The First Layer, In-depth Options

[bulmabriefs144]

I think its because many of us view it as an introductory layer; an introduction to the characters (in a way), introduction to the story, et ceteras. You don't want what feels like 'an immersive tutorial' to go on longer than an hour tops.
Like I've said before Bulma, if you want to make the mmo as 'realistic' (not the best choice of word) as possible thats fine, but there are more elements to a game than gameplay, as I'm sure you're aware. Depending on our purpose (which, as of now, still seems to be story-centric), a generic, stock mmo may be the way to go, it would also be easier for everyone to contribute 'stock' enemies and maps.
Because I've not played FFXI or Maplestory, don't assume I've not played many mmo's. Its because I've played so many I'm able to recognise what are the conventions and what are unique elements of individual mmos. The fact is most battles do not require little to any strategy, most enemies are fodder for characters building, most ppl also party together, further simplifying battles that are usually only challenging solo. I also imagine everyones played an mmo; everyone here is a gaming fan, they would have at least tried one out. (If you haven't I s'pose you should at least give WoW a go as its free for a bit and it is regarded as themmo, though it was pretty disappointing imo)

Now we don't have to have an exact replica of an mmo, we can make the battles harder, we could even give the mmo world its own rigid story that the players feel obligated to follow... but you seem to want the best of everything, as if you were trying to recreate the ultimate mmo out of fragments of other games. That will not work. If alone for engine restrictions. Either its uniquely our own mmo, in which case its a mere pastiche of online gaming, or it will have to strictly emulate a select few.

I've not played Final Fantasy IX either.

I have however, played Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X. Final Fantasy VIII has this Chocobo world sidequest, where the critter runs around and finds various treasures, and those get converted into real in-game treasures when the game gets ported back in. Final Fantasy X has blitzball, which can be accessed in certain terminals (and some save points if I remember correctly). I think this is what I'm getting at, not so much "realism" but more a full sidequest in itself. There should be some means of transferring items to the characters from the game, or having various bonuses of adventuring there.

True, it's alot of extra stuff beyond what the plot needs. But people that wanna do a few extra hours (or days, or whatever) inside the game, they can login somewhere and get rewards for things done there. When you don't try for everything, you end up with nothing. We might not be able to create the perfect MMO, but we should make it look convincing at least, and possibly pave the way for later game mini-quests.

It should be longer than an hour, but less than four.
The battle system should be easy to learn, but require some introduction and tactical knowhow.
We shouldn't lose ALL data from this layer. We can use some kind of method to bring levels from this layer to layer 2. There are several ways to do this.
Perhaps some customization, but at a minimum.

Yeah, the actual story would be good with just enough time there to explore nearby towns and enter a dungeon (there should be a way to come back later, to goof off on sidequests or do bonus dungeons).

And Maplestory actually is really hack-and-slash. But it should be more tactical than the average MMO (hence, alot of party speak, and ordering people around) since what it's really doing is providing a sneaky way of tutorial for the actual game (layer 2 and beyond). If players learn to use their team effectively, they have a better sense when puzzle style bosses show up in the other worlds (and it has the added bonus of cut down on whiners saying "it's too hard" since the battles if this continues have some sense of dialogue telling the solution, but you still have to do different things to win than simply attack). Which brings us back to Final Fantasy X. Remember all those weird battles, like the one with the octopus where you could swim around it and corner it? Stuff like this would be nice, more on layer 2, but layer 1 could definitely have a few learning battles.

Without further ado, here's the mock-up (http://www.mediafire.com/?nm73q0996th8wyu), it was only a half-hour job just intended to get others thinking and see what works and what doesn't, so no its not great or anything.

Gonna check it out. Thank god you don't use megaupload. Uhhh, maybe it's me, but I can't get anything to run. It's just the game exe with no supporting software. I installed the VX rtp and such, can't get it to load.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jun 5 2012, 11:12 AM

[Kaust]

I was worried about that, mediafire was messing up when I was uploading, I'll re-upload it now.

Edit: There we go, much more reliable filesize than the like 4kb (?) it was before. Try this; http://www.mediafire.com/?c84j3p1c8vfo6l5

[Sparrowsmith]

Yeah, the actual story would be good with just enough time there to explore nearby towns and enter a dungeon (there should be a way to come back later, to goof off on sidequests or do bonus dungeons).

The problem with this is that they're in a hurry, and just run out of time before finishing the quest. It's doubtful they'd all be running around.
This is a common problem with many games, as shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbUqEPUZ-ds (some explicit content, but it's youtube, so nothing too bad).

A compromise would be if we begin with just one (or perhaps two) characters preparing for the quest and doing their own thing. At a specific location another party member finds them and informs them that "it goes live tonight. We do it now, or we don't do it at all"
At which point the game becomes pretty damn linear. We have to fast track through puzzles and difficult enemies.

[MEands]

Do we have anything set in stone yet? Cause I'm confused, I think we need to start writing stuff on the front post so we can keep track of what we have.

Also as a sidenote, one way I thought of importing things from layer 1 to 2 was like, what if the characters are betting on things, like, if you are able to reach level 50 then in layer 2 the guy will have "won his bet" and will get a special item, stuff like that.

[Sparrowsmith]

Two ways to move from layer 1 to layer 2.

1- Same RM
2- Assign levels to variables. Multiply that variable by a prime number. Display password. Import password to second RM. Divide by previously used number. Assign variable to levels.

[amerk]

Yeah, when you put in that perspective, I agree that quests that diviate from the real story while the Demon Lord or whatever is destroying the world doesn't make much sense. But then again, it's a game, and one must suspend their beliefs on reality to enjoy the game. If Zelda literally had no side missions, you'd probably get through the game in no time at all. Players like to have that ability to decide when they want to take a break from the real quest in order to do a few optional quests, or else they'd complain the game is too linear.

[shinyjiggly]

Perhaps most of the available branches in this section of layer 1 are sectioned off for some story-related reason, with only a couple side-roads, detours. and the main road to the dungeon left open? Also, we can have plenty of the characters around places complaining that they really want to go to _____area but can't due to that section being under maintenance. And to really show that the maintenance is a thing that needs to not be taken lightly, more and more paths and branches could get blocked off as the party gets closer to the dungeon.

This way we can have the scope as small as we want in this section while still implying that layer 1 is usually vast and expansive.

[Kaust]

What could work (rather than individual cut off roads) is something like this:
 Untitled.png ( 13.06K ) Number of downloads: 2

Where one of the party members complains about wandering off or getting distracted if they go too far off course (grey lines are boundaries). Just seems, to me, to provide that 'open world' feel of mmos; where you dont have to strictly follow roads etc.

This works better if there isnt sidequests and stuff though.
Jiggly's works well in that instance as we could unlock the certain areas for certain quests.

[Sparrowsmith]

A combination of the two?

Some of the players could already have quests in progress, but the other players won't let them finish it.
*approach a wagon*
A"Hey guys, do we have time to go to 'town'?"
B"Is it important?"
A"Well I just found the clover."
C"The one the little girl in 'town' lost?"
A"Yeah."
B"I'm sure it can wait a few days, we're kind of on short time here."
A"Yeah I guess so."

[bulmabriefs144]

Two ways to move from layer 1 to layer 2.

1- Same RM
2- Assign levels to variables. Multiply that variable by a prime number. Display password. Import password to second RM. Divide by previously used number. Assign variable to levels.

Can you do the code? I thought of something similar (converting levels and items to passwords, entering the password to collect new

Also we'd need a common event to keep switching characters back and forth when transferring. Gimme a second, I wanna test something out... Okay.

I tested four characters with a 5 sec "game" that involved saving and not much else, and then imported it to another "game." The games were clones of each other except the first four characters were male in Game 1, and the first four characters were female in Game 2 (this was basically rm2003 defaults, I just switched the order). I added 50 levels and gave them the first four items, then changed the item order as well.

Conclusion? I had a group of level 51 girls with different items. The save doesn't really keep track of character/item info (oh, it displays the old pictures from the save there, but...) it keeps track of character/item order. If you substitute the old game players for the new ones and import a save file, it directly imports and substitutes them. We'd need to tally the EXACT number location (item 245 for instance being "squishy lime juice") so items get converted out of game.

The best approach would be to make a constantly on event on both databases which says if InGame is ON, store the number of items from location 1-345 (or not even that, and just the items) or so as variables, and if InGame is OFF, put those items back in the quantity they came. InGame is turned ON just before entering the game world and then you save, and OFF just before leaving followed by a save. You'd need items 1-345 to either be blank or say Layer2Item. Item 346 is a partition (----------------) followed by the Layer 1 items (potions and the like). On Layer 2, (after adding all items back in) you get these Layer2Item parts displaying as real items, and the Layer 1 Items are displayed as surprise packages. These are linked with switches that activate random items awarded to the characters (most of the remedy items just stay the same, making it only the other gear that becomes randomized like getting a sword and having some new random gear when offline). There's some overlap that could be possible though, the Sweatband you found offline might become Red Helmet of Godliness online.

Also, that Links Distractions is totally awesome.

----------------

Hmmm, checked out the mockup (well, aside from the fact that there's no enemies but slimes, no plot to speak of and the shop doesn't work, I still think we can do more). Lemme try a mockup to show what I mean. (I'll be using VX Ace, so see if you can find a free RTP to play it)

Well, the download's taking awhile.

Basically, three (and a half) screens.

Prologue Picture- Some sort of scrolling text talking about the game (maybe some 1980s fantasy stock video game prologue, straight out of Golden Axe or something)
Screen 1- The opening town (quick conversation about how the party members miss their friends. But they won't be there... why is never explained, but the viewer initially assumes the reason they won't talk is due to an accident that cost them their lives). Should be a few weapon and item shops standing outside during the day. One character offers to train your characters (this is the class change guy, this activates a quick custom menu that changes character class).
Screen 1 (Custom menu): I tend to make my custom menus extremely simple, replacing the character with a cursor, few to no variables, no teleport events (except to exit).
Screen 1 (Inside): Inside people's houses. Some of them give you quests. This won't be on the demo though.
Screen 2: World map. Random monsters fight you here. Pretty much on an island, so right now, there's only one place to go, the dungeon. Later, there might be a bridge or something.
Screen 3: The dungeon.

I'll see if I can throw something like this together in the next few days...

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jun 9 2012, 08:07 AM

[Kaust]

Hmmm, checked out the mockup (well, aside from the fact that there's no enemies but slimes, no plot to speak of and the shop doesn't work, I still think we can do more). Lemme try a mockup to show what I mean. (I'll be using VX Ace, so see if you can find a free RTP to play it)

I said the mock-up was a half hour job, I meant it literally. The mock-up was to show how the game would work in my mind visually (how enemies would be grouped, the inclusion of other 'players', and, well, actually I think that might have been it). Actually doing one also showed me the problems I included in the same post (big maps/no chests), I included the mock-up to show what I meant about them, and hopefully just get the actual making stuff ball rolling (which seemingly it has). I made the mock-up to show one way making an mmo in rm might work on a most basic level, not the way I hope we do it. Its not intended to be played, hence the term 'mock-up'.

The password code sounded real impressive until I just plain old got confused. My only real concern (since you've clearly got that under control) is would the method be different if it was another engine?

And dw, I've got the Ace rtp, if anyone is struggling to find it I'll upload it to mediafire.

[Sparrowsmith]

You're over thinking this... Or maybe under thinking...

Step one:
Give the entire party experience during every battle. So that every character has beginning level + exp.

Step two:
Assign a variable to experience gained.

Step three:
Multiply this variable by 7907 (or another primer number)

Step four:
Display variable.

Step five:
New engine, scale the levels to be identical to the first engine.

Step six:
Set levels up to the same as the beginning of layer 1.

Step seven:
Input variable

Step eight:
divide variable by 7907

Step nine:
Increase party exp by variable

Step ten:
Automatic level up to PRECISELY where they were when they left. No exp loss at all.

We can probably do a similar thing for items, though I'd really need a scenario to event that. I mean, it depends on how many items they retrieve.

Should we keep anything except what they had equipped?

[MEands]

Since this game has a somewhat dark theme (nothing is real in a sense), we could get the player used to dissapointment by having the switch lose all the items. If the characters in game complain about it then it wont look like a programming fluke and we can have more time to focus on the main story.

[bulmabriefs144]

Yea, it was a mockup. I made one too, in about three hours (the worldmap is wholly ripped from VX Ace defaults). Basically, there's some big world out there, but until later, you can't actually explore it (assuming there is a later of course, if not, then the big world is mainly just to convince the characters there's much more to the game than there is, which is also the point of customization). The character customization idea turned out to be way easy. What was difficult was the scroll system for wizards, since items weren't assigned to a character like they are in RpgMaker 2003 or XP.

Could probably cut the number of towns in half, and still have a good Layer 1 thing.

I based the dungeon on that Red Sky picture about two ago, but the tint actually went to the soil rather than the sky, since I had no BG files to work with.

Also, my town building is garbage.

You do realize that if we do prime numbers like this, the variable is gonna be absolutely huge right? I think variables generally only go up to like 9 or so digits, and after that you have to use multiple variables.

You'd be better off without a password proper and deciding how to export/import the variable with a save file script. Because you're gonna be making thousands upon thousands of lines of code in a common event if you go with a password route (assuming you wanna error check and not just do by formula). You might as well be editing script, and telling it that, if Save script is called, save as a text file the character class, level, items, and experience. If Load script is called, import it to the game somehow.

This site seems to have a few Save/Load Scripts.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jun 11 2012, 07:51 AM

Attached File(s)

 Mockup.zip ( 1.43MB ) Number of downloads: 1

 

[Sparrowsmith]

Yea, it was a mockup. I made one too, in about three hours (the worldmap is wholly ripped from VX Ace defaults). Basically, there's some big world out there, but until later, you can't actually explore it (assuming there is a later of course, if not, then the big world is mainly just to convince the characters there's much more to the game than there is, which is also the point of customization). The character customization idea turned out to be way easy. What was difficult was the scroll system for wizards, since items weren't assigned to a character like they are in RpgMaker 2003 or XP.

Could probably cut the number of towns in half, and still have a good Layer 1 thing.

I based the dungeon on that Red Sky picture about two ago, but the tint actually went to the soil rather than the sky, since I had no BG files to work with.

Also, my town building is garbage.

You do realize that if we do prime numbers like this, the variable is gonna be absolutely huge right? I think variables generally only go up to like 9 or so digits, and after that you have to use multiple variables.

You'd be better off without a password proper and deciding how to export/import the variable with a save file script. Because you're gonna be making thousands upon thousands of lines of code in a common event if you go with a password route (assuming you wanna error check and not just do by formula). You might as well be editing script, and telling it that, if Save script is called, save as a text file the character class, level, items, and experience. If Load script is called, import it to the game somehow.

This site seems to have a few Save/Load Scripts.

Or I could use a simple algorithm (thank you decision maths) to check for multiples with a loop.
And get a system that works (tried and tested) up to an almost 18000 xp increase.
And that's working with a ludicrous prime number, we could probably use something significantly lower and exponentially increase the effect of the algorithm.

I'd be happy to post up a screenshot (or the demo) if you'd like to see it yourself.
Basically the demo lets you increase your exp to whatever you like
then you retrieve a password for it
then you input that password.
If the password is valid, you retrieve your EXACT amount of experience. If the password is invalid, nothing occurs.
This only works up to experiences of roughly 18000 (I haven't actually found the upper bound) due to variable limitations, but this can be fixed.

The algorithm fits within one page of eventing (no scrolling needed) and the only problem is that (because it's a recursive routine) there is a approximate wait of one second when inputing very large passwords. This wait time would be increased if we lower the prime number, but not substantially. At password inputs up to 1000x the prime number it still immediately loads.

Setting it up for characters with varying experiences is slightly more difficult, and untested, but in theory can still be done with one password so long as ALL characters get experience from each battle.
Luckily, some MMOs do have shared experience implemented, so this actually adds to the feel of the game.

Oh, and this only works in VX currently.
I assume this makes it compatible with VX Ace, probably XP (XP has labels, conditionals, and variables, so it should work), and maybe 2K3?

[bulmabriefs144]

Make a screenshot of two things, the algorithm, and the end results.

I have no idea about the compatibility. If I can understand the code well enough though, I can synthesize a similar code for creating the password to be exported.

[Sparrowsmith]

http://i.imgur.com/tGIKs.jpg

I can provide the demo quite easily.
As far as I'm aware this code should be replicable on all RMs.

Getting the password for exp gained is easy using this method.
This is how we get the variable from one system to another. Everything outside of that is constants, and is up to us to keep tabs on.

I can't believe that studying maths is finally becoming useful.

[bulmabriefs144]

Dammit, I just remembered how much I suck at math. Somehow, I'm fairly good at programming, but every now and then my brain blocks. Things that are mostly art, and working with variables, fine, not some much tallying numbers. It adds experience until it hits whatever number, as that right?

The way I normally do this formula is make about 1+character number variables. Set ExperienceStorage to 0 at the start and end of the thing. Simply Set Alexi Experience as equal to ExpStorage (you can then can switch which character's experience by repeating the process). Not real familiar with this here. The issue is still carrying it across engines. This means the emphasis is more on making a reverse code where it displays this number (or letters) to the viewer rather than simply having it crunch numbers (if it can't output somehow, it can't really be copied no matter hoe the formula goes.

[Sparrowsmith]

This is input and output.

Well actually the output is a different event:
-assign variable 1 to [actor] exp.
-multiply by 7907
-message: /v[1]

and the input is what you see there.
First you type in the password (/v[1]) and it is assigned to variable 2.
Variable 2 is then copied over to variable 3 so it can be checked.
Variable 3 then has 1 added to it.
Then you loop variable 3 having 7907 taken away from it until it equals 1.
If it equals 1 then it must be a multiple of 7907, and is a valid password.
if it is less than 1 it is not a multiple of 7907 and is not a valid password.
A valid password causes variable 2 to be divided by 7907. Group exp is then set to variable 2.
An invalid password ceases the event.

This system will work across engines (with the input and output on different sides) so long as the experience growth between the two levels is identical (IE 35000 xp = level x in both engines)

The algorithm is pretty basic once you know how it works.
If you create a fourth variable and increase it by one with each loop, you can work out how many multiples the password is of 7907, but this isn't necessary.

The beauty of this system is that it registers the party experience, and then crosses it over.
So if we want them all to have different experience, we just add a constant to each end.

Basically, with the variables taken care of (and the whole group receiving experience for each battle) anything else is easy to work out.

Unless we only want the active party to gain experience.
In which case.... hmmm...
several passwords?

Or we can just track levels (and how much they've increased by) and use a smaller prime number.

[bulmabriefs144]

Okay part of the problem was that it was literally 4am when I was looking at this (maplestory, insane grind).

How about we do an alphanumeric password? It'll look more appealing for the typer than using straight numeric code. And it removes the seemingly random 7907 number from the equation (I hate primes, so unless you can make a shorthand variable, probably don't want). Okay, it's like this. We have have the following code. The English alphabet 26 letters, meaning uppercase letters are 52. We start this code with hexadecimal 256 (ff) to further lower the total.

Number is variable total

If total > 256.
Subtract 256 from total
Add one (I have no idea why you used the same variable, that's a pain in the bum) to a different variable called ff.

Then if number > 52 (Z)
Subtract 52 from total
Add one to a different variable called Z.

Then if number > 26 (z)
Subtract 26 from total
Add one to a different variable called z.

Then if number > 1 (a)
Subtract 1 from total
Add one to a different variable called a.

Voila, you have an exact number. 34 (256) + 26 (52) + 13 (26) + 18 (1) added and multiplied out equals some grand number that is spit out of the computer rather easily (it's a bit tougher on the other end) in a message saying:

34ff26Z13z18a.

On the other end you have a few fill-in the blank spots where you type each input like ___ff. Also, there'd probably be some safeguards like Z, z, and A couldn't be greater than the number that came before them, or someone's trying to cheat the system. And you couldn't have a total greater than level 99.

You unfortunately, may have to do this for each character. We should make a blank Password txt file for people to store stuff so they won't be frustrated. You'd also still wanna figure out how to import bonuses from the game (items, class skills, etc).

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Jun 17 2012, 05:13 AM