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I took a break from the game, and had the most productive jump ever!

James Cullen, Blogger

May 3, 2010

4 Min Read

I took a week break from working on my game and when I came back I was stunned at how much I got done this week!

I had the idea of using the "Walls" I created out of primitive gameObjects like cubes. That worked quite nicely! I also had the idea of creating an entire dungeoun out of these "walls".
I was troubled that I would be using bland textures for the walls and ceiling of my dungeon. Then it came to me to do a google search for images of "Cave", and "Necropolis". I must say I was very happy with what I found! Actual slimy cave walls, quartz walls, all different cave types that people had actually been in and taken photos!

I also found great creepy photos from  the real necropolis that surpassed anything I could have imagined! So my beginning Dungeon is complete.I was worried about the player perspective when moving around in an enclosed area like a dungeon. I was worried about clipping issues, the camera being blocked etc. I'm happy to say that it works great!

I was also able to work some on HaggleTown, which is the beginning town/quest area. I worked on quest dialog for my one NPC so far, LOL! I have the first conversation of a quest done! 

I added patroling mobs to my sandbox area for testing. I intend to stock the sandbox zone with low level mobs. I put the two models that I have in for testing purposes. It works great, as a matter of fact, a little two great! As I play tested the zone, I wanted to run over to the Dungeon Zone which is on the far North Wall of the zone. That meant I had to run the gauntlet of the patrol mobs I have placed in the zone!  LOL I almost didn't make it! That made it glaringly obvious taht I want to start working on a health system! Either health pots or a heal ability.

I have been wanting to implement a menu bar wih the player abilities on the bottom of the screen. That's a long term goal. 

 

ToDo:

 

1st

The Tedious.

I'm going to organize my project. All the work I did on Quest dialog needs to be made into prefabs, so that I can just plop down ready made quest NPC's.
I did this with my patrol bots and walls. I was delighted at how easy it was to just drag ready made mobs or walls into the Zone!

2nd: 

Expand on the quest dialog. 

I've got the first quest dialog that sends the player to go save the NPC's daughter.  I need to work on queskeys so the NPC doesn't start the same dialog every time the player interacts with the NPC. That brings up quest object keys and quest rewards. 

The first step is to create a new global javascript that holds all my variables like Player HP, Player XP, Player Level, Questkeys and rewards. 

 

3rd

Redo the Viking Area with an eye on efficiancy! Reduce load time, reduce area space from 2000 meters to something reasonable like 500 meters. Break the zone into at least 2 zones like the Karanas. 

4th 

Textures to zoneload objects or invisible?  

I'm still wrestling with which is more asethetically pleasing. I'm thinking of putting a screenshot from the zone the player would zone into on the zoneload object to give the illusion of looking into the zone. 

5th:

That reminds me, I want to add zone loading screens  for when the zone is loading! That should be fairly simple, just throw a 2D .jpg screen up just before the zoneload(" ") command!

 

6th:

Fix the skybox! And fog effect to camera for all zones! 

 

7: 

Clean up the dungeon for cosmetics, fix the leaks! 

 

Jim Cullen

 

 

 

 

 

 

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