Sounds cool

I''m really waiting for next release of the engine demo
I agree with the idea that players could just jump from one part to another.

Sorry for flooding, I had some small problems with browser

I just got an idea: Mouse pointer could also be used so that when player puts it over some tile in the "ground map" (the tilemap), that tiles information pops up right away into window. This information could be land type, extra information about this piece of land, and so on, or if there is an object, it would tell something like this:

Creature: Ogre
Health: Strong
Weapon: Axe
and so on and so on.

Then, the original LOOK command would be used to get literal information, little more like in roleplaying format
Actually, to prevent programming problem with multiple ogres on same group, the manual LOOK command would work so that player writes LOOK, presses enter, and selects the object from tilemap. Example:

-LOOK
-"Select object to look at (Default: room)" :
Player chooses Ogre with mouse
-"As you turn your eyes, you see ugly ogre with big bloody axe, and you can say that this ogre is ANGRY !"

-LOOK
-"Select object to look at (Default: room)" : (Enter)
-"Your taking a quick look around you, and notice that floor covering is hard rock. There is no way that it could be breaken without use of strong magic, or dwarf who is pissed of and wants to dig something. Dust covers the holes of the floor, and you see something running at the edge of floor and wall in to a small hole. You are pretty sure that it''s just an small rat, but that still doesn''t make you to feel safe"

Ok... just an idea

That demo runs REALLLLLY slowly here... I don''t know why.
I have a P133 that''s quite capable of running quake so there really isn''t an excuse

Hmm ?
Worked just fine for me...

Did Novalis say that he is using OPENGL resolution ? This might cause that people without 3D-card will get really slow performance, but I don''t know... Just an idea

I like the mouse/tile idea Paladin. I''ll see what I can do about getting that in the demo today.

Sorry about the speed MadKeith... It is in fact coded using OpenGL, so that could be part of the problem. Although, to be honest, it runs relatively slowly on my computer too. I haven''t really spent any time trying to make it fast. I''ve been concentrating on good legible, stable, and expandable code. I figure that way we can use this code as a starting point if this takes off, instead of needing to start over from scratch.

right now the code should be about 99.9 percent portable to any OpenGL OS. I figured OpenAL would be good for the audio too...

Well folks, GeoCities evidently mistook the Internet for a sandbox in the playground. Don''t bother trying to DL the demo from them, if you manage to get it, it will likely be out of date. I know this isn''t anywhere near as convenient, but for now you''ll just have to request email updates directly from me. Until I find/setup a new web host to replace the inept GeoCities that''s the best I can offer.

Kylotan: I think that Novalis took the demo of about five days ago, and he was going to upload new version couple of days ago, but for some reason he probably wanted to add more stuff before the next release. Lets see whats happening today and tomorrow

Novalis: Hmm... I was thinking that if you just could add one nice variable: True_time(true or false): This variable would force the game to use turnbased mode, or truetime system, that can be used for online playing. Having a turnbased mode would be nice for testing the game, and some people might like that mode even more for singleplayer
It doesn''t need to be ready for this release, it''s just an idea. The main file that keeps the records about areas of the world could actually keep also main records about information of landtypes of XXX and YYY, and actually this "XXX-YYY.cfg" files would contain only a script information, IF available. Just reminding that the doesn''t need to have script files for tiles, if there is no information, and in case that there is something special in single tile, then this script information will be kept in XXX-YYY.cfg file, but the GENERAL INFORMATION will always be kept in the Main-world records. Ofcourse, if you have a different viewpoint, go ahead and express yourself, you are the programmer after all ;D

Hehe... Looks like we were replying at the same time Paladin

Anyway, I personally would never use a turn-based move system, but it would be really easy to do. Right now the system just "ticks" the game clock ten times a second. It would be trivial to add a flag that says to only tick the clock every time the player moves. However, I don''t think that would mesh well with the multiplayer version. Suppose somebody logs in, and then goes to answer the phone and doesn''t come back? Then everyone else sits around waiting for them to move...

About the data files. I think we can probably do exactly the sort of thing you are talking about. For the time being though, I''ll just stick with your original idea. No main file, just a xxx_yyy.vqt file for each tile that has something on it. This is easy to debug and to play around with

Hmm... I''m thinking about creating a bulletinboard system somewhere inside the city/town, probably in the bar, that would have couple of different forums. One of these forums would be randomize generated mission list, which would be just a rip of "Elite 2: Frontier" mission system.

It would generate the missions on fly, that would include something like:
-Eliminate an enemy
-Deliver something to somewhere
-Find an object

These would be just a missions that help player to get more experience and money.

I have been trying to think a way of handling High Level P-Killers for the online-playing, and I DON''T WANT to take P-Killing away ! P-Killing is part in online playing experience, but it is really annoying if some HL Killer comes and starts messing around, so I came up with this idea: The server would keep a record of P-Killers, and P-Killing always would drop two variables: Alignment and the support of gods. Incase that players guild is Assasinators, or something similar (prayers of darkness), then only alignment will be dropped, and the dark gods will give better support. BUT, when it comes to resurrection/regeneration, if the player is more on the side of the gods of the light, then he doesn''t lose humanity at all during the resurrection. The player in the dark side will lose humanity points, and when he is resurrected allready about tenth time, his character might get "freaking"-actions, when the player cannot control his character for a while. After twenty resurrections, the player at darkside will die and go to hell, but the player at the light side will just get everytime little more weak after he has died ten times. This causes that powerful lightside player will have possibility to live LOT longer than darkside players, and well, they will always go to heaven

The difference between Hell and Heaven is that the darkside supports newbies really easily, while the lightside is more like neutral, but after the player is about half way in the meter of darkness OR lightness, the darkside will stop supporting the player, and makes him more like a slave, promising that if the player keeps acting REALLY BAD (slaugthering other players), the player will get "The true power of the darkside", that will be obtained at the high rate. This is, ofcourse, the power of destruction. The lightside, in the other hand, starts supporting player at halfway of the meter, and keeps supporting strongly all "true believers". To obtain support of the gods of light, the player can slaughter only the darkside players (who are P-Killers allready ! This gives a good reason to attack only against P-Killers, and not newbies who are still neutral).

When the character dies, the player gets change to write short story about his character, and then this dead character will be listed in the "most greatest villains of the realm" list, which could be something like this:

"1. Rayold Onefinger(Level 65, experience 2640365): Rayold, the true believer, was fighting the holy war against the powers of the darkness, until his time came. He was well known for helping poors, and supporting the alliance against enemies. Now, he is gone forever, but his testament is still unfound, and stories tell that he left something to cave of black dragon, so that time of lightness would again shine..."
(Attention ! Sysop of the realm can add some mysteries to some characters, so that the players will feel that the world is REALLY a world. Maybe after the dying of great character, sysop would create now armor, that is called "Rayolds last wish", and it is located "somewhere", and then he juts edits the story of dead character...)

"2. Black Dumdam(Level 40, experience 542000): Dumdam, mighty ogre who always hated happy persons, and caused chaos allover the world of.... blabh blahblah"

Got the idea ?

Also, ALL the new characters would start at some of the "portal towns", and they start with really neutral situtation, BUT when they keep living and obtaining light-o-meter, or dark-o-meter, he will start getting messages from the gods. For gods of lightness, these messages will tell the player to help innocents and so on, but the gods of the darkness will start inviting the player to BLACK MOUNTAIN (for example), that is the place where all the "REALLY BAD PERSONS" live
This Black Mountain would contain the idea of Lord Of The Rings: There IS absolute bad ! It lives "somewhere over there", and it is sealed to eternal prison, BUT when we create the history of the realm, something bad happens, and this seal is broken. NOW, all the prayers of the darkness will get nice-bonus variables for visiting or living at the Black Mountain. This could be lots of money, some nice magic, and jobs that pay really well ONLY FOR prayers of the darkness. This will cause two character types to separate, and there will be eternal war between two character types

Still, the thing that we should really think is the balance between these two areas. We should to generate a system that keeps both areas really ACTIVE, and gives the players a reason to live at only one place, but travel sometimes.

Sometimes, we might declare big wars between light and darkness, and all the players will be informed about this action, and probably they really wanna have little fun action ...
OK, and more. Also there will be mainland, that is always neutral, and this is the area that sides of lightness and darkness are trying to obtain.
Thanks to sysop-options, we can always balance the outcome of the wars so that lightness can never live at the mountain of darkness, but neither can darkness conquer ALL the lands of the mainlands... there could be always some "sacred site", where players are reborn, and get change to choose their destiny.

Lots of stuff... and not even THAT complicated, but just interesting... and yes, I''m fantasy fan Lord Of The Rings, Dragonlance, and so on

Some of these stuff came from old ideas that were presented before, like building a watchtower to some special spot...