Game Features/Upgrades

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danielshaefer
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Game Features/Upgrades

Post by danielshaefer »

Besides being interested in a JRE compatibility upgrade I am also interested in a few tweaks (this could get more intense based on my time and community interest) to the DMJava game itself.

For instance, I am well aware of some of the things we could do in DMII that currently are impossible in DMJ--such as vendors(and haggling...hmm...hmm...hmm....nuh-uh.) As well as money boxes and spinning tables.

While, I must say I am not yet to the point where I feel like I can tackle those huge issues I thought we might discuss some features we feel would be nice in the game...

For instance in my version when I view my characters level info it also displays my experience, and I have also toyed with the console telling me how much experience I gain from any given action.(Toyed with meaning that my console currently does tell me that I gain 1 ninja experience every time I punch the air.) While these I did to help familiarize myself with the codebase they also are rooted in my love of the game.

Any thoughts?

(Notes: I have always loved DM and was overjoyed to find DMJava several years ago shortly after it was released...the fact that I am now a full-time Java Developer only sweetens my enthusiasm as I now the opportunity to possibly aid the community in a more active way.)
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ian_scho
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Post by ian_scho »

You could show the splash damage on screen. A sort of "POW" in the old batman series.
If I were in your, somewhat-large, shoes I'd create custom monsters / events / actions specifically for my own dungeon. For example, if I wanted shops in my dungeon, go code it. If I wanted NPCs who would act as a guide, go code it. Later, I'd make and improve the interface in the editor for easy reutilization.
Don´t forget to take a look at Kelly's modifications!
danielshaefer
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Kelly's mods are awesome

Post by danielshaefer »

Indeed I have trolled through all material through out the many tubes of the InterWeb (be sure not to fill them up). Kelly's mods are among the very highest quality. I have enough interest that I will be coding my own stuff regardless...and will keep people posted if I start doing anything that is remotely noteworthy. For instance the ability to see your experience is a small code change that does not adversely affect older map usage.

It will be awhile before I achieve anything as phenomenal as Kelly's mods but I hope to do my part to enhance the DM community. I have a fair number of monster/item mods etc. that cover the basics...such as a screamer that is very fungal-looking (blue/pink) that shoots low powered fireballs...and dragons of every color. As I have no design talent of my own I have simply opted for growth of current creature set. Entering a room full of green, red and blue screamers is pretty cool though.

The mods are perfect because I have no skill at the art...
Once I have the time I suppose I will put my stuff out there for the community and let the community decide its worth...for now I just like talking about it to get pumped up.

The splash on the entire screen would be an interesting feature though! Keep the ideas coming.
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ian_scho
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Post by ian_scho »

I don't know how Kelly approaches his modifications, but he seems very talented in the artwork that he's produced, and then probably changes the code from there.

The more I think about it, the more I think that it'll be too much work for you to maintain backward compatibility with the older dungeones.... Unless you were to create a utility tool for converting the old dungeons to your newer version... Every time you make changes to serializing (saving) a dungeon, you could maybe think about that. A new option in your editor would do the trick.
danielshaefer
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Post by danielshaefer »

Converting or a conversion utility is definitely an option. If I truly take my ambition to its fullest I actually intend to pull out the hardcoded lists of creatures/items etc. and put them into an embedded H2 database. This would allow easier addition...as well as the ability to change what is considered "standard" creature and "custom" creatures. One of the primary reasons serialization and de-serialization fail is due to changes in these lists. While I have not had the time to look at exactly what is serialized...the less that is contained in a file directly versus being looked up out of a database table the easier it is to re-hydrate the objects and references in a saved file. If you could call getMonster('screamer') and it would pull the necessary info out of the database there would be no need to serialize the monsters themselves...just the name(or some primary key) of the monster. That key will not break across versions as long as the structure for ALL monsters did not change...and at that point even if it did we could write in what to do about the changes when we tried to de-serialize a file. Anyway....getting too technical but the sorts of things I have in mind to do first are more core level that would make editing, upgrading and running the application easier in the future. But, I don't want to talk big until I have something to show for it...so for now...one small step at a time.
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Sophia
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Post by Sophia »

Depending on how high level your programming language is (and how well dungeon designers are shielded from a lot of the nuts and bolts), "hardcoding" isn't so bad...

For example, in some ways, everything about DSB is hardcoded, because all object properties, object actions, and so on are defined by Lua code. The upside, though, is that the Lua is pretty easy (at least in my opinion) to read and understand, and new functionality can be created at a very high level. This makes the "hard" coding not so hard after all.

So, I'm not sure if there's any option to have some part of the code be interpreted at runtime, or some sort of scripting language to be embedded, or if you have some other idea, but it's another direction you could consider. :)
danielshaefer
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Post by danielshaefer »

Your point is well taken. Part of my goal is to make the editing easy as well as the application easily extendable. But, as far as the end-user goes, hardcoding doesn't matter one bit if you have done your job as a developer. (Just deliver the goods! :) There are always good uses for scripting and such. I just thought a solid database of monsters/items etc would make it easy to share amongst the developers of the community. The read and understand easily part is always tough--more so depending on the language you are dealing with. Fortunately Alan has built an amazing application (more amazing when you consider how tough it can be to develop solo) and I look forward to helping it thrive. Thanks for the ideas Sophia.
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