3D iPhone MMO (+ Mac/PC) in Development

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by daveyoung, Sep 21, 2009.

  1. mjonesgraphics

    mjonesgraphics Well-Known Member

    Dec 8, 2008
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    Artist/Designer
    Washington DC area
    I'll take the mohawk. ;)
    Mark
     
  2. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    Yep :)
     
  3. Winin

    Winin Active Member

    Oct 18, 2009
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    robot repair guy
    San Francisco
    I'm digging the frohawk. :D
     
  4. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    #284 daveyoung, Nov 13, 2009
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2009
    New Build Notes

    Some cool new features added last night/tonight.
    High Points:
    • Emotes and Looping Emotes added via chat commands. You can use some to play dead ;)
    • Online Player List added
    • Player targetting and Iceball is now networked
    • And so is movement!

    Beta 002.6 notes
     
  5. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    Updated character pics

    Here are some updated character pics. I would say these are progressing nicely :)
    The artist is completely 'getting' what we're going for in terms of look.
    Click the little one for a larger version!

    [​IMG]
     
  6. d1

    d1 Well-Known Member

    Sep 19, 2009
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    Lookin good!
     
  7. Kerrby

    Kerrby Well-Known Member

    Nov 5, 2009
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    Australia
    I have a Macbook if that helps, just let me know what needs to be done and I can help test in any way.
     
  8. Baitntackle54

    Baitntackle54 Well-Known Member

    Sep 27, 2009
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    Any more pics to share?
     
  9. ShadowsFall

    ShadowsFall Well-Known Member

    May 15, 2009
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    Summer job soon
    TA 09'
    Might need a bit more guys lol xD, very nice though!

    Do enjoy the cartoony-ness
     
  10. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    These of course will have eye and some facial feature choices as well, creating thousands of combinations.

    Here's a new pic Winin did this week: our World Map. The Sign Post marks Danger Forest, which is the starting zone.

    Click for a larger version ;)

    [​IMG]
     
  11. kingkong120

    kingkong120 Well-Known Member

    Jul 17, 2009
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    Nice can't wait for this one.
     
  12. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    It's going to be a little quiet from me for a bit possibly, I'm working on implementing zone servers to run things like AI and act as message pumps for networked events, and it's complicated. There's been a lot of design work in the meantime and some planning discussions, so I may post some of those gems to tide people over!
     
  13. Kerrby

    Kerrby Well-Known Member

    Nov 5, 2009
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    Australia
    Did you need my help testing Dave?
     
  14. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    Well, I might as well expound a bit, as there's a question for folks at the end.

    Early on I did some testing and made a decision to use 'click to move' based movement. The theory was that it would decrease network traffic and give the additional benefit of adding screen real estate. Which is absolutely true, based on how I use the game.

    However! I've been letting some people try out the game on the iPhone and observing their usage in the web version as well, and it looks like they are actually clicking quite often, sometimes several times per second! This sort of defeats the purpose. It adds the overhead per frame of figuring out where everyone is according to where they placed their target position marker.

    The second part of the need is that I need to implement zone servers anyway sooner rather than later. These are centralized apps which control AI. They would also be brokering move requests and other actions from players.

    So I am going to go back and attempt to implement a networked message pump for critical player and object information (position, rotation, vitals) which runs constantly. I've run some math on the packet sizes and it seems like it would give a more consistent play experience and avoid degradation of the player experience. It's a major surgery but one I think is necessary. It will set me back about two weeks I think, but allow me to move forward again, as I'm a little mental-blocked on some other tasks anyway.

    At this time I also have the opportunity to change the movement style to a more traditional keyboard/mouse move on the web version, and a joypad for iPhone. What do you folks think about that? For an iPhone game, click to move vs joypad? Do both? Check out Ravensword for an example of move pad, and Dungeon Hunter for click-to-move.
     
  15. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
  16. JoshCM

    JoshCM Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2009
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    Game Designer
    Upstate NY
    can't wait for this one :D
     
  17. Goose

    Goose Well-Known Member

    Aug 27, 2009
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    i'd sooner go for a joystick on the iphone, mainly because of the small screen, where clicking is often funny. joysticks just feel more natural.
     
  18. daveyoung

    daveyoung Well-Known Member

    Mar 15, 2009
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    Tech Entrepreneur
    New Bedford, MA
    I had what seems like incredible initial success at prototyping new zone server and networking model. Granted, it's a barebones test, but I had the server firing up 300 networked objects each generating moves as fast as 10 times per second. I used 10 connected clients (mac/pc) and one iPhone client and the server was sending out updates 3 times per second. All 10 clients stayed in synch with eachother. This is important!

    For fun, I restarted the iPhone client and let it be the server, with 150 objects updating the clients three times per second. Each object could move randomly between once per second and ten times per second. It worked the same.

    This means I should be able to embed and spread the zone server technology out onto even spare iPods hanging about ;) As it happens, that feature is going to become important soon, for reasons you can only guess at!
     
  19. Goose

    Goose Well-Known Member

    Aug 27, 2009
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    that's great news! good to hear it.
     
  20. Braiton

    Braiton Well-Known Member

    Sep 28, 2009
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    This.
    Sorry i haven't been much on. Been having problems with my internet connection.
     

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