NEaB Today

Missions done, now the dialogs

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 03:45:20 -0700

The mission editor is finally working as it should. We can create missions and we can test them. Now how great they are are not anymore dependent on the editor but on us (either we lack some code or we lack the skills to use the code we have).

Next step is the dialog editor to allow to "talk" to some NPC which will unlock either additional missions or be part of the mission. This will allow to introduce more diversity and build a richer universe. As this is not the first dialog editor (due to the one I made for NEaB) I know how it should look like. Or at least I have some ideas. Doesn't mean it's all easy but at least it should be not that much complex... hopefully.

Once this piece is finished, we will certainly need some hand on the content writing... so if you feel interested please contact us!

Mission editor

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 06:48:53 -0700

While Nasrudin works on the Inventory and try to create new kind of weapon and other ship pieces, I have been (very) busy working on the mission editor, which will allow admins to create missions directly from the game interface without any coding.

Even if this part is a lot of work, it will quiet certainly pay off at the end as any admin will be able to work on the missions / quests. The tool is also fully dynamic which means, as soon as we create a new ship behavior for example, the tool will spot it and allow you to use it.

Soon I will add the ability to save / load those missions and then Retor will be able to work on them to create the actual story.

After which I will work on the NPC which will allow some dialogs and based on the dialogs some new missions.

Nebula will soon have some stories

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:54:26 -0700

Nebula Rider (our coming title) is still under heavy development, and a lot of new code has been added. So far it wasn't a game besides from fighting some ships around, and we are currently pointing at our goal of adding stories, quests and missions. Not a small task as it should not kill the performances, and yet should be fun in the end. So I had to switch some code around, reorganize it from a prototype form to its more final form, and prepare new structures to handle the missions. So, you may not have seen much progress on the demo site (for those that found it), but be assured that under the curtains a lot is in preparation.

Another heavy area has been ships handled by the system. Before we had only a single "behavior" which was the attacks of the system ships. Now ships can act in different ways, and attack even other system ships if those 2 ships are in factions in wars. A rather current list of behaviors we have:
- Attack at will
- Travel from A to B
- Travel from A to B and loop
- Defend something
To be able to implement some of those, we had to increase a bit of the intelligence of the system ships to avoid collision against asteroids for example. Still not perfect but much better at least.

We may introduce more behaviors before the beta but currently our needs should be covered. What is lacking is the possibility for some behaviors to jump across star system as users can.

So stay tuned, and maybe next release will have some missions to fulfill... who knows.

IRC chat finally arrived

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:16:54 -0800

Even if not all is clearly working, the IRC chat is there for all. Sure some stuff need to be improved, or even yet ported to the new IRC chat, however a lot of work has been invested to make it a safe, stable, and friendly chat. From this move we gained the advantage of having an IRC compatible chat, which means any IRC client will do the trick, as well as the possibility to host IRC bots.

Also this move allows me to use the IRC client I'm working on, and share the workload across multiple projects.

New features from this move include:
- Infinite number of channels
- Better whisper / private messages handling
- Self written scripts for the chat
- Faster feedback
- Lighter on the server (as well on the network)
- Clan channels
- Channel topics

Things which are still missing:
- A good player info page
- Some handling for clan channels

IRC Chat

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:35:42 -0800

Finally after a HUGE amount of work we starts to test the firsts versions of the new IRC chat. Basically the chat is composed by 2 different softwares. A new fresh self written IRC server, which does have quiet different rules than a normal IRC server (that's the reason of a fresh self written code), and the usage of wsIrc (one of my pet projects) as web IRC client. Now thanks to wsIRC scripting capabilities, some stuff have been tweaked to reflect more how the old chat was working. Like avatars, titles, PH color and more.

The work is not finished, but well, it's a good start already, and starts to be used as well. Now the good news is that it seems the new server doesn't use much server resources, and that could save us a bit more in case the game continues to grow.

Things will now improve with old features like Glum, shortcuts, word filters etc...

Finally some PvP

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:20:36 -0800

The PvP code is slowly getting to the point where we can start to use it. All PH now do have the possibility to start a PvP fight (against anybody). Of course this is not the end of the story. First of all there is quiet a few bugs which need to be fixed, second, I need to code some missing pieces and finally we have to check for the rules and how it goes. But at least a first giant step has been done, and actually the hardest part has been coded. Remains all the things around to make it a fun feature.

A new year and time to continue

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:09:30 -0800

First of all, I wish you all a good new 2010 year!

As you may know, I took a couple of weeks off for NEaB, to cleanup my mind, and have yet more ideas and energy and try to bring our beloved game further. Some time I really need those off time to find what I should do next. Also, I failed at a goal of mine last year (Croesy knows it) and it was quiet some disappointment and honestly I'm not sure if I will even be able to reach it this year. However I will try hard, I promise.

Now you would like to know what I will bring next isn't it? Well here is my short term list:
- Remove the from id requirement / check from the dialog editor
- Make the to id an helper and not a requirement (both this and the previous one are here to help making quests)
- Add a on map even, which will allow you to change the map on the fly when some players reach an area or do other actions.
- on map PvP (don't know when it will be in... hard to think about it)

Hope this makes some sense, and hope it will please some of you.

Battle rework

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:16:26 -0800

Some of you already knows it, I'm currently working heavily on the battle system and screen. There is multiple things which will change in a short/medium term. Changes varies from pure aesthetic changes, to rules rewrite and new features. Here is what is currently planned:

1) Should start from within the map (or look like it)
2) Should be a bit more compact, and have icons
3) Should display all options (like spells or whatever else) so new players knows you will be at some point be able to do it, even if currently you cannot use the option.
4) Allow weapon change (must be pre-configured)
5) Elemental rework (add or block some elemental effects and not like it's currently done like a multiplier)
6) Allow setup of shortcuts for spells or other as well.
7) Allow true PvP battles (clan wars)

As you can see, it's not a simple, "add new button" story here. It's more a complete rework than a simple upgrade even if I will keep a lot of the current code. Still for you players, it will look differently, you will have more options and some rules could change battles a bit (more likely in your favor). Due to the size of this project as well as the complexity it will not be a one shoot update, but instead I will work in steps (or milestones like we normally call them), therefore expect to see changes coming (not sure a which speed).

Once all this will be finished, we should have went through one of the biggest upgrade of the year, and hopefully add yet more fun and deep to the game. As always I'm open to all suggestions / comments, and as always the best way is to use the forums. But before complaining about something, wait to see how things will be, as I do have somewhat a clear idea in mind, but didn't explained here all the details.

PlayersCorner banner exchange

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:22:14 -0800

We worked (quiet) secretly with MDShare to bring you a new tool to advertise your game, or actually make money out of it:

http://www.playerscorner.org/exchange

At first it looks like a banner exchange, and partially it is in deed, what we offer as first service is the following:
- You place banner slots on your web games or web games related web sites
- You upload your banners.
For each 4 banners displayed on your site you receive 3 credits for the same sized banners, which converts in automatically display your banners on other web sites. So far nothing that special, beside the fact we will monitor both the quality of the banners as well as the quality of the websites which means, no odd websites or annoying banners. Now the similarities with a banner exchange will stop as we will soon (likely next week or so) will allow our members to buy from each others credits for real money. That means, you show banners on your site but don't want to advertise yours? Fine, just collect credits and resell them to somebody which want to just advertise without having banners on his/her site. The price? Up to you, as it will be done in an auction like tool, you place your bundle of credits, set a start-up price, and hope somebody will purchase them.

Payment will be done via Paypal, both to fill in your account, or to get back money from your account. The fill-in will be automated, where the withdraw will be hand made.

As we are just starting up we will credit you free 1'000 credits as soon as you register your first slot and we may introduce other bonus on the way.

Our banner exchange is already up and running by the way, with already banners on rotation (not many yet), and all the tools you should need, even detailed statistics. Personally I think it's one easy and cheap way to get your game known so why not join? Yes I know some of you are scared of putting a banner of another game on your own, and now I will tell you why I do it myself: simply because players don't play only one game, so they will certainly not stop playing yours because they discover another one via the banners. Instead you may gain new players (for free) from other games. So for me it's a win / win situation.

Final note about why we choose an impression based system instead of the pay/reward per click as may others do: simply put, even if you will not click on a banner, you will still see it, and this increase the prestige of the game advertised, so maybe players don't click on the banner right away and then use Google to find it. It seems also more fair to us, for those which really works on showing banners but maybe don't get clicks as they are not forcing their players to do so.

Players Corner is growing

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:23:20 -0700

Slowly things are growing on playerscorner.org side. First change is that now we use OpenID to authenticate users. So if you have a yahoo, AOL or google account, you don't need to create another account as you are already up and running. Second thing you will spot (if it's not already the first one) that I changed the look, many people said it wasn't really great, and I have to agree it wasn't really my best website. Now I don't say the new one is perfect, but it's better.

On the back end, I changed what the pages are called, instead of having a single index.php?PAGE=xxx I decided to call the pages directly. This makes things a bit easier to debug, and certainly easier to handle the links.

On the features, I started to implement the "activity points" as well as having a first initial review system up and running. More goodies will come over time, but hey that's the beginning.

I still need to code the Q&A (Questions and Answers) which will be like yahoo answers but focused on games. This will certainly require a lot more work on my side, and hopefully will have some good impact on the community.

On the content side, I had an agreement with a guy writing games reviews, he shall provide us about a review a week, which means we will certainly have some content to show.

As always all the existing tools are... like drafts and need to be improved over time. However having most features running before making advertisements is what we need. And the quicker the site is up and running the better it is.