Inspire May Update

This is the May update for the game Inspire. Inspire is a 3D platformer which was originally planned to be an MMO. This post will briefly outline the development progress for this month. If there is anything that gains your interest, please use the comment system, contact me via my profile or visit the development blog.

The major update this month has been a change of direction multiplayer / server wise. Inspire was initially planned to be a traditional MMO world, but after a review of my technology and business plan I decided a change was in order.

The change was to a Diablo 2 style lobby, with persistent game levels (zones). If a level gets too full, another instance is spawned. 'Heroic / Nightmare' mode levels can also be spawned for hardcore players.

There is a master server process which handles the lobby connections, account and character creation, level spawning and load balancing. Zone processes can then be balanced across other servers.

Another major feature is the new control system. Inspire uses the Advanced Camera resource, and after some user testing, I decided that the traditional MMO movement wasn't friendly enough when running over thin beams. There is a lot of these in my DIF architecture. So I implemented the Player Movement with Separate Camera resource. Which works almost perfectly, there is still a problem with the camera damping putting movement off. W and S moves away / towards the camera, A and D moves left and right. I'm hoping to extend this system to work with a gamepads thumbstick.

Cel Shading has been added to DTS objects. I'm also writing some code to have circular / arc health and stamina bars. Combat is currently being reviewed.

Inspire has:
- State / Goal based AI
- Collection, Crafting and Building mechanics
- Persistent Avatars
- Singular Inventory, Personal Bank
- Now uses AFX
- Capturable Hotspots, Bounce and Teleport Pads
- Defense Towers
- And More!

Finally, the game has reached the stage where I cannot realistically release it without the funding for an art overhaul, server hosting and other production costs, which means I have the fun task of looking for this.

Thanks for reading.