Latest work:
UI Improvements
Special abilities UI
Rewritten ItemInterface handling (pertty neat)
Some model/animation testing
Animations: Movement/Action channel testing
Projectile graphics improved
Rescaling world to metrics system (so much more easy to think in)
http://puu.sh/XG9G
Really great progress guys. It’s a lot of fun following your frequent updates.
You’d have a lot to talk about in a tech preview video at this point, which is a great way to engage your audience (and we love tweeting videos 
)
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Hehe thanks, yea might do that later on.
Could at least explain the game concept and some goodies.
Going to try to get the first revision of the game core done asap so that
more weight could be put on the graphics in general.
So far most of the time has been put into structuring up the essentials of the game core
such as definitions, masks, networking and overall structure, but we’re progressing
quite fast and still is a pleasure working with JME.
a new blog has been created for the game www.divicus.com , check on it regularly , its still fresh so content would be added eventually 
Cool! I’m subscribed Don’t forget to cross-post most of your updates here though
p.s. you should update your contact settings. Twitter etc. is set to “paddsolutions”.
Again not much has happened the past week or two, and the blog hasnt kicked off just yet.
Anyhow there are some updates that I can show you guys.
- Enhanced server monitor
- Item tooltips
- Minimap fine tuning
- Ability testing: Lifesteal
- Simplified map creation tool
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBhLy6z45UY
looking solid.
A small update to give you some more insight on the current progress.
Been working on a game mode (PVP) similar to DotA/LoL/HoN for easier and more fun early development.
The idea is to have minions spawn in each teams base, progressing through a lane, facing static towers and opponent players/npcs,
with the ultimate outcome that one team defeats the other.
So far waypoint definition and local pathing is functional, but more work is required.
Next thing to work on is the targetting of each NPC type, who to target and how to fight them.
Once that is done, make a stable game state for running this kind of game mode, with start and end handling with seemless restarting.
http://puu.sh/1lfcp.png
Along the side we’ve worked on some tools that will be useful in the future when it comes to networking optimization.
The first tool created is a network monitor-isch frame which registers amount of messages and total sizes for each message type,
both up and down stream. Having this tool makes it easier to determine where bottlenecks are and where improvements would make the most difference.
http://puu.sh/1lffk.png
Further on, some work with the UI and nifty has also been continued on.
This round it was time for some menu/settings implementations in shape of a logout menu bar so far containing
a log out button and a settings panel.
Not much to be said about it right now as it only features some simple checkbox buttons for turning on/off debug and some filters.
Anyhow we’ve got a good feeling again and has gotten back to a more stable workflow compared to some weeks ago.
Lets just hope this spirit remains for some time.
http://puu.sh/1leIF.png
At the first time I saw this I could swear this project wasn’t going further, but now I see that you are just beginning. Good luck man. Looks really really great. I got really interested by your idea. Specially transforming in some kind of Demigod game.
@shirkit said:
At the first time I saw this I could swear this project wasn't going further, but now I see that you are just beginning. Good luck man. Looks really really great. I got really interested by your idea. Specially transforming in some kind of Demigod game.
Hehe yea I can understand that, its definitely something big to take on but you also get to experience alot of troublesome situations which leads to further your knowledge. The more progress you do, the more you realize the span of such a project, and yes its huge.
There are alot of worrying parts yet to come, which brings fear to mind; things like how to handle high amount of players in small areas and the amount of time it will take to scramble together the 3d models. Also something which is widely discussed regarding networking, how to make time synchronized among players.
Alot of planning and reading has been done regarding these issues, but you cant really know until you get to that state, which makes it even more thrilling as you get closer to the goals.
Thought I’d leave a few words here for future reference.
The past few months has resulted in a fair bit of progress,
essentially restructuring and improvement of the core, but also
some more fun stuff to talk about.
As always when working with a networked game, everything has to be broadcasted to the clients
for appropriate visuals. For a long time we didnt care about things like animations and item visuals,
but during the past week or two we’ve started to look into how the end graphics could look like.
The idea has always been to end up with simple, yet amusing graphics, somewhat related to zelda graphic style.
Either way one idea was to instead of using an animated player model, we thought about stripping it down to only a well defined/rigged
skeleton to which we attach items. So in order to try the idea out, a set of very simple item models were created along with some basic animations
for various attacks, and it actually feels pretty neat so far.
The system for networked animations and item visuals has been started on and so far supports these basic items and animations.
Seemingly the synchronization of them works fairly well.
Further more we’ve spent alot of time on the pathfinding algorithms and the overall AI of the NPCs, and are currently working on implementing boundary polygons for entities. The idea of that is to instead of using a simple blocking grid, we’d use a set of blocking polygons to determine if the tile is walkable or not. Keep in mind the game is still based on a 2D grid. If the next step would mean that two units would intersect their bounds, its invalidated.
I kind of like the idea of it as it will make it easy to make custom block areas depending on the geometry of the entities, and we’ll very soon see how resource heavy it is.
We’ve essentially focused on the BaseDefence game mode in order to more easily figure out flaws with pathfinding and AI in general, but also to more easily
come up with additional ideas during the prototyping phase. The base defence game mode currently works pretty similar to LoL/DotA, however without jungle creeps.
The (active) special ability system implementation has also been introduced into the game. Earlier I mentioned that theres a lifesteal passive ability, but this time
we started working on the abilities which will use projectiles for collision, for example skillshots and AOE spells. The simplest cast, skillshot, is in place with a functional networked cooldown system, but there are still some kinks to work out but its in progress.
Also need to start looking into client side optimizations in order increase the framerate soon,
not much time has been spent on this so far so I’m pretty sure we can raise it a couple of percents fairly easily.
Furthermore I hope to be able to shoot a video soon.
The ones of you who are curious can try the applet version here: http://bots.rs/game/
Over and out.
3 Likes
This is really coming along well. I love the updates.
Out of curiosity, is there any particular MMO’s you have played that “inspire(d)” this game?
@t0neg0d said: This is really coming along well. I love the updates.Out of curiosity, is there any particular MMO’s you have played that “inspire(d)” this game?
I’ve played heaps of MMOs through the years and found amusing ideas in more or less all of them.
The game plan for this game is more or less a combination of the ideas I liked the most in other games
with a spice of my own ideas and thoughts.
I’ve spent alot of time in and surrounding runescape which is a very simple MMO with big emphasis on
role playing and communicating with other players. Even though I’ve never been very fond of games focusing
on story and tales within the game, there are many parts of that game that I adore; one character can be crafted
into any kind of play-style you’d like; the itemization system; earlier revisions of their combat system.
Another game I enjoyed was Realm of the mad god, which is a 2.5d based MMO which is all about combat,
the controls fits the game perfect and its very addicting. One part that makes it so thrilling is that you only have
one life per character.
I also used to play a game called Risk Your Life, which I believe is a malaysian medieval MMO which had
alot of unique concepts surrounding itemization and balancing that I havnt seen in any popular MMO.
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Wow, really impressed.
@perfecticus
I would test it !
What are we supposed to give as connection informations?
@haze said: Wow, really impressed.@perfecticus
I would test it !
What are we supposed to give as connection informations?
Oh wasnt running the server, been keeping on messing with the pathfinding.
You can try it now, any login information is valid, the database is stored in memory for now so it creates accounts on the fly.
Ok thanks :).
Another udate, this time more visual.
Spent some time creating assets and applying a nicer look to the game.
I must say I regret not spending a few hours some time back to get back motivation,
cause just the slightest visual enhancement is darn fun to see.
2 Likes
Nice! And too true on changing out a few assets. It really does kinda give boost the motivation level.
Btw… I’m a huge fan of the “block” people! Kinda hoping you decide to stick with them.
@perfecticus said: (...) I must say I regret not spending a few hours some time back to get back motivation, cause just the slightest visual enhancement is darn fun to see.QFT! Never stop giving those visuals from love from time to time :)
@t0neg0d said: Nice! And too true on changing out a few assets. It really does kinda give boost the motivation level.Btw… I’m a huge fan of the “block” people! Kinda hoping you decide to stick with them.
Yea me too, turned out to look pretty fucking nice!
It goes well with the kind of graphics style we’re working towards atm, so for now thats the idea.
1 Like