Tibs Wilderness

[Expletive deleted] under-age drinkers!

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:42:59 GMT

Out new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, decided that in order to stop under-age kids from consuming alcohol, to raise the current cost of pre-mix drinks by... a lot. I couldn't tell you the exact percentage, because I don't know it.

What I do know is: The cost of a Jim Beam + Cola slab used to be in the $50 - $60 dollar mark (IF THAT), and it's now around the $100 - $120 mark. All because of under-age drinkers.

The idiots decide to go around the towns, if they get caught by police, they try to physically fight them. What a bunch of idiots. When I was seventeen and my friends and I were drinking, we'd do it at someone's house. We didn't wader the streets looking for fights and what not.

I hate kids... they have ruined alcohol for me. I make what, $250.00 per week at my nice minimal wage job? Most of that cash is going towards server payments for my new server. Now the rest, I can't even afford some drinks for the once in three months I actually get to see my friends.

I didn't vote for Rudd in the first place, and I'm not going to vote for him now, not after ruining my alcohol consumption... Rich mummy and daddy can afford this increase in cost, I can't.

A bit of this, a bit of that

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:33:18 GMT

Well, having grown tired of Hostmonster, I decided to take Hiead's advice (backed up by Piratehead) and purchased a 512mb server at slicehost.com.

The previous costs of all this were:
Hostmonster: $250.00 per two years
Slicehost: $1000.00 per two years.
(USD to AUD although small, makes a difference with big numbers.)

I'm not really fussed about paying the difference. Sure, it's far more expensive, and I'll be poor and out of work within a years time, but hopefully by then I'll have paid off a good two years worth of my server. So I wont have to worry about it for a while.

Other then that, with this new server, I've been given access to DMCGI and a Daemon which allows links from the hub and pager to work. Major score for me.

I think I'll write up a PHP app to control my Daemon instances, because I'm bored.

Small update

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:31:00 GMT

Just to let you know, progress is going swimmingly on my RPG.

Racer Euphoric is working on some beautiful mob icons and I'm happily learning better programming practices and redoing badly done code.

At the moment, I've completed the new character, load character and delete character stuff. And to my tests, it all works nicely.

I'll keep you apprised as more development takes place.

Battle screen basics

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:47:15 GMT

As I made mention in an earlier post, I'm going to do the battle screen the same way I've done almost everything else to date.

As with all the other screens, I'll give you a preview at the attempt one at it (we all remember the attempt one at the new_character screen and how that changed). Remember, nothing is set in stone yet.

The health and mana bars are just labels with specific colour backgrounds. (The grey behind it is an identical label with a different background color. Hopefully at some stage, the layers don't change). The boxes next to them are numerical displays of health and mana. They haven't got values in that screen shot because I never bothered to set them for it.

It's going to be hard to work out a formula that will modify the bar sizes based on the current points of mana and health. But I'll see what I can figure out. Maths was never my strong point, but I always found it fun.

Anyway, the way this works is: you'll be wandering the map doing whatever your doing. If you happen to run into a monster (something unlike Pokemon, only not designated areas. There will be a few "safe zones" like cities and what not. I haven't fine tuned how this will work in my notebook yet) the map will then be replaced with this or a screen similar to this (I love panes!).

I figure, at the start of a battle, the users mob will be removed from the map, or simply hidden. I've not decided. But it saves having a mob on the map when it isn't needed. If I don't do that, I'll place an enemy mob in front of yours, and if another player decides to join the battle, they can do so. But I haven't quite figured out how that'll work yet with the current setup. Hey, it's all work in progress at the moment. I've only been working on this off and on for about five days now. Progress in my opinion, has been slow. But I have other things that require my attention as well.

Something a little more interesting

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:51:26 GMT

I decided to take a break from the interface stuff and see what I could dish out map wise.

With luck on my side, some divine influence made Zenigwolf's freely hosted files linked to on Pixel Art accessible again, I managed to score some top quality graphics.

So, in playing with them, this is the result thus far:

Complemant that with Mikau's work, and hopefully I should be able to get a pretty good Forest of [cool name] going.

Another update!? (He must be serious!)

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:41:21 GMT

Seeing as I updated the New Character window, I decided to give the Load Character a fine tuning as well.

Here is the result of my practices: (Thanks to Xooxer and Lummox for helping me display the character icon)

I decided to throw the alignment in the same label as the class. I didn't want to break the lovely pattern I had going there with a fifth attribute display.

For those wondering, the little blue blob thing is my test icon. I normally use it to test things on map. It wont be in the first released issue.

Speaking of resources: Mikau offered to do me some good quality turf icons, which I can't wait to see. And a friend of mine: Racer Euphoric has offered to do me some good mob icons (along with clothing and weapons and what not).

So hopefully, while I sit back and code, those two will whip me up some awesome icons and we just might manage an RPG out of this. =)

An update, believe it or not.

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:07:55 GMT

Well, seeing as I got a relatively positive response from my previous post. I've decided to dive a little deeper into development.

This project originally started out as a means to waste time. But what the hell, this stuff is fun. So, as such, I present to you, the new Character Creation form:

Taking into account some more aspects of RPG life. (What would kick ass - Drop Down Menus.)

Last night, Xooxer with a chip in of Lummox aided me in finishing my character loading screen (seen in post below) by adding in the mobs icon into the label image. Because all I'm using for character icons at the moment is a blue blob, I'm not going to bother uploading an image just to show that off.

And I've also named this project. I liked the name "Isorath" my NPC "Hytark" blabbed on about in my display of the NPC dialogue screen below. So that's now either part of - or full name: Isorath.

Aside from that, I've made several programming upgrades making it neater and easier to navigate. Hopefully negating a couple of bugs I had in the previous attempt.

I'll keep you posted.

Bored and playing with the interface controls [Updated]

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:27:59 GMT

Being bored and having an idea for a small RPG I want to develop. I thought I'd try my hand at the interface stuff and see if I could make something interesting out of it all.

I've come up with these two working windows so far (and procs to control them).

Should I happen to not lose interest in this idea, the character creation screen will look something like this:

And when you click on an NPC to communicate with them, you'll receive a window somewhat like this:

I'm not yet sure if I want to add in options for users to select responses to NPCs (something like Baldurs Gate). If that does happen, I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it, but I've already considered a way I'd handle it.

[Update]
I removed my windows skin - development is far easier when you know generally what all the windows are going to look like. Screenshots changed accordingly.

I also made up my character load screen:

(Please note, those are the actual names of the mobs I have savefiles for, not just names I put inside labels. This system is 90% working.)

--

Now all I need is some nice Medievil fantasy RPG-esque graphics to make my interface look nice.

An interesting few days

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:41:18 GMT

My story begins at 5:30pm Saturday. Half an hour before work. A friend of mine has invited to take me to his place after I finish work. His place however, is a city across and an hour to get to by car.

So I hurry to quickly pack my backpack with three days worth of gear and entertainment (for I know, I wont be home until Wednesday). I quickly assemble assorted clothes, deodorant, a C++ Book, two Nintendo 64 Controllers and two Nintendo 64 games (Mario Kart 64 and Perfect Dark 64).

I go to work and work my normal shift, knowing at the end of the day, I'm officially on a weeks worth of holidays. Thank heavens.

Work is quick and we soon disembark for Warrnambool. Upon arrival another friend joins us, and we prepair to get drunk at pubs. However our host and hostess get into an argument. So my other friend and I sit out side and talk for about two or three hours (while they resolve the issue). Well after the time pubs and night clubs close, we decide to take what booze we have and drink it in the middle of a road (a nature strip with a single tree in centre).

We drank half a bottle of Irish Whiskey (Jameson) and a half bottle of BD (Black Douglas). Somehow, that managed to completely ruin my friends. Both so drunk they both threw up, and one of them even required my other friend and I to help her back to our hosts place so she can get a lift with her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend (he broke up with her the next day).

Now it's Sunday, my host and hostess have completely recovered from their argument. After some sleep they both got over it and the rest of the day was without incident (shocking, I've never stayed at their place with out them having a fight). Along 8PM, we were about to start drinking again when we received a message from yet another friend, who was up and wanted to go bowling. Naturally we obliged. I lost.

After all that, we had pizza and a non-eventful night in. Now we're at Monday, we played some 64 and then they dropped me off at the train station, for me to being my three hour trip to Geelong.

I read my C++ book on the train to Geelong. In the unreserved carriage section. This place is generally always empty, just the way I like it.

Upon my arrival to Geelong, a city I've been too once and don't have a clue where I am. I head to a bus which has the name of my new host's (hereby referred to as host) suburb on it. Get on it and wait half an hour for it to take off. Twenty minutes down the track, I see a place I thought was familiar and jumped off. Turns out, I got off a suburb early. Why the hell would a suburb have the same signature landmarks I remember seeing last time I was there...

My friends called me up and asked me where I was, once explaining my decision in it's stupidity, they came and collected me. In return for their services, I bought them lunch.

Once we returned to my hosts house, my hostess's good friend was there. Instant click, we were checking each other out something fierce though the night. I even bought her a drink while we were at the pubs. Alas, it was not meant to be.

She slept in the same room as me, but apparently, I'm supposed to just go over and lay down next to someone I've never met before. I guess I'm just new to this courting thing. I considered that approach, and discontinued my train of thought because I would have considered myself creepy for it. Turns out I was wrong, that would have been the proper course of action. How I kick myself for my morals.

Anyway, now we're on Tuesday. We spent the entire day playing Nintendo 64. When it hit 6pm. It was time for me to embark on the bus back to the train station. I made it there without incident. However I arrived an hour and a half early. Them's the breaks.

The ride home was fun, but I'm still kicking myself for missing an opportunity with that cute chick. She was my age, about 6ft shorter than I am, but she was cute as a button!

Aside from that, I'm now back home and back to being a lonely husk of an individual. But I've come to a decision, next year, it's off to Geelong. I have plenty of people who can put me up until I get on my feet. Huzzah!

Planet Terror

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:15:56 GMT

I liked it.

It seems like a cheese eighties horror movie. But I deemed it more action than horror. I'm not going to get into detail here, but leave it a "I recommend it". It was pretty cool.