urgulak: That would be good. I will post on here when the mod is closer to completion.
VWolfdog: Thats awesome. I have tried to build the mod to rely only on the existing graphics but there are of course a few areas which could use some more art. Below are the main art jobs. Anything contributed would be greatly appreciated. If you do decide to work on something, or if you just want to see your existing art in action, let me know if you need any help with getting the mod to run.
1. One of the player powers is a tower which appears for a few seconds and shoots fireballs at your enemies. This would be implemented as a spawn power so the art would need to be enemy graphics. The tower can shoot in one direction or at later levels in 4 or 8 directions, spread out evenly. Since its a tower, it could probably work with a single frame for stance and a die animation. A spawn animation would be a bonus.
2. The current "Stealth" art is used for an Assassin enemy in the battlefield maps, however it doesnt have any "die" animation so just stands there after its defeated.
3. A lot of the player powers dont have any appropriate icons so just display the default ? icon.
4. (COMPLETE) The quest items: apple, wyvern tail and fire antlion heart dont have appropriate item icons. Of course the names of the items can be changed if required to match some available art.
5. (COMPLETE) On one of the battlefield maps will be a "barricade" enemy which is just a static object that doesnt attack but blocks the players way until it is destroyed. This will be surrounded by archers which will shoot the player while he is trying to destroy the barricade. Just like the fire tower, it probably just needs a single frame stance and a die animation. I was thinking that something from one of the tilesets could be used for this, but of course it would be missing the "die" animation.
6. (COMPLETE) "effect" art for the "fear" effect. Its currently using the bleed animation.
7. (COMPLETE) I think that the Werebear art is a lower quality than the other art used in the mod. Specifically I think that the animations are a little wooden and that the texture is a bit too glossy. http://opengameart.org/content/werebear-flare-sprite-sheets.
There is a hard coded 256 value used in the pathfinding code (while calling the find neighbour function). This would cause a limit but it could be easily changed to use the map width and height instead of the hard coded values.
In the latest development version, the character no longer gets blocked by corpses. So you should see this in version 0.19.
Regarding the items available, the current game is really just a demo to show off the possibilities of the engine and to provide a couple of hours of gameplay. The Aether Walkers are just another way of teleporting without using the teleport skill.
Its good that you have found a nice combination of skills to form an effective fighting style against enemies. I dont think thats necessarily an issue but if it really is overpowered, there are ways it can be balanced. Hopefully there will eventually be a wide range of equally effective combat tequniques available, with enemies that are more or less vulnerable to certain techniques.
This sounds like a very interesting project. Here are my personal opinions about your proposed changes to Flare. Of course I only speak for myself here and Clint ultimately decides on what to include.
1. Regarding the actions/consequences system: It would be very difficult for action rpg players to appreciate the sophisticated behaviour that would be going on in the background. In fact, a player could probably play through the entire game withohut even noticing that their actions had any consequences at all. The main issue is that the only relevant choices that a player has in Flare is to attack or not attack an enemy or to take or not take an item. To the Action RPG player, it would be difficult to turn this into a moral decision. For the sort of behaviour you are describing, I think the game would need a more complicated dialogue system, such that a player can see that they are selecting one option or another. This way it would be clear that they are making a decision which could affect something else. Of course this in turn adds a lot of additional burden on game content creators.
2. The changes described are not really consistent with the vision of the game or the way it is developed. Please refer to the post above from Clint.
3. As mentioned previosuly, the main part of gameplay is killing enemies and combat. So if combat becomes optional (in the sense that you can choose not to kill something and in the sense that neutral enemies dont attack you becouse of your previous actions), what does the game become?
Sorry for the negative tone of my comments. I would be interested in following your progress with whatever you choose to do and of course your other ai ideas might be more appropriate for Flare.
Of course if you really like Flare and want to work with it, theres nothing to stop you from doing so, but you may have to be satisfied with the fact that your changes would not necessarily be accepted into the main project. If you did come up with something which is more suitable for the Action RPG genre and for the Flare game, maybe it would be pulled into the version 2 engine, but you should not count on it.
Perhaps you should also consider the ai possibilities for allies/companions. This is potentially more interesting than enemy AI, due to the enemy life expecancy that you mentioned. The "simulated emotions" behaviour you mentioned could be suitable here e.g. an ally is less/more likely to run away, protect the player, protect another ally, charge into combat etc depending on their personality. It would be easy to show personality and an emotional attachment between allies if they were able to partake in dialogue. The only thing about this is whether it would need to be any more complicated than a few threshold values and % chance variables for each ally.
Unfortunately I cant answer your question about equipment animations, but of course, it would only affect the player model. You should be able to make changes to the enemy models without bothering with equipment. Aside from the existing game graphics, the below models would benefit from completely new animations. They were originally copied from the flare zombie and still have the zombie animations.
What tiles are you using? Are they available on oga?
As for the definition file, if the tiles are equal size and positioned in a uniform way, excel or open office could be utilised to quickly create hundreds or thousands of rows, incremented by a particular amount each time. It would not be so easy with different size tiles, unless they are arranged by size.
Sorry I cant give you any good suggestions because I havent used a good provider before, but I can tell you to avoid godaddy or streamline dot net. Godaddy have great technical support staff but they suffer from terrible speed issues which they find acceptable. Streamline is just bad in evey way.
Your right to ask for recommendations because otherwise theres no way of knowing how good the service will be until you start using it. In my company, we have resorted to hosting the websites on our own web servers and its been much more reliable.
Clearly not all programmers have the same opinion as you about art requirements for games. They may not conform to what you think all programmers should be doing but I think they are big enough to make their own minds up. A lot of the art submitted on here is originally created for a particular requirement in a specific game so is already meeting the requirements for some programmer. The great thing about this site is that all art is available under open licenses so anybody can alter it to the way they think it should be done and submit those alterations back to the site.
urgulak: That would be good. I will post on here when the mod is closer to completion.
VWolfdog: Thats awesome. I have tried to build the mod to rely only on the existing graphics but there are of course a few areas which could use some more art. Below are the main art jobs. Anything contributed would be greatly appreciated. If you do decide to work on something, or if you just want to see your existing art in action, let me know if you need any help with getting the mod to run.
1. One of the player powers is a tower which appears for a few seconds and shoots fireballs at your enemies. This would be implemented as a spawn power so the art would need to be enemy graphics. The tower can shoot in one direction or at later levels in 4 or 8 directions, spread out evenly. Since its a tower, it could probably work with a single frame for stance and a die animation. A spawn animation would be a bonus.
2. The current "Stealth" art is used for an Assassin enemy in the battlefield maps, however it doesnt have any "die" animation so just stands there after its defeated.
3. A lot of the player powers dont have any appropriate icons so just display the default ? icon.
4. (COMPLETE) The quest items: apple, wyvern tail and fire antlion heart dont have appropriate item icons. Of course the names of the items can be changed if required to match some available art.
5. (COMPLETE) On one of the battlefield maps will be a "barricade" enemy which is just a static object that doesnt attack but blocks the players way until it is destroyed. This will be surrounded by archers which will shoot the player while he is trying to destroy the barricade. Just like the fire tower, it probably just needs a single frame stance and a die animation. I was thinking that something from one of the tilesets could be used for this, but of course it would be missing the "die" animation.
6. (COMPLETE) "effect" art for the "fear" effect. Its currently using the bleed animation.
7. (COMPLETE) I think that the Werebear art is a lower quality than the other art used in the mod. Specifically I think that the animations are a little wooden and that the texture is a bit too glossy. http://opengameart.org/content/werebear-flare-sprite-sheets.
Nice to see some welsh names being used in games. Are you based in Wales?
Sorry ignore my post. Just realised that you were not referring to map size.
There is a hard coded 256 value used in the pathfinding code (while calling the find neighbour function). This would cause a limit but it could be easily changed to use the map width and height instead of the hard coded values.
In the latest development version, the character no longer gets blocked by corpses. So you should see this in version 0.19.
Regarding the items available, the current game is really just a demo to show off the possibilities of the engine and to provide a couple of hours of gameplay. The Aether Walkers are just another way of teleporting without using the teleport skill.
Its good that you have found a nice combination of skills to form an effective fighting style against enemies. I dont think thats necessarily an issue but if it really is overpowered, there are ways it can be balanced. Hopefully there will eventually be a wide range of equally effective combat tequniques available, with enemies that are more or less vulnerable to certain techniques.
This sounds like a very interesting project. Here are my personal opinions about your proposed changes to Flare. Of course I only speak for myself here and Clint ultimately decides on what to include.
1. Regarding the actions/consequences system: It would be very difficult for action rpg players to appreciate the sophisticated behaviour that would be going on in the background. In fact, a player could probably play through the entire game withohut even noticing that their actions had any consequences at all. The main issue is that the only relevant choices that a player has in Flare is to attack or not attack an enemy or to take or not take an item. To the Action RPG player, it would be difficult to turn this into a moral decision. For the sort of behaviour you are describing, I think the game would need a more complicated dialogue system, such that a player can see that they are selecting one option or another. This way it would be clear that they are making a decision which could affect something else. Of course this in turn adds a lot of additional burden on game content creators.
2. The changes described are not really consistent with the vision of the game or the way it is developed. Please refer to the post above from Clint.
3. As mentioned previosuly, the main part of gameplay is killing enemies and combat. So if combat becomes optional (in the sense that you can choose not to kill something and in the sense that neutral enemies dont attack you becouse of your previous actions), what does the game become?
Sorry for the negative tone of my comments. I would be interested in following your progress with whatever you choose to do and of course your other ai ideas might be more appropriate for Flare.
Of course if you really like Flare and want to work with it, theres nothing to stop you from doing so, but you may have to be satisfied with the fact that your changes would not necessarily be accepted into the main project. If you did come up with something which is more suitable for the Action RPG genre and for the Flare game, maybe it would be pulled into the version 2 engine, but you should not count on it.
Perhaps you should also consider the ai possibilities for allies/companions. This is potentially more interesting than enemy AI, due to the enemy life expecancy that you mentioned. The "simulated emotions" behaviour you mentioned could be suitable here e.g. an ally is less/more likely to run away, protect the player, protect another ally, charge into combat etc depending on their personality. It would be easy to show personality and an emotional attachment between allies if they were able to partake in dialogue. The only thing about this is whether it would need to be any more complicated than a few threshold values and % chance variables for each ally.
Unfortunately I cant answer your question about equipment animations, but of course, it would only affect the player model. You should be able to make changes to the enemy models without bothering with equipment. Aside from the existing game graphics, the below models would benefit from completely new animations. They were originally copied from the flare zombie and still have the zombie animations.
http://opengameart.org/content/flare-zombie-mod-pirate-crewman-ghost
http://opengameart.org/content/flare-zombie-mod-pirate-officer-ghost
If you need any help with github, or with viewing your changes in-game, please ask.
What tiles are you using? Are they available on oga?
As for the definition file, if the tiles are equal size and positioned in a uniform way, excel or open office could be utilised to quickly create hundreds or thousands of rows, incremented by a particular amount each time. It would not be so easy with different size tiles, unless they are arranged by size.
Sorry I cant give you any good suggestions because I havent used a good provider before, but I can tell you to avoid godaddy or streamline dot net. Godaddy have great technical support staff but they suffer from terrible speed issues which they find acceptable. Streamline is just bad in evey way.
Your right to ask for recommendations because otherwise theres no way of knowing how good the service will be until you start using it. In my company, we have resorted to hosting the websites on our own web servers and its been much more reliable.
Clearly not all programmers have the same opinion as you about art requirements for games. They may not conform to what you think all programmers should be doing but I think they are big enough to make their own minds up. A lot of the art submitted on here is originally created for a particular requirement in a specific game so is already meeting the requirements for some programmer. The great thing about this site is that all art is available under open licenses so anybody can alter it to the way they think it should be done and submit those alterations back to the site.
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