State of the Uberworld #2

[Faille]

I know this is a little late, since I was trying to keep these posts happening at the end of each month.

Firstly the bad news. It seems a sense of apathy has started to overshadow the project, with less enthusiasm then is usually the case. productivity has dropped, and despite the finishing line for P1 being in sight, it seems we're working slower then ever.

To be honest, this was kinda of expected, and it almost amazing how long we're gone before it started to creep in. I think it may also be becoming clear about how much extra work the polish aspect takes. seems like it takes x amount of work to build a basic area with its basic functionality, but it takes 10 x to polish that up so that it looks really nice.

Of course it could just be the 4th of July and other holidays and everything is just out and about.

As for the good side, the finishing line is in sight, so we're wrapping up project one, and should be ready to start advertising it, and having people playing it and telling us what a bunch of retards we are and what a ghey game we've made.

Project 2 is still be decided upon, but hopefully we'll have a decision on what setting we want it to be, and can start work on the pre production work, creating the backstory, and designing the gameplay we want to aim for.

The art department has grown tremendously. It was one of the first concern we ran into, the lack of artist contributing to the project, but now as most of you can seen, we've got some great concept artists combined with great modellers turning those into reality. Animation probably needs more learning, but even professional companies struggle to get that right, so I'm happy to take our time with that.

In Summery, P1 is close to completion. hopefully by the end of the month we can go live in some form. P2 is on everyone's mind, and I think a lot of people are looking forward to starting fresh, with more skills and knowledge behind them. That's all for now, I'll see you guys at the end of the month! 8)

[Vatoreus]

Once I get my stuff I'll be able to contribute a lot more than I have.

[Moontayle]

I've been slowly working on the Hallows quests. I have one questline almost done and should have a second close to being finished here this Sunday. That's out of four total questlines. On the whole it'll be between forty and fifty quests, with the culmination being a key for the final dungeon and two more questlines to take you through it, though not as long, maybe 10 quests total. And, of course, at the very end... you've got our Big Bad, the Vampire Lord, who has a special quest all to himself.

I should have all of them done here in the next couple of weeks. Then it's up to the coders and whatnot.

[Skurd]

Originally Posted by Moontayle

Then it's up to the coders and whatnot.

yeah, that's pretty much the issue, I've coded in all the NPCs/mobs and items required for your quests but adding in the NPC quests texts is a whole lot fucking longer and I still have to finish designing the zone =/

We're ACTIVELY recruiting ZONE/CONTENT DESIGNERS (people who actually code the stuff in, there are plenty who create good lore / quests already )
Join us NOW ! (uncle sam points a finger at you)

[Wrenn]

Originally Posted by Skurd

yeah, that's pretty much the issue, I've coded in all the NPCs/mobs and items required for your quests but adding in the NPC quests texts is a whole lot fucking longer

When I was looking at the quest templates you're using I had the idea to write a perl script that would take the text template and automatically turn it into a python file containing all the quest data. I didn't follow up on it but maybe it might be worth doing after all? I would be interested in doing something like that if it would help coders to faster add quest text data to the code.

[Skurd]

That would be pretty cool.
Currently we could use a lot of those kind of scripts that create the code text based on easily formatted / templated stuff (quests and items mainly).
I tried writing an html form to make an item based on drop down lists but I failed.

A script converting those into code snippets (we usually have multiple quests / items in one file) would be great.
If you fancy working on that it would be a nice boost for P2 (P1 is supposedly done soon...).
I could help you out because there are different types of quests that require different code and there are quite a few exceptions for multi-npc quests.
Also, the template is actually not complete, it lacks at least 1 text for the code to be complete and reward options we haven't included yet (I think).

Anyways, let me know !

[Faille]

Originally Posted by Wrenn

When I was looking at the quest templates you're using I had the idea to write a perl script that would take the text template and automatically turn it into a python file containing all the quest data. I didn't follow up on it but maybe it might be worth doing after all? I would be interested in doing something like that if it would help coders to faster add quest text data to the code.

That definitely falls within the custom tools department and would love more of them for everything from scripts to adding items quickly and easily.

[Fattyfat]

that would be a pretty good tool, but some of the quest stuff can be pretty complicated depending on what we need done.

If anything, getting a basic template created based on some input would be a good thing and we can come in after that and customize it to suit whatever special events need to take place.

[ruination]

I went on vacation for four weeks and told zarcath and I think faille too. Silvermine quests were finished before I left and I sent them to Darkblue

[Bralkan]

What tools do you use for zone / content design - what languages?

I may be able to help. pm me.

[kollos]

engine has an ingame world editor to edit terrain, place geometry, spawns, etc-
geometry is built with torque constructor, which its pretty much the same as any quake type brush editor. you can probably work with quark too.
dont know much about coding, but it sounds like its 90% python scripts.

[Bralkan]

I've done quake2 and hl / hl2 map making in the past. Just for my own use. Its been awhile, but I remember and learn quickly.

if you need a monkey to do that, pm me.

[kollos]

for p1 its probably too late, but we definitely can use more mappers for p2. we have like 1 1/2 atm. you should download the torque constructor from garagegames and play around with it.
it would also be a good idea to hang out in irc to stay updated

[Camerous]

Sorry I haven't been around the past couple of months guys. I should be on again starting the end of next week and would love to start helping again.