Fint's Cloud

ARNE!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 17:27:22 GMT

Anyone at The Gathering?

www.gathering.org

What is going on?

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:35:35 GMT

Okay well first of all Pokemon Citrine
Test version has been progressing slowly.
By the end of this week the kanto region will be finished and up for testing.
If there are loads of people interested in seeing a open beta for a day or 2, maybe I'll open on in 2 weeks time. People seem to like the old version alot, I wonder what they'll think of the new version!

Link: http://www.pokemoncitrine.com/

Next to this I've been working hard at the university. Classes and loads of stuff to study. Good thing is that it's finally stuff I'm interested in, which helps keeping motivated.

I've been playing loads of multiplayer games with my friends, supreme commander froged alliance and such and recently got my hands on some test version of the PC version of assasin's creed.
Good game, can't wait for the stable version to be released.

Link: http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/experience/

Some guys I know also introduced me to "Blood Bowl", a board game were you basically play football. At first I was a bit sceptical but after I learned all the rules and played a bit it turned out to be quite alot of fun.
I've ordered my own team a couple of days ago, should be here in a few weeks time.

Link: http://www.specialist-games.com/bloodbowl/default.asp

Have fun and stayed tuned!

Fint

Damn valentines day

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 03:11:19 GMT

All a happy send-cards-and-flowers-because-we-want-to-make-money-day
It's all nice and fun when you actually got someone but because of a recent breakup in my life I'm giving this day a big finger!

Happy newyear!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:40:22 GMT

Titel says it all, have fun and don't get hurt.
See you in 2008!

Pokemon Citrine, reborn

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 13:51:00 GMT

Hey all,

Most of you probably know me for creating Pokemon Citrine, if you know me at all.
I never managed to get a project as far as that game, alone.

I'm planning to continue creating this game and creating some developing and testing teams.
The game will not be open for public untill it's "completed"

I'll only be hosting for the developers and testers, for now.

Check out the forum, and help me if you can:
http://pokemoncitrine.freeforums.org/

Untill the next post, see you!

Game balance

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 12:20:15 GMT

I've been thinking about game balance lately and figured I might aswell share it with you guys.

Way back I figured out a system were combat was based on STR DEX VIT and AGI (which you can expand ofcource)

STR: Melee attack power
DEX: Accuracy
VIT: Your HP
AGI: Your dodge

- You could expand this sytem by adding ranged attack power for example, the thing you would have to keep in mind inorder to keep it balanced is that when far away ranged people can hit you while melee can't hit them, which screws up the balance. However if you find a way to make sure melee classes can be within range 50% of the time for example then things would be okay again. I've never looked into this but you can expand the stats as much as you want. You just have to make sure that if you make 2 characters that have 5 of each stat and you add 1 random stat that they would still die at the same time. -

Now in my system I connected these stats in such a way that if two people would be fighting eachother and started at the same time and kept and bashing eachother they would die at the same time aswell.

How did this work, well STR would make you hit harder, DEX would increase the effect of these hits, VIT would make you able to take more hits and AGI would alow you to dodge attacks.
Someone with alot of STR and nothing else would not dodge alot or be able to take alot of hits but his hits would be very hard and thus taking down the enemy fast.
If a enemy would have loads of AGI and DEX he would dodge almost all attacks, his attacks would be weak but hit almost all the time.
This way everything was balanced and equal, which is a nice way to build a game I figured.

Now I played WoW before and noticed their items have item lvl's. At first I didn't understand what the heck it ment but after some thinking its actually quite logical, and eazy to put into your games aswell.

Lets say we use the stats I mentioned above in a game, now I want people to gather equipment and get stronger this way. Since the stats are balanced it's eazy to figure out how much power a single item would increase someones power.
Meening that it doesnt matter if I add (+1 STR) or (+1 DEX) to the item, since they would have the same effect.
The (+STR) would make him hit harder and bring down the enemy faster, the (+DEX) would make him hit more often and thus bringing down the enemy faster aswell.
Both giving the same increase in killing speed.
Because our combat system is build to be balanced the items can be balanced quite eazy aswell.

As a result, you can also generate items on the spot, you just set a basic item lvl and and generate stat bonusses.
Thsi way you can generate a (+4 STR) and a (+2DEX +1STR +1AGI) sword, and it would increase the players power by the same amount.

Now what's the use for this, well it alows you to make sense of things. If your combat system is to complex and unbalanced then increasing stats might result is unfair advantages. People will find out what they are and use it.
If you balance things however you end up with a game were people are not afraid they screw up their character and can equip items that fit their way of playing.
Some people want to run into combat and take a miljon hits before going down, some want to jump in and dodge all the attacks, while deliver alot of weak blows.

I've never looked at how this would apply to skills but I'm sure you can do the exact same thing for them.

Try to balance your game when you start it and go from there, I personally think it's worth it and will make it much eazier to keep the game fair to people and to keep track of how the system works while also ensuring that choosing one route over the other gives no big advantages.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully it's any use to you.

CSS

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 04:35:20 GMT

Well yeah I finaly changed the blogs look and stuff.
I'm totally new to CSS so I just changed the colours and nothing else.
But I like the look of it.

Not going to spend more time on it since lets face it, not alot of people read my blog anyways.

What game?

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:27:34 GMT

Well I'm quite into playing games aswell as making em and I'm liking MMOG's the most.

Right now I'm mostly playing single player games but keeping myself very well updated when it comes to the MMOG's.

I do want to buy and play another MMOG in the future but the problem is deciding which one.
I narrowed it down to 3 options, which will all be released withing half a year. (If I'm correct)

My options:
- Warhammer Online
- Age of Conan
- Hellgate London (Yes I know what you are thinking)

So I was wondering, what would you chooce and why?
Personally I'm very much drawn to Warhammer but since it's a monthly paying game I might go Hellgate.
Well you change my mind now, I'll post again soon.

Out of the book

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:12:16 GMT

The problem with thinking out of the book.
I've always been a BIG supporter of original games.
For me it's gameplay that matter rather than graphics.
When I first joined BYOND I wanted to create my very own RPG and make it as popular as possible.
I didn't have any programming experience at all so I started learning how to code with DM.
When I reached the point were I could create a fairly decent RPG on my own I realized that my ideas were screwed up.

All these years you see the same RPG's, the same basic concept and the same way of working things out.
And what do they do, they limit your way of thinking, they create "the book".
I'm sure that I'm not the only person who is having a hard time thinking of something original.
It's hard to find an idea you personally like and has no link to any other games.

I'd like to think of it like this, try imagine a colour other than the ones we can see ourselves.
If you can do that than I'd love to hear with what kind of games you can come up with.
Thinking out of the book is hard, and sometimes impossible, but I would want to encourage everybody who does think out of the book to work hard and never get restricted by what other people do.

As for now, I was proud of what I created for the GIAD contest but still feel I'm "in the book" a bit.
I'm sure that I'll get inspiration sometime soon and start yet another epic battle between creating a game and staying motivated.

Waiting (...)

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:16:52 GMT

Hey all, a little update here.

Started my internship in Belgium not to long ago.
I'll have to drive about 1 hour 30 mins each day to get there, not the most fun part but it's not bad either.

I'm still waiting for the contest results, I thought it was a bit odd they didn't give out any information what so ever.
Guess I'll have to e pacient.

Been reading my favorite blogs alot, and browsed the forum alot.
It's good to see there are so many people working to get BYOND to produce some more quality games.
But it's also sad to see so much crap being made.

I'm kind of working on a idea for a fun game, my GIAD game actually turned out quite nice and I figured I'm up for a challange again.
For the first time I'd actually want to for a team with someone, but to be honoust I wouldn't want to team with "young" people.
No offence but I rather team up with people that have alot of BYOND experience and take things serious, that way they can teach me something.

So if there is anyone serious over there in need of a team mate then let me know.

Was thinking if it might be a good idea to produce some demo's or resources.
But when I try to think of something that would be usefull I either come up with nothing or something that has already been done.
The thing is, most people end up writing a librairy just because they need it in their own game and want to build in some flexibility.
Since I'm not making anything right now I'll probably end up with nothing.
But you never know, suggestions are welcome.

We'll that's about it, next time I'll share some of my game ideas, the game I'm planning to make looks like alot of simple fun in my head.
I hope I'll beable to get it down into code and gameplay in the end.

Now lets wait for the GIAD results (...)