New server and iframe test

I got a new server which I'll use to run Hesp 2 on. Through the iframe below you should be able to run the game if it's running. It won't always be running yet cause it still needs a lot of work, so this is just a test. If you really want to see it in action and it's not running just poke me.




Update: Hmm, I see that this looks kinda weird with this layout but at least it's working =)

Hesp2, (a little of) the grand design

The idea of Hesp2 is that it will be an environment/world which will allow both players and immortals to easily create content/quests/games/events/etcetera. Community building is very important and we should aim to let players interact with eachother as much as possible. Team player mode should be more important than single player stuff.

Creation:
- Imms will be able to create new player areas in the game.
- There will be a hierarchy among players. For example, high level players can become kings or something like that. They can get an area from their imm which they can then divide among their knights (other players). Normal players can get a house which belongs to one of these kingdoms. They can change descriptions etc. right away in the game. Getting new items/mobs/extensions for their houses should be possible.
- Dynamic creation by the game itself should happen also. I'm not sure yet to what extent it will be possible to create new areas automatically, but that's something interesting to look into. Mobs on the other hand can easily be created by the game itself. In a way this avoids the standard repop system. Also, mob populations should grow dynamically. If nobody kills mobs in a certain area, then it will result in many many mobs in that area. On the other hand, if certain areas are getting killed very often, then mob creation will decrease in those areas. This will force players to find other more densly populated areas.

Cults:
Players will only play one character at the same time, instead of 3 in the current game. I hope this will also increase their 'bonding' with that character. Players should feel more as a real member of The Covenant, The Neutrals or The Dark Alliance. Cults and or guilds/kingdoms should be used more in the game anyway, to increase the 'us versus them' experience for players. Also, it will be necessary for C players to kill D mobs in D areas or else the mobs will just multiply and then D will gain too much power. The other way around also applies of course. Neutrals will be the balancing factor. For example, if D gets too strong, then killing them gains more experience so most N players will go for them. This might in practice be tricky to balance out so maybe this needs some tweaking from the immortals. It's not necessarily a bad thing if D is stronger than C or the other way around, but I think it would be best if it waved around. If that happens naturally or with Imm intervention doesn't really matter =)

Variety:
- There should be a lot of things that you can do in the game. If you're not interested in fighting the game should still be interesting. I could imagine that if you're a king you don't do a lot of fighting yourself.

Easy access:
- Players should be able to enter the world directly, without registering or even logging in first. See this post for more about that.

Integration:
- The website gets a forum (phpbb or something) and there won't be an in-game public message system. Maybe in the future we can make a direct interface between the game and the forums.
- For documentation we can use a wiki on the website. No need to make an in-game system to mimic all that functionality. Again, when everything is advanced to a later stage we could make it so you can read the wiki from within the game directly.
- The frontpage of the website should display a list of who's online. The game can post that data to a website, say every minute or so, and the php frontpage could read that data and display it.
- Players should have player profiles that they can manage themselves. They can be displayed on the website and in the game. Players should be able to upload pictures themselves (no imm needed).
- Through somebody's player profile on the website you should be able to enter the game right in that players house (if they have enabled that).
- Another way to integrate the game with the web is to make dynamic pictures for in your signature on a forum or something. Players could display their name and level in it or something, or their title or various other things from within the game.
- We can use RSS feeds for some things like biweekly highscores, best house awards, etc.


Hmm, this is already becoming a very long post. More ideas later =)

Imm Plane and some client work

After I imported the Immortal Plane which houses some special mobs and of course the immortal rooms I could finally goto my beloved Orange Sky. Too bad items aren't working yet or I would have snatched Katleena's couch =)

I also did some experimenting with the client. I added a view which displays the current room at the top. Other content is just displayed in the bottom for now, but I'm considering splitting everything in different views instead of one big scrolling window of text that you normally have in muds. This view is definitely not final yet since I'm not even sure if it's actually useful :P
Currently you can see which exits a room has by looking at the direction buttons in the lower right. I think a lot of information can be displayed in a visual way like that instead of text.

Anyway, Hesp2 is making progress again and the more I experiment with it, the more ideas I get. I hope to write down a big overview in a next post.

The screenshot below shows two clients with the new view:

SCAN and GOTO

I finally started working on Hesp2 again. It has been more than a month since I last worked on it. I implemented the easy SCAN and GOTO commands to get warmed up again. I need to start making a difference between normal players and Imms soon, cause at the moment everybody can use the goto command. Immortal powers for all!

Mini post about a mini game

I had a busy week so I didn't really work on Hesp2, but I hadn't posted the last progress from before yet, so here it is.

Mobs can also walk around now (or they stay in their room if they have the act_sentinel flag in the area file). With mobs walking around drakwald it feels a lot more real already :)

I also implemented a mini game where you have to catch 'the bug'. Balan already had some fun with that ;)

Anyway, I'll post more details later.

Automated area reading and a client

After the problems with the main Hesperia server I got motivated again to work on Hesp2. Last time I got stuck on annoying XML stuff while programming the area reader. Area files will be stored in XML from now on which makes them a lot more readable and manageable. XML is a bit like HTML so it should be easier to write areas:

<mob vnum="1600" level="75" gold="0" sex="f" race="Uyaite">
 <keywords>kylidra scholar sprite uyaite</keywords>
 <shortdesc>Kylidra the Scholar</shortdesc>
 <longdesc>Kylidra the Scholar floats here, chanting spells.</longdesc>
 <mobdesc><!--[CDATA[ Though she appears ... ]]--></mobdesc>
</mob>

I wrote a small program that converts existing area files to this new XML format that Hesp2 can read. It successfully converted the Watchtower and Drakwald Forest so you can actually walk around properly :)

Now that the world itself is taking shape it's time for the client. The client program will run through a website so you can play Hesperia everywhere. Right now it's basically a simple telnet client but at least it works. In the future it will show all output from the game in a visual way instead of text only. It will all be very fluffy.

And of course another screenshot for those who don't want to read everything :P

Mobs

Here is a screenshot showing some basic stuff. I just implemented mobs so you can see Kylidra in the watchtower.