Resuming Old Rpg

[GandolfA]

Story: In a time long since forgotten, a great evil once dwealt in the frozen tundra of a hidden land. The dark one constructed a unnatrual Labyrinth, which was crafted from its malevolent power. The
labyrinth hosted hoards ofuntold horrors and vasts amounts of treasure. Over several hundred centuries it ruled and terrorized the world, until one day the evil one disappeared. As time passed
like all things it was eventually forgotten and became only a legend. Centuries later however, the
laybrinth was found and stories begin to rise of the endless treasures and possibilities within in,b ut what danger awaits inside the Laybrinth?

Labyrinth is meant to have an old school dungeon crawler feel. You create a level 1 character andenter the dungeon to find treasure. As you progress you will encounter npcs that you can have join
your party and have small interaction with them as you progress. As you descend you will find small encampents of people (shops,temples,etc) that are trying to make their way through the dungeon as well.

The main goal is to make it an endless rpg where anyone can add dungeons on. Currently the main quest is to collect all 10 Pieces of the Lost Treasure, each one can be found
through out the dungeon (roughly every 20-25 lvls) In dungeon you will have to deal with traps,puzzles,
monsters, mini-bosses, bosses. One of the most unique things is bosses are not fought in your normal hack and slash, each one has a unique way to be defeated.

I had a friend send me over 100 megs of portraits, item portraits,etc he has created (he has been working on game on and off with me) so now im starting off again

Anyway sorry for long post, what are thoughts and comments? I know java is old, but i do like it alot better than the other programs.

[Adamo]

welcome back GandolfA!
this sounds good, though I work on CSBwin and doesn`t know much about DMjava, your dungeon might be interesting! but isn`t 20-25 levels too big? maybe you should create something smaller, say, 10 levels and, if you`re interested, make a second part later..? Or make a game along with someone familiar with that engine?
Have you played other custom dungeons on different engines? ConfluxIII, Reactor, Black Flame etc. That might give you a lot of good ideas!
Anyway, good luck!!!

PS. GandolfA, aren`t you from Poland?!?

[Tom Hatfield]

Yeah, designing 25 different levels that all have fresh puzzles and a unique feel is a phenomenal undertaking, let alone for one person, let alone ten times in a row. It occurs to me, though, that having a dungeon that saw adventurers for several hundred centuries would have also accumulated an interesting mix of technology. I wonder how you're going to approach that.

[ian_scho]

I agree with Adamo here.... It's a huge undertaking for both the designer and the player to have so many levels to go through. Still, if you like it and are able to keep each level 'fresh' then why not. Having someone help you with the graphics side of things will make a BIG difference.
Good luck! (And Sounds Great)

[GandolfA]

Graphics i have little trouble with, i did take kellys add on packs and eye of the beholder I and II set. Thanx to kelly was able create an actual shop through the use of Event. I just finished the items last night, to get your items you use "Tier Coins" Copper Tier Coins are used to by everyday items; apple, flask,etc, the deeper you go you find diffrent tier coins. The tier coins can be used to buy your fighter a new sword, or shield,etc. To get Tier 8+ bosses drop them in the deeper dungeons. Just adding little spin on game (also limitation of engine).

[ian_scho]

(also limitation of engine).

As you're poking around with Java, you can extend it to your own needs now.

[GandolfA]

Thanx ian_scho i will begin looking at the code in little bit, the program u linked me too looks nice . I been piecing together items over the last couple of days and adding them into game, as well as event pictures.

More on the tier equipment, i thought it might be a little diffrent and fun to have something to shoot for. Say one of the bosses has a tier 8 coin (10 is highest), it makes it worth while to fight optional bosses to get your tier equipment from vendors. Also makes it a little more fun with what tier 8 equipment to get with the coin. Of course there will be normal/magic items you find, but the tier equipment will be the best in the game beside the lost treasures. Tier 0 will be basic coins for basic items;food, water,etc and common monsters will drop and be the currency for the game.

So far i have broken down the weapons into classes and added them to the game.
Daggers- Advantage;Fast speed ; Disadvantage low damage
Martial Arts (hands)- Fast, hits non-material, stat boost, low damage, hard to build up
Whip - Has poison or Disrupt (holy attack)
Swords- Most balanced and most often seen
Axes- ; High Damage ; Very slow
Blunt- Good damage, hits non-material Very slow
Bows- Fast, but low damage
Crossbow- Slow but high damage

Then we have staves, wands,etc im still tinkering around with some of the extras, i plan to release more detailed weapon/armor list. But this is kinda where im going with everything.

O if anyone has any sites that i can get good event pics, item pics,etc i would appreciate it, im really looking for a table to replace one of the pillars. Does the current editor support diffrent textures for each level so u can make the dungeon levelsl looks dif? I dont think it does, i will have to look into this.


http://img237.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aayz3.jpg

Here is some of character portraits not resized yet.

[ian_scho]

Wow, those portraits look great!
Kelly had a table in his set of images, I believe. Also, extracting images from DMII there is a table in there as well. Look in the tools section of the DM Encyclopedia. The DMII extraction tool is very cool.

[Chaos-Shaman]

Did someone say help, heh....HELP

[GandolfA]

Well some bad news due to a computer issue i had to reformat from Vista to XP cuz Vista is a piece of crap, evidently it didnt save my maps (but saved all my resources i collected). So i have to start over on map (only had few dungeons done). So i have to start map designs and reinput item data, however since i write everything down before i put it onto the editor this should be only a minor day or two set back.

ian im having problems finding kellys table do u know the link possibly? I have this computer networked to the net finally so now i can get more resources faster.

Chaos i did yell help a little =p Nothing wrong with a lil help. O if anyone is interested in giving me resources i wont say no.

[GandolfA]

http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test1jg2.jpg
http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test2hd2.jpg
http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test3oq2.jpg
http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test4en9.jpg

Here is some pictures (the dungeon is from kelly who did a great job!).

I was just testing few things as i progress i will upload screen shots, as well i have a friend editing the inventory screen. So hopefully in a lil bit there will be more pics. After i get along i will use Fraps to record actual game play and post .

O and im replacing the font i hate it something special cant read it and tired of changing colors =p.

http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test5wn1.jpg
Im changing the hero icons, here is beta, but i think im going to keep

http://img64.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test6dm7.jpg this one. They are kinda small for my taste but once u pic them up you get full pic you can tell them apart so shouldnt be that much of a transition. Thoughts anyone?

http://img152.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newcd6.gif

here is new inventory screen im not quite finished it up yet, please give me all your comments and recommendations on fixing it.

[ian_scho]

I have a 'deko_table1.gif' on my computer, created by Kelly. If you dont have it (and the other 2 which have been resized) I can send them to you if you like. They're just pillars really, not like the table in DMII.


Are you going for a specific theme with your UI changes? Manga / Gothic / etc? It's looking good GandolfA, and Kelly's work is pretty smart too.

Sorry to hear that you've lost your dungeon files. I back mine up after completing a level or section of a dungeon.... Just been ages since I've looked at it though!

[GandolfA]

I plan on going with a gothic kinda of UI look. I changed game font to a gothic look as well. Is kelly still working on graphics and on forum still? If u dont mind i would like the tables just for a static for looks for the tavern.

I began backing up my files now. Glad u like ian. Anyone else have any suggestions?

http://img81.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test7ox1.gif

or

http://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test8ui0.gif

Those are my two betas i have currently still tinkering, any ideas? which one is better or both suck. losing resolution to a gif sux. Wish java supported jpeg.

[ian_scho]

If u dont mind i would like the tables just for a static for looks for the tavern.

Wish java supported jpeg.

OK, I'll pm you my gmail.com account.... Actually it's ian.scho@...

Kelly used png files too, in his version. You'd need to change the .java files for this though, and then recompile.

[Kelly]

Jpeg is actually a bad choice of graphical format. It's messy.
PNG is probaby your better choice to work with DMJ. It allows for blending, transparency, and still offers a smaller filesize when compiling the whole project back again.

I chose PNG for the addon packs for this reason.

GIF is more "blocky" and although keeps the filesize down, you're limited in the amount of colours you can use.
The actual file formats can be changed within the code (as Ian said), and you can use any format you wish.

Again, be careful what formats you choose to use. The whole project has to be kept to a minimal downloadable size. That's another reason the two addon packs were spilt - 30 meg in one go can take over a hour for some folk.

[GandolfA]

Okay i have made over 20 some walls just going to post a few.

Here is some unsized textures i have collected and put together. Not quite sure which one to choose yet, but so far game is leaning towards a darker side.

http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test1dv3.jpg
(without picture, picture just be on few select walls)


http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=test2fh8.jpg
another wall

Ill post more in a lil bit. (i have several of them i wont post right now because they contain nudity and/or gore)

[Kelly]

I recognize the graphics used, and "joining" them can be a little more tricky than you first imagine.

The second wall needs some work still, you can tell where you have flipped and joined them together. Also you might have problems when it comes to the Altwall graphics. Remember these are the same as the Wall graphics and they have just been flipped in the Java code (horizontally) - so be sure to "flip" your graphics to compensate.

The wall01 and wall03 also have to be "joined" and "flipped" in the same manner. These can sometimes be awkward to match, so take your time.

If your using Adobe still, be sure to layer your work as you go. Also the crop, skew and free transform can sometimes distort your work to much - this is where creativity comes into play.

If you change the format to PNG, you can use the layer blending properties to come up with some cool effects. Duplicate your layers, and experiment with screen and multiply to add 3D shading effects - you'll be surprised how much a difference these will make.

Also if your interested in EOB wallsets, take a look over on IronWorks - I believe its called. It has some pre-rendered sets that you might want to take a look at. They will require some C&P work - but if EOB is you're thing, this is the place to go.

EDIT:- Here's the link to Ironworks Gaming:-

http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/dungeon ... sets.shtml

[Kelly]

Here's a few piccies of what can be done using Ironworks wallsets.

The originals:-
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/3818/e ... l01ll2.jpg
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/293/ ... ainba0.jpg

DMJ wallset:-

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6409/wall12iy8.png
http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/8712/decomf0.png

As you can see it needs a lot of work - but with a little creativity it will fit in with DMJ pretty well. I did a complete sewer set including a sewer creature a while ago.

It's not quite what I was looking for personally, but it might give you ideas for your project, depending on the theme you have chosen.

[GandolfA]

Thank you very much kelly i appreciate it, i'll try and see what i can do, i might use the EOB sets cuz i am fond of them, but i will test and see what i can do first. Appreciate your help.