1 Topic by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Topic: New client can chat

The new client is finally to the point that you can create accounts, create characters, retrieve your password, and login and chat with people. Next up is testing the GUI game controls and making display code for monsters, characters, ground and wall tiles, etc. Once that is done and tested I'll start on the client-side game logic. Anyhow just to let you all know where the client is at present. smile

Update: The GUI game controls work, with rotation support now too. This'll allow 90' rotations like AoE and SimCity have, assuming we set up the tiles appropriately. Next up is animation transition code, hopefully done right this time (last client it was hard coded and buggy, hence things like characters stepping while walking, and attacking strangely).

2 Reply by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Re: New client can chat

Client-side game logic...

Ok, well first there's display code. The code to display characters, monsters, etc. and animate them.

Then there's the harder part, pathfinding, loading/saving maps, and making it so it displays the monsters the server tells it are there. This'll be complicated beyond what it would need to be as a bare minimum to work with the current server because I'm going to code in support for maps parented to other maps (movable)... while they won't work with the current server, I want the client to support boats with people in them, moving sectors, etc.

So the distinction is code to support visuals vs. code to support actual gameplay. smile

3 Reply by Spectre (edited by Spectre 2005-05-01 18:58:28)

  • Spectre
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Here
  • Registered: 2005-01-21
  • Posts: 114

Re: New client can chat

YAY!! Boats. Finally. smile

"s dock"

Spectre's Website

4 Reply by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Re: New client can chat

Well it'll be supported by the client. But for it to really work it'll need the new server too, so that'll be a while. I do think a lot of the logic of that sort will be reuseable though, fwiw.

5 Reply by Jesus

  • Jesus
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2005-03-27
  • Posts: 61

Re: New client can chat

He did say there would need to be a new server for the boats to work properly....so dont get too ahead of yourself caff tongue

but otherwise it sounds like its coming along nicely.

6 Reply by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Re: New client can chat

No, I haven't decided on a scripting language yet.

Suggestions for one are welcome, though. Whatever it ends up being, it'd be best if it wasn't a huge pain to integrate with C++, looks fairly nice, and is more versatile than Small script. Being natively Unicode would be a plus too. Unicode has been the big stickler for finding a scripting language, since the more popular languages have only mediocre support for it. Python is a possibility.

7 Reply by Spectre

  • Spectre
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Here
  • Registered: 2005-01-21
  • Posts: 114

Re: New client can chat

I'm curious if Small could be a whole lot useful if updated to the most current version?  The last I checked, the current version supported floats, strings, etc.  Unless you're shooting for OOP, which I don't think he has any support for.

Spectre's Website

8 Reply by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Re: New client can chat

Hm, Small only supports fixed strings though, yes? and its floating point support is only through helper functions iirc... at least it was at the time when I integrated it into the current server (I removed those functions actually from my build because I figured we didn't need them).

tyrannus: Why Perl? (serious question smile )

Python's biggest problem is afaik it only has one interpreter, using globals, and I'm not sure if that'd mean scripts could mess with internals that link Python to the server methods, and then later mess everything up for the next script that'd run.. Stackless Python doesn't have that problem however..

9 Reply by Zammbi

  • Zammbi
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: New Zealand
  • Registered: 2005-03-02
  • Posts: 201

Re: New client can chat

90 rotations means that you could have 90 different angles on a object like a charater?

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

10 Reply by Zer

  • Zer
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-10-18
  • Posts: 155

Re: New client can chat

I meant 90 degree rotations (4 directions), for the map view. Though monsters will indeed be able to have more than 8 directions (which'll only be used for interpolation); that's one of the two new features I can think of of the PC2 format the new client supports (alpha channel is the other one).

11 Reply by Zammbi

  • Zammbi
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: New Zealand
  • Registered: 2005-03-02
  • Posts: 201

Re: New client can chat

oh hm so you able to change the main map view like different angles?

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.