Geldonyetich's BYOND Development

So, what was accomplished last week? Not too much, really.

The most momentous thing was probably being interviewed by Randolf Carter of Grinding To Valhalla. The interview can now be found here.

I think I'm about done with Champions Online for awhile, level 40 or not. I just went through a weekend where, instead of advancing a character I knew worked perfectly well, I ruined another of my previous existing characters by "retconning" him out of a perfectly good Dex/Ego Munitions build and trying to swing a Dex/Ego Dual Blade build. Martial Arts in that game right now? Not so good. I also dabbled a bit with my Sorcerer.

Of course, the real evidence I'm done with Champions Online is that I've started playing other games.

I gave Scribblenauts a spin, and apparently really enjoyed it.

I had re-upped my GameFly subscription specifically because I was trying to get a copy of Scribblenauts (ended up having to buy it instead if I wanted to get it that soon) and they sent me Professor Layton And The Curious Village and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring Of Fates instead.

Both are astoundingly good games in their own right, but I prefer the PLatCV more because I'm actually quite bored of dungeon crawls and FFCC:RoF is nothing if not a cunningly crafted and elaborate dungeon crawl. That, and PLatCV oozes charm and plays remarkably differently than most games - about the only thing a gamer such as myself can really appreciate these days - but steer clear of it if you hate the idea of being assaulted by hundreds of little brain teasers.

My Spanish has largely gone neglected. I expect this to be a week of much catching up. In about one hour I'll be in Spanish class, and probably thoroughly embarrassed by just how badly I'm lagging behind the rest of the class.

I'm feeling the itch to do some more BYOND development... I'm thinking I'll probably cancel my GameFly subscription. What the hell was I thinking? I don't have enough time for all these games right now. Apparently, I haven't even made the time to do the things I really need to do in life right now. Perhaps this will be the week I turn that around?

My weekly update is a day late.

I think my Champions Online vacation has about come to an end. My alt-a-holicism has settled on a nice power armor wearing gadgeteer who is neatly trivializing content as only a nanite infused fletchette chaingun wielder with robotic backup can. I'll probably take him all the way to 40 (the cap in that game). At that point, I'll put the game on the back burner for a bit and allow the developer a few weeks/months to shore up bugs, balance, and content issues in the game. I did buy a discounted 6 month subscription, MMORPGs always improve, so putting up my feet and waiting is actually a pretty good plan here.

I need to knuckle down on my educational commitment some more. When you get right down to it, it's not all that hard to do for a fellow with unemployed timetable, and therein lay the problem: I have a subconscious conviction that I can put them off indefinitely. Truth of the matter is, I need to study now and then I'll have plenty of time to relax afterward.

It's interesting how cyclical human progress can be. Relent for a moment, and you're back into old habits. Grounding this point home, the scale (that bastard) is telling me I'm back up to 235 lbs. Focus, and you head in the right direction... looks like I need to start counting calories again.

I'm looking at my BYOND game I was working on before and wondering if perhaps I had been bearing down on it so hard that my head wormed itself up into my rear end.

Right now, I have a hive of sorts. It grows in a very convincing ant-like manner. Resources are moved back and forth. However, it's no game - it's more of an artificial intelligent experiment. It was a relatively successful one - yes, in fact, a hive of NPCs do behave fairly well as game pieces - but it's still no game.

I lost perspective. A good online environment is about letting things happen. I was trying to let only the right things happen. No game came about because the parameters were too stringent to allow player choice to really enter the picture.

I don't think it impossible to shoehorn a microcosm like this into an interesting game -- no, there's quite a few ways to do so, in fact -- but clearly this needs to be my primary focus now. It may well be worth starting over from scratch, richer from the practice of the thing if nothing else.

Another Spanish quiz on Monday (tomorrow) and I don't feel nearly confident enough in the material covered. Therefore, the last few hours of this weekend, and my last chance to work on my game this week, go to cramming.

But first, a bit of last minute procrastination: this blog entry.

You know, I think I need to scale back my work in progress a bit in that I'm attempting to be a little too in depth. I don't really need an elaborate backstory for everything, I just need to produce an entertaining game.

I bought a new chair. The Taskmaster - a simple metal stacking chair somewhat like so - has been upgraded to a still rigid chair that actually has some padding on it somewhat like this. I'm still not letting myself recline overmuch because I feel I fall into a stupor, and I also feel a chair with four solid legs is bound to last much longer, but that doesn't mean I have to be completely uncomfortable. An iron fist can wear a velvet glove and still be strong - perhaps this new chair shall be dubbed "The General."

Champions Online continues to seduce a great deal of time out of me. I have a goal of hitting level 40 - exhausting the majority of the content in the game - and that would normally just take about a week, maybe 100-200 hours of play.

However, I'm a chronic alt-a-holic by nature - I want to play all of the game at once, and MMORPGs tend to split the game between several different classes. However, Champions Online is interesting in that there's a great deal of flexibility in how you can build a character. For example:

• My current character (at least the one I spent yesterday playing) is a complete Dexterity/Ego crit-monster ("crit" standing for critical hit). You simultaneously maximizing your defensive potential if you take Lightning Reflexes (which is dexterity based). Munitions and Telekinesis are great sets for this, with Martial Arts being slightly less so due to a lack of Ego focus.
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• Another mobile and effective offensive/defensive combination is a Strength/Constitution character whose stats work perfectly for Invulnerability. A real bruiser, you can get a lot of extra damage out of the environment by picking up and throwing big things. You can also hit enemies with things you pick up, just approach them and use any hotkey instead of the Z key. Might and Power Armor are both good picks for this, although Power Armor is better off with Intelligence instead of Constitution because of all their high-energy powers.
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• By prioritizing your Presence and Intelligence, you can simultaneously be an effective team supporter while also having some beefed up pets to do your dirty work. Gadgeteering and Sorcery sets are good for this, Telepathy being a not half-bad but more offensive choice.
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• You can also pull a good all-rounder who avoids the more specialized Strength, Dexterity, Presense, and Ego stats and instead spreads his points through the other four. These builds have no real weakness, while still remaining relatively strong. Being a jack of all trades often means being a master of sorts in Champions Online. A fairly good choice for Energy-based heroes (Fire/Force/Ice/Electricity) because they tend to have diverse enough powers to just need a solid platform to use them from.

Well, it's approaching 1:30pm PST and I plan to cram for a solid 5 hours. I'd best get on that. I should have a few hours left before bedtime to reinvest in my current MMORPG habit.

Another Monday, another day to report my progress on my BYOND project.

Well, in short, very little progress was made. The least ever since starting my classes. Between school and Champions Online, I haven't really made time for it. Given that the first (and easiest) of my Spanish tests came back with a 76% grade, it's looking like I'll need to make less time for Champions Online, more time for school. Time will tell whether I decide to make even less time for Champions Online for my BYOND project, though my rampant alt-a-holicism suggests the time I need to give that game a break is coming up sooner rather than later.

I did, at least, get a chance to show off my BYOND project to one of my classes because I had an assignment of demonstrating, via picture, transition taking place. Because one of my major focuses was an online world where transition does take place, a collage of screen shots was very topical.

A bit of incubation can be a good thing for a project, and upon briefly prodding it a bit last week, I did come across a good realization: I need to really get to know these factions I'm making.

I've reached a point where I can demonstrate some different parts of them: The native "worker" whose function is mostly involving around making and moving nutrition and converting land into native growth. The Terran "nanoprobe" which acts as a central hub for distributing resources to "construction drones" that actually build things. These were added off the cuff - I figured I'd just add some ideas into the game.

Now, I'm at the point where it's time to start adding something a bit more significant - like combat units - and I realize I haven't the faintest idea what would be appropriate. Do Terrans fight with tanks? What kind of things should the aliens be able to morph into? Why are the Terrans bothering to build bases in such a clearly hostile area?

If you have a mental frame of reference on something, you can automatically associate some things that go well with it. A fantasy RPG party might have a warrior, thief, wizard, cleric. We know the kinds of tools and means each of these four classes use. Because what I'm developing is so new, there is no frame of reference.

Once again, I'm re-inventing the wheel. I need to stay out of Dream Maker a bit and come up with some good associations for these different factions so I can understand just what I'm adding to the game and how it all works together.

I'm sending you this postcard today from beautiful Millennium City, where I've been vacationing over the past two weeks.



Though I've generally been enjoying my stay, it seems I've finally reached the point where I'm busily shifting perspectives between multiple characters. Perhaps my vacation is nearing its end? Well, that is the hidden goal of a vacation, after all - to be sufficiently sick of it that you're actually happy to return to the usual grind.

Of course, it hasn't all been pleasure, as I've been trying to intermix my two major responsibilities during this time. My first responsibility being my schooling. The second responsibility being a practical application of my skills - this BYOND project I've been working on over the past few weeks.

I've a Spanish test this morning, an hour and a half from the time I'm writing this, and I'm sure I haven't aced the material... but I don't particularly care to cram. I really don't like having a foreign language requirement. I like the kind of classes which teach me to think better or which provide me tools I can use. I don't like the kind of classes which want me to just memorize things because they leave no room for critical thought. You just have to accept them the way they are. So the Spanish-speaking people have decided that this is how they communicate ideas? Well, I suppose that's anthropologically fascinating that bodies of people can find two radically different ways to achieve this incredibly sophisticated end... but I would rather move forward than to the side.

Far more exciting, I think, is this BYOND project I'm working on. It feels a bit like I might have painted myself into a corner at this point - my mortal limitations are all very clear in my inability to visualize the entire game clearly. However, I'm mentally prepared to knock down some walls at this point. Even in going backwards, I'm closer to finished than I have ever been. This is more than a game I expect not many people will stumble across to try - it's the start of my meager contributions to the world as something a bit more interesting than a customer service representative or an unemployed student. I wonder if all game developers feel that way?

All this busy-minded Millennium City tourism and monotonous classwork pales in comparison to the significance I might have forging this online world. One where no NPC really stays put - it would be like Defender doesn't just sit around in the Renaissance Center but rather runs about the city thwarting crime and you have to track him down to get your missions. One that doesn't work on the usual Health/Energy bars or hotkey banks. One where accountability of a player's action works - the world actually changes based off of what they do - without making the game painful for anyone to play. It's just a whole lot more interesting here in Indy development, you know?

Well, that's all I have time to write for now. Despite my earlier stating I hate to study Spanish, I do want to take a little bit of time doing so. At least pull a C or better, so I can put this business of a second language requirement behind me.