Blog for Arcanor at GarageGames.com

Arcanoria MMORPG - playable demo scheduled for December 2008

Arcanor — 2008-09-25T16:41:53+00:00

Some folks in the community have approached me recently, saying that they had learned about my MMORPG project Arcanoria here in my previous GG blogs, or from the MyDreamRPG contest we entered last year. Arcanoria has come a long way since my last blog here, so please accept my apologies for not providing an update sooner! We've been quite busy...

Well the first thing to say is that, unfortunately, we had to drop out of the DreamGames contest back in January of this year for various reasons, including the fact that we'd decided to switch engines again, back to our original engine, which was based on Ogre. I felt it was a better fit for our project, which will include server-based network play in a persistent world, and a fully custom game system, among other things.

Since January 2008, we decided to move over to using the still-in-development Zen Engine (www.indiezen.org), rather than develop our own framework and toolset. This has proven to be a great benefit to us, and the future is looking very bright, with much of the basic engine functionality already stable and working, and new features just on the horizon, including a powerful world editor that's scheduled for initial (internal) release in about a month from now.

That notwithstanding, we're already able to construct scenes and gameplay rules using Lua script, and the process has begun of porting our creative work over from our old TGEA-based demo from last year, plus implementing all the other stuff like game rules, back story, etc. which we designed last year and is sitting in our wiki waiting to get into the game world.

The big news is that we're planning to release a playable (alpha) demo of Arcanoria at long last, and it's scheduled to release before the end of this year! If you take a look at our project blogs on our main website (www.arcanoria.com) you'll see that things are coming together VERY quickly, now that much of the engine work is behind us. Our screenshots (www.arcanoria.com/photos) tell the tale of very rapid and tangible progress, just in the last couple of weeks.

If you are interested in more detail, please feel free to browse our blog history page for the whole story (www.arcanoria.com/history.php), including everything we've done since the project's beginning back in January 2007.

I'd love to hear what you think of our recent progress! We're really excited about the future of Arcanoria.

Thanks for reading along!

The Perils of Art Packs - LOD issues

Arcanor — 2007-11-13T12:02:36+00:00

Unanticipated development issue: art pack standardization.

As we've been adding more and more content to Arcanoria we're running into some limitations of the model packs we've purchased. They've been written by different authors/artists, meaning there is no standardization. The model packs have always been intended to get us to the point where we can attract artists to help us with our own model designs, however at this time we have no actively dedicated modelers on our team so we're having to "work with what we've got". Some of our model packs don't have ANY LODs, which is a huge performance problem! LOD is Level Of Detail, and it's the way the engine deals with objects that are far away from the rendering camera. As an object is further and further away from the camera, the engine renders it smaller and smaller on the screen, and when it reaches a certain number of pixels the engine can render a less complex polygon mesh in its place. But those pixel levels and less complex polygon meshes must be built into the object itself. Unfortunately none of the Arteria models (which we use heavily) seem to have any LODs built in. This is a huge unanticipated performance problem, and every time our player character faces towards our skeleton dungeon (built with the Arteria dungeon construction pack) the frame rate drops immensely. On my reasonably powerful system (Radeon X1950pro, Athlon X2 4200+, 2.5 GB RAM) I'm seeing framerates drop from 30fps to 5fps just by facing in that direction. I can get over 90fps by facing the ocean. Obviously this is a priority for us to fix, but it probably means replacing/revamping all the Arteria models (and some others) with new models that have appropriate LODs, and that will mean a lot of time. Yuck!

My advice is to make absolutely sure that any model packs you buy come with a source format you can actually (and legally) edit. Many of the packs available here on the Garage Games website come with sources for 3DSMAX. But not many of us indie developers have access to a $6000 MAX license, so we're stuck using cheaper tools like Blender, Milkshape, etc. which can't read MAX format. If the model pack you're purchasing comes with alternative formats, I'd strongly suggest loading it up in your favorite 3D editor and making sure you can re-create the DTS with modified LODs and animations.

Technology Updates for Arcanoria

Arcanor — 2007-09-12T19:59:30+00:00

It's been a long and winding road so far, but we're determined to make the right choices and move forward towards the release of our Medieval Fantasy Online RPG, named Arcanoria (www.arcanoria.com).

We've made tremendous progress on creating a unique new game system that caters not only to player character level advancement through the typical combat-oriented quests and activities, but also through other lines of advancement in non-violent professions such as Fishing, Archaeology, Healing, and more. We're finally in the process of actually implementing this system from the drawing board into our actual game engine. It's quite an exciting time, and we hope to have a limited functionality working demo up and running in the next few weeks! More to come on that at a later date...

However, recent advances in our technology base (TGEA, AFXA preview, L3DT, etc.) have had their cost in terms of our time to get things transferred into doing things the new "way", and learning all the new methods and tools required to do things given our recent choices. And of course everything is that much more difficult when you throw in staff changes and people's real life demands on their time. So it goes for the indie developer!

All that being said, we're very pleased at how we're poised right now to produce a much better product than we were initially intending. TGEA is far more powerful than TGE and there's no way we would consider going back. The trials of the upgrade have certainly been worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. If you're thinking about the TGEA upgrade for your project, then now may be a great time to do it. In my opinion, it's ready.

TGEA Cutover!

Arcanor — 2007-07-25T20:14:29+00:00

I've taken the plunge and purchased a license for TGEA, and I'm currently in the process of merging code in my MMORPG project Arcanoria (http://www.arcanoria.com). We have 16 developers now - WOW, it's been quite a ride so far! Let me know if you want to join our team, as always. I believe in domination by collaboration, hehe.

Our current development status snapshot looks sort of like this:

- TGEA+AFXA (we're in the beta for AFX's new TGEA version) integration with Gryphon MMOKIT code from Dream Games, and our proprietary code (which isn't much yet, but we're about ready to add a lot of stuff in)

- Atlas terrain generation using L3DT, finalizing decisions for scale/size

- regional maps making great progress, especially our focus region: the human racial starting and levelling areas. Some regions are ready for terrain building, others are still to come.

- player model integration from Frogames and Arteria model packs for humans, norsemen, elves

- new models being worked on for gnomes, and lizardfolk (dark elves coming soon)

- game core system: deep in the middle of templates and mathematical formulae for combat, classes, skills, attributes, etc. Should be coding these proprietary modifications within the next week.

- backstory is really coming along GREAT, I'm excited just thinking about the possibilities for questing and storyline. The game is going to have a unique feel to it, as we're taking the concept of the typical "undead monsters" into a new direction. Also, depending on which race you choose to play, you'll have a different relationship with the "Arcanorians". More to come later on this!

For more information please feel free to visit our main game website (http://www.arcanoria.com) and read through our History page, which has a lot more detailed blogs over time, since I began this project back in January of this year. Thanks for reading!

Arcanoria Medieval Fantasy Online RPG: new Artwork

Arcanor — 2007-06-21T23:30:13+00:00

Arcanoria (www.arcanoria.com) is a developing MMORPG that is scheduled for initial public alpha release this fall. We have a growing team, and we're quite excited about our project. Here is a sample of some of the artwork that's been done by one of our artists:

These next two images are works in progress:

If you're interested in finding out more about Arcanoria, and how you can get involved, please send email to me at arcanor@arcanoria.com. Thanks!

Innovate, But Do It Carefully

Arcanor — 2007-05-18T12:17:02+00:00

Often times, game development teams spend an excessive amount of effort in innovating early and often. You may hear some of the following things from your dev team:

* We don't want to make a clone of (insert popular game title here).
* That idea is boring.
* It's been done before.

It's important to remember that so-called "traditional" RPG ideas only become traditional because they work so well, or so conveniently for the development team. That's a GOOD thing. You don't need to reinvent every single cog in the machine to make a great, innovative game system. In fact, it's far better to get comfortable with making something according to established, tried and true methods, i.e. the methods that are proven to work. There will still be plenty of opportunities to make your game ground-breakingly unique and innovative. You don't have to try very hard at all to do that. As long as you're passionate about what you're building the ideas will come out. Don't throw out ideas that are proven to work just for the sake of being different in every possible way. Doing that is the sure path to project failure. Every single "totally new" feature to the game system increases the difficulty to get a stable, working, and above all BALANCED release immensely. A game can have the best artwork, the most creative quests, a great skill system, etc., but if even ONE game balance issue is out of whack, then the whole game will fail. The hard part is putting in the basis and making sure your implementation actually works the way you thought it might. Then add in the innovations and make sure it still works as intended.

Imagine you create the best game in the world in every way, but there's one problem: there's a treasure chest in a low level dungeon that gives 10 gold pieces every 30 seconds to a rogue with lockpicking skill. This can and will be abused to the point where it totally ruins the game for everyone. Game balance is the HARD part. The game system itself is the icing on the cake. That's the FUN part. Most games fail because they can't balance the challenges they've created, and the player gets bored.

We must stay out of that development trap which has doomed so many failed game projects in the past. So the next time you find yourself thinking about adding some sort of innovation into your game design, stop and ask yourself the question: Why? And if there's a really good reason Why, then make sure that you take TWO things out for every ONE thing you add in, since down the road, all idea implementations become more complex.

For more information about my own game project, including video, screen shots, detailed blogs, and much more, please visit our website at www.arcanoria.com.

Rob Sandbach Joins Arcanoria! ...and other news

Arcanor — 2007-05-03T21:28:22+00:00

Arcanoria is a medieval fantasy SMORPG and our main website is www.arcanoria.com.

I'm very excited to announce that Rob Sandbach of Manchester-based game design studio Urban Games (www.urban-games.net) has agreed to join the Arcanoria development team. We're still working on defining his exact role, but among other things Rob will be lending his Torque scripting, design and team management skills. Rob heads up Urban Games, and has years of experience in Torque game development. This also means that we'll be able to draw on the experience of the other Urban Games associates, who have collectively worked on numerous gaming titles as artists, designers, and programmers. We're looking forward to a great working relationship with Rob and the crew at UG!

On the development front, Rob and I have been hard at work defining the game system's parameters, particularly the skill/spell system. We're excited about how Arcanoria's skill system innovations will affect gameplay. Players will have meaningful choices to make through their actions, instead of choosing a character class at level 1, which is how it's done in most MMORPG's. In Arcanoria, a player's actions will result in changes to their skill levels, which are maintained automatically by the game and adjusted with practice (or disuse). This means that to become a Fighter, you need to do some fighting, or to become a Mage you need to cast some spells! Isn't that the way it should be? We think so.

In other news, the model packs from Arteria Gaming are finally downloaded, after Steve (owner of Arteria) was having some issues with his website's transfer to a new, more reliable hosting service. While he's still not completely setup, Steve was kind enough to get me all the files directly via ftp. Now that's what I call customer service - thanks Steve!

I've also signed us up for an internet-based SVN/Trac/Wiki account at Wush.net, and gotten a development wiki started with a few new documents, along with a shared SVN (source code) repository. This is a huge step for Arcanoria as it now enables us to have our geographically remote development team be able to work together seamlessly.

Finally, I've spent a bunch of time recently fleshing out the Arcanoria Design Document, which will act as a guide as we continue to make our way through the design process. It also serves as a living description of how the game is implemented from the design perspective, and why.

Arcanoria - a SMORPG project

Arcanor — 2007-04-24T13:54:25+00:00

I've been working on producing an online game called Arcanoria since January 2007, originally using Ogre3D as the basis, but since mid-April we've switched to TGE in hopes of "shortcutting" the game engine development process and bringing something to market sooner.

We've created a website to explain more about what's going on, which you can find at:

www.arcanoria.com

For the time impaired (aren't we all!), here's a quick synopsis taken from the website:

Quote:

Arcanoria is a fantasy-based SMORPG* where solo players or groups can go on quests, solve intriguing puzzles, learn to craft their own custom items (clothing, weapons, etc.), offer paid services (escort duty, item identification, merchant shop, etc.), and face deadly challenges using their expertise with sword, bow, magic, or stealth. Arcanoria's game system is made to suit many different play styles. Each character can be a hybrid of many different abilities. The more you focus your actions on certain types of skills the better those skills become - at the expense of unrelated skills.

The world itself is very large, but only a portion of it has yet been discovered. Future game updates will reveal new areas of the map for players to explore. From cities to castles to murky caves to wind-swept mountaintops to tropical islands to barren deserts, to lush forests... Arcanoria has it all, just waiting for you to discover!

The game is not finished being built yet, but our first limited public release is scheduled for Summer/Fall 2007! If you'd like to participate as an early tester, please contact us at web-inquiry@arcanoria.com.

*SMORPG - Small Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - similar to a MMORPG, but smaller in scope. While MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) are intended for thousands of players to interact, a SMORPG does the same types of things, but for only a few hundred players at a time. Much like old text-based MUDs, the focus is on providing innovative and interesting gameplay and an engaging social experience, rather than worrying about multiple redundant servers and other such expensive and time consuming infrastructure. We figure if things get to the point where server capacity becomes a problem, we're doing something right!