Author Topic: V5  (Read 2511 times)

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Offline Tinari

V5
« on: January 09, 2014, 07:10:38 pm »
The download link seems busted.  I was looking up "Sandbox MMOs" and this came to mind.  Surprised this is still around in any capacity.


"April 19, 2002
I finally got a real server, with a real connection (6Mb DSL), and up time of 24/7. The problem is that it is costing me $40 a month to have it hosted. However I am acdepting donations on my paypal account mkudlo@hotmail.com.

Lots have been added... just check out the what's new. Lately I have been focusing on traps. So far I have monster spawn, damage, warp, trigger, nova, ice, item spawn, and blind traps. Look for a trap skill soon which would allow detection, temporary disarming, and limited creation of traps.

Also, Tinari sent me a Newbie Guide which I posted in the download section."

12 years now.  Cute.

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: V5
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2014, 02:06:35 am »
Yeah I am surprised too that it lasted as long as it has. Good times.

I just tried the V5 links and they work ok.
I also updated last nite with some major animal spawn changes and added walls.
You may have conquered my worlds, but I destroyed them!

Offline Mongo

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Re: V5
« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2014, 08:59:19 am »
I've been holding off on saying anything because I didn't wanna discourage further work on new versions but .. v5 doesn't feel right. :(

v1/v2 feel "classic". It's an old style game with old style mechanics. They work together.

v5 feels like an improvement over v1/2 but .. maybe dating at 2005 rather than 2002. The part that bothers me the most with v5 is the movement. That walking animation... not even the actual graphics but the fact that it's still grid based and slowly moving from square to square.

Last year when everyone was discussing mechanics for a new RPGWO, I brought up something to this effect. The end response was that increasing map resolution and allowing players to move on a smaller scale would be too intensive on the server. I accepted it at the time.

Then I started some work on my own game. I spent months working on just synchronizing player movement, researching different methods. I started with hardcoding everything. Every time a player moved a pixel, it sent the request to the server which checked collision then updated the position to everyone else. It was slow as hell.

I ended up with a pretty nice system though, where collision was done clientside and all movement was drawn 50ms in the past. By simulating the lag, you can account for the delay in people receiving updates. I also cheated a bit by only sending/receiving player updates every 20ms or so. Rather then syncing every coordinate change, a client would just use the last known coordinate and the new coordinate and sort of "tween" the player animation between the two points. I was kinda proud of myself. Then my hard drive died, I lost the project and haven't had motivation to do it again.

But I play other games too... Pretty much every online game now has finite movements in a map, and they all handle it very well. It seems to me it can be done.. and really has to be done. Otherwise I think it's going to be as you said .. the same game you already made. The game needs some new stuff.

Updating movement would be huge. The way the player interacts with the environment is a major factor in their experience. I think "click to move" should be removed, all movement handled with arrows or WASD. Then allow for finite movements. This alone would be just absolutely huge.

If this can be done, changes to combat and targeting could be evaluated as well. I believe if these changes were put in place, it would merit a new version # for RPGWO.


I do feel a bit like an ass in posting this. I have no published games and I can't stick to a project long enough to finish it but here I am criticizing the new version of one of my favorite games of all time. But that's really the driving factor.. I was so excited when you announced you were making a new version, but now I see what it's turning into and .. I guess I just want to see it succeed.

I grew up playing RPGWO and no game I have played has come close to the experience that RPGWO gave me back in the day. I'm sure many people here feel the same way.

We all want a new version to succeed. And we're all willing to help you in any way we can. I know you get bored and discouraged .. I completely understand. I feel like if you had people working on this stuff WITH you.. if you came online and saw someone made a really neat system for plant growth or AI.. maybe it would help keep you motivated.

Ok.. that's about it for me.
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Offline Greatest

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Re: V5
« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2014, 09:21:41 am »
text wall, but yea I agree.  I didn't like the movement in V5 either, if nothing else I'd atleast like the walking animation to go away so we're back to the V1/2 style movement(or even the movement system from GV would work). 

I'm waiting for something more playable before I actually go to test again though. :P
why does Fox keep cancelling good shows?

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: V5
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2014, 01:08:41 pm »
I've been holding off on saying anything because I didn't wanna discourage further work on new versions but .. v5 doesn't feel right. :(

Don't hold off. I need the feedback. The sooner the easier to fix stuff.

v1/v2 feel "classic". It's an old style game with old style mechanics. They work together.

v5 feels like an improvement over v1/2 but .. maybe dating at 2005 rather than 2002. The part that bothers me the most with v5 is the movement. That walking animation... not even the actual graphics but the fact that it's still grid based and slowly moving from square to square.

Last year when everyone was discussing mechanics for a new RPGWO, I brought up something to this effect. The end response was that increasing map resolution and allowing players to move on a smaller scale would be too intensive on the server. I accepted it at the time.

Then I started some work on my own game. I spent months working on just synchronizing player movement, researching different methods. I started with hardcoding everything. Every time a player moved a pixel, it sent the request to the server which checked collision then updated the position to everyone else. It was slow as hell.

I ended up with a pretty nice system though, where collision was done clientside and all movement was drawn 50ms in the past. By simulating the lag, you can account for the delay in people receiving updates. I also cheated a bit by only sending/receiving player updates every 20ms or so. Rather then syncing every coordinate change, a client would just use the last known coordinate and the new coordinate and sort of "tween" the player animation between the two points. I was kinda proud of myself. Then my hard drive died, I lost the project and haven't had motivation to do it again.

But I play other games too... Pretty much every online game now has finite movements in a map, and they all handle it very well. It seems to me it can be done.. and really has to be done. Otherwise I think it's going to be as you said .. the same game you already made. The game needs some new stuff.

I do have some lag dealing-with code for movement. Never trust the client for absolute collision checking though. The server always needs to check everything.

Making movement but rather player placement finer is something possible but I am not sure what value the players will get out of it. Yeah it will look better but selecting things and doing usage might become confusing and difficult to manage when items get bunched up in an area. A conventional RPG would not have that issue since they don't have a dynamic, sandbox usage/crafting system. Plus adding in real elevation data, fouls that up even more. But I will look into it.

I always backup my code to a USB drive.

Keep in mind, a lot of online games don't have dynamic maps. The client has a full copy of the server maps and no map data gets sent to the client, at least all the time, like RPGWO. Just player and item movements.

Updating movement would be huge. The way the player interacts with the environment is a major factor in their experience. I think "click to move" should be removed, all movement handled with arrows or WASD. Then allow for finite movements. This alone would be just absolutely huge.

If this can be done, changes to combat and targeting could be evaluated as well. I believe if these changes were put in place, it would merit a new version # for RPGWO.

Click to move can't me removed. A lot of people still use the mouse plus in the mobile versions, it is the only way to move. If you have an Android phone/tablet then please try it out and download the .APK from rpgwo.com. Also, click to move sets a "goto" spot that keyboard can't do accurately.

I am not really sure why this finer movement change would be an "absolutely huge" game changer. To me, the new dynamic NPC interaction I am trying to implement is huge and a real game changer. Remember I have always been about features and not fanciness which was why V1/V2 has a lot of features here and there but sadly a lot of them were never fully worked out with content and lacked an attracting appearance. But I am not a full, real player (50% developer, 40% creator, 10% player, 100% lover) so I don't really know for sure, heh.

I do feel a bit like an ass in posting this. I have no published games and I can't stick to a project long enough to finish it but here I am criticizing the new version of one of my favorite games of all time. But that's really the driving factor.. I was so excited when you announced you were making a new version, but now I see what it's turning into and .. I guess I just want to see it succeed.

I grew up playing RPGWO and no game I have played has come close to the experience that RPGWO gave me back in the day. I'm sure many people here feel the same way.

We all want a new version to succeed. And we're all willing to help you in any way we can. I know you get bored and discouraged .. I completely understand. I feel like if you had people working on this stuff WITH you.. if you came online and saw someone made a really neat system for plant growth or AI.. maybe it would help keep you motivated.

Ok.. that's about it for me.

Don't feel like an ass. RPGWO is a rare gem that the loyal players don't want to see tarnished. V5 IS a new creation though.

You may have conquered my worlds, but I destroyed them!

Offline Mickey Kudlo

Re: V5
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2014, 01:12:58 pm »
I'm waiting for something more playable before I actually go to test again though. :P

More playable? hahaha... I have 2 players that are level 15+ just from tradeskills. I think V5 is turning into mostly a usage/crafting/tradeskill game!! Which is cool. But I am hoping I can now focus on NPC interaction since my latest animal changes.
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Offline Mongo

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Re: V5
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2014, 02:38:24 pm »
After re-reading this post before sending it, I realize I make several assumptions about how RPGWO is coded and I come off as some high and mighty game programmer telling you how to do things. That is not at all my intention.

I do have some lag dealing-with code for movement. Never trust the client for absolute collision checking though. The server always needs to check everything.

That doesn't mean you can't offload SOME of the work to the client though. Have the client do the first check. If I try to move right and my client thinks there's no wall there, let me move. Then tell the server. If the server checks and says "Yeah, that's fine", there's no change. If the server does find a wall there, the server can correct my position.

Making movement but rather player placement finer is something possible but I am not sure what value the players will get out of it. Yeah it will look better but selecting things and doing usage might become confusing and difficult to manage when items get bunched up in an area. A conventional RPG would not have that issue since they don't have a dynamic, sandbox usage/crafting system. Plus adding in real elevation data, fouls that up even more. But I will look into it.
I am not really sure why this finer movement change would be an "absolutely huge" game changer.

It's about the feel of a game. I cannot stress how important player/game interface is from a player perspective.

Imagine putting on a pair of heavy winter gloves. A bit bulky.. you won't be able to do anything intricate with them but they work for most things. If you wanna text a friend you're probably out of luck. This is how most games are. Can perform most functions with ease (movement, combat, dialogue, etc), but some more specific or intricate functions require you to press function keys or click through menus.

The current system feels more like giant foam fingers. You can poke and do a few things, but it mostly feels pigbersome (I realize this will be edited to "pig", you know what I mean). There is very little responsiveness. I feel like this is almost made WORSE with the movement animation. It's really the same thing as v1/v2 except now that instead of moving to a new block after a delay, you're forced to watch the player move slowly.

Not everything needs to work with a higher resolution map. For example, if you have an area that's 100x100, it could be composed of 10 10x10 "tiles". Keep all objects like trees and walls locked to the center of a tile and allow players to move freely around them. You wouldn't even need to change collision at all. If the player tries to move onto a tile that has an object on it, don't allow it. No need to let them move around the edges of trees, etc. Simplifying it in this way allows the player to not feel so burdened down and doesn't force over-complication of everything else.

I always backup my code to a USB drive.

Hindsight. I may actually have an older version of it somewhere but .. I'd need to strip it down to almost nothing anyways if I'm converting it to singleplayer.

Keep in mind, a lot of online games don't have dynamic maps. The client has a full copy of the server maps and no map data gets sent to the client, at least all the time, like RPGWO. Just player and item movements.

One thing I was dabbling with in my game before I lost it was sending players chunks of the map. Basically their immediate area and the surrounding areas. It was pretty easily compacted and sent to the client. Then, whenever anything in the world updated, it would also tell any clients that had loaded that area to update it on their end as well. Obviously it would be a huge strain on both the clients and server if you needed to sync the entire world all the time, but their immediate area could work. The player having a copy of the area would allow them to perform client side collision checks, taking some stress off the server (again, server can correct the clients if it detects an issue).

Click to move can't me removed. A lot of people still use the mouse plus in the mobile versions, it is the only way to move. If you have an Android phone/tablet then please try it out and download the .APK from rpgwo.com. Also, click to move sets a "goto" spot that keyboard can't do accurately.

That's true about the phone app. I keep forgetting you're pushing for that too.
For PC though, it feels like another "foam finger" interaction method. I guess there's no issue if arrows work though.
Also, what do you need an accurate "goto" for?

To me, the new dynamic NPC interaction I am trying to implement is huge and a real game changer. Remember I have always been about features and not fanciness which was why V1/V2 has a lot of features here and there but sadly a lot of them were never fully worked out with content and lacked an attracting appearance. But I am not a full, real 8player (50% developer, 40% creator, 10% player, 100% lover) so I don't really know for sure, heh.

I agree, that is also absolutely huge. I just don't think interface should be undervalued as it is pretty big in creating the player experience. I guess I can't speak for the entirety of the gaming community, but if I load into a [new] game with a clunky interface, I usually don't stick around long enough to find out how well AI has been implemented. If I need to play with foam fingers, I usually don't.

There's something else to be said here though. Obviously no one is expecting or looking for HD graphics, 3d models or particle effects. I just feel like.. 12 years later.. SOME improvements should be made to how players interact with the game.


Don't feel like an ass. RPGWO is a rare gem that the loyal players don't want to see tarnished. V5 IS a new creation though.

I also may have underestimated how much you've done with v5. I admittedly didn't stick around long enough to discover what you had implemented.
Shoop!