Writing A New One's site

Classified Ads... quality moderation?

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:44:44 +0000

Occasionally, I'll take a look at the classified ad section, and it's especially rare for me to not be turned off by the posts at a glance.

I think topics like these should probably be deleted:

http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1225604
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1225271
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1224534
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1224436
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1224139
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1224064

When the section is cluttered with not-so-good advertisements, it makes it difficult for serious projects to garner views... which I suppose harms BYOND in general.

So, I ask, who is in charge of deciding which ads deserve removal? When a topic is deleted, I think the creator should be sent a pager message telling them why as well. That might already be a thing though, for all I know.

Eternia: Roleplay Server - November's Updates.

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 21:56:20 +0000

- {Addition} The event boss system has been fully fleshed out and finalized, each boss having their own unique loots. All that's left to do is add more bosses. Current bosses incude: Spirit Summoner, Skurn Summoner, Yokai Summoner, and Kaor Yokai.

A boss will spawn on the map every two hours and its location will be announced.

- {Addition} A quest system has been added along with a quest interface. There's only around 10 quests in the game at the moment but more will be added in the future.

- {Addition} Added some functionality to provide colored clothing for npcs.dm

{Addition} Admins can now set how many minutes until a forced tournament will begin.

- {Addition} Update to Holywater with 3 new spells.

- {Addition} New weapons and clothing added to the game. Check the subscriber shop, tailor, and blacksmith. Most notable being the champion armor and another new outfit in the tailor.

- {Addition} Adds some nifty forwardslash prefix commands to all communication channels. Type in /help for details
- {Addition} You can now prefix any input with
say:
ooc:
party:
guild:
admin:
To utilize those chat channels without having to change your default channel.

- {Addition} - Alteros village, an antagonist faction, has been added to the map. There are also 'Shadow Ghouls' within it, creatures born from Sin. Along with this, is a 'Shadow Ghoul' summon for players of the respective faction, as well as a Sin follower pendant.

- {Addition} - Added mossy/cracked walls. Nostvale now has more of an aged look.

- {Addition} - Developers can now set atom.special_description to give anything on the map a special description that will display to anyone clicking said thing

- {Addition} - Added HolyWater. It's an AoE that not only damages enemies but also heals party members within range.

- {Addition} - Added the Illusionary Master technique. It freezes the caster and target in place for three seconds, dealing high damage, and also causing the target's movement to randomize for a short while after casting.

- {Addition} - Added the Summon Steam Skurn technique. It's a steam skurn with the two basic steam abilities.

- {Addition} - You can now set a description for your corpse when you die. It is entirely optional.
{Addition} - Ctrl+Direction now turns you to that direction.

{Addition!} A standalone installer is now ready for Eternia, meaning that the game can be downloaded without having to download BYOND seperately. Just clicking 'download' on the website will let someone jump in. We're going to making use of this in the future, for advertisement purposes, once the game has been improved a little more. The website is also being worked on, which you can find here, albeit, the installer needs to be uploaded: http://eterniaroleplay.com/

- {Addition} Developers can now use a 'teleporter' NPC to allow players of specific faction to teleport from one area to another.

- {Addition} Quest NPCs now have text underneath them so that they're not so easy to miss.

- {Addition} 'Teach' ability added. This allows the user to give out up to 2 RPP a day. It will be used for 'teacher' ranks in the upcoming academy. Note: for safe of mind, the skill's usage is logged, and will be highly moderated to ensure fair use.

- {Addition} While the level 2 wind aura is active, players can summon a whirlwind by clicking on the map.

- {Addition} While level 2 of rock fists is active, players can summon forth a pillar of earth by pressing E. After a few seconds, it explodes, and deals AoE damage to all enemies nearby.

- {Addition} The game will now display how long someone has left on a subscription after they log in.

- {Change} - Changed the description input box from 'as text' to 'as message'. This allows for easier paragraphing and whatnot.

- {Change} - Various spells no longer force your running state to reset. Dash strike, super speed, and super strength.

- {Change} Upped the tournament rewards.

- {Change} Fading Strike has been changed to a non-aura type spell, it can now be used at the same time as an aura. It also gives 15% melee bonus and 40% crit now.

- {Change} Player levels now display. The reason for not showing them wasn't really much of a deal so we decided to allow players to view their level.

- {Change} Changed party chat color to something more readable.

- {Change} Expanded the quest description box to allow more content to be placed within.

{Change} Added a new more "locations" to the world where there should have been.

- {Change} Changed the numbers on the weak/average/strong spirit summons.

- {Change} Increased the range of say() by a tile.

- {Bugfix} Tournament NPCs now properly attack and can be attacked. Note: Summons don't work in tournaments, and it's probably not a bad thing.

- {Bugfix} Fixed the item replication bug.

- {Bugfix} Fixed the bounty timer issue.

- {Bugfix} - Fixed the issue with cut-off hair on summons, as well as fixed hair on Spirit summons.

- {Bugfix} - Added a quick sanity check to the loot boxes to prevent a runtime error in some cases.

- {Bugfix} - Loot now properly shows the name when you have the same type already.

- {Bugfix} - Attacking corpses no longer works.

- {Bugfix} - Fixed a problem with certain DoT effects taking hold after respawning.

- {Bugfix} - Fixed three runtime errors that were mass-spamming the log file.

- {Bugfix} - Summons now vanish when their owner disconnects.

- {Bugfix} Just a few overdue bugfixes with gravity compress, illusion flurry, etc. Fixes some minor runtime errors.

- {Bugfix} Fixes a minor tutorial glitch that was causing players to respawn in the newbie area.

- {Bugfix} Various tournament issues resolved thanks to this weekend's testing.

- {Bugfix} Fade striking's "teleporation" effect after attacking has been fixed.

- {Bugfix} Sloth aura was effecting things it shouldn't.

- {Bugfix} Fixed a few more speed stacking issues, hopefully. The speed system is pretty scattered around so I can foresee more issues cropping up until we consolidate it better.

- {Bugfix} Fixed another issue with corpse killing.

- {Bugfix} Certain NPC spells were runtiming out.

- {Bugfix} Fixed a runtime error in bar updates to targets.

- {Bugfix} Certain aura effects weren't updating the stat display HUD when it was open on activation.

- {Bugfix} Dropping items in different forms (camo, giant, etc...) was having bad side-effects, so I made it impossible.

- {Bugfix} Fixed the SP-gaining issue, someone was forgetting to call the countdown timer

- {Bugfix} Fixed fade strike's attack effect.

- {Bugfix} Tournament fighters no longer need any earned RPP to fight each other.

- {Bugfix} Fixed runtime errors with the say command.

Shell Servers

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 20:09:30 +0000

In the past few months I've been using BYONDpanel, but the server has been suffering from lag and frequent crashes as of late (about 2 weeks). I've reported it to A.T.H.K but it doesn't seem like he can do much since the physical machine isn't his.

I'm wondering if there's any alternatives similar to this service: a simple to use server with relatively okay specs. All I require is a that it can handle ~40 people in an ORPG environment and doesn't crash daily (or at all, preferably).

I don't really want to learn anything like PuTTy or what have you though.

So, anyone had good experiences with hosting services that they'd like to recommend?

Thanks!

Eternia: Roleplay Server - Recent updates.

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 23:04:12 +0000

Haven't really been using the BYOND forums much since the RP server went live, so I figured I'd post the updates in the past month or so here. Things have been going really well and I think that once the RP server is entertaining enough gameplay wise, we'll convert it to a PvP environment so we can have two types of servers up.

- {Addition} A new global event has been added: the Yokai Raid. Every so often, a global yokai raid will start and players can head on over to the southern-end of the Shaky Bridge to meet Captain Black. Players have the chance to nab a ton of money and experience, as well as, perhaps, a few rare items?

- {Addition} Implemented the first Sound Magic spells! They mostly revolve around delivering powerful stuns to one or more targets.

- {Addition} Implemented the Holy Fire spells. They mostly focus on AoE damage.

- {Addition} A tutorial has been added to the game! New characters are taught the focus of the game (role-playing) along with the basics to get them started.

- {Addition} Added a few new items, including Attack Gems which may be obtained in public quests. The attack gems give you a special attack when you hit E. They can be applied alongside orbs.

- {Addition} A new global quest: Summoner's Tower Siege. Visit the guy next to the bench near Melym Tower when a siege is starting. There will most likely be various bugs with this, so please report any finds on the forum.

- {Addition} Book system. Players can now click bookshelves to read and submit books. Admins can use a button to review and edit books however they see fit, and accept player-submitted books. Admins can edit pretty much everything, from the author, to the content, to the title, to its status in the official bookshelf knowledge repository.

- Added a new interface for spawning items and mobs; it should be a lot easier and better to navigate than the lousy old menu. I plan on replacing the Edit menu too. As result of the necessity for this change, I had to add a new .html file and some new string functions in procs.dm.

- {Addition} Added the ability for users to set various key-bindings by pressing the F12 key.

- {Addition} Direwolves now have a brown/black random color plus a rare "red" color that's slightly faster with a small bonus on reward.

- {Addition} A variation of book shelf icons have been added to the map.

- {Addition} Added in a new steam technique and ice technique: Steam Burst and Ice Spike AOE, respectively.

- {Addition} Implemented the preliminary work on the Seven Deadly Sins event. The auras/abilities for Lust, Wrath, Pride, and Sloth are now in.

- {Addition} Duratus summons have been added, for takeover events-- attackers will have to defeat a certain amount of waves, depending on which village they attempt to take control of.

- {Addition} A new macro has been added: SHIFT+TAB will do the exact opposite of just TAB; it will target all friendlies and people you can't attack. This is useful for people with clerical/healing abilities.

- {Addition} A bunny NPC has been added. It will run away when attacked. Kawaiii.

- {Addition} 'Champion' armor added. It currently doesn't drop, but will potentially be given as an RP reward for events. In the future, it will drop from a new 'champion' boss.

- {Addition} Elemental swords were added to the subscriber shop. There's also a couple of 'elite' weapons in the blacksmith.

- {Change} The 'going fullscreen may cause...' dialog now appears only once per-session when maximizing the window. It also won't appear if you maximize it before loading a character. This'll preventing that awkward unclosing dialog.
{Change} Some changes to hellstrom. The bolt now stuns instead of slows, and the aura gives 15% Spirit Force.

- {Change} The Tower Boss has been changed significantly to be less easier to just slaughter outright, but slightly less powerful. It should, at least, feel like a more fun fight. The boss will teleport about and the healers won't instantly be summoned after being defeated.

- {Change} You can not swap element gloves when your current gloves' special technique is recharging. The reason for this is that gloves were not designed to be collected and swap around to continously spam their high-power techniques.

- {Change} A plethora of spells have been tweaked to hopefully make things more balanced.
- {Change} Blocking has been reduced by a factor of 25%. It will now reduce damage by half, not by 75%.

- {Change} Control freak set to CONTROL FREAK ALL. There was an exploit (and probably more) with player macros, so this should fix tat.

{Change} Bounties no longer provide RPP. It was a little silly that players could earn RPP without actually role-playing, so now they give a free SP every 6 hours instead.

- {Bugfix} Some tweaks with the tower event to make it more stable.

- {Bugfix} Drain Life should now have a proper cooldown.

- {Bugfix} Some extensive fixes and rewriting on the AI code. This should make NPCs a lot more stable, including summons, which should no longer get randomly stuck in place and whatnot.

- {Bugfix} The Summoner boss will no longer just walk around randomly and not attack. Funky stuff.

- {Bugfix} Some tutorial glitches have been sorted out.

- {Bugfix} Fixed most the issues with using attacks that will randomly lock you up, like impale.

- {Bugfix} Work towards fixing/reducing the blackscreen bug. Should be good now.

- {Bugfix} Dash strike, impale, super speed and super strength no longer make the caster walk upon casting.

- {Bugfix} Attack Gems should now spread properly, if said gem is the projectile one.

- {Bugfix} Fixed the close button issue for various information dialogs.

- {Bugfix} Speed boosting spells no longer stack their movement bonuses.

- {Bugfix} High numbers of Crowns now display properly on the stat output instead of scientific notation.

- {Bugfix} Admins can now modify book titles.

Screenshots

I've also captured a bunch of cool screenshots that I'll totally be posting, just because.

Want to be unbanned? Read this.

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:24:22 +0000

At the time of writing this, there are many people banned for not understanding how to role-play.

This game isn't especially newbie friendly unless you know how to role-play, so players must learn before entering the game. If you are one of these banned players, and wish to actively play the game, you'll also need to learn.

If you want to be unbanned, follow these steps.

Read the following:

http://eterniaroleplay.prophpbb.com/post5.html#p5
http://eterniaroleplay.prophpbb.com/topic4.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Roleplay

And then write a basic character template and post it here. It should demonstrate your understanding of role-play:

Character Name:

Background Information:

Appearance:

Personality:

Likes and dislikes:

Abilities:

FRAPS not recording

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 03:33:53 +0000

I can't get FRAPS to record my game. The counter doesn't appear in the corner and when I press the record hot key nothing happens.

- I've tried to record different BYOND games as well and it seems to work with them. They're being hosted by another person and I'm running my game from a local copy.

- Using the latest version, 3.4.7.

- Tried to run BYOND after FRAPS and run BYOND before FRAPS.

Anyone had similar problems to this and how did they go about fixing it?

0.6 Update Log

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:57:41 +0000

June 13, 2012

The role-play server is now being worked on with features catered to a creative writing environment. The role-play server will be the first to go live.

Updates by Megablaze:

Both versions

- Tournament system added. Roughly every three hours a tournament is hosted that up to 16 players can participate in, the remaining spots are given to tournament fighter NPCs. The top 4 are rewarded with gold and EXP.

- Guild descriptions added for Occultists and Exorcists during character creation.

- Bounty NPCs added. There are always three on the map, with a randomly generated names, appearance, and abilities.

- All enemies (unless melee based) can now cast their respective element even when in melee range.

- Runtime errors with enemies have been cleaned up.

- Right clicking items in inventory will now show their description and stats.

- Alert that warns players when they maximize their window. Low performance computers seeem to experience screen lag in full-screen.

- Clicking a button can now close the menu as well as open it.

- An alert now appears if you attempt to delete your character.

- (Internal) Alert boxes, really easy to use, and easy in game because you can click anywhere to close it.

- Weapon requirements - guild, level, and stat. For example, "Holy Broadsword" may need 10 Strength and can only be used by Exorcists.

- Weapons can now be set an element to deal damage in.

- Rare weapons now have finisher attacks. Drynwyn, the flame sword, will launch an enlarged fireball when you press F, for instance. Finisher attacks deal a lot of damage but have a long cooldown.

- Elemental shards/orbs added. An element orb is created by collecting 4 shards of the same element. The orb can be equipped to a weapon and it will increase the damage and convert it to that element, unless its already aligned to an element).

- Extra bag space item added.

- Item dragging instead of right clicking.

- Phoenix Feather (revives a player) added.

- Re-spec scroll added.

- Permanent stat increase added. It increases a single stat by 1 unless it is capped.

- Giant potion added. For a limited amount of time it doubles the size of the player and boosts their melee stats.

- Monster loot adjustments. Monsters will now drop a variety of items.

- Invisibility potion. You can't attack or be targeted whilst invisible and it lasts for about 15 seconds.

- Various minor bug fixes.

- Skills added for summoner:

- Classes added. Summoner, warrior, and caster.

- Loot changed to allow only 1 item drop per kill

- Element effectiveness (element offense and defense).

- Elemental rings. Equipping a fire ring would increase damage dealt using fire and also protect you from fire attacks.

- Number input box.

- Item stacking in inventory- all miscellaneous items are stackable. So if you have 50 pieces of bread it'll appear as a single icon with a number in the corner representing the amount.

- Hotbar spell dragging.

- Movement is a lot smoother now.

Role-play exclusive

- RP Points. You can receive RP points from certain events (like killing a bounty NPC and gaining fame) and a timer will start, until the timer reaches 0, you can't gain RP points from that same event. You can also recieve RP points from role-playing. RP points are like stat points except they have no cap.

- Role-play mode, selecting it pauses health and spirit regeneration. This allows for turn-based role-play battles where the attacks are written out.

- Perma death option removed.

- World Say changed to OOC.

- Role-play information page in options. This is a HTML page that will be used to display the server's lore, rules, and whatnot.

- Duel system removed in the RP version.

Game Updates

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:09:25 +0000

http://www.byond.com/members/ WritingANewOne?command=view_post&post=572373&first_unread=1

This topic used to appear in the game updates section of the forum but now it no longer does. I'm wondering if this is because of any recent changes or something else... do games need to be listed for the updates to show now? Or maybe it's because I'm not a BYOND member?

I've submitted the game to be listed so that the updates show, otherwise people seem to assume that the project has died off. I'll probably renew my membership pretty soon as well if it requires both a membership and a game listing.

Thanks for any answers.

Eternia: Prologue - Progress Report

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:34:02 +0000

It's been just over a week since Tom/Vocal_nebula joined the project and all of the features and changes to the source, listed on the todo list, have been added to the game. You can view new additions here. Progress has been going really well and now Tom will be coding in the quest content as I write it up.

Some images from recent testing:

The new duel system. Players are able to face off in the arena or spectate the battles.

Lightning teleportation. Push space when nearby an enemy with the lightning aura active and you'll zap to your target!

What we plan to do now is incorporate the storyline and item content into the game. We have a lot of fun content planned, from a village of oddball Cyclops to bandit camps, epic boss fights, a variety of interesting items, and new features, such as cutscenes, to engage the player and give a more personal feel to the story. We'll be filling up the towns with busy villager NPCs, some of which even dish out randomly generated quests.

Needless to say, it's going to be a lot of fun to be able to bring the game's lore to life.

Be sure to keep an eye out and stop by once we have the test server back up!

What should I do now? Ramblings.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:26:23 +0000

http://www.byond.com/games/WritingANewOne/EterniaPrologue

If you've been following the development of my game you've probably noticed that the programming of the project has been unstable. You've probably seen me post many ads and a new programmer join the project every couple of months.

Sadly, that is the case - in over a year of managing the project I haven't been able to find a reliable, competent, and most importantly, permanent programmer for the project. I've offered money (both upfront and a royalty stake in the game). I've offered control over the game's design. I've provided everything from decent art to custom made music. At this point, I don't know what more can be done... I've even posted ads outside of BYOND to see if any experienced programmers would be interested in picking up the engine and taking on the project. All I had in response was people telling me that BYOND isn't a good engine and they'd rather rebuild the game from scratch... it pisses me off, frankly, because I see the potential in BYOND but others do not.

At this point, I don't know what to do or believe. Eternia is so far along that it seems silly and unproductive to ditch BYOND and make it in a different engine, but if no programmers (that can code well and will stay!) are interested in taking the game on, then what other options are there? I'd like to learn to code but I have a part-time job, a girlfriend, and college, which leaves me with little free time... and hell, even if I did learn to code, I doubt I would be able to grasp the content's of the source and avoid breaking everything.

And right now, BYOND excites me, it excites me a lot - I don't want to miss out on the Flash support and I enjoy being a part of this community in general. The last thing I want to do is leave BYOND but for over a month it's seemed like my only option because I've done everything I can to find a reliable programmer for the project. I've been secretly hoping some mature olbie from back when BYOND's community wasn't so anime based would return to the community and pick up the project. That would be cool. As you can see, that's how desperate I've become... I don't know of it's a fault with the game, myself, or BYOND's community itself. It's really frustrating to have a game that's almost complete and there's nobody around to pick it up, and when someone does, they always fail...

Eh, I don't know, I just felt like rambling. I've invested way too much money and time to let the project die. That will never be the case. I'll always be lurking somewhere.