The limited options in the API because of my upstream provider, new functions that I have added in python to improve the music system are finally completed. We were able to license some music to improve our previously soundless world.

Alot of World Development has been added, and I have been trying to catch up with Quest Development, NPC Placement.

Some more not so interesting stuff has been done like bug fixes.

Outside of the world of ROTDA, I have been looking at iOS App Development which is nice however I dont have time to do it
Maybe if I have time, Ill create an App that can connect to ROTDA Servers where you can manage different aspects of your characters and even talk to people in the world without being logged in on a standard client.

I have been adding a few improvements and fixing bugs, things like when you login and don’t have any characters, it will jump straight to the character creation screen.

Asset Streaming is now possible. I wrote a system that downloads assets from the server at a rate using the API. All Downloaded Files are checked with a MD5 Checksum, so nothing is corrupt if you suddenly quit the game or get disconnected. It’s doesn’t work great for large assets though, as it isn’t a dedicated connection but uses spare client bandwidth, If the download results in the delay of any other packets, it will be automatically slowed/paused and then resumed later. The MD5 Checksum of files works great, taking a total of 2 minutes to check 5 GB worth of assets, written in Python Aswell.

Chunks are reloaded after a certain number of assets have been downloaded, otherwise the player would have to exit/restart the game as the client can’t handle reloading too well.

By The Way, Currently up to SVN Rev 2428.

Recently, I have upgraded the inventory system, and working on things like stackable items.  Currently once you equip an item, it will appear in your character screen aswell as a preview of your character with the weapons/armor etc on.

NPC’s have improved AI, auto detecting that if they are attacked, they will check their inventory for the best weapon available, and equip/unequipped that automatically. The NPC’s will also drink any potions they have when low on HP.

As the ability system is basically completed, projectiles have been added like fireballs aswell as special sfx on sword swings and other abilities.

All I have left to do now is finish adding the slots on the character window and finish coding inventory item stacking.

On the main website,we have had quite a few fake bot registrations, even after I have added recapcha. So I had added email address checking. Basically My Server will lookup your domain name and ask that server if your email account exists before registering your account. If you enter a fake email address you will receive the Email Lookup Failed Error. Hopefully this will stop fake registrations.

Some of the recently completed gameplay systems are: ( Not the Complete List )

• Ability System with Cooldowns (Spells,Skills Included)
• Game Launcher + Updates
• Music System (Needs improvements, May have one bug.)
• Level Up + Exp
• Effects/Active Buff System
• In-Game Mail System ( Send Mail to other players aswell as items, gold )  Even if their Offline
• Merchant and Trading System + Buyback System that allows you to recover recently sold items.
• Game Master System with Unhackable GM Only Commands to help players. Player is set to be a game master in Server Control Panel.
• Advanced Quest System with Different Quest Types
• Quest Log
• Friends List
• Party System
• Basic Combat
• Battlegrounds + Queue aswell as BattlegroundManager Server Entity.
• Handled Teleporting to and from Battlegrounds with remembering your teleport position.
• Options GUI (Graphics,Sound,Video,General)

Things that I’m working on:

• Advanced Combat
• PvP Mechanics
• Level Advancement
• Player -> Player Trading
• Custom Race/Class Stats Skills Abilities
• Armour Slots for Characters
• Guild System
• Finish Battlegrounds and add Capture the Flag Mode
• Advanced Quest System – Quest Path Tree + Requirements
• Dunegon System – Inherits from Battleground System
• Tooltip System – Multi Line Tooltips
• Pet System
• Action House
• File Streaming – Downloads while you play
• Help System – In-Game Wiki
• Professions (Whole another list of these)

As you can see I have alot of work to do before Alpha Testing is Released!

rotda – Revision 1990: /

Currently about 10 revisions away from 2,000. Just pulled the whole spell system out and replaced it with a ability system (combo of spells,skills,abilities). Which is working quite well with cooldowns with a timer handled on the server. Data is pulled dynamically from the XML Files on the server so if I want to add a new ability, I don’t need to add any Python code, only a XML File.

~Matthew

Been so busy working on the game that I haven’t had time to update the blog, progress is great, all the client side pre login milestones are completed, Last 2 days we have been working on a chat system with tabs, Global/Local/Tell/Guild/Party. Each of these connects to an IRC Server and all messages are handeled through that, there will be a IRC Channel per zone and the game will leave/join channels when the player goes to a different area.

We are half way through working on the social features of the game, Our GUI Designer is working through a Friends List Menu atm.

Since the technology we are using didn’t have a GUI Editor we had to program one ourselves which was quite a challenge, it is split into 2 sections, the In-Game GUI Editor for fixing up the positioning of GUI Elements and the External C# one for creating controls and generating the xml files.

Going to update this blog more often with news/screenshots of the latest thing happening.

~Matthew

Lead Programmer/Project Manager
Realms Of The Dark Ages
Alderon Games

We have got alot done since my last post.

• Login System
• Combat
• Quest System
• Fixed Memory Handling Issues

MySQL vs XML

The MySQL Quest System that I created is being removed and replaced with MySQL integrated into the engine instead of using it as a secondary database. XML will no longer be used from the next update.

I have finished programming the music system. Music is played based on states sent by the client to the Music System and depending what region you are in, so we can have different music played based on your Area Of Intrest

So far there isn’t a fade effect I can do in python (Thanks FMOD) so I’m going to have to lower the volume using a loop to fade it out