14 Months Later...

James Spellman — 2007-08-20T19:58:13+00:00

I can't believe it's been a year already!

When I first mapped out my project, I design 14 milestones. I scheduled one milestone a month in order to have a functioning prototype in about 14 months. I was already about two months in when I wrote my first blog, so I should be done, right? Well, needless to say, things didn't quite go as planned.

Setbacks

Probably the biggest setback I've run into was when my motherboard fried. Of course I didn't know it had fried at first. I couldn't tell why my machine just stopped working. I ripped it apart, sniffed to see if the magic smoke was leaking out of anything, and eventually decided that my power supply was dead.

After digging around in the garage for an hour, I finally found the power supply I purchased a year ago for my stepson's machine, didn't need, and had lost the receipt for. Now the motherboard had power but still wouldn't boot. I hit the web looking for the same board and ended up buying a facsimile on ebay from some nice guy in Taiwan who swore it was good. And it did work for about an hour at a time before it would simply turn itself off. Fortunately that was good enough for me because my immediate problem was that I had a striped RAID and was fearful that I wouldn't be able to get my data off my drives. That was also the reason I wanted the same model motherboard for fear of data loss if the RAID controller was even slightly different.

So long story short, that broken MB worked long enough to get most of my data off. I did neglect to properly back up my database, because I wrongly assumed I knew what I was doing. I then built myself a Core 2 Duo system, which I adore and is working beautifully. And aside from another RAID mishap when attempting to mirror my new 300GB drive and promptly losing my My Documents folder including my design documents, there have been no further tragedies.

The only other series of setbacks had to do with the Database: I had to rebuild my data when I lost it the first time. I've switched from MySQL to Postgres. I switched to an event-driven design. And I lastly, I've redesigned the tables and messages countless times, but I think it's all good now!

Changed Vision - The MORPAG

I took a lot of time off after dealing with all the setbacks. In fact, it took me about 10 months to recover from it. Once I got going again, I decided that the last thing I wanted was to be working on an MMO. So although I mentioned it in my first blog, I thought I should really drive home the point of my thinking of this project more in terms of a Multi-Player Adventure Game than a traditional MMO. The RP remains, although I hope to be the first game system to do it justice. I see WoW and LOTRO as Fantasy games (MMOFG) than Role-Playing. How I'll approach it is a discussion for another time.

Another change what that was always in the back of my mind but now weighs more heavily in the foreground is making my gaming system more adaptable for other purposes than simply entertainment. What with the seeming popularity of Second Life (the horror) and the utter coolness of vSide, there are other things to consider such as the social side of a persistent online world. Again, I'll have more details on that on a later date.

Progress

So with 14 months between milestones, and progress has to be gravy, and it is:

Not only is my database cooking, I've managed to get it running on an Ubuntu server. However, I still need to figure out how to back it up. And I'd like to get my game server running on it too, but I don't know anything about Linux.

I've completed the first set of tools for database and content management.

I've ported the client to TGE 1.5.2, cleaned up the interface, added basic Chat, added some basic quests, fixed all the known bugs and tested it live over the Internet. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it has been pretty heavy on the infrastructure side.

What's Next?

I'm working on a set of GUI Skins, NPC Merchants and Conversations. I'm experimenting with Mesh Hiding to create some variability in my characters. I'm expanding my Inventory system to include mode types of objects. And always I'm working on the tools to make it easy to create content, management it and generate reports.

I'd like to be working on some actual Content so my test world isn't so boring, but that's really a low priority for me. The same goes for any sort of "real" artwork. I'm more interested in getting the mechanics right than trying to get something pretty in there. I'd like to see how a port to TGEA would go, if there would be any benefit, and if I could support both platforms without any additional headaches.

Lastly, I'd like to be able to whip up some more of my systems into resources and post them here for you all. All I can say is hopefully I'll have something to show, one way or another, before another 14 months goes by...

Lets get this MORGP started!

James Spellman — 2006-08-23T04:35:04+00:00

Hey kids! I thought it was about time I wrote my first .plan.

Who is this guy?

My name is James Spellman. I've been a game programmer since the good ol' days. My day job involves using Torque for Serious Games. Now I'm hoping to get serious with my Indie efforts.

The Project

The project I've selected is what I would call a MORPG (not Massive). The general idea is to create a multiplayer role-playing game that is more like Neverwinter Nights than EverQuest. I hope to reintroduce the concept of Dungeon Crawl and perhaps lose the repetitiveness of static instances and cleaning up the yard trash. Another way to think of it would be a Dynamic Multiplayer Skill-Based Adventure Game. As an extra twist, I'm considering developing simultaneous Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds at the same time.

The Approach

I've spent a few years talking and dreaming about it. I've played several games that are out there including, but not limited to, EverQuest, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and D&D Online. I've made notes, drawn pictures, captured screenshots, added to favorites and written code.

I've started writing a design document. Each Chapter pretty much reflects a Milestone. I've written notes and ideas in most chapters but only really flush it out when I'm ready to work on that milestone. Then I start building it.

The Journey

I'm not fooling myself that I'm going to make a commercial product by myself on the first pass. I'm more aiming for a workable prototype that I, my friends and possibly others would want to play. There will be plenty of stock art and models. There are technologies that I'll have to simply live with rather than replace. But should it have that special something, it should serve as a model for "doing it right."

I fully expect, however, to do some things as good, if not better than the commercial products out there. And in cases where someone else has got it nailed.... I'll rip it off in a heartbeat.

That, in fact, is why I decided it was time to write this. I've managed to cobble together parts of Persistent Storage, Character Management, a Container System and World of Warcraft-style Player Control. And now I'd like to share some of the bits.

I know I'm not setting the standard for 'How to Write an Application' or 'How to be a Successful Indie', but I'm having fun. And if I can find ways to give back to the community in the process, all the better!

Edit: Forgot D&D Online

Blog for James Spellman at GarageGames.com

14 Months Later...

Lets get this MORGP started!