind of burn-out, I just lost all interest in my projects.
>
> You have sounded a little down lately...
I don't know when it actually started. I think the first emails or forum
messages showing some signs of resignation can found from early 2004.
I'm not sure if there is a particular reason or if it just grew on me.
Sheep can tell that I got very touchy at all kind of feedback at some
point. I even unsubscribed from the german Simutrans forum because I got
so fed up with everything.
It was a relief to hand Simutrans to the new team.
I think it was just fair to delare H-World stopped so that there are no
wrong hopes.
> As I was saying on your forum I would of loved to of had time to
> contribute to coding as I really believe in the concept. An ideal way to
> keep it going would of been to be able to hand it over to a small
> private trusted team of programmers till you got fired up again :)
Simutrans now works this way. It works very well.
If someone is interested in continuing H-World please mail me. Even if
this measn to change to open source - see my other messages from today.
Sheep has almost up to date sources. You (ABCGi) have somewhat older
sources.
(From tomorrow I'll have troubles to read this newsgroup, at least a
while, so the only way to conatct me is by email. Yes it's valid :) ).
> I would be proud of what you have done to date.
ATM I feel mostly empty. I think some day I will be proud. Currently I
just can say I learned a lot, and I guess the experience will help me in
both job and private life.
> Is the current release
> pretty stable for a usable version of H-World?
I don't know if someone tried it. I think no new bugs have been
reported. There are some quirks, like making the backpack of trader flwo
over and sell him the same item all over :)
I don't think it's so bad that I would have to make a quick update soon.
It can stay as final version for a quite long time, until I know how to
go on.
--
c.u. Hajo
Twisted One
>> I would be proud of what you have done to date.
>
> ATM I feel mostly empty. I think some day I will be proud. Currently I
> just can say I learned a lot, and I guess the experience will help me in
> both job and private life.
It is quite common for creative personalities to also have recurring
depression or manic-depressive tendencies...
--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
Kornel Kisielewicz
I'd say just one sentence -- Are you out of your mind, or hav a bad day???*
(*) My advice -- dump the rest and continue H-World Space. You'll get my
support, and Sci-Fi graphics is a lot faster to create.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>> I would be proud of what you have done to date.
>>
>> ATM I feel mostly empty. I think some day I will be proud. Currently I
>> just can say I learned a lot, and I guess the experience will help me
>> in both job and private life.
>
> It is quite common for creative personalities to also have recurring
> depression or manic-depressive tendencies...
Maybe. I still have my imagination. I just use it differently currently :)
That I've stopped my projects and currently don't want to code/paint
doesn't mean I stopped to live :)
--
c.u. Hajo
Jakub Debski
> Somewhere the is a roguelike graveyard. I forgot the URL.
> Untertaker, you can dig a grave for H-World. I think the project is
> dead. Put a nice tombstone on it.
As soon as Bjorn brings his hosting place back to life.
Bjorn, do you read me?
regards,
Jakub, the grimmy Undertaker.
--
"We're just toys in the hands of Xom"
xenocide.e-plan.pl - SF roguelike in development
www.graveyard.uni.cc - visit Roguelike Graveyard
www.alamak0ta.republika.pl - my other projects
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>Untertaker, you can dig a grave for H-World. I think the project is
>>dead. Put a nice tombstone on it.
>>
>>Copx, you win.
>
> I'd say just one sentence -- Are you out of your mind, or hav a bad day???*
This surely is a bad day.
But seriously I didn't work on H-World for (ouch!) 6 weeks, and I don't
think I will for a while.
Before someone else comes and tells the project dead, I do it. It
removes all pressure. I can still do with it what I like, but noone can
expect something in particular from me.
> (*) My advice -- dump the rest and continue H-World Space. You'll get my
> support, and Sci-Fi graphics is a lot faster to create.
The space game, I can't really get it going. I tried it several times, I
like the idea, yet I run into problems all over and, well now it's the
third time that I said I can't do it. At some point it makes no sense to
try again an again.
If a space game, then not this way.
Let me see if I can get some things done:
- paint basic animations for walking at least
- paint item overlays for the animations at least the very basic items
- add a working network support
If I can do that (or find someone who does it), I'll very likely go on,
in the direction of a graphical MUD or MMORPG. But it's so much work, I
don't think I'll even try.
I really think the project ends here. I can't do it. Better said, I want
to do other things instead - it's not so much an depression in general
more a change of my interests.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Dnia Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:42:33 +0200, Hansjoerg Malthaner napisał(a):
>
>>Somewhere the is a roguelike graveyard. I forgot the URL.
>>Untertaker, you can dig a grave for H-World. I think the project is
>>dead. Put a nice tombstone on it.
>
> As soon as Bjorn brings his hosting place back to life.
> Bjorn, do you read me?
>
> regards,
> Jakub, the grimmy Undertaker.
Thank you!
Last post for today, maybe last post for a long time.
Happy coding everyone :)
Have a good time!
--
c.u. Hajo
ABCGi
> Dnia Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:42:33 +0200, Hansjoerg Malthaner napisał(a):
>
>>Somewhere the is a roguelike graveyard. I forgot the URL.
>>Untertaker, you can dig a grave for H-World. I think the project is
>>dead. Put a nice tombstone on it.
>
> As soon as Bjorn brings his hosting place back to life.
> Bjorn, do you read me?
>
> regards,
> Jakub, the grimmy Undertaker.
"Mummy, the evil man!"
I hope there is a respectful eulogy!
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>> If I recover, I'll see if I can simplify H-World. Currently I suffer
>>> from some kind of burn-out, I just lost all interest in my projects.
>>
>> You have sounded a little down lately...
>
> I don't know when it actually started. I think the first emails or forum
> messages showing some signs of resignation can found from early 2004.
>
> I'm not sure if there is a particular reason or if it just grew on me.
>
> Sheep can tell that I got very touchy at all kind of feedback at some
> point. I even unsubscribed from the german Simutrans forum because I got
> so fed up with everything.
It's interesting, in Thomas Biskups history he talks about a similar
period and there are some other corresponding items between he and you.
> It was a relief to hand Simutrans to the new team.
> I think it was just fair to delare H-World stopped so that there are no
> wrong hopes.
>
>> As I was saying on your forum I would of loved to of had time to
>> contribute to coding as I really believe in the concept. An ideal way
>> to keep it going would of been to be able to hand it over to a small
>> private trusted team of programmers till you got fired up again :)
>
> Simutrans now works this way. It works very well.
>
> If someone is interested in continuing H-World please mail me. Even if
> this measn to change to open source - see my other messages from today.
>
> Sheep has almost up to date sources. You (ABCGi) have somewhat older
> sources.
Yes which shamefully I have not spent enough time looking at.
> (From tomorrow I'll have troubles to read this newsgroup, at least a
> while, so the only way to conatct me is by email. Yes it's valid :) ).
>
>> I would be proud of what you have done to date.
>
> ATM I feel mostly empty. I think some day I will be proud. Currently I
> just can say I learned a lot, and I guess the experience will help me in
> both job and private life.
Yes good point. I have done jobs where I've got ripped off and not paid,
but plenty was learnt both in coding and life experience! Ce qui sera
soyez? Lang Phasenleben?
>> Is the current release pretty stable for a usable version of H-World?
>
> I don't know if someone tried it. I think no new bugs have been
> reported. There are some quirks, like making the backpack of trader flwo
> over and sell him the same item all over :)
>
> I don't think it's so bad that I would have to make a quick update soon.
> It can stay as final version for a quite long time, until I know how to
> go on.
I just downloaded it, it looks ok, it should support my module or anyone
elses ok I think. Maybe put the final download back on the main page...
at least people can count on a stable version!
David Damerell
>I don't know if I'll continue some day. Even going open source means
>work at the current state (need to change all file headers, because of
>the license), and the MMORPG idea may be a nice idea, but I don't seem
>to have the power to try it.
I'm sure you could get people to do the necessary donkey work if the end
result was a Free H-World.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is First Aponoia, April.
Jakub Debski
> But seriously I didn't work on H-World for (ouch!) 6 weeks, and I don't
> think I will for a while.
Come on, I didn't work on Xenocide for the last 6 months (!), and I don't
feel that my game is abandoned. It's just waiting for better times (till I
finnish MCS and be unemployed probably). Well, that was funny, that next
day after I told my "devteam", that this project needs a break, I made a
lot of changes in the source code. Well... I again work on it without
pressure :)
regards,
Jakub
Krice
> Come on, I didn't work on Xenocide for the last 6 months (!), and I
don't
> feel that my game is abandoned.
I didn't work on Kaduria for three years:)
> It's just waiting for better times (till I finnish MCS and be
> unemployed probably).
Hey, I'm unemployed and I'm programming a roguelike..:)
I hope that H-World will continue some day. There is so much good
stuff already that it can't be entirely abandoned.
copx
"Hansjoerg Malthaner" <hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> schrieb im
Newsbeitrag news:3b29hpF...@individual.net...
[snip]
> Copx, you win.
I sacrificed a goat to the lord of the flies today to celebrate this!
copx
Jeff Lait
> Hi,
>
> I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
>
> http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
>
> I don't know if I'll continue some day. Even going open source means
> work at the current state (need to change all file headers, because
of
> the license), and the MMORPG idea may be a nice idea, but I don't
seem
> to have the power to try it.
Enjoy your freedom from self-imposed update schedules!
I hope you, at some point, return to it. I have alway been impressed
with H-World. Let that be a time of your choosing, however.
More importantly, I've been impressed by you as a person. I hope you
stick around so I can have someone to learn proper behaviour from.
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
ABCGi
Here here!
Twisted One
>>It's just waiting for better times (till I finnish MCS and be
>>unemployed probably).
>
> Hey, I'm unemployed and I'm programming a roguelike..:)
"Hi, my name is Jakub Debski, and I'm a roguelike programmer" ... ;)
Twisted One
>> Sheep can tell that I got very touchy at all kind of feedback at some
>> point. I even unsubscribed from the german Simutrans forum because I
>> got so fed up with everything.
>
> It's interesting, in Thomas Biskups history he talks about a similar
> period and there are some other corresponding items between he and you.
A certain subset of creative personalities tend to switch projects
frequently (every few weeks to every few months, typically). They just
sort of lose interest in one, but regain it after a while, lose it again
after another while, and switch to different things from time to time as
a result. Some of them never get finished; others get finished only
after multiple periods like this, and often with one or two complete
rewrites at some point due to major paradigm shifts affecting
architecture and design decisions.
> Yes good point. I have done jobs where I've got ripped off and not paid
Isn't that illegal? We have labor laws here in Canada; I doubt it's
different most places with broadband and computers widespread.
> Ce qui sera soyez? Lang Phasenleben?
What you say?!
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote:
>
>>> Sheep can tell that I got very touchy at all kind of feedback at some
>>> point. I even unsubscribed from the german Simutrans forum because I
>>> got so fed up with everything.
>>
>> It's interesting, in Thomas Biskups history he talks about a similar
>> period and there are some other corresponding items between he and you.
>
> A certain subset of creative personalities tend to switch projects
> frequently (every few weeks to every few months, typically). They just
> sort of lose interest in one, but regain it after a while, lose it again
> after another while, and switch to different things from time to time as
> a result. Some of them never get finished; others get finished only
> after multiple periods like this, and often with one or two complete
> rewrites at some point due to major paradigm shifts affecting
> architecture and design decisions.
Wow I think you just described me - the only projects I manage to finish
are ones for other people, not for myself. I'm quite proud of this book
I published for my great-uncle;
http://abcgi.fly.to/justonelifetime
>> Yes good point. I have done jobs where I've got ripped off and not paid
>
> Isn't that illegal? We have labor laws here in Canada; I doubt it's
> different most places with broadband and computers widespread.
Yep - but there is another paradigm between law and what you can afford
to pursue - ie law and power!
>> Ce qui sera soyez? Lang Phasenleben?
>
> What you say?!
What will be will be?[FR] Long live life?[GE Hajo's native tongue) -
badly translated by Google!
R. Dan Henry
<hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>Twisted One wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>>> I would be proud of what you have done to date.
>>>
>>> ATM I feel mostly empty. I think some day I will be proud. Currently I
>>> just can say I learned a lot, and I guess the experience will help me
>>> in both job and private life.
>>
>> It is quite common for creative personalities to also have recurring
>> depression or manic-depressive tendencies...
Not that you'd suggest someone else might be mentally ill in any way,
what with that being so insulting and all.
>Maybe. I still have my imagination. I just use it differently currently :)
>
>That I've stopped my projects and currently don't want to code/paint
>doesn't mean I stopped to live :)
And that's the important thing. Actually, having a static H-World
might result in some more attempts to make some actual games with it.
You've had some periods of frequent releases and a moving target of a
game engine isn't the easiest thing to work with.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
ABCGi
That's true, I had a working version of Beyond H-World and then the
engine changed and it stopped working and that's about where I got busy
with other things.
Jakub Debski
>> Come on, I didn't work on Xenocide for the last 6 months (!), and I
> don't
>> feel that my game is abandoned.
>
> I didn't work on Kaduria for three years:)
That sounds optimistic :) I wonder how long it will take me to
back to regular work on Xenocide ;)
> Hey, I'm unemployed and I'm programming a roguelike..:)
You just can't spend time on your game, when you are full-time programmer,
study during weekends, have to write code for school projects and write a
program to your thesis... Sometimes brain has to rest :/
> I hope that H-World will continue some day. There is so much good
> stuff already that it can't be entirely abandoned.
True.
And Graveyard is still offline... :/
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> "Hansjoerg Malthaner" <hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> schrieb:
>
> [snip]
>
>>Copx, you win.
>
> I sacrificed a goat to the lord of the flies today to celebrate this!
I thought I could make you happy.
But I didn't want that a poor animal gets killed because of that :(
> copx
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hi,
>
> I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
>
> http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
>
> I don't know if I'll continue some day. Even going open source means
> work at the current state
I'll make H-World and the basic libraries open source. Regardless of the
headers. I've registered myself at sourceforge and once my account is
set up I'll create a project and upload the sources as they are.
The licence of the project will be GPL.
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
Upon project creation Sourceforge told me that the project has to be
reviewed first and it may take up to two workdays until a decision is made.
I'll keep you updated on the progress.
--
c.u. Hajo
Twisted One
> Upon project creation Sourceforge told me that the project has to be
> reviewed first and it may take up to two workdays until a decision is made.
>
> I'll keep you updated on the progress.
It's largely a formality -- as long as you picked an acceptable license
(and the GPL certainly is) and the project submission looks genuine and
isn't in some way juvenile, a complete duplicate, or something else
obviously wrong, they will accept it. You probably have to make a
deliberate effort to be rejected. :)
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>> Upon project creation Sourceforge told me that the project has to be
>> reviewed first and it may take up to two workdays until a decision is
>> made.
>>
>> I'll keep you updated on the progress.
>
> It's largely a formality -- as long as you picked an acceptable license
> (and the GPL certainly is) and the project submission looks genuine and
> isn't in some way juvenile, a complete duplicate, or something else
> obviously wrong, they will accept it. You probably have to make a
> deliberate effort to be rejected. :)
I'm somewhat excited. This is my first real open source project :)
I'm also curious what will happen once the code and images are
publically available.
I told them that it's an existing project that's going to be changed to
open source. I gave the project homepage. Depending on what such a
project review includes it can take a while for them to inspect the project.
ABCGi, Sheep, are you registered at sourceforge? IIRC I need to add
developers actively to the project team (once the project is set up) so
that they have write access to the CVS. So I'll need your 'names' in
order to add you :)
--
c.u. Hajo
The Sheep
ABCGi napisal(a):
The song said `Que sera, sera.', AFAIR :)
--
Radomir @**@_ Bee! .**._ .**._ .**._ .**._ zZ
`The Sheep' ('') 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (--) 3
Dopieralski .vvVvVVVVVvVVVvVVVvVvVVvVvvVvVVVVVVvvVVvvVvvvvVVvVVvv.v.
The Sheep
Hansjoerg Malthaner napisal(a):
> ABCGi, Sheep, are you registered at sourceforge? IIRC I need to add
> developers actively to the project team (once the project is set up) so
> that they have write access to the CVS. So I'll need your 'names' in
> order to add you :)
I'm there since 2000, just look for `sheep' or `Radomir Dopieralski'
(one of the benefits of not hiding one's true identity).
ABCGi
> Dnia Fri, 01 Apr 2005 13:05:24 +1000,
> ABCGi napisal(a):
>
>>Twisted One wrote:
>>
>>>ABCGi wrote:
>>>
>>>>Ce qui sera soyez? Lang Phasenleben?
>
>>>What you say?!
>
>
>>What will be will be?[FR] Long live life?[GE Hajo's native tongue) -
>>badly translated by Google!
>
> The song said `Que sera, sera.', AFAIR :)
At least mine was more obtuse (by that you can read wrong :)
ABCGi
> Dnia Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:47:28 +0200,
> Hansjoerg Malthaner napisal(a):
>
>>ABCGi, Sheep, are you registered at sourceforge? IIRC I need to add
>>developers actively to the project team (once the project is set up) so
>>that they have write access to the CVS. So I'll need your 'names' in
>>order to add you :)
>
> I'm there since 2000, just look for `sheep' or `Radomir Dopieralski'
> (one of the benefits of not hiding one's true identity).
Yeah those cowards who hide behind anon. and stupid nick names, I gosh
darn despise their irrectitude!
Err... my sourceforge id is -> abcgi
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> The Sheep wrote:
>
>> Dnia Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:47:28 +0200,
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner napisal(a):
>>
>>> ABCGi, Sheep, are you registered at sourceforge?
>>
>> I'm there since 2000, just look for `sheep' or `Radomir Dopieralski'
>> (one of the benefits of not hiding one's true identity).
>
> Yeah those cowards who hide behind anon. and stupid nick names, I gosh
> darn despise their irrectitude!
>
> Err... my sourceforge id is -> abcgi
>
> ab...@users.sourceforge.net
:o)
Thanks! Once the project is up, I'll add you.
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>> (*) My advice -- dump the rest and continue H-World Space. You'll
>> get my support, and Sci-Fi graphics is a lot faster to create.
>
> The space game, I can't really get it going. I tried it several
> times, I like the idea, yet I run into problems all over and, well
> now it's the third time that I said I can't do it. At some point it
> makes no sense to try again an again.
>
> If a space game, then not this way.
Why? Tell me where you got stuck. Maybe I can help.
> Let me see if I can get some things done:
> - paint basic animations for walking at least
Instead of painting animations, let a dedicated fan do a 3D model and then
do all the neccessary image shopts for you. It happens I know such a
dedicated fan ;-) (if we are talking about the Space game that is).
> - paint item overlays for the animations at least the very basic items
Dump Item overlays altogether.
> - add a working network support
Why?
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Krice wrote:
>>> It's just waiting for better times (till I finnish MCS and be
>>> unemployed probably).
>>
>> Hey, I'm unemployed and I'm programming a roguelike..:)
>
> "Hi, my name is Jakub Debski, and I'm a roguelike programmer" ... ;)
Hi my name is Kornel Kisielewicz and I'm a roguelike programmer too ;-)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"The name of GenRogue, has become a warning against excessively
complex design." -- RGRD FAQ
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote::
>
>>>
>>> I now officially declared H-World to be stopped:
>>>
>>> http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11&t_id=38
>>>
>>> I don't know if I'll continue some day. Even going open source means
>>> work at the current state
>>
>> I'll make H-World and the basic libraries open source. Regardless of
>> the headers. I've registered myself at sourceforge and once my account
>> is set up I'll create a project and upload the sources as they are.
>>
>> The licence of the project will be GPL.
>
> Upon project creation Sourceforge told me that the project has to be
> reviewed first and it may take up to two workdays until a decision is made.
>
> I'll keep you updated on the progress.
The project is now registered at sourceforge. I'll start importing the
files into the CVS. The basic UI and template libraries are imported
already.
Anonymous CVS shows nothing yet. I read that there is a 24 hours delay,
so I hope the files will be visible tomorrow.
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> ABCGi wrote::
>
>> The Sheep wrote:
>>
>>> Dnia Fri, 01 Apr 2005 11:47:28 +0200,
>>> Hansjoerg Malthaner napisal(a):
>>>
>>>> ABCGi, Sheep, are you registered at sourceforge?
>>>
>>> I'm there since 2000, just look for `sheep' or `Radomir Dopieralski'
>>
>> Err... my sourceforge id is -> abcgi
>
> Thanks! Once the project is up, I'll add you.
Done. You two are now developers of the H-World project.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/h-world/
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>
>>>(*) My advice -- dump the rest and continue H-World Space. You'll
>>>get my support, and Sci-Fi graphics is a lot faster to create.
>>
>>The space game, I can't really get it going. I tried it several
>>times, I like the idea, yet I run into problems all over
[...]
>>
>>If a space game, then not this way.
>
> Why? Tell me where you got stuck. Maybe I can help.
Basically it's two projects patched together. H-World and a former
project of mine. The data structures don't fit together very well.
E.g. H-World has no idea of coordinates in space, like positions of
solar systems or a spaceship in between planets. H-World works on maps
and transitions between them.
It doesn't fit together very well.
The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The space
game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think I can do it.
>>Let me see if I can get some things done:
>>- paint basic animations for walking at least
>
> Instead of painting animations, let a dedicated fan do a 3D model and then
> do all the neccessary image shopts for you. It happens I know such a
> dedicated fan ;-) (if we are talking about the Space game that is).
Well, do it. I'll not complain if they are modeled/renderd instead of
drawn :)
Yet, so far noone did it although we discussed the problem here several
times.
Anyways I don't put to much stress on it, the project is currently on
halt, and I don't know if I'll add code to use the animations.
>>- paint item overlays for the animations at least the very basic items
>
> Dump Item overlays altogether.
No. For me this is a very interesting and important feature. I want to
see what the PC/NPC are using/wearing and this feature allows to do it
perfectly.
>>- add a working network support
>
> Why?
Becuase I have a dream of a multiuser game.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>
>> Why? Tell me where you got stuck. Maybe I can help.
>
> Basically it's two projects patched together. H-World and a former
> project of mine. The data structures don't fit together very well.
>
> E.g. H-World has no idea of coordinates in space, like positions of
> solar systems or a spaceship in between planets. H-World works on maps
> and transitions between them.
>
> It doesn't fit together very well.
Ah I see. Then a rewrite might be in order.
> The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The space
> game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think I can do it.
You don't think you would do that alone, do you?
I think I could help you with that. I always wanted to make a space cRPG
game, but seeing how many projects I want to achieve I know I will never
have time to do one. I could serve you with all my space-related ideas
then...
>>> Let me see if I can get some things done:
>>> - paint basic animations for walking at least
>>
>> Instead of painting animations, let a dedicated fan do a 3D model
>> and then do all the neccessary image shopts for you. It happens I
>> know such a dedicated fan ;-) (if we are talking about the Space
>> game that is).
>
> Well, do it. I'll not complain if they are modeled/renderd instead of
> drawn :)
Putting on the todo list.
> Yet, so far noone did it although we discussed the problem here
> several times.
True.
>> Dump Item overlays altogether.
>
> No. For me this is a very interesting and important feature. I want to
> see what the PC/NPC are using/wearing and this feature allows to do it
> perfectly.
Okay, I see it. But I think it would be a pain in the ass with animated
tiles.
>>> - add a working network support
>>
>> Why?
>
> Becuase I have a dream of a multiuser game.
Aaah I see.
(yesss, not a single smiley)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"It's much easier to make an army of dumb good people than to
make one single smart good guy..." -- DarkGod
ABCGi
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote::
> The project is now registered at sourceforge. I'll start importing the
> files into the CVS. The basic UI and template libraries are imported
> already.
>
> Anonymous CVS shows nothing yet. I read that there is a 24 hours delay,
> so I hope the files will be visible tomorrow.
Yep all working fine now CVS, sourceforge page etc. Looks good, also
good place for players to download the latest version of the game. I
think the forum was a little too hidden.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote::
>
> *SNIP*
>
>> The project is now registered at sourceforge. I'll start importing the
>> files into the CVS. The basic UI and template libraries are imported
>> already.
>>
>> Anonymous CVS shows nothing yet. I read that there is a 24 hours
>> delay, so I hope the files will be visible tomorrow.
>
> Yep all working fine now CVS,
I had to change soem things in order to get the sources to compile with
gcc 3.3
I've successfully checked out all sources (lua, hjmlib, h-world) and
compiled all three packages. A quick test run succeeded without errrors.
I think the project is now set up correctly on sourceforge.
> sourceforge page etc. Looks good, also
> good place for players to download the latest version of the game. I
> think the forum was a little too hidden.
Yes, it was kind of "I have no better idea how to do it" solution.
Sourceforge also offers bugtracking and extension request tracking
mechanisms so the forum is not really needed anymore.
--
c.u. Hajo
Jeff Lait
I just finished an update pass on the Actively Developing Roguelike
list. Should I redirect the H-World entry to the sourceforge page or
leave it where it is?
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>The project is now registered at sourceforge. I'll start importinging
> I just finished an update pass on the Actively Developing Roguelike
> list. Should I redirect the H-World entry to the sourceforge page or
> leave it where it is?
It depends. If the open source idea really helps to keep the project
alive, the H-World project site at sourceforge will sure turn into the
most important place for the project.
Point the people to the Sourceforge site. The old homepage, and he Wiki
are linked from there. Also all new development will go on there,
bugtracking and such will happen there. I guess it is the best place to
point H-World visitors to.
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The space
>>game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think I can do it.
>
> You don't think you would do that alone, do you?
I couldn't find helpers. I mean I found some who told they will help,
but actually only wasted ym time with a lot of emails. I didn't get a
single building or space station so far.
So I assume I have to do it alone, and I can't becuase it is too much
work. -> Conclusion: it doesn't make sense to continue.
> I think I could help you with that. I always wanted to make a space cRPG
> game, but seeing how many projects I want to achieve I know I will never
> have time to do one. I could serve you with all my space-related ideas
> then...
If the ideas come in shape of images, objetcs, room and level maps I'll
be happy :)
>>>>Let me see if I can get some things done:
>>>>- paint basic animations for walking at least
>>>
>>>Instead of painting animations, let a dedicated fan do a 3D model
>>>and then do all the neccessary image shopts for you. It happens I
>>>know such a dedicated fan ;-) (if we are talking about the Space
>>>game that is).
>>
>>Well, do it. I'll not complain if they are modeled/renderd instead of
>>drawn :)
>
> Putting on the todo list.
Keep it simple :)
Only three frames per direction. Standing still, left foot step, right
foot step. 8 directions.
If you can, also one frame sitting (8 directions, yogi style sitting on
floor, legs crossed), and one frame sleeping (8 directions, peaceful look).
>>>Dump Item overlays altogether.
>>
>>No. For me this is a very interesting and important feature. I want to
>>see what the PC/NPC are using/wearing and this feature allows to do it
>>perfectly.
>
> Okay, I see it. But I think it would be a pain in the ass with animated
> tiles.
It is. That's why I want to keep the number of frames per animation
small. If you do the animations, I think it's fairly easy to derive the
overlay shapes from the basic animations.
>>>>- add a working network support
>>>
>>>Why?
>>
>>Becuase I have a dream of a multiuser game.
>
> Aaah I see.
Too many people try that actually. Maybe I shouldn't. But it something I
really would like to try.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>> The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The
>>> space game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think I
>>> can do it.
>>
>> You don't think you would do that alone, do you?
>
> I couldn't find helpers. I mean I found some who told they will help,
> but actually only wasted ym time with a lot of emails. I didn't get a
> single building or space station so far.
I understand. I can supply a military bot renderings quite fast, but I guess
you wouldn't have the usage for it yet.
> So I assume I have to do it alone, and I can't becuase it is too much
> work. -> Conclusion: it doesn't make sense to continue.
Conclusion: You'll wait until enough art is available.
>> I think I could help you with that. I always wanted to make a space
>> cRPG game, but seeing how many projects I want to achieve I know I
>> will never have time to do one. I could serve you with all my
>> space-related ideas then...
>
> If the ideas come in shape of images, objetcs, room and level maps
> I'll be happy :)
And you *would* ressurect the project?
>>> Well, do it. I'll not complain if they are modeled/renderd instead
>>> of drawn :)
>>
>> Putting on the todo list.
>
> Keep it simple :)
>
> Only three frames per direction. Standing still, left foot step, right
> foot step. 8 directions.
Right.
> If you can, also one frame sitting (8 directions, yogi style sitting
> on floor, legs crossed), and one frame sleeping (8 directions,
> peaceful look).
This is typicaly MMORPGish, right?
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Sonne/
konijn_
Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
> > Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
> >
> >> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
> >
> >>> The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The
> >>> space game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think
I
> >>> can do it.
> >>
> >> You don't think you would do that alone, do you?
> >
> > I couldn't find helpers. I mean I found some who told they will
help,
> > but actually only wasted ym time with a lot of emails. I didn't get
a
> > single building or space station so far.
>
> I understand. I can supply a military bot renderings quite fast, but
I guess
> you wouldn't have the usage for it yet.
If you're looking for bot graphics, you could find inspiration or even
reuse some graphics from http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/
there are plenty of isometric bot and human drawings.
You might even enjoy the rpg ;)
T.
<SNIP>
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>
>>
>>>Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>>>The other problem is content creation. E.g. city buildings. The
>>>>space game is very big and needs a lot of content. I don't think I
>>>>can do it.
>>>
>>>You don't think you would do that alone, do you?
>>
>>I couldn't find helpers. I mean I found some who told they will help,
>>but actually only wasted ym time with a lot of emails. I didn't get a
>>single building or space station so far.
>
> I understand. I can supply a military bot renderings quite fast, but I guess
> you wouldn't have the usage for it yet.
>
>>So I assume I have to do it alone, and I can't becuase it is too much
>>work. -> Conclusion: it doesn't make sense to continue.
>
> Conclusion: You'll wait until enough art is available.
It's not only artwork. A building is something like a small map, usually
15x15 tiles or so. There can be several stories.
Artwork is required for the walls, the floors, the furniture. But a
building must be constructed from the components. Ther are NPCs there,
and maybe tech gadgets that can be activated.
It's much more than just artwork that is missing.
You didn't visit any of the cities yet, did you?
Maybe you should, and also check the room templates that are currently
used for the buildings, to get an idea what needs to be done.
Space stations are similar, yet unlike cities which are assembled from
buildings space stations are monolithic maps. One map per station deck.
So far the only existing station has two decks, a dock and a shopping area.
>>>I think I could help you with that. I always wanted to make a space
>>>cRPG game, but seeing how many projects I want to achieve I know I
>>>will never have time to do one. I could serve you with all my
>>>space-related ideas then...
>>
>>If the ideas come in shape of images, objetcs, room and level maps
>>I'll be happy :)
>
> And you *would* ressurect the project?
It depends what you expect from me. And when.
I've given up because it seemed senseless. It was frustrating. I had no
hope to get anywhere. Some feedback was very negative, at least it
appeared to be.
If you can give me motviation, a vision and hope that it can be done,
I'll be back.
But - big BUT here - you're a bit late. See, if you joined a few months
ago while the project was running, we just would have continued an
ongoing project.
But I gave up. Currently my mind is turned to things that are more
funny, pleasureful and rewarding. This is no good situation for a restart.
I know this might be the only chance to get you into the project. But I
want to be honest. I have stopped becuase of frustration and this
feeling won't go away in a few days or weeks. You'll have to offer
something in advance to give me confidence that it makes sense to try
again. I'll not start working just because you say you like space games.
>>>>Well, do it. I'll not complain if they are modeled/renderd instead
>>>>of drawn :)
>>>
>>>Putting on the todo list.
>>
>>Keep it simple :)
>>
>>Only three frames per direction. Standing still, left foot step, right
>>foot step. 8 directions.
>
> Right.
:)
>>If you can, also one frame sitting (8 directions, yogi style sitting
>>on floor, legs crossed), and one frame sleeping (8 directions,
>>peaceful look).
>
> This is typicaly MMORPGish, right?
Yes. If anything, I want to make an MMORPG. It's currently the only
thing that gives me a slight wish to make it.
OTOH there are so many, I'm not sure if I shall try to expand H-World
into an MMORPG or join one of the existing projects.
I made H-World open source with the idea to be able to take code from
GPLed MMORPG projects and put it together with H-World.
You could say, I realized that I can't do it alone, and now try to loot
and plunder what I can get. GPL allows that. I'll do it. Maybe not today
or tomorrow, but I'm fairly sure I'll try it some day.
We surely can agree on the space setting. I should be a nice playground
for an MMORPG, and gve us a lot of freedom for our ideas.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
> "Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Sonne/
This reminds me that I wanted to buy some of their records :)
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
What's the license of those graphics?
I personaly don't like them -- it's not that they are bad, it's their style
that I just don't like.
Ad finally, for the game to look good, all the graphics should follow one
standard (which is not the case in FreeDroid itself.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
> It's not only artwork. A building is something like a small map,
> usually 15x15 tiles or so. There can be several stories.
Ah, that's easy. Especialy in a Sci-fi setting.
> Artwork is required for the walls, the floors, the furniture. But a
> building must be constructed from the components. Ther are NPCs there,
> and maybe tech gadgets that can be activated.
True.
> It's much more than just artwork that is missing.
> You didn't visit any of the cities yet, did you?
Honestly? I didn't play it at all. No offence, I just didn't have time (for
playing -- I waste a lot of time for task scheduled as "development",
"graphics", "GenRogue" when all I do is lying at the bed and doing nothing.
At least I did something constructive lately and made a new logo for copx's
Tower of Doom). But I sincerely believe, that if I would work with a
dedicated programmer that would do all the programming for me I could supply
everything else (design, graphics, music, sounds, etc). But I don't want to
get involed if all this work would be done for nothing.
> Space stations are similar, yet unlike cities which are assembled from
> buildings space stations are monolithic maps. One map per station
> deck. So far the only existing station has two decks, a dock and a
shopping
> area.
You know what's the biggest problem of H-Space? I know without even playing
it -- lack of gameplay. But I think this is something I'm good aty fixing
(see DoomRL, DiabloRL).
>> And you *would* ressurect the project?
>
> It depends what you expect from me. And when.
Hmm. If I would create a detailed design document of a "pre-release"
version, and supply you all the graphics needed, would you execute it?
> I've given up because it seemed senseless. It was frustrating. I had
> no hope to get anywhere. Some feedback was very negative, at least it
> appeared to be.
Don't worry this can be fixed. I never got (except from RDHenry's final Bug
Report) any negative feedback for either DoomRL or DiabloRL -- I think I'm
good at making the audience happy...
> If you can give me motviation, a vision and hope that it can be done,
> I'll be back.
Ok. But you need to give me time to prepare, just promise you wont say your
last word here.
> But - big BUT here - you're a bit late. See, if you joined a few
> months ago while the project was running, we just would have
> continued an ongoing project.
You never seemed particulary interested in H-Space. Also then I still
believed I can make a Space cRPG of my own.
> But I gave up. Currently my mind is turned to things that are more
> funny, pleasureful and rewarding.
Like?
> I know this might be the only chance to get you into the project. But
> I want to be honest. I have stopped becuase of frustration and this
> feeling won't go away in a few days or weeks. You'll have to offer
> something in advance to give me confidence that it makes sense to try
> again. I'll not start working just because you say you like space
> games.
I know. And I expect nothing from you *until* I provide you an exact
solution to H-Space's problem. I just need a promise to be made, that if I
do (and you will like it) you will ressurect it.
> We surely can agree on the space setting. I should be a nice
> playground for an MMORPG, and gve us a lot of freedom for our ideas.
And I don't know many multiplayer space based cRPG's either
>> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
>> "Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Sonne/
>
> This reminds me that I wanted to buy some of their records :)
I love them! Praise Germany for Rammstein! What is funny, that in Poland
many people listen to Rammstein, but most people don't understand what they
are singing about. I'm probably the only person in my community that likes
Rammstein because of it's poetry (my current favourites are Sonne, Nebel,
Engel and B"ose). Duh! there's an error in my sig -- the quote is from
"Engel"... why didn't anyone correct me?
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>You didn't visit any of the cities yet, did you?
>
> Honestly? I didn't play it at all. No offence, I just didn't have time (for
> playing
No offense taken. I even think noone ever visited any of the planets.
I'm fairly sure, becuase there are bugs and people tend to complain
immediately if they run into a problem.
This also didn't really raise my motivation to continue work.
> But I sincerely believe, that if I would work with a
> dedicated programmer that would do all the programming for me I could supply
> everything else (design, graphics, music, sounds, etc). But I don't want to
> get involed if all this work would be done for nothing.
I undertand that. I feel the same.
But if we work together, we'll be partners. This means, I want to be
involed in all decisions as much as you are.
>>It depends what you expect from me. And when.
>
> Hmm. If I would create a detailed design document of a "pre-release"
> version, and supply you all the graphics needed, would you execute it?
No. At least no if I wasn't involved in the creation of the document.
Let me explain: I'm not a programming slave. You're not the drawing
bloke. We are a team. We do things together.
We may have different skills, so it makes sense that I'll do more of the
coding and you do mor eof the artwork, but in general I expect teamwork,
that means all decisions need former agreement of the the team, and
noone will be locked into a certain niche.
We can create a vision of the project, together, write it down in a
document, and then think about who will do what. I expect that you'll
also do coding and I'll also do artwork. If there are things one of us
can do better, so he shall do it. But I want to stress the 'together'
over the 'separation' of duties.
There is something that wants to become a design document:
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/data/space.txt
> You know what's the biggest problem of H-Space? I know without even playing
> it -- lack of gameplay. But I think this is something I'm good aty fixing
> (see DoomRL, DiabloRL).
Yes of course. You know that gameplay isn't a focus of mine. I create
sandboxes to toy around. OTOH H-Space is much too little devloped to be
a snadbox or anything like that. We could call it a tech demo.
>>>And you *would* ressurect the project?
>
>>I've given up because it seemed senseless. It was frustrating. I had
>>no hope to get anywhere. Some feedback was very negative, at least it
>>appeared to be.
>
> Don't worry this can be fixed. I never got (except from RDHenry's final Bug
> Report) any negative feedback for either DoomRL or DiabloRL -- I think I'm
> good at making the audience happy...
Yes, I noticed that. (Actually it told me that 'effort to success' ratio
is vastly insufficent, and put a serious damper on my motivation.)
>>If you can give me motviation, a vision and hope that it can be done,
>>I'll be back.
>
> Ok. But you need to give me time to prepare, just promise you wont say your
> last word here.
Ok. I can promise that.
>>But - big BUT here - you're a bit late. See, if you joined a few
>>months ago while the project was running, we just would have
>>continued an ongoing project.
>
> You never seemed particulary interested in H-Space. Also then I still
> believed I can make a Space cRPG of my own.
H-Space always suffered from the "I can't do it"
How can you expect me to be strongly interested in something that I
seriously doubt to be doable? Something that shows me every few hours
that the problems are too big?
I'm much more of a sci-fi fan than I'm a fantasy fan. But at some level
I'm a reasobale person. If I see that I can't do something I don't waste
time on it.
I mean, user feedback made me waste a lot of time, becuase I saw that
there is interest, but I just ran from problem to problem and couldn't
solve any of them. I avoided an end by working on other things ion the
hope that I'll find solutions, but seriously, this is just closing the
eyes becuase of not wanting to see the unavoidable failure.
>>But I gave up. Currently my mind is turned to things that are more
>>funny, pleasureful and rewarding.
>
> Like?
Sports, gardening and playing games :)
> I know. And I expect nothing from you *until* I provide you an exact
> solution to H-Space's problem. I just need a promise to be made, that if I
> do (and you will like it) you will ressurect it.
If I like the plan it I will resurrect the project. Actually it isn't
dead, just stopped.
Problems to solve - related work:
1) Make research fun:
http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1170
http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/data/space_analyze.txt
2) Lively worlds:
http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1178
3) NPC dialogs:
http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1133
More open questions:
- find solution for level scale changes (personal scale,
city map scale, surface scale, space scale)
- find solution how to link ship equipment (placed on
personal scale ship interior level) to ship capabilities
(on space or surface scale level maps)
- find solution for NPC dialogs (unlimited no. of solar
system -> unlimited number of NPC. No scripted dialogs possible?)
- create a test implementation of the research process
- find a solution for "social rputation" representation in the game
- create a list of technologies, gadgets and equipment
(taken from here:
http://www.simugraph.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=9&t_id=54 )
More unsolved problems:
http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1223
More reading:
http://rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=4763&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=25
Happy reading :)
But never say anymore I wouldn't have cared about the space game! I
really tried to find solutions and you see there were a lot of
discusions going on.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Jeff Lait
> More open questions:
> - find solution for level scale changes (personal scale,
> city map scale, surface scale, space scale)
> - find solution how to link ship equipment (placed on
> personal scale ship interior level) to ship capabilities
> (on space or surface scale level maps)
> - find solution for NPC dialogs (unlimited no. of solar
> system -> unlimited number of NPC. No scripted dialogs possible?)
> - create a test implementation of the research process
> - find a solution for "social rputation" representation in the game
> - create a list of technologies, gadgets and equipment
>
Did anyone ever point out SunDog to you?
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?name=Sundog%3A+Frozen+Legacy
It addresses a lot of those issues.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>> time (for playing
>
> No offense taken. I even think noone ever visited any of the planets.
> I'm fairly sure, becuase there are bugs and people tend to complain
> immediately if they run into a problem.
Because people need some reson to do anything in the game.
>> But I sincerely believe, that if I would work with a
>> dedicated programmer that would do all the programming for me I
>> could supply everything else (design, graphics, music, sounds, etc).
>> But I don't want to get involed if all this work would be done for
>> nothing.
>
> I undertand that. I feel the same.
>
> But if we work together, we'll be partners. This means, I want to be
> involed in all decisions as much as you are.
Of course. But be aware that conflicts may arise because of our different
natures.
> > Hmm. If I would create a detailed design document of a
> "pre-release" > version, and supply you all the graphics needed,
> would you execute it?
>
> No. At least no if I wasn't involved in the creation of the document.
I mean I would submit a DesignDoc, and afterwards it would go through our
mutual redesign.
> Let me explain: I'm not a programming slave. You're not the drawing
> bloke. We are a team. We do things together.
I never thought of you as a codemonkey, don't worry! But if I do equal work
on it I expect a equal place in the credits :-D. We would plan a way to
synchronize design decisions later.
> There is something that wants to become a design document:
> http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/data/space.txt
Yes. I even have it constantly on my Desktop. This is the true reason I got
interested in H-Space. And contrary to the game itself it was read from
head-to-toe twice.
>> You know what's the biggest problem of H-Space? I know without even
>> playing it -- lack of gameplay. But I think this is something I'm
>> good aty fixing (see DoomRL, DiabloRL).
>
> Yes of course. You know that gameplay isn't a focus of mine. I create
> sandboxes to toy around. OTOH H-Space is much too little devloped to
> be a snadbox or anything like that. We could call it a tech demo.
But gameplay is essential to get the audience. That's why it should be
focused on, cause audience gives the motivation to go on.
>> Don't worry this can be fixed. I never got (except from RDHenry's
>> final Bug Report) any negative feedback for either DoomRL or
>> DiabloRL -- I think I'm good at making the audience happy...
>
> Yes, I noticed that. (Actually it told me that 'effort to success'
> ratio is vastly insufficent, and put a serious damper on my
> motivation.)
No, no, no. I can assure you that H-Space could become popular even after
small changes (or that's what I want to believe)...
>>> If you can give me motviation, a vision and hope that it can be
>>> done, I'll be back.
>>
>> Ok. But you need to give me time to prepare, just promise you wont
>> say your last word here.
>
> Ok. I can promise that.
Word taken.
>>> But I gave up. Currently my mind is turned to things that are more
>>> funny, pleasureful and rewarding.
>>
>> Like?
>
> Sports, gardening and playing games :)
Duh! *Playing* games is a big waste of time! I just recently got hold of
Diablo II and I just recently noticed how an *enormous* amount of time I
wasted on it! I started to play it to gain motivation, but instead it eats
motivation out of me completely. The only game playing that truly gives me
inspiration is Game Mastering the World of Shadows....
**SNIP**
> Happy reading :)
Pasted into a new "Space Design.txt" on the Desktop. I'll get through it
eventualy.
> But never say anymore I wouldn't have cared about the space game! I
> really tried to find solutions and you see there were a lot of
> discusions going on.
Good.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"From what I've read, a lot of people believe that GenRogue
exists and will be released some day" -- Arxenia Xentrophore
Hansjoerg Malthaner
SunDog was one of my idea-givers. I played it a little more than 10
years (15?) ago. There is even a SunDog remake project somewhere.
The questions arose from trying to implement the features with H-World.
I mean, I know how SunDog solved them. I don't know how to do it in
H-World, coding-wise. Actually I was trying to rebuild part of SunDog :)
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>>>But I gave up. Currently my mind is turned to things that are more
>>>>funny, pleasureful and rewarding.
>>>
>>>Like?
>>
>>Sports, gardening and playing games :)
>
> Duh! *Playing* games is a big waste of time! I just recently got hold of
> Diablo II and I just recently noticed how an *enormous* amount of time I
> wasted on it! I started to play it to gain motivation, but instead it eats
> motivation out of me completely.
:)
I didn't say being productive. I said "funny, pleasureful and
rewarding". I play lots of Diablo 2/LOD online lately. I mean *LOTS*.
I enjoy every single minute of it.
My projects all were quite depressing, and caused a lot of uneasiness
for me. Fellow online gamers turned out to be both helpful and thankful.
Wasting time? No. My projects actually were a waste of time, becuase
there was so little positive and so much negative feedback. If people
don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore, too,
why should I do it?
So I do now what is fun for me. Doing fitness training usually leaves a
very good feeling, and I enjoy my body strength and agility. Gardening
also leaves a very positive emotion, earth, air and sun are very basic
experiences, and seeing growth and harvesting is really rewarding.
There are some more things to be worked on, but software development
surely must find a new place in my life, and it won't be among the top
ranks as I see it now.
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>> hold of Diablo II and I just recently noticed how an *enormous*
>> amount of time I wasted on it! I started to play it to gain
>> motivation, but instead it eats motivation out of me completely.
>
> rewarding". I play lots of Diablo 2/LOD online lately. I mean *LOTS*.
This is dangerous. I know that the day I start playing something on-line I
will cease all my development. I once started playing AmberMUSH (and it
wasn't even graphical...). Luckily their server went down, and I am free
again, and a little wiser for the future
> Wasting time? No. My projects actually were a waste of time, becuase
> there was so little positive and so much negative feedback.
They would get positive feedback if you just changed a few things.
> If people
> don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore, too,
> why should I do it?
If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change them so
they do?
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"Shadows universe is non-heroic, unfair, cruel and designed to
start playing on your nerves and sanity." -- Anubis
The Sheep
Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>> If people
>> don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore, too,
>> why should I do it?
>
> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change them so
> they do?
By 'them' you obviously mean the people? ;)
--
Radomir @**@_ Bee! .**._ .**._ .**._ .**._ zZ
`The Sheep' ('') 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (--) 3
Dopieralski .vvVvVVVVVvVVVvVVVvVvVVvVvvVvVVVVVVvvVVvvVvvvvVVvVVvv.v.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Dnia Tue, 5 Apr 2005 19:33:13 +0200,
> Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>> If people
>>> don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore,
>>> too, why should I do it?
>>
>> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change
>> them so they do?
>
> By 'them' you obviously mean the people? ;)
ROFL!
Krice
> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change them
so
> they do?
That's not the way to do it. Some people will hate it anyway, no matter
what you do and others will like it. I think game makers should know
instinctively what is good and what is bad, and follow their dreams.
For instance I don't really care what people say about Kaduria:)
But I'm open for feedback, if it's good and can be done.
R. Dan Henry
<sh...@atos.wmid.amu.edu.pl> wrote:
>Dnia Tue, 5 Apr 2005 19:33:13 +0200,
> Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>> If people
>>> don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore, too,
>>> why should I do it?
>>
>> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change them so
>> they do?
>
>By 'them' you obviously mean the people? ;)
That's the natural reading of it. This is because of the parallel
structure between "people don't" and "they do". So "they" must be
people and therefore so must "them". The problem here is using the
third person plural pronoun twice, meaning something different each
time.
But if it is parsed as intended into "If people don't like your
projects, then maybe you should change the projects so that people do
like the projects," then that is probably good advice. The only
exceptions I can see is if you aren't trying to find an audience, but
making it just for yourself, or if the request you are getting would
result in something you just couldn't stand, like "can't you make your
game about killing babies?" or "All the art should be stick figures!"
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
<kisie...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
>Duh! *Playing* games is a big waste of time!
Not if you want to create games. You have to budget your time, so it
doesn't consume all of your time, but you need to play enough to
understand the genre you are working in: what works and what doesn't
(and then you need to move on to figuring out *why* things do(n't)
work so you can apply your experience more generally).
You need some down time, anyway, you might as well play games. And
Hajo included sports, so he's not just going to sit around becoming an
obese computer geek.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
<hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>We can create a vision of the project, together, write it down in a
>document, and then think about who will do what. I expect that you'll
>also do coding and I'll also do artwork. If there are things one of us
>can do better, so he shall do it. But I want to stress the 'together'
>over the 'separation' of duties.
You could even make division of the artwork into a feature. If the
primary culture is human and there is an alien culture, if the one
doing less artwork does all the alien stuff, it will look and "feel"
different naturally.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Twisted One
> You need some down time, anyway, you might as well play games. And
> Hajo included sports, so he's not just going to sit around becoming an
> obese computer geek.
Which is damned strange if you ask me. Nobody I ever heard of could both
code well and hit a ball to save his life. It's as if large motor
coordination and analytic reasoning are somehow mutually exclusive.
--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> R. Dan Henry wrote:
>
>> You need some down time, anyway, you might as well play games. And
>> Hajo included sports, so he's not just going to sit around becoming an
>> obese computer geek.
>
> Which is damned strange if you ask me. Nobody I ever heard of could both
> code well and hit a ball to save his life. It's as if large motor
> coordination and analytic reasoning are somehow mutually exclusive.
Two years ago the company that I work for organized a big one-week event
at which all 600 employees met. There were 4 days of seminars, a sports
day with competitions and a free day.
I've been fairly surprised how many of the colleagues do sports.
Artistic things like juggling, simple things like running, dangerous
like off-road motorbiking, and all kind of team sports.
I did martial arts for about ten years, until an injury stopped me.
Currently I just do a little bit of fitness training and juggling. (2-3
times a week, 45-60 minutes each session). This isn't much, but it keeps
a little balance to the rest of my life.
I think creativity and sports go hand-in-hand. Creativity is important
for softare developers - usually there is a problem, and you look for
solutions. Without creativity you'll have trouble to find a a good
selection of solutions to choose from. Maybe you'll even miss the
easiest or most reliable solutions, because you couldn't imagine them.
So while sports help keeping the balance between body and mind, my other
hobby, gardeneing keeps the balance between nature and technology.
Computers need control and commands.
You can't control or command nature. You can try, but it always reacts
in it's very own way. You'll find that you have to watch the plants, to
see what they like and dislike, how they react on your doing. Unlike
technology, there is nothing fast here. If you do something, like
pruning a tree, the effects will be visible month or maybe even years
later. You can't undo wrong things. A badly treated plant will die, you
can't reboot it.
Here you can find three images from the garden:
http://www.simugraph.com/en/aboutme/garden.html
Gardening can be hard work. You'll get dirty, tired, sometimes even hurt
yourself. You'll learn that there are things you can't enforce, and
you'll learn that trying to understand your envrionment and working
together with it is sometimes much more effective than trying to control it.
It's all about balance. Mind, body and soul. While my job is heavy on
the mind, and some of my hobbies are too, I take care not too loose too
much balance and care about body and soul, too.
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>Wasting time? No. My projects actually were a waste of time, becuase
>>there was so little positive and so much negative feedback.
>
> They would get positive feedback if you just changed a few things.
I well remember the comment on the graphics to be "amateurish crap".
I don't think that can be changed easily. At least I can't do it. I
tried my best with the images, and if they don't please the players, I
can't rella do much about it.
>>If people
>>don't like my projects, and therefore I don't like them anymore, too,
>>why should I do it?
[Continuing working that was]
> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change them so
> they do?
(Them = the projects)
I don't know. Some things like the graphics I can't change much. My
painting skills have limits; I'm practising painting since many years
now, I don't expect a major breakthrough soon.
But you mean the gameplay. You want that I make games instead of
engines, playgrounds and sandboxes.
Well. We talked about that several times. I seem to have no sense for
gameplay and no motivation to make games instead of the engines.
You can create games so be happy with it and go for it. I can't, so I
can either try to learn, or do something else.
I'm not sure if I want to learn it, I'm not even sure if I want to do
it. So my decision fell for "something else".
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Risto Saarelma
plans from an epic scale game into something hopefully more simple and
predetermined. But thinking about generating a universe is still fun.
On 2005-04-05, Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
> Problems to solve - related work:
>
> 1) Make research fun:
> http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1170
> http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/data/space_analyze.txt
It's going to be pretty difficult to actually model the discovered
artifacts in the way you describe on those pages. Maybe since these
are alien artifacts, it would be better to be a bit vague about their
inner workings and keep the player guessing about just what is going on
in them.
One question to ask is what the player wants to do with the discoveries.
If the idea is just to collect the biggest list of discoveries, then
maybe some kind of a taxonomic tree system could be used. The player
could collect plants, animals, minerals. Also alien artifacts, which
wouldn't necessarily do anything (maybe their inner workings and
purposes are beyond mere human intellects).
The player would start knowing the broadest category of the specimen
such as "octopoid lifeform", "crystalline mineral" or "helical
artifact". Various tests could then be performed to specify the
classification, a bit like a game of 20 questions, and you could get
something like "semi-sentient carnivorous octopoid floater with triple
hydrogen floating sacs and infrared vision" or "helical relic of late
Arcturian basin-crucible culture composed of an advanced titanium alloy
and nano-etched with a repeating sequence of 14 581 430 glyphs from the
Zeta Taurus pseudo-alphabet". You'd have to keep getting better at
research to find even more differences, or you couldn't distinguish new
specimen from ones you've already catalogued.
A phrase generation routine with checks for nonsensical combinations
could produce quite a few of such descriptions, but you couldn't
necessary do much anything with the things other than catalogue them.
If the artifacts are supposed to actually do something or there are some
underlying principles beyond mere taxonomy, the algorithmic approach is
going to become difficult. It might be better to just write the
technologies by hand, like the discovery trees in X-Com Enemy Unknown
and Alpha Centauri, which unfolded a SF plot of sorts. Of course after a
single play through the player would know the history of the alien
civilizations, the principles behind their technology and the rest of
the grand narrative, so this doesn't server replayability that well. But
a skillfully handwritten science tree would give a different level of
immersion and could serve to flesh out the game universe much better
than one based on generated mechanical properties of the artifacts.
Of course this would make research less interesting as a game path, as
the player would soon know what is coming next. It would be more of a
question of finding the artifacts and just allocating resources to
abstract research activity like in the aforementioned tech-tree games.
Genuinely involved research with generated artifacts with a mechanical
structure would probably warrant a game of its own.
> More open questions:
> - find solution for level scale changes (personal scale,
> city map scale, surface scale, space scale)
> - find solution how to link ship equipment (placed on
> personal scale ship interior level) to ship capabilities
> (on space or surface scale level maps)
This sounds like partially a technical question about using the H-World
engine, and I have pretty little knowledge of that. However the general
modelling of scale is an interesting problem.
I think that scale changes are generally trouble with tile-based games,
and should be avoided as much as possible. Lets say we try to get along
with just the personal scale (the player character is one unit) and the
space scale (units are ships, planets, space stations etc.). How planets
are really handled is a difficult question, but I'll leave that aside
for now. So if I understood correctly the problem is reflecting changes
in the ship area to the ship object, the planet area to the planet
object and so forth.
First of all, do all of these space scale objects need a personal scale
interior? For example since piloting the ship is something the player
will do a lot, walking around the interior area of the player's ship is
going to get very tedious. So why not abstract the ship. Entering the
ship will just bring up GUI options to upgrade systems or take off. The
same question can be asked for other objects in space. What happens on
them that is so interesting that it warrants a personal scale area? If
there isn't anything, why not just show a dialog of options.
Still, let's assume you want to model this. Something interesting on the
player's ship could be getting boarded by pirates or being hit by a
meteor that blows out half of the systems, and these would warrant a
transition into personal scale.
Maybe a good approach would be to treat the space scale ship object as
the persistent reference, and just generate a temporary personal scale
area from it whenever it is needed. If some kind of a crisis event is
happening, just have the engine keep track of damage done to the ship's
systems during the event and apply similar damage to the ship object.
After the event, the ship reflects the two generators blown up by a
fusion grenade, the jury-rig repairs the pc did to the damaged
life-support system and the parasite infection that the food cargo unit
got when the pc blew up one of the boarders' plague drones next to it.
Each tile could have reference to the ship system that corresponds to
it, and they should share an interface which can receive such effects.
So there could be an effect that causes disease, which of course is
nasty to organic units on the personal scale, but would not affect most
ship system objects. However, the food cargo pod object could be
infected, and since the tile corresponding to the pod on the ship map
links to the pod component of the ship object, so spraying disease
spores at that tile would have a nasty effect.
I'm not sure if this is any help as I haven't looked into the sort of
design you have in H-Space.
> - find solution for NPC dialogs (unlimited no. of solar
> system -> unlimited number of NPC. No scripted dialogs possible?)
The important question probably is what do you want the player to be
able to do with the npcs. If the npcs are used to further plots, their
dialogue probably has to be scripted. Other things to do with them are
trading and getting them to help you. Both involve tracking the npcs
opinion of the player. But unless stranded on a planet (which would
again make this a different game), I don't think a space traveller would
have much use of the wares or skills of planet-bound natives. So maybe
the npcs should be other space travellers instead. Of course the natives
could have information about strange ruins and mineral deposits, so
maybe the player should barter for knowledge about these.
And of course any space game that has communication with native life
needs to have an "impersonate a god" communication option somewhere :)
The Civilization and Alpha Centauri games use generated dialogue in a
specific discussion domain quite well. But they only work because the
discussion domain (negotiating about the national power balance) is
compact and expressible algorithmically. Generated dialogue about random
events isn't interesting, as the npcs are just revealed to be blathering
automatons. The Civ characters work because they want something.
--
Risto Saarelma
Kornel Kisielewicz
No. If you write the project solely for yourself then you drasticaly reduce
the chances of success. Feedback is very important. That is *if* you want to
finish your game, and not just play around. Also as I remember from other
posts, even Hajo didn't like it and couldn't say why.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"It's much easier to make an army of dumb good people than to
make one single smart good guy..." -- DarkGod
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
> I well remember the comment on the graphics to be "amateurish crap".
You've been compared to commercial products, what did you expect? I would
take that as an honor! Also the problem with H- graphics, was that it didn't
seem to fit together. I can't realy describe why...
> I don't think that can be changed easily. At least I can't do it. I
> tried my best with the images, and if they don't please the players, I
> can't rella do much about it.
Pre-rendered 3d is the answer. In a fantasy game this would be a hellish
pain-in-the-ass, but for a sci-fi game it's doable.
> I don't know. Some things like the graphics I can't change much. My
> painting skills have limits; I'm practising painting since many years
> now, I don't expect a major breakthrough soon.
Don't paint. Render.
> But you mean the gameplay. You want that I make games instead of
> engines, playgrounds and sandboxes.
Exactly.
> Well. We talked about that several times. I seem to have no sense for
> gameplay and no motivation to make games instead of the engines.
That's where you can "hire" someone to help you!
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"It's much easier to make an army of dumb good people than to
make one single smart good guy..." -- DarkGod
Kornel Kisielewicz
> On Tue, 5 Apr 2005 16:51:07 +0200, "Kornel Kisielewicz"
> <kisie...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
>
>> Duh! *Playing* games is a big waste of time!
>
> Not if you want to create games. You have to budget your time, so it
> doesn't consume all of your time, but you need to play enough to
> understand the genre you are working in: what works and what doesn't
> (and then you need to move on to figuring out *why* things do(n't)
> work so you can apply your experience more generally).
I just play from time to time to see what's in the industry. It averages to
about 2-4 hours a week (unless, like now I get stuck with playing a game --
Diablo II).
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
Jeff Lait
That certainly explains why I keep thinking of SunDog when I read your
space game description :>
I also loved SunDog. Well, the *idea* of SunDog to be precise. The
space fighting component of it I found painful beyond words. You
sorely tempt me to try and get involved, but I know too well that I
don't have the time required :<
Jeff Lait
Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> Krice wrote:
> > Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> >> If people don't like your projects, then maybe you should change
> >> them so they do?
> >
> > That's not the way to do it. Some people will hate it anyway, no
> > matter what you do and others will like it. I think game makers
> > should know instinctively what is good and what is bad, and follow
> > their dreams. For instance I don't really care what people say
about
> > Kaduria:)
> > But I'm open for feedback, if it's good and can be done.
>
> No. If you write the project solely for yourself then you drasticaly
reduce
> the chances of success. Feedback is very important. That is *if* you
want to
> finish your game, and not just play around. Also as I remember from
other
> posts, even Hajo didn't like it and couldn't say why.
How do you measure "success"?
Success, IMHO, is creating a fun and enjoyable game.
Building a game that you, the author, enjoy playing means that there is
at least an audiance of one. This, I would think, would greatly
increase the chance that at least one person benefits from your work.
As you said so clearly, feedback is important. If you yourself are the
playtester, you will have no shortage of feedback. Also, if you play
the game yourself, you will be in a good position to understand the
players feedback. If you make a game you don't like (but presumeably
players do) you won't know good feedback from bad feedback as you won't
understand the vision.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>
>>>They would get positive feedback if you just changed a few things.
>>
>>I well remember the comment on the graphics to be "amateurish crap".
>
> You've been compared to commercial products, what did you expect?
I'd prefer to be compared with projects that play in the same league.
But Geneforge is a one-man project also IIRC, and Copx linked a
screenshot from Geneforge as example how to do it better.
So I assume the rating holds even in the same league.
> I would
> take that as an honor! Also the problem with H- graphics, was that it didn't
> seem to fit together. I can't realy describe why...
That's easy to explain. There are three different types of images
- hand drawn
- reworked digitized photgraphs
- rendered images
I tried several approaches, but never replaced the existing if I tried
something new. So there is a mixture of all three.
>>I don't think that can be changed easily. At least I can't do it. I
>>tried my best with the images, and if they don't please the players, I
>>can't rella do much about it.
>
> Pre-rendered 3d is the answer. In a fantasy game this would be a hellish
> pain-in-the-ass, but for a sci-fi game it's doable.
I'm not sure if modelling an alien is easier than modelling a monster.
Of course it depends on the details but I don't think the tasks are
basically different.
>>I don't know. Some things like the graphics I can't change much. My
>>painting skills have limits; I'm practising painting since many years
>>now, I don't expect a major breakthrough soon.
>
> Don't paint. Render.
Quite a lot of the new images are rendered. I agree that this gives good
quality, but creating the models can be fairly time consuming sometimes.
>>But you mean the gameplay. You want that I make games instead of
>>engines, playgrounds and sandboxes.
>
> Exactly.
>
>>Well. We talked about that several times. I seem to have no sense for
>>gameplay and no motivation to make games instead of the engines.
>
> That's where you can "hire" someone to help you!
Open position: Game designer needed
Description: take either "The Jungle" or the "Space game" module of the
H-World distribution and make a game from it
Payment: Your name on the credits page, and in every file that you edited
I had asked a while ago, less formal, but I did. I also had a contact,
but since this job requires more than just writing down a few ideas, the
candidate was not interested.
Actually it's too late IMO. I think I gave up the project too much. So
anyone who wants to do it will be pretty much on his own.
> --
> At your service,
> Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
--
c.u. Hajo
Hansjoerg Malthaner
It'd be also a bad time, now that I declared the project stopped.
Let us think about again in a while. When you have more time, and when
I'm back working on H-World.
So now worries. It's good to know that we share common interests and we
now know whom to ask if one of us starts something in that area :)
--
c.u. Hajo
The Sheep
Risto Saarelma napisal(a):
>> - find solution for NPC dialogs (unlimited no. of solar
>> system -> unlimited number of NPC. No scripted dialogs possible?)
>
> The important question probably is what do you want the player to be
> able to do with the npcs. If the npcs are used to further plots, their
> dialogue probably has to be scripted. Other things to do with them are
> trading and getting them to help you. Both involve tracking the npcs
> opinion of the player. But unless stranded on a planet (which would
> again make this a different game), I don't think a space traveller would
> have much use of the wares or skills of planet-bound natives. So maybe
> the npcs should be other space travellers instead. Of course the natives
> could have information about strange ruins and mineral deposits, so
> maybe the player should barter for knowledge about these.
Just an idea -- you could have quiote a lot of pregenerated NPC dialogues
in the `univbersal language' of you universe -- the language used mainly
in space stations, spceports, and turistic areas -- those are predefined.
But most of the random NPC would use their own language, and the automatic
translators have their limits. Probably they can understand and translate
into standarized, templated sentences the most basic things, and probably
also having some most basic responses to choose from, but that's all.
You'd have to use those basic sentences to communicate with the NPC and to
try and understand what he means. Most of the time you will only know that
he's angry or afraid, he's refering to certain position (automatically
marked on your map by your personal translator), etc.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
> But Geneforge is a one-man project also IIRC, and Copx linked a
> screenshot from Geneforge as example how to do it better.
Can you repost the link?I would like to compare.
> That's easy to explain. There are three different types of images
>
> - hand drawn
> - reworked digitized photgraphs
> - rendered images
>
> I tried several approaches, but never replaced the existing if I tried
> something new. So there is a mixture of all three.
And that's one of the main reasons it looks bad.
>> Pre-rendered 3d is the answer. In a fantasy game this would be a
>> hellish pain-in-the-ass, but for a sci-fi game it's doable.
>
> I'm not sure if modelling an alien is easier than modelling a monster.
No. But you don't need to model so much aliens for a sci-fi game as you need
monsters for a fantasy game. Also modelling architecture is a lot simpler.
There's always the problem with nature, but you seem to handle that quite
well (there would be only a few modifications needed so the images blend
nicely with the rendered ones).
> Of course it depends on the details but I don't think the tasks are
> basically different.
Believe me, they are. And I know what I'm talkiing about :-).
>> Don't paint. Render.
>
> Quite a lot of the new images are rendered. I agree that this gives
> good quality, but creating the models can be fairly time consuming
> sometimes.
It's a lot faster IMHO. It took me only 7 hours to model almost all objects
in the screenshot I posted. Also speed depends MUCH on how familiar you are
with the tool you use for modeling, and how good the tool is (example -- the
chair took about 3 minutes for me to model).
>>> Well. We talked about that several times. I seem to have no sense
>>> for gameplay and no motivation to make games instead of the engines.
>>
>> That's where you can "hire" someone to help you!
>
> Open position: Game designer needed
> Description: take either "The Jungle" or the "Space game" module of
> the H-World distribution and make a game from it
> Payment: Your name on the credits page, and in every file that you
> edited
I don't know lua and I realy don't like C++. If I would, I think I'd try.
> I had asked a while ago, less formal, but I did. I also had a contact,
> but since this job requires more than just writing down a few ideas,
> the candidate was not interested.
I am now.
> Actually it's too late IMO. I think I gave up the project too much. So
> anyone who wants to do it will be pretty much on his own.
Take a look at the renderings and please think again. Take your time, I'm
not in a hurry.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
wrote on Fri, 1 Apr 2005 10:08:54 +0200:
> Dnia 31 Mar 2005 09:51:25 -0800, Krice napisał(a):
>>> Come on, I didn't work on Xenocide for the last 6 months (!), and I
>> don't
>>> feel that my game is abandoned.
>> I didn't work on Kaduria for three years:)
> That sounds optimistic :) I wonder how long it will take me to
> back to regular work on Xenocide ;)
>> Hey, I'm unemployed and I'm programming a roguelike..:)
> You just can't spend time on your game, when you are full-time programmer,
> study during weekends, have to write code for school projects and write a
> program to your thesis... Sometimes brain has to rest :/
I wrote Umbra (my pseudo-3D roguelike in Python) on evenings and
weekends while working very hard at a day job programming fiddly
networking and XML software in Java. It was either that or go mad.
Well... At least I got Umbra out of it.
However, I'm currently unemployed and therefore working on a roguelike
again. Of course.
>> I hope that H-World will continue some day. There is so much good
>> stuff already that it can't be entirely abandoned.
> True.
> And Graveyard is still offline... :/
Do we need a Graveyard Graveyard?
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"Gibson and I dueled among blazing stacks of books for a while. [...] The
streets were crowded with his black-suited minions and I had to turn into a
swarm of locusts and fly back to Seattle." -Neal Stephenson, /. interview
Filip Dreger
Uzytkownik "Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes" <kami...@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu> napisal
w wiadomosci > I wrote Umbra (my pseudo-3D roguelike in Python) on evenings
> weekends while working very hard at a day job programming fiddly
> networking and XML software in Java. It was either that or go mad.
> Well... At least I got Umbra out of it.
A funny coincidence. I just stumbled upon Umbra a couple of days ago and was
wondering what happend to the project (It certainly hasn't gotten a proper
burial) - I was even thinking about contacting the developer and asking :-)
regards,
Filip
R. Alan Monroe
>I think that scale changes are generally trouble with tile-based games,
>and should be avoided as much as possible. Lets say we try to get along
>with just the personal scale (the player character is one unit) and the
>space scale (units are ships, planets, space stations etc.). How planets
>are really handled is a difficult question, but I'll leave that aside
>for now. So if I understood correctly the problem is reflecting changes
>in the ship area to the ship object, the planet area to the planet
>object and so forth.
>
>First of all, do all of these space scale objects need a personal scale
>interior? For example since piloting the ship is something the player
>will do a lot, walking around the interior area of the player's ship is
>going to get very tedious. So why not abstract the ship. Entering the
>ship will just bring up GUI options to upgrade systems or take off. The
>same question can be asked for other objects in space. What happens on
>them that is so interesting that it warrants a personal scale area? If
>there isn't anything, why not just show a dialog of options.
>
>Still, let's assume you want to model this. Something interesting on the
>player's ship could be getting boarded by pirates or being hit by a
>meteor that blows out half of the systems, and these would warrant a
>transition into personal scale.
Has anyone else played this boardgame? It could give you some ideas
about playing in both personal and ship scale - that's its main
selling point.
http://www.battlestations.info/
Alan
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
Well, it's open-sourced, which is what I do with "dead" projects.
Theoreticaly, anyone who wants to touch the code of my first large
Python app (10771 lines of Python, which does the work of 30KLOC in any
other language), doing Things That Should Not Be Done with Tkinter,
could go ahead and upgrade it, and I'd be happy to help with advice, but
I'm not going down that road again myself.
I love Python for scripts and tools, but the graphics solutions for it
all suck total ass (yes, wxPython, pygame, pyopengl, etc. all included),
and it is not a language for making large apps in.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>I'd prefer to be compared with projects that play in the same league.
>>
>>But Geneforge is a one-man project also IIRC, and Copx linked a
>>screenshot from Geneforge as example how to do it better.
>
> Can you repost the link?I would like to compare.
I think Copx posted this Geneforge 2 screenshot:
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/images/geneforge2/townentry.jpg
>>>Pre-rendered 3d is the answer. In a fantasy game this would be a
>>>hellish pain-in-the-ass, but for a sci-fi game it's doable.
>>
>>I'm not sure if modelling an alien is easier than modelling a monster.
>
> No. But you don't need to model so much aliens for a sci-fi game as you need
> monsters for a fantasy game. Also modelling architecture is a lot simpler.
> There's always the problem with nature, but you seem to handle that quite
> well (there would be only a few modifications needed so the images blend
> nicely with the rendered ones).
/me tries to compare monster numbers vs alien count
I can't say if there are less aliens required. I still think modeliing
an animal/monster and modelling an alien are quite comparable, because
all of them are 'natural' bodies/shapes.
You know, that the basic images for characters in H-World are almost
naked? The clothes are all image overlays. So you can't hide bodies
under spacesuits or armor textures. You'll have to model them.
>>Of course it depends on the details but I don't think the tasks are
>>basically different.
>
> Believe me, they are. And I know what I'm talkiing about :-).
Ok. I believe you.
>>>Don't paint. Render.
>>
>>Quite a lot of the new images are rendered. I agree that this gives
>>good quality, but creating the models can be fairly time consuming
>>sometimes.
>
> It's a lot faster IMHO. It took me only 7 hours to model almost all objects
> in the screenshot I posted. Also speed depends MUCH on how familiar you are
> with the tool you use for modeling, and how good the tool is (example -- the
> chair took about 3 minutes for me to model).
I see. One of the chairs in H-World is rendered too:
http://tinyurl.com/7x5cn
It took me about two hours.
On that image almost everything is rendered, but the locker in the upper
left, which is made from a photograph.
>>>>Well. We talked about that several times. I seem to have no sense
>>>>for gameplay and no motivation to make games instead of the engines.
>>>
>>>That's where you can "hire" someone to help you!
>>
>>Open position: Game designer needed
[...]
> I don't know lua and I realy don't like C++. If I would, I think I'd try.
Lua is easy to learn. I didn't know Lua before I started H-World and I
wrote the first scripts within less than 2 hours of Lua learning.
C++ isn't so much different from C. But I assume you compare C++ to Pascal?
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> I've been planning a space game as well, although I've downgraded my
> plans from an epic scale game into something hopefully more simple and
> predetermined. But thinking about generating a universe is still fun.
>
> On 2005-04-05, Hansjoerg Malthaner <hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>
>>Problems to solve - related work:
>>
>>1) Make research fun:
>>http://forums.rpgdx.net/viewtopic.php?t=1170
>>http://h-world.simugraph.com/space/data/space_analyze.txt
>
> It's going to be pretty difficult to actually model the discovered
> artifacts in the way you describe on those pages. Maybe since these
> are alien artifacts, it would be better to be a bit vague about their
> inner workings and keep the player guessing about just what is going on
> in them.
Yes, I think so, too. The core problem is still how to let the player do
research ina fun way. Despite all the discussions I feel as clueless as
in the beginning. Most of the suggestion turned out to be rather work
intensive, or fall into the "becomes boring quickly" category, as it
seems :(
> One question to ask is what the player wants to do with the discoveries.
The idea of the scientist career is to become famous by publishing the
discoveries. The "winning condition" if you want to say so is something
like getting a nobel price for your research.
> If the idea is just to collect the biggest list of discoveries, then
> maybe some kind of a taxonomic tree system could be used. The player
> could collect plants, animals, minerals.
So far I had considered two focuses: technology and alien culture
I wanted to try the technlogy path first, it seemed easier.
The discoveries surely will be weighted, some disciveries are more
interesting (will score more points) than others.
> Also alien artifacts, which
> wouldn't necessarily do anything (maybe their inner workings and
> purposes are beyond mere human intellects).
Sure. Such thinsg are found in all cultures I guess. Artwork, toys,
religious things. Out of context it is almost impossible to find out
what they were meant to be.
> The player would start knowing the broadest category of the specimen
> such as "octopoid lifeform", "crystalline mineral" or "helical
> artifact". Various tests could then be performed to specify the
> classification, a bit like a game of 20 questions, and you could get
> something like "semi-sentient carnivorous octopoid floater with triple
> hydrogen floating sacs and infrared vision" or "helical relic of late
> Arcturian basin-crucible culture composed of an advanced titanium alloy
> and nano-etched with a repeating sequence of 14 581 430 glyphs from the
> Zeta Taurus pseudo-alphabet". You'd have to keep getting better at
> research to find even more differences, or you couldn't distinguish new
> specimen from ones you've already catalogued.
Yes, this is quite close to the latest ideas. One of the suggestions was
to use charts or directed graphs where each step of research leads from
one node to another and reveals some information about the artefact.
> If the artifacts are supposed to actually do something or there are some
> underlying principles beyond mere taxonomy, the algorithmic approach is
> going to become difficult. It might be better to just write the
> technologies by hand, like the discovery trees in X-Com Enemy Unknown
> and Alpha Centauri, which unfolded a SF plot of sorts.
> Of course after a
> single play through the player would know the history of the alien
> civilizations, the principles behind their technology and the rest of
> the grand narrative, so this doesn't server replayability that well.
Yes, that'S why I wouldn't like scripted artefacts very much. OTOH
randomiztaion on this level seems to be almost impossible considering
the research process.
>>More open questions:
>>- find solution for level scale changes (personal scale,
>> city map scale, surface scale, space scale)
>>- find solution how to link ship equipment (placed on
>> personal scale ship interior level) to ship capabilities
>> (on space or surface scale level maps)
>
> This sounds like partially a technical question about using the H-World
> engine, and I have pretty little knowledge of that.
Right. H-World can't scale tiles, and there is no link between maps and
items (a ship is a map on personal scale, but an item on a space scale
map). So this are pretty much coding problems, and it seems H-World is
just unbsuitable for such kind of games.
> I think that scale changes are generally trouble with tile-based games,
> and should be avoided as much as possible.
> Lets say we try to get along
> with just the personal scale (the player character is one unit) and the
> space scale (units are ships, planets, space stations etc.). How planets
> are really handled is a difficult question, but I'll leave that aside
> for now. So if I understood correctly the problem is reflecting changes
> in the ship area to the ship object, the planet area to the planet
> object and so forth.
While ships are meant to be modifieable by the player planets are not.
You can buy a better drive for your ship, or better sensors, and this
should affect bot the ship map, where you see the items, and the ship
item on a sapce map, where you use the ships equipment.
> First of all, do all of these space scale objects need a personal scale
> interior?
Ships? Yes.
Space stations? Yes
Planets? To some extend
- player visits a city or spaceport
- player plays a prospector and inspects an area for resources
maybe some more
> For example since piloting the ship is something the player
> will do a lot, walking around the interior area of the player's ship is
> going to get very tedious. So why not abstract the ship. Entering the
> ship will just bring up GUI options to upgrade systems or take off. The
> same question can be asked for other objects in space. What happens on
> them that is so interesting that it warrants a personal scale area? If
> there isn't anything, why not just show a dialog of options.
You are right, technically.
It's just that I want many of the objects to have explorable interiours.
It's my ship. I live there. I want to see it, I want to modify it. Not
as a table or list. I want to buy a flowerpot, place it besides my desc
and see that it looks nice.
Somewhere else I said, I build sandboxes or toys, not games. I want to
be able to model and modify these things on a very tangible level.
It's beyond the 'what's needed to play that feature'. It's just a
personal wish or dream of mine. I want a world, seamless if possible,
that is experienced ona personal scale mostly, as you'd do if you'd be
the person that you play.
> Still, let's assume you want to model this.
:)
> Something interesting on the
> player's ship could be getting boarded by pirates or being hit by a
> meteor that blows out half of the systems, and these would warrant a
> transition into personal scale.
> Maybe a good approach would be to treat the space scale ship object as
> the persistent reference, and just generate a temporary personal scale
> area from it whenever it is needed.
Why is this easier than keeping the ship as a user-modifieable map, and
deduce the abilities of the ship objects from the ship map contents?
> If some kind of a crisis event is
> happening, just have the engine keep track of damage done to the ship's
> systems during the event and apply similar damage to the ship object.
> After the event, the ship reflects the two generators blown up by a
> fusion grenade, the jury-rig repairs the pc did to the damaged
> life-support system and the parasite infection that the food cargo unit
> got when the pc blew up one of the boarders' plague drones next to it.
> Each tile could have reference to the ship system that corresponds to
> it, and they should share an interface which can receive such effects.
Here we hit a serious problem. H-World has no idea of things that are
not items on a map. Nothing exists in the data structures that doesn't
also exist on a map.
I think I already said, that H-World might be the wrong tool for the
space game. Actually I'm pretty sure it is.
> I'm not sure if this is any help as I haven't looked into the sort of
> design you have in H-Space.
It is help. It shows the weaknesses and problems of my trying pretty
well. It isn't help in the sense of a solution, but that's another point.
>>- find solution for NPC dialogs (unlimited no. of solar
>> system -> unlimited number of NPC. No scripted dialogs possible?)
>
> The important question probably is what do you want the player to be
> able to do with the npcs.
My dream is a living, vivid world. I want to talk to the NPCs. They are
AIs, they have at least a limited idea of their surroundings their needs
and their plans. At least that much I want to chat with them.
E.g. is an AI is hungry, I expect that it tells me if I ask how it
feels, and maybe we can talk aboput restaurants nearby (or whatever
measn this AI has to solve the problem of being hungry. It can even tell
me that it's going to huint some rats in the sewers or dig through some
heaps of garbage).
I know, this is close to impossible. But it is my vision, my dream. I
want a game that isn't just an rigid, dead world template. I want a
world that lives, and can be experienced with the details that are
there, even if thay aren't deep or plenty.
> If the npcs are used to further plots, their
> dialogue probably has to be scripted.
And this is right the opposite of my idea. Scripts are dead templates.
They don't change, they don't adapt to changes.
> Other things to do with them are
> trading and getting them to help you.
But you don't talk to other people just in those cases, do you? Usually
we talk to get some entertainment, news, information. We maybe want to
tell things, experiences, stories. We talk to build social networks.
Relationsships.
Language is a wonderful manyfold and powerful tool to change the world,
to build things and to destroy. It starts and ends wars. It starts and
ends relations and love.
I know, that computers are very unsuitable for all of this. It's a pity.
> Both involve tracking the npcs
> opinion of the player. But unless stranded on a planet (which would
> again make this a different game), I don't think a space traveller would
> have much use of the wares or skills of planet-bound natives.
It might depend on their culture and technology. It's easy to imagine
travelling top a high-tech planet with very advanced natives to trade
for some gadgets that won't be manufactured elsewhere.
> So maybe
> the npcs should be other space travellers instead.
That's good. Very good for smalltalk :)
Very bad for scripted dialogs :(
> Of course the natives
> could have information about strange ruins and mineral deposits, so
> maybe the player should barter for knowledge about these.
I don't want the NPSs to be tools that the player uses to achieve goals.
They shall be inhabitnts of the world, and bring life to it. Meaning
beyond the scope of the players doing and his plans.
I'm sorry. I know most of my wishes are undoable.
Kornel says, I didn't really try. But I talked to quite many people and
noone had solutions. Often it went like your message, suggesting to
avoid the problems instead of solving them.
I mean, it's ok if it can't be done. I have no problem with that. But it
is just consequent to say that the project is stopped becuase it can't
be done, I think.
--
c.u. Hajo
ABCGi
> konijn_ wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>>
>>>Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>>I guess you wouldn't have the usage for it yet.
>>
>>If you're looking for bot graphics, you could find inspiration or even
>>reuse some graphics from http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedroid/
>>there are plenty of isometric bot and human drawings.
>>You might even enjoy the rpg ;)
>
> What's the license of those graphics?
> I personaly don't like them -- it's not that they are bad, it's their style
> that I just don't like.
> Ad finally, for the game to look good, all the graphics should follow one
> standard (which is not the case in FreeDroid itself.
Kornel sounds like someone has beaten you to Paradroid-RL/RPG with that
link...
<quote>
1) freedroidClassic: a clone of the classic C64 game Paradroid.
</quote>
Sweet.
--
ABCGi ---- (ab...@yahoo.com) ---- http://codemonkey.sunsite.dk
"Good ideas make good things better.
Great ideas make better things simple." - Ray 'Bear' Dillinger
ABCGi
*SNIP*
> I never thought of you as a codemonkey, don't worry! But if I do equal work
> on it I expect a equal place in the credits :-D. We would plan a way to
> synchronize design decisions later.
*SNIP*
Hey! What's wrong with codemonkeys!!! ?
:(
The Sheep
Hansjoerg Malthaner napisal(a):
> Risto Saarelma wrote::
> Right. H-World can't scale tiles, and there is no link between maps and
> items (a ship is a map on personal scale, but an item on a space scale
> map). So this are pretty much coding problems, and it seems H-World is
> just unbsuitable for such kind of games.
Instead of dropping parts in the right places of the ship to make it work,
you could just hand them to your repair droid. Or have some `maitenance
hatches' objects on the ship's map, which would posses their own `limbs'.
Adding parts and changing ship's stats would then use the same mechanism
as equipping your pets.
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote::
>>
>> *SNIP*
>>
>>> The project is now registered at sourceforge. I'll start importing
>>> the files into the CVS. The basic UI and template libraries are
>>> imported already.
>>>
>>> Anonymous CVS shows nothing yet. I read that there is a 24 hours
>>> delay, so I hope the files will be visible tomorrow.
>>
>> Yep all working fine now CVS,
>
> I had to change soem things in order to get the sources to compile with
> gcc 3.3
>
> I've successfully checked out all sources (lua, hjmlib, h-world) and
> compiled all three packages. A quick test run succeeded without errrors.
Sweet. I'll do the same.
> I think the project is now set up correctly on sourceforge.
>
>> sourceforge page etc. Looks good, also good place for players to
>> download the latest version of the game. I think the forum was a
>> little too hidden.
>
> Yes, it was kind of "I have no better idea how to do it" solution.
>
> Sourceforge also offers bugtracking and extension request tracking
> mechanisms so the forum is not really needed anymore.
Yeah it's pretty impressive - handles different size projects with
different size teams etc. Not a bad project management system - takes
some of the effort out of it - I've seen a lot worse!
Heroic Adventure
>
> I just finished an update pass on the Actively Developing Roguelike
> list. Should I redirect the H-World entry to the sourceforge page or
> leave it where it is?
Hey Jeff,
Can you provide a link to the most recent list? I hit Zincland.com but
didn't see it anywhere. ( FYI: HA! is not dead, I've been blogging
about it on my site... http://www.mystictriad.com/dev )
Thanks,
S.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>> ABCGi wrote::
>>> Yep all working fine now CVS,
>>
>> I had to change soem things in order to get the sources to compile
>> with gcc 3.3
>>
>> I've successfully checked out all sources (lua, hjmlib, h-world) and
>> compiled all three packages. A quick test run succeeded without errrors.
>
> Sweet. I'll do the same.
Good. I never used something else but gcc/Linux to build, so I'm quite
curious about your findings.
>>> sourceforge page etc. Looks good, also good place for players to
>>> download the latest version of the game. I think the forum was a
>>> little too hidden.
>>
>> Yes, it was kind of "I have no better idea how to do it" solution.
>>
>> Sourceforge also offers bugtracking and extension request tracking
>> mechanisms so the forum is not really needed anymore.
>
> Yeah it's pretty impressive - handles different size projects with
> different size teams etc. Not a bad project management system - takes
> some of the effort out of it - I've seen a lot worse!
I've moved a few bug reports from the forum to the bug tracker at
sourceforge. I also set up two mini documents with compiling help and a
link the H-World wiki.
Sourceforge is really good for project management. I hope we can get the
project off the ground again, even if I won't invest much time in coding
the next weeks.
--
c.u. Hajo
Jeff Lait
I don't have a link to the list from zincland, I think. I probably
should, as the Actively Developing Roguelike List has a better google
rank than POWDER :>
You can find it at:
http://thelist.roguelikedevelopment.org/
I'm still checking the HA website every month waiting for 0.1.6 to
drop...
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote::
>
*SNIP*
>>> Sourceforge also offers bugtracking and extension request tracking
>>> mechanisms so the forum is not really needed anymore.
>>
>> Yeah it's pretty impressive - handles different size projects with
>> different size teams etc. Not a bad project management system - takes
>> some of the effort out of it - I've seen a lot worse!
>
> I've moved a few bug reports from the forum to the bug tracker at
> sourceforge. I also set up two mini documents with compiling help and a
> link the H-World wiki.
Wiki's also a good thing... even for one's own web site, easier to
update through a wiki than to update html.
> Sourceforge is really good for project management. I hope we can get the
> project off the ground again, even if I won't invest much time in coding
> the next weeks.
In the mean time you can be our H-World coding consultant! What's the
quickest way to ask questions?
Hansjoerg Malthaner
>> Sourceforge is really good for project management. I hope we can get
>> the project off the ground again, even if I won't invest much time in
>> coding the next weeks.
>
> In the mean time you can be our H-World coding consultant! What's the
> quickest way to ask questions?
Usually email. This newsgroup also, but I currently can't read news from
home, while emails reach me everywhere.
HTML emeils are inconvenient for me to answer. You noticed the long
delays already I think :)
Depending on the time of day, the day of the week and my mood, response
times can differ from a few minutes to several days.
--
c.u. Hajo
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>> I'd prefer to be compared with projects that play in the same
>>> league.
>>>
>>> But Geneforge is a one-man project also IIRC, and Copx linked a
>>> screenshot from Geneforge as example how to do it better.
>>
>> Can you repost the link?I would like to compare.
>
> I think Copx posted this Geneforge 2 screenshot:
> http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/images/geneforge2/townentry.jpg
Duh, doesn't look good in my standards. But at least it's got a overarching
single style.
>> No. But you don't need to model so much aliens for a sci-fi game as
>> you need monsters for a fantasy game. Also modelling architecture is
>> a lot simpler. There's always the problem with nature, but you seem
>> to handle that quite well (there would be only a few modifications
>> needed so the images blend nicely with the rendered ones).
>
> /me tries to compare monster numbers vs alien count
>
> I can't say if there are less aliens required. I still think modeliing
> an animal/monster and modelling an alien are quite comparable, because
> all of them are 'natural' bodies/shapes.
Oh yeah, now I got it... We just have a different approach to aliens! You
have the StarWars/StarTrek approach, where there are huge number of aliens,
and humans are "just another race in the wall", while I have the
StarCraft/Aliens approach, where the races are few, and where the humans are
a primal race. I think this is another place where we have different visions
of the project.
> You know, that the basic images for characters in H-World are almost
> naked? The clothes are all image overlays. So you can't hide bodies
> under spacesuits or armor textures. You'll have to model them.
I can't! At least as for today. I tried several times to model a naked
female body, but always failed. Anyway, what's the idea of taking all your
clothes of? What playability does wearing different clothes give?
Unnecessary complication IMHO. Gameplay vs Realism. And before you ask --
camoflage, and a forged faked clothes can be treated as normal armor.
>>> Quite a lot of the new images are rendered. I agree that this gives
>>> good quality, but creating the models can be fairly time consuming
>>> sometimes.
>>
>> It's a lot faster IMHO. It took me only 7 hours to model almost all
>> objects in the screenshot I posted. Also speed depends MUCH on how
>> familiar you are with the tool you use for modeling, and how good
>> the tool is (example -- the chair took about 3 minutes for me to
>> model).
>
> I see. One of the chairs in H-World is rendered too:
> http://tinyurl.com/7x5cn
>
> It took me about two hours.
I'd do that in 10 minutes. Why did it take you so long?
>> I don't know lua and I realy don't like C++. If I would, I think I'd
>> try.
>
> Lua is easy to learn. I didn't know Lua before I started H-World and I
> wrote the first scripts within less than 2 hours of Lua learning.
It's not that. If I work with a language seriosly, I need to feel at least
competent with it.
> C++ isn't so much different from C. But I assume you compare C++ to
> Pascal?
Don't get me wrong -- I know C++ quite well (even wrote a space shooter game
in it using SDL). It's just that I don't like working with it. And even more
with C... C++ code looks ugly in my eyes, and it's not fun to program in
that language for me. If it was my job, I'd have to cope with it. But if
it's a hobby I'd rather be working with a language I enjoy (like Pascal,
OCaml, Perl, Nemerle...)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl)
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Engel/
Twisted One
> Oh yeah, now I got it... We just have a different approach to aliens! You
> have the StarWars/StarTrek approach, where there are huge number of aliens,
...and yet somehow most of the major characters are humans (white males,
with one or two token minorities/females and one or two token aliens --
still waiting for a star trek to kill 3 birds with one stone by
including a black female vulcan), and most of the aliens look
suspiciously like humans wearing latex prostheses and makeup? ;)
> I can't! At least as for today. I tried several times to model a naked
> female body, but always failed.
I can think of many better things to do with a naked female body, and
doubtless so can you ... perhaps if you found something less distracting
to model you'd have more success? ;)
> Don't get me wrong -- I know C++ quite well (even wrote a space shooter game
> in it using SDL). It's just that I don't like working with it. And even more
> with C... C++ code looks ugly in my eyes, and it's not fun to program in
> that language for me. If it was my job, I'd have to cope with it. But if
> it's a hobby I'd rather be working with a language I enjoy (like Pascal,
> OCaml, Perl, Nemerle...)
OCaml? Nemerle? Not heard of those. Pascal is a BDSM language, but we've
been over that before, haven't we? And why in Gods name mention perl?
It's not an application programming language at all, and besides, it's
write-only.
--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
ABCGi
> ABCGi wrote::
>
>>> Sourceforge is really good for project management. I hope we can get
>>> the project off the ground again, even if I won't invest much time in
>>> coding the next weeks.
>>
>> In the mean time you can be our H-World coding consultant! What's the
>> quickest way to ask questions?
>
> Usually email. This newsgroup also, but I currently can't read news from
> home, while emails reach me everywhere.
>
> HTML emeils are inconvenient for me to answer. You noticed the long
> delays already I think :)
Stoopid email client *WHACK*
> Depending on the time of day, the day of the week and my mood, response
> times can differ from a few minutes to several days.
Sweet - thanks. I'm allotting some _"fun"_ time this weekend for HW SF.
Twisted One
> Sweet - thanks. I'm allotting some _"fun"_ time this weekend for HW SF.
HW SF is? (H-World sourceforge I suppose, but your post is definitely
not going to get an A for clarity in any English class.)
R. Dan Henry
>Hey! What's wrong with codemonkeys!!! ?
They eat all the codebananas?
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
<hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote:
>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
>> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>>
>>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>>I'd prefer to be compared with projects that play in the same league.
>>>
>>>But Geneforge is a one-man project also IIRC, and Copx linked a
>>>screenshot from Geneforge as example how to do it better.
>>
>> Can you repost the link?I would like to compare.
>
>I think Copx posted this Geneforge 2 screenshot:
>http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/images/geneforge2/townentry.jpg
That's *ugly*. Now, in some technical senses, it's maybe a little more
polished than H-World's display, but the colors are garish and
ill-chosen, the background is distracting without adding anything, and
I don't really like the icons. The actual dungeon display looks about
on a par with your work, if not a bit worse. The cabinet has serious
perspective problems. What it *does* have going for it is that the
dungeon pictures all match in style.
>> No. But you don't need to model so much aliens for a sci-fi game as you need
>> monsters for a fantasy game. Also modelling architecture is a lot simpler.
>> There's always the problem with nature, but you seem to handle that quite
>> well (there would be only a few modifications needed so the images blend
>> nicely with the rendered ones).
>
>/me tries to compare monster numbers vs alien count
>I can't say if there are less aliens required. I still think modeliing
>an animal/monster and modelling an alien are quite comparable, because
>all of them are 'natural' bodies/shapes.
But you *can* do fewer aliens, since you can make it human-centric and
a couple of intelligent alien races probably add more than several
dozen alien animals. You can add alien animals and more exotic plants
gradually, more as flavor elements than game-critical elements. One
could also do fantasy with fewer monsters, but you'd have to get away
from the dungeon-crawl model. A fantasy world where you played a thief
or merchant could be largely urban. You'd need rats, dogs, horses,
maybe a few more animals, but largely would interact with human(oid)s.
>You know, that the basic images for characters in H-World are almost
>naked? The clothes are all image overlays. So you can't hide bodies
>under spacesuits or armor textures. You'll have to model them.
You can use a form-fitting bodysuit as universal underwear. Unless you
intend to make showering part of the game, assuming clothing isn't a
bad idea. (At least for a sci-fi game; Jungle should actually have
folks who run around nearly naked.)
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
R. Dan Henry
<kisie...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
>Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>Oh yeah, now I got it... We just have a different approach to aliens! You
>have the StarWars/StarTrek approach, where there are huge number of aliens,
>and humans are "just another race in the wall", while I have the
>StarCraft/Aliens approach, where the races are few, and where the humans are
>a primal race. I think this is another place where we have different visions
>of the project.
Hey, the ST approach makes aliens easy. Copy the human and give it a
few forehead bumps or an odd skin color.
>> You know, that the basic images for characters in H-World are almost
>> naked? The clothes are all image overlays. So you can't hide bodies
>> under spacesuits or armor textures. You'll have to model them.
>
>I can't! At least as for today. I tried several times to model a naked
>female body, but always failed.
Distracted by the female body you were trying to model?
>Anyway, what's the idea of taking all your clothes of?
To feel the wind on your skin!
>What playability does wearing different clothes give?
Well, that's up to the module maker. But I agree, it isn't any
necessity. I go with a universal bodysuit or coverall as base
clothing.
>> I see. One of the chairs in H-World is rendered too:
>> http://tinyurl.com/7x5cn
Pretty simple, but at least as good as the Geneforge 2 furniture.
>> It took me about two hours.
>
>I'd do that in 10 minutes. Why did it take you so long?
You're better at it. Which makes your offer to contribute to graphics
really worth something.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>>I can't say if there are less aliens required. I still think modeliing
>>an animal/monster and modelling an alien are quite comparable, because
>>all of them are 'natural' bodies/shapes.
>
> Oh yeah, now I got it... We just have a different approach to aliens! You
> have the StarWars/StarTrek approach, where there are huge number of aliens,
> and humans are "just another race in the wall",
I want to point out that I don't like StarTrek. The aliens there are all
humans in disguise.
But the point that you make is correct. I expect that there are a lot of
aline races, probaly with local modofcations for each inhabited planet.
But I want things beyond the human shape, and maybe beyond the idea of
taking an animal and giving it a brain and calling it an aliene.
I also want different environments. Aliens who breath other stuff than
oxygen, drink others fluids and water.
How about intelligent crystals? Aliens that live from radioactive
radiation of their environment? Mobile plants? Compound beings (made
from many small individuals, that still move and act like one)?
I'd also want all kind of cyborgs, and 'created' creatures, maybe even
artifial life. Escaped from their creators, or set free by new laws.
> while I have the
> StarCraft/Aliens approach, where the races are few, and where the humans are
> a primal race. I think this is another place where we have different visions
> of the project.
Yes. I like the "sense of wonder". I'd like to include a multitude of
different, skurrile, strange, witty, dangerous and ununderstandable aliens.
>>You know, that the basic images for characters in H-World are almost
>>naked? The clothes are all image overlays. So you can't hide bodies
>>under spacesuits or armor textures. You'll have to model them.
>
> I can't! At least as for today. I tried several times to model a naked
> female body, but always failed.
Underwear is a must IMO.
> Anyway, what's the idea of taking all your
> clothes of?
Taking clothes off isn't the point. Changing clothes and equipment is,
in the sense that the PC image changes with it. This is easiest if the
basic body is just the body and all clothing and equipment are overlays.
> What playability does wearing different clothes give?
I'm a roleplaying fan. I'm sure I don't want to wear body armor or a
space suit all day. I'll wear that while exploring planets or in
dangerous areas, but not all the time.
Clothes here include body armor, space suits, belts with pockets for
equipment, helms/headgear.
That means there are several purposes, function, immersion/feedback and
look.
We can surely discuss the importance of the look. It may or may not be
important. Seeing the multitude of user-made skins for "The Sims 2" I
think I'm not the only one who cares about the look.
> Unnecessary complication IMHO. Gameplay vs Realism. And before you ask --
> camoflage, and a forged faked clothes can be treated as normal armor.
Ok. You know, I create sandboxes to toy around, and you create games.
Toying around includes dressing my characters so that I like their
looks, even if this has no sense beyond that.
>>I see. One of the chairs in H-World is rendered too:
>>http://tinyurl.com/7x5cn
>>
>>It took me about two hours.
>
> I'd do that in 10 minutes. Why did it take you so long?
I have no modeller. I use PovRay and write the scene files with a text
editor. I tried to find a modeller, but I couldn't find anything good
for Linux.
> Don't get me wrong -- I know C++ quite well (even wrote a space shooter game
> in it using SDL). It's just that I don't like working with it. And even more
> with C... C++ code looks ugly in my eyes, and it's not fun to program in
> that language for me. If it was my job, I'd have to cope with it. But if
> it's a hobby I'd rather be working with a language I enjoy (like Pascal,
> OCaml, Perl, Nemerle...)
Kornel I see some very big problems here.
I have a vision for my game. There are features that are important for
me, and you call them unneccesary complication.
You tell me you don't like the language the project is written in.
To me this sounds as if is better not to try a cooperation. You wouldn't
like the code, and I would always fight to keep my little toy features.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Hansjoerg Malthaner wrote:
>> HTML emeils are inconvenient for me to answer. You noticed the long
>> delays already I think :)
>
> Stoopid email client *WHACK*
GMX is a webmail service. Usually they provide good service, just
quiting HTML mails doesn't work.
>> Depending on the time of day, the day of the week and my mood,
>> response times can differ from a few minutes to several days.
>
> Sweet - thanks. I'm allotting some _"fun"_ time this weekend for HW SF.
:)
I've now also checked in the space game module. I still need to check if
everything is ok.
--
c.u. Hajo