Indie Music, Lobby Patching and New Events System in Darkwind: War On Wheels
by Sam Redfern · 10/12/2006 (9:38 am) · 6 comments
As usual, work on "Darkwind - War on Wheels" has been progressing at a hectic rate. Over the past month, some major changes have happened:
Everything now runs from the game lobby, which is a Java program that can sit quietly on your taskbar while you're not playing. It has a chat room, instant messaging, and alert features - such as when a friend logs in or when an event you're competing in is about to start. It also links directly to events sign-up pages and automatically launches the Torque game client when an event is live and you're ready to join it. The lobby also carries out auto-patching, which is vastly faster than the Torque-based scripts/media patching system that we were using previously. Additionally, the Torque executable and the lobby Jar file itself can be patched this way.
The league events system has been totally changed. League events are no longer carried out at strictly scheduled times. This wasn't working. Now, events for these leagues are continually created: every hour there are 2 timetrials and 2 race/deathrace events. Although you can gain experience and prizes in as many of these as you wish, you can only score points in the first event of each type that you enter each week.
Music: We are delighted to announce that the music for the game is being supplied
by Dean Garcia, composer and musician from the band Curve. The game will include some specially written Darkwind remixes of some of Dean's recent work.
Ok, some obligitory screenshots... here's some of the vehicles that have been added recently:
Some gameplay tutorial pdf's have also been made recently:
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/QuickStartGuide.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/The3DGame.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/BuyingACar.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/FixingACar.pdf
Darkwind: War on Wheels is a turn-based car combat MMORPG set in a post-apocalyptic near future (it is currently the year 2062 in-game). We're currently in open alpha so feel free to drop in! Windows, Linux, and OSX clients are supported.
www.dark-wind.com
Everything now runs from the game lobby, which is a Java program that can sit quietly on your taskbar while you're not playing. It has a chat room, instant messaging, and alert features - such as when a friend logs in or when an event you're competing in is about to start. It also links directly to events sign-up pages and automatically launches the Torque game client when an event is live and you're ready to join it. The lobby also carries out auto-patching, which is vastly faster than the Torque-based scripts/media patching system that we were using previously. Additionally, the Torque executable and the lobby Jar file itself can be patched this way.
The league events system has been totally changed. League events are no longer carried out at strictly scheduled times. This wasn't working. Now, events for these leagues are continually created: every hour there are 2 timetrials and 2 race/deathrace events. Although you can gain experience and prizes in as many of these as you wish, you can only score points in the first event of each type that you enter each week.
Music: We are delighted to announce that the music for the game is being supplied
by Dean Garcia, composer and musician from the band Curve. The game will include some specially written Darkwind remixes of some of Dean's recent work.
Ok, some obligitory screenshots... here's some of the vehicles that have been added recently:
Some gameplay tutorial pdf's have also been made recently:
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/QuickStartGuide.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/The3DGame.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/BuyingACar.pdf
www.dark-wind.com/tutorials/FixingACar.pdf
Darkwind: War on Wheels is a turn-based car combat MMORPG set in a post-apocalyptic near future (it is currently the year 2062 in-game). We're currently in open alpha so feel free to drop in! Windows, Linux, and OSX clients are supported.
www.dark-wind.com
About the author
#2
10/12/2006 (10:23 am)
Ah, here's another piccie I should have put in. This one captures a deathrace (race with guns) shortly before the 30-second gong fires and all hell breaks loose. It also brings on asthma attacks just by looking at it.. ;-) 
#3
10/12/2006 (12:30 pm)
Those pics make me want to rip a sleeve off my black leather jacket and race!
#4
But why are the textures so blurry (terrain) all over? (unless you plan to update it later on) Either way, still looks good.
10/12/2006 (1:05 pm)
Models look amazing.But why are the textures so blurry (terrain) all over? (unless you plan to update it later on) Either way, still looks good.
#5
And the most terrible was probably once I registered, downloaded a bug free client for Mac Os X, and enjoyed the game I played.
It was terrible, oh... yes, very very terrible.
I'm addicted.
STef
10/12/2006 (4:14 pm)
Sam: I was so frustrated, you know: We're currently in open alpha so feel free to drop in! Windows, Linux, and OSX clients are supported. because you broke my enjoyment. I couldn't put the little griny sentence: "is there a Mac version?" or "when is the Mac version due?".And the most terrible was probably once I registered, downloaded a bug free client for Mac Os X, and enjoyed the game I played.
It was terrible, oh... yes, very very terrible.
I'm addicted.
STef
#6
I can assure you the Mac build was a major effort to get right, I ended up patching in code from the TGE1.4 codebase, which is a huge improvement over the mess that was 1.3.
10/12/2006 (6:46 pm)
Stephan: hmm that sort of sounds like a compliment ;-)I can assure you the Mac build was a major effort to get right, I ended up patching in code from the TGE1.4 codebase, which is a huge improvement over the mess that was 1.3.
Associate Adrian Wright
Max Gaming Technologies