Blog for Kevin McLaughlin at GarageGames.com

Modeling Format Request

Kevin McLaughlin — 2008-10-05T22:40:22+00:00

Part rant, part public request... =)

Folks, I really, truly appreciate all the hard work that goes into various model packs for Torque. They're great! Some really nice artwork has been released lately.

But I am continuing to see a lot of that art released with source formats in MAX only, which takes a great pack and makes it completely useless for almost every Torque licensee.

Guys, if we had $3500 to drop on art software, we wouldn't be licensing a $150 engine. ;) MAX is probably the worst format possible for distribution to indie developers - it might as well be in sanscrit, none of us can read it and none of our software can edit it.

The 4-pack of medieval characters is a great example. Nice art. DTS and MAX formats only, which means...no source format, basically, for 99% of all TGE licensees. That's CRAZY! Why release like that, when you could kick in an extra format like MS3D that IS indie universal, and increase your potential buyer base by thousands, for a few minutes of extra effort?

Yes, I know we can use Shaper to mod the DTS directly. But it's still a bit of a pain to use, and has issues with importing a lot of the models from packs here for some reason (DTS import is probably still imperfect?). It would just be a lot easier if .X, or .MS3D, or *some* generally accepted format was included with model packs. Useful for us, more sales for the artists...win win situation, yes? =)

Truespace 7.6 released - for free!

Kevin McLaughlin — 2008-07-24T19:53:15+00:00

Didn't see this anywhere else here yet, so I thought I'd pass the word along...

Well, it's pretty surprising news. But yes, this ~$700 software package is now free. Along with hundreds of dollars of training videos.

Not a lot of functional exporters for it just yet; for games, looking at .X and Collada, with others coming soon. So an export to DTS would have to pass through through Milkshape or Shaper. Although with such a great package free, I'm hoping some of the graphics programming gurus out there will take up the banner of a DTS plugin for TS. ;)

I know some people love Caligari products, and others hate them. I've always found they worked pretty well for what I was doing with them, and frankly - this package blows away Gamespace, which I used to use. There's SO much more functionality and SO many improved features and methods... It's a pretty darn powerful modeling/animation/rendering package, on line with most other pro packages, and...it's free. Not bad, and definitely worth a look:
http://cart1.caligari.com/web/Truespacemainreg.aspx

Role of the Hero - April Contest Report

Kevin McLaughlin — 2008-05-01T03:00:17+00:00

Here we are, in the final hours of the Dream Games contest. Thirteen months has gone by. Over three dozen games have already dropped out or been eliminated, and the contest is down to the final few.

I'd like to go on record as saying that anyone who made it this far has already won, regardless of what the judges rule over the next few weeks. Accomplishing a game is a hard task. It's something a lot of us shoot for, and most of us fail to achieve. I almost gave up several times myself, but managed to stay the course.

Looking back over the year, I thought it was worth listing a few key learning points:

1) There is no time like the present.
If I had to name a number one point, this is it. I think most of us have been guilty at one time or another of putting off for tomorrow what we could be doing today. There's always a good reason, of course - if only you could get a coder/artist to join you, or look at that cool engine update/new engine coming out "soon"(TM). Or whatever else we tell ourselves to validate ourselves.

The fact is, game making is hard work, and it's work where you're putting your ego on the line, and it's work that there is no guarantee at all of a reward at the end. There's a certain level of hubris required to say "Yes, this IS worth me putting a thousand hours of my life (or more!) into." And so it's a lot easier to daydream about making your game than to make it.

Stop daydreaming. Stop waiting for the next engine...or whatever. There is no time like the present.

2) Make the game your engine and skills can achieve.
Some engines are better at certain tasks than others. Look at what your engine or codebase does well, and then look at where you think you can go from there given the skills you have available. In my case, this meant working under some hefty constraints. I'm not a coder, was working solo, and was hoping that the Gryphon codebase would mature in time. It didn't; as a result, I ended up pretty much starting from scratch this January using the Prairie Games Kit. I almost just dropped out at that point, but I'm glad I didn't - it's been an interesting experience.

The PG Kit has some impressive constraints itself. Essentially, it's geared toward making an EQ clone - anything more than that requires a pretty substantial amount of work and experience with python. Instead of adding extra coded features, I've opted instead to go the route (which you know if you've been reading my blog!) of a gamemastered play experience, where GMs read the activities in the world and add new content as "chapters" of the ongoing story in a manner which will ideally be more like a tabletop RPG game than a traditional MMO.

3) Always store backups of EVERYTHING.
Lost a ton of my art early this winter to a hard drive fiasco. ALWAYS back up everything. Multiple places, ideally. 'Nuff said.

4) Beware feature creep.
Not once, not twice, but at least four times I have caught myself allowing extra doodads to enter the design. Keep it Simple has been the mantra allowing me to stay on track. Get the core in - you can add extra features in later.

That won't stop you from playing some other game and saying "oh, wouldn't it be cool if..." ;) But I've manage to resist the urge. I did a lot of blogging early on about "Simplest Game", and it's been an important concept.

I can't stress how valuable a good design doc is, too. Having material all written down is a huge benefit. It operates like a lighthouse, and a quick re-read periodically of the entire document is a great tool for remembering the game you set out to make. Otherwise, it has a tendency to change over time. While some change is good, too much change can have you running in circles.

It's been a long haul.

There's only a very few of us left. I see some amazing games still in the competition, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to run with this pack for the last year. It's been challenging - staying the course, refusing to quit when things went sour or got frustrating.

I'm under no illusions that my little alpha is some amazing new leap forward in online RPGs. ;) But it's a good start on what could be a fun game when it's done. And - it's mine.

The signups for the alpha should be up on the http://www.roleofthehero.com website shortly. Just a quick little form, and you'll have an account set up for you there. I look forward to seeing some of you join me in celebrating the opening of the alpha for The Roleplayer's World - Role of the Hero.

A few screenshots from the game's upcoming alpha:

Role of the Hero - February Contest Blog

Kevin McLaughlin — 2008-03-07T04:13:50+00:00

Note: I originally attempted to post this back on the 23rd of February, and THOUGHT it had gone through. I only just now realized that it had not, so I've cut and pasted it back in for a second try here!

Well, we're down to the last week before demos are due now. I've spent the last bit working on the website some, giving it a little facelift. Added clickable popup shots to the sidebar gallery, rollovers to the nav buttons, and some initial content so it doesn't look so bare. Still contemplating a CMS instead of the HTML based site, but frankly that's a lower priority right now than getting the game ready.

I've set the standards/systems in place for armor and weapons - basically, the equations that say how much armor something gives, how much it weighs, how much it is worth, damage it does, how often it can be repaired before it breaks, etc. Pretty much all gear will be craftable. Players will be able to buy some too, but some stuff will simply require a crafter. Resource as drops or harvested items will be important.

Initial quests are in. I'm plugging dialogs into NPCs, setting up spawns, stuff like that. There is still a TON left to do, and I have more than once considered just dropping out. This really is going to just be a demo by next weekend. ;) But I figure I'll stick it out.

In retrospect, two months is not really enough time to learn a new engine AND make a decent game. I managed in a month with RC partly because the tools there are superior, and partly because I knew the engine really well. Having to basically learn the engine from scratch, because the gameplay material is all written in Python which I have NEVER touched before, has been a bear. If I didn't have solid example material to draw from I'd be really lost. As it is, I had a 24 hr battle with getting a rat to spawn, and the little buggers are still not walking their paths quite the way they should be. They do drop tails for a quest, though...

I'm going to give myself a few more days to get more material in, then I'm going to kick this up on the server and make sure it works. Working is important. I don't want to be pulling my hair out Friday night trying to figure out why my server won't run! But all looks good on the local test, so it shouldn't be that bad.

Let the countdown continue!

January Role of the Hero Blog

Kevin McLaughlin — 2008-02-01T04:54:37+00:00

If any of you have been following my main blog, bless you. If not, and you're interested in the trials and travails of trying to make an online RPG by myself, the site is here:
http://roleplayersworld.wordpress.com/

I haven't updated my progress here in a bit, and it's past time. So, a quick overview:

* For those who have forgotten, this project is part of the Dream Games $10k contest. Goal: produce a game using Torque in one year.
* Project: to produce a smallscale online game where players interact in a role-first story focused campaign. The goal is to demonstrate that a story based approach is viable in an online multiplayer environment. And ideally, to create a game that's fun to play, too.

It's been an odd couple of months.

I've almost dropped out of the contest more than once - out of frustration, lack of time, and a level of uncertainty whether the core premise is even workable on a production level. I've hemmed and hawed about engine mod choices. Finally, the end of December I was left knowing it was time to figure out what needed doing, and do it. Or drop out.

So I sat down, realized I had made a few crucial errors:
* I was still trying to make the game I dreamed of making, instead of getting a basic game done.
* I was using delays in the Gryphon and PG Kit engines as an excuse to not get things done.
* I was allowing feature creep in a big way, despite talking about "simplest game"; I was trying to make something complex, instead of keeping it at a more basic and accomplishable level.

Making a game, even a mediocre one, is better than sitting around not doing anything. Even if this premise fails, at least I will know that and can move on from there. And, I'll have the experience of having accomplished another game under my belt too, which is never a bad thing!

So, I tossed out darn near everything I had done so far, and pushed ahead with a more basic design. With only two months left til the initial Alpha was due (one month now!) and only another two months after that before the contest is over, I am out of time to mess about. So now - after having given myself permission to fail (which is really a freeing process!), and kicking off an idea I don't have near as much of myself invested in, I'm making strong forward progress.

Upcoming:
* I had hoped for screenshots of the dungeon I've been working on, but I've got a bad brush somewhere that I have to locate. I'll get those up soon. Screenshots of the landscape, however, I do have:

* Last spring I released my design doc on my blog. I'll be releasing the new and improved/updated version shortly in the same space.

* Alpha test is still online for the start of March. Should be interesting to see how far I get by then. ;)

Edit:
Well, I snagged a teaser shot of the dungeon-in-progress anyway, just for show. This is a Constructor shot though, not an ingame one:

I'll try to get some more action-oriented shots into next months blog!

Creating an Interactive Story

Kevin McLaughlin — 2007-10-31T23:42:40+00:00

I don't usually just repost these blogs from my weekly blog. But - I had an especially pertinent post on Saturday, and I thought there might actually be interest in reading it! If you want more background on this post, go read the full blog at http://roleplayersworld.wordpress.com

Thanks for reading, comments welcome, and enjoy!

********

There's a lot of garbage that has been written about the theory of interactive story in an online game. Garbage, because most of it is useless theoretical crap. Theoretical, because no one has done it yet. Not in a graphical game, anyway. That's a serious problem, because it means that interactive online storytelling is essentially an unfounded medium of communication, something that has no easy templates or examples to draw from.

There have been some failed stabs at it in the past, of course. Asheron Call 1 had an ongoing monthly "story" that in theory players could affect but in practice was simply patched in the same on every server regardless of whether players had done anything to progress the story or not. The story there was backdrop, not core. It was not interactive, because it progressed in the same way regardless of player action. Shadowbane briefly tried some GM-driven storyline events, but these again tended to be brief and without lasting impact. Players who happened to be online got to go see the event, kill some mobs (or players!) maybe get a cool item, and that was it. The results of the event really never changed anything in the world. Eve Online and other games have introduced what I would call "ongoing backstory". As the months go on, new backstory is introduced, talking about the changes in the world around you. Again though, this backstory rarely has any impact on the players. It's flavor, designed to make the patches more interesting and explain away any oddities added in a patch.

Wish was probably the closest thing to my goal ever to be attempted. Wish intended to have no senselessly repeating quests, for instance; all quests would either be one shot deals, or would repeat because it was logical they do so. Dungeons would not automatically respawn; a GM would have to reinitialize a dungeon with new critters based around some new story sequence - "reinhabit" it, so to speak. Story would be driven by a collaboration between players and GMs, with GMs presenting challenges and players responding to those challenges with their actions, which in turn let the GMs develop the future chapters of the story. Wish sounded like a truly wonderful idea.

Wish was cancelled in beta due to unforseen difficulties with production. Go figure, eh? ;)

There are other examples of failed or halfhearted attempts, but essentially any sort of real interactive storytelling in an MMORPG is breaking new ground. So, with no strong examples to build on, the best bet seems to be to work from the failed attempts of others, and try to see where they went wrong.

The system I am roughing out is a mesh of some of the concepts of Asheron's Call, melded with some of the flexibility planned for Wish. AC ran updates with fixed, preplanned content. This was necessary because the game used a multiple-shard setup. The same content needed to be patched to every server every time. As a result, player action could never determine the content being patched, because divergence between server storylines was not allowed to happen. A single-shard approach is not vital to a story based game, but it helps. Multiple servers would mean generating, tracking, and doing all the work to create content for multiple storylines, since divergence is almost certain. My intent was always to run a single shard, at least at the outset, so this part is easy.

AC1's patches were not frequent enough to be reactive, however. Monthly patches don't occur often enough to be seen as responding to player actions. It's too easy to disassociate the patched changes from the actions the players did that caused them when there is a 2-4 week lag between the two. A faster update pace is required. Wish was the flip side of this coin, with GMs constantly spinning out new content in the form of quests, spawns, and such on an hourly basis around the clock. This undoubtably proved very time intensive, and it seems likely that the projected man-hours required contributed heavily to the cancellation of the game. So we need fast updates, but not as fast as Wish had in mind. We need content that responds to players, but not in a pre-scripted manner, since that would seem artificial.

The best answer I have come up with so far seems to be a threshold system. Storylines will be scattered through the game world, with various thresholds tracked by the server. For instance, if a certain critter infests an old mine, and players can recover the mine, then after a certain threshold of clearing activity, a flag will go up, and the GMs will patch the next segment in that story. That area might have a deeper dungeon at the bottom of it which now needs exploring. The critters might have moved, but where did they go and what trouble will they cause now? These sorts of continuations of the story can be patched as soon as the players have hit the critical trigger level. You can think of these threshold points as "turn the page" events which act as flags to tell the GMs to move the story along.

Comlpexity can be added as well. If there is a threshold for heavy player victory against the critters, what happens if the players ignore them completely? Do they just stay there, or would a threshold event be added for a certain level of non-interference? This can easily be a graduated scale; a point value which slowly moves up if they are not interfered with, and moves down whenever their lair is invaded. If the point scale goes high enough, they might grow bold, raiding farms nearby, attracting stronger allies, or otherwise becoming a bigger menace.

Further complexity can be added by mixing the thresholds. Undead infest the ruins of a nearby keep. The little goblinlike critters have always coveted those ruins, but are afraid of the undead. If players clear the ruins, the critters might move in to replace the undead - if the critter point scale is high enough. If they've been raided a bit, they might be more inclined to dig in. If they've been raided a lot, and want a new home though, they might head for the ruins anyway. And who knows what sorts of trouble small burrowing critters can turn up at an ancient ruin?

I'm sure you get the idea now. By introducing myriad small "turn the page" events, the GMs can be flagged when a particular storyline has been affected by the players enough to move it to the next chapter. By knowing in advance the possible outcomes, GMs can prep the content needed to quickly apply the patches required for any new story segment. The overall system is still rough, and I'd welcome other thoughts on the subject. But it looks to me like it is a system which should work - providing ongoing interactive stories in a manageable manner.

Role of the Hero - August Blog

Kevin McLaughlin — 2007-09-01T12:56:53+00:00

Work is continuing apace on modeling for ROTH. I've uploaded another teaser screenshot, this time of an outpost tower:

Along with this model, I've been building a number of house type structures, all prepping for the creation of the Knight Stronghold zone. I'll save those for the ingame screenshots coming soon though!

I got news yesterday on the status of our sponsored server. It should be ready for us within the next week, so we should be in great shape for an initial alpha very soon. We were expecting it a couple of weeks ago, but the delay has just given me a bit more time to work on models, so it's worked out well.

Everything is coming together, albeit slowly, and I'm very much looking forward to getting my test server up and running!

Edit: Added another screenshot below, of the continued work on the building. You'll notice quite a few changes: walls thickened to make them more architecturally sound, battlements thickened and pushed out as an overhang, supports added to the battlements, arrow-slit style windows added at each landing, and more. Thanks for the comments, those who have posted or sent them! =)

Role of the Hero - July update

Kevin McLaughlin — 2007-08-01T03:32:56+00:00

July has come, and almost gone... So it's time for me to report on the progress of my DreamGames contest entry. If you recall from past posts, Role of the Hero is a smalescale persistant world game - rather like an MMORPG, but with an indie-sized focus targeting a sliver market. The game focuses on Story first and foremost, with GM-player interaction to develop an ongoing plotline which affects change over time in the game world. It's targeted at those players who are heavily into the roleplaying and storyline aspects of these games.

You can read more about it at my regular blog: roleplayersworld.wordpress.com/

It's actually been a slow month - the standard Indie Blockades of work, family, and "sundry emergencies" have been working hard to slow down progress. But I've made some good strides despite this.

Modeling: My primary focus right now is on getting the models together for the first couple of zones. I took the models I showed last month, and made some improvements based on various suggestions from here and elsewhere - so thank you! I've also been working on several sets of housing (hill people tribal camp, stockaded refugee shacks, and stone knightkeep structures) which I'll probably show more of next month, perhaps via some ingame screenshots.

Alpha Test: I've been offered a year of free hosting by API Servers; their sponsorship is much appreciated. I'll be sure to report more on their services once I have more firsthand experience. The hosting starts next month, so to get maximum benefit, I am tentatively planning an early "walk and talk" alpha starting in September. I've started to interview and sign up testers, and have about a dozen solid cantidates so far.

Website: I had hoped to have at least the rough draft of the website up and running already, to show today. But I'm still hip-deep in photoshop, working on refining the images and layout a bit more. Since I'll be away on vacation next week, my guess is it won't actually be up on the web for another two weeks or so. I do have roleofthehero.com reserved and ready to go; I'll let folks here know when the site is available for viewing.

Today marks the end of the first third of the contest! There's only eight months left. I still have a lot to do. ;)

Role of the Hero - First DIF sets

Kevin McLaughlin — 2007-06-08T09:33:23+00:00

Continuing the ongoing saga of my DreamGames contest entry!

Over the past week I have begun work on DIFs for the game. With limited time, and only myself working on the project, I'm creating models with ease of re-use in mind. The models I'm showing here today are examples of that: a set of six wooden pallisade sections, and the first three models from a similar stone wall set. These are fully interlocking peices; when each set is complete, they act like blocks that can be interconnected in a wide variety of ways to create different walls around different towns and castles. With some light retexturing, they can appear even more different if desired.

These were also the first work I've done in Constructor; I was a dedicated Deled user before now, but it seems logical to begin learning the work process for Constructor.

Textures are all original work, most using Wood Workshop (http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/) as their foundation. Kork appears in the images to show scale; he's not being used in the game. :)

APIServers Sponsors Role of the Hero

Kevin McLaughlin — 2007-05-15T18:08:18+00:00

APIServers, a server hosting business that has offered some excellent pricing for small online indie games before, confirmed today their offer to sponsor the Role of the Hero game and Dream Games contest entry with a one year hosting plan.

The preliminary specs on the server to be provided are:

3400+ AMD
1GB RAM
80GB HD
One forwarded IP and a shared 10Mbit/s uplink (1Mbit/s guaranteed)
Windows 2000 Professional

This service will be for one year, with hosting starting around August.

I'd like to sincerely thank the folks over there at APIServers. They've advertised inexpensive indie hosting for a few months now over at MMORPGMaker. The prices are excellent, and they are advertising servers capable of hosting a couple dozen concurrent users for about about $35 a month, with the ability to scale service from there as needed. The hosting they are offering me should allow us peak concurrencies of nearly 100 players, more than adequate for my testing phases.

Hosting is one of the more expensive elements of running a small online game, and this offer has taken the sting out of that part of production. I've never worked with APIServers before, and I'm interested in seeing how well their products work for my game. One thing I do know, however, is that I am excited to working with their staff. This is an amazing opportunity they have given me, and I look forward to forging a working relationship with them.